Murder would be illegal because it obviously takes liberty away from the victim.
What about things that don't obviously take liberty away from the victim? With free association, I can chose to not do business with companies that sell my private information. The problem is, when every business does it, I no longer have the liberty to chose.
Not true - your relationship with any other private entity or business is always voluntary. But you can't get a bank account without handing over your social security number because the government requires the banks to do that. There are very few businesses that won't take your money without having your personal information, unless it's because government regulations say they have to collect it.
Otherwise known as the "Fuck you, got mine" philosophy of political thought.
No, you're thinking of welfare-state progressivism, which guarantees basic living expenses, health care and control of property for certain groups regardless of their contribution, and fuck you if you want any freedom or opportunity to work your way to a better class.
Anybody can get struck by a meteor when walking down the street. Or impaled by a bull statue while playing in the park. Shit happens, but that doesn't necessarily make it a general rule.
Way to completely miss the point. Have a rule of law means that "anybody" can't be targeted randomly and made to suffer at the hands of an unresponsive faceless bureaucracy when they are doing nothing wrong. The current state of things is such that everyone is doing something illegal in some way much of the time, and it's just a matter of picking the right rule at the right time.
Anyhow, we're digressing quite far from the subject of Obama's climate change plan, which you fear will be used by local tin-pot dictators to arbitrarily target people they don't like.
Quite wrong. Sackett was about massive overreach of the EPA, something that also enabled York county to overreach due to funding grants from the EPA to set up the type of system easily exploited by tin pot dictators. Obama's climate change plan will simply make this much worse, and you won't hear about all the abuses of people that roll over and capitulate because they can't afford a long court battle against an entity with limitless funding.
My opinion there is that power-hungry tin-pot dictators gonna be power-hungry tin-pot dictators and will find a way to abuse the law to play their tin-pot dictator games no matter what the law is. It seems that the problem you're complaining about is more a consequence of the existence of these petty local dictators than of any particular law.
Again, quite wrong. It's the laws (and interpreted policies from law - remember how far the clean water act of 1972 was stretched to victimize the Sacketts) that enable these kinds of abuses. Without that, the people targeted by those dictators would have better ways to redress the issues and, more importantly, have the law on their side, instead of having to battle over rules that allow "discretionary" enforcement.
- If yes, then I'm with you: this country needs a good harsh crackdown on corruption and favoritism, from the highest to the lowest level.
Yes, we do. But when the law is enabling it, how do you fight it. As an exercise, please list one example of any level of bureaucrat or corrupted official that has been held accountable. Not just had their decision reversed, but actually suffered some kind of penalty for their actions.
- If no, then please show how there's "no way of knowing what is 'allowed'" under Obama's plan.
When we have something other than rhetoric (for example, the first Federal Register that lists the policy decisions the EPA has actually written), then I will be glad to do so.
Even from a quick glance at the summary at Wikipedia, one can see things were just a little bit more complicated than it not being "legal to move dirt from one part of your yard to another". Owning a piece of land does not mean you can do whatever you want with it. And in unfortunate exceptional cases, it does mean you cannot do something seemingly innocuous. That's life. Doesn't mean nobody can move dirt from one part of their yard to another, as you imply.
In a way, it does. Because it means that anybody can be told that they can't use their land for anything, and those decisions are either arbitrary or driven by favoritism, politically connected individuals with personal agendas, and power-hungry tin-pot dictators. The case of Greg Garrett's oyster farm is similar instructive example. The problem with all these types of policies is that there is no way of knowing what is "allowed" - advance permission is often required and costly, and there is no rule of law that says what is allowed or not, it's always discretionary and there is often someone influential with the bureaucrats in charge. At that point most individual have no recourse, because fighting a government bureaucracy is very costly. The Sacketts were able to go to the SCOTUS, and now York County (driven by the head of a PAC that did get approval for his competing oyster farm) has now decided to use the taxpayer's money (including Garrett's own) to send lawyers to the Virginia supreme court to get the outcome they want.
Reminiscent of the Heller decision that allowed local governments to take property from one own and hand it to another private owner just because they can get more revenue. And of course in that case, the "new" owner ended up abandoning the property anyway.
If the weird unsubstantiated story didn't give it away, the sig does.
Someone has never heard of Sackett v. EPA.
I don't get called a crackpot so much anymore, now that Snowden has outed the NSA and the IRS has admitted to targetting grass roots groups and Russ Tice started telling what he knows.
It used to be legal to dump industrial waste into streams. It no longer is. That likely put some folks out of business.
It also used to be legal to move dirt from one part of your yard to another to keep a low spot from having standing water for several days after a rain. It is no longer. And it has made some people's land entirely worthless. And it's the same law - they just call dirt "pollution" and standing storm water "navigable waters". And that is how good intentions are used to allow tyrants to rule.
I think his argument is typically referred to as "appeal to authority". It's the same argument used for the so-called "journalist protection" bill that Obama says he could support. Of course he could, even though he would send drones to take out Assange and Snowden if he could. It would be an opportunity to define what a "journalist" is, and if your opinion can't be controlled, you would not be defined as a journalist and your free speech rights would be void.
Fight the Carbon! Ban the Flat Earthers! Carbon must be stopped before it kills us ALL!
Carbon pollution is unadulterated EVIL that must be STOPPED! The top reasons to support Obama's plan to limit and reduce carbon pollution:
Carbon is the basis for organic chemistry, as it occurs in all living organisms.
Carbon is a nonmetal that can bond with itself and many other chemical elements, forming nearly ten million compounds.
Elemental carbon can take the form of one of the hardest substances (diamond) or one of the softest (graphite).
Carbon is made in the interiors of stars, though it was not produced in the Big Bang.
Carbon compounds have limitless uses. In its elemental form, diamond is a gemstone and used for drilling/cutting; graphite is used in pencils, as a lubricant, and to protect against rust; while charcoal is used to remove toxins, tastes, and odors. The isotope Carbon-14 is used in radiocarbon dating.
Carbon has the highest melting/sublimation point of the elements. The melting point of diamond is ~3550C, with the sublimation point of carbon around 3800C.
Pure carbon exists free in nature and has been known since prehistoric time.
The origin of the name 'carbon' comes from the Latin word carbo, for charcoal. The German and French words for charoal are similar.
Pure carbon is considered non-toxic, although inhalation of fine particles, such as soot, can damage lung tissue.
Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe (hydrogen, helium, and oxygen are found in higher amounts, by mass).
It is not illegal to dominate a sector, nor is it even illegal to have a monopoly. It is only illegal to use your dominant position to engage in anti-competitive practices. Standard Oil was notorious for this. Microsoft also used their OS dominance to muscle in and crush competitors in office applications and browsers. I haven't see Amazon doing anything like that. Their competitors are just a click away.
Actually, thanks to Amazon's "one-click" patent, competitors are now forced to be no less than two clicks away or they're going to get a cease-and-desist from Amazon.
It's not a Starbucks. It's the Barnes & Noble Cafe featuring Starbucks coffee.
And next time, I'm probably going to stop at the front and pick up one of those Nook HD+ 9" tablets they now have on fire sale for $150 while they still have them. It now has Google Play and all the apps available there without rooting it, and I can't see why it won't still be a decent tablet even if B&N goes completely under.
we can check them as soon as the Vulcans give us the warp drive.
Dude this is a serious discussion and you're bringing up a FANTASY!! The Vulcans won't give us warp drive - we have to invent it on our own before they show themselves.
You've made a serious mathematical or other error in your calculation - wow. It's not a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001%, it's actually a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance!! Maybe you miscounted the number of intelligent civilizations?
The House actually passed an amendment to the farm bill the other day that would legalize hemp production for academic research purposes by colleges and universities. So there is some hope. Unfortunately, the farm bill itself failed to pass, primarily due to opposition to food stamp cuts and too-generous subsidies.
Actually, I'd argue both Jefferson and Madison are talking sense here. Jefferson points out that a valuable commercial product should be exploited. Madison says that risk amelioration is important to encouraging business innovation.
Yes, but Madison was making a more important point about overbearing government regulation (this is from the Federalist Papers arguing for a Constitution that limited government authority). Risk is always a consideration in starting a new business venture, but Madison's point was that when governments go around outlawing things arbitrarily, or, worse, is unable to provide any assurances to a prospective entrepreneur as to their ability to engage in certain commerce, then business innovation will simply cease.
An important lesson for today. In California, if you're shopping for a piece of land to start a business, it's a huge gamble, because in most places the local planning board is unable to tell you what you can and can't do on that land. You have to roll the dice by purchasing the land, explaining your land use proposal, paying the application fees, and hoping that you'll be allowed to use your property.
It's a valid damn question, especially in light with all the revelations that Anthropocentric Global Warming isn't as advertised (Which is to say that many are now saying we're cooling...much like the big to-do was about Global Cooling some 30 or so years ago and the reports of at least the models and the samples being dead wrong...)
Well it seems like a troll to the warmists, especially seeing as the claim of "cooling" is bogus - the warming trends have been well below what the models predicted, but there hasn't really been global cooling, just a leveling off of the warming. Plus, I think the party line is that the trends indicate that some explanation is needed for what is happening (ocean sinks, larger seasonal trends than average, using decadal averaging instead of annual, etc.), but that climate change is still indisputable scientific fact, and the evidence is mid-western tornadoes and SuperStorm Sandy.
Well it depends on what conflict you're talking about, doesn't it? I think in the most impactful global conflicts of the 20th century (WWI and WWII) they comported themselves quite well. Despite winning in those conflicts, they never claimed new territory for themselves, participated in plunder, and tried to end conflicts with a view toward lasting peace. They have done a lot of work and committed a lot of resources toward relieving poverty and hunger (even though those efforts have often been co-opted for promoting "US interests" - read: US Corporation interests - still, more good than bad there).
I'd say that compared to most empires that became the most powerful in the known world (Rome, the British Empire, Spanish Empire, the Aztecs, etc.), they have a comparatively good track record.
That said, I'm very dissatisfied with the US foreign policy for many years, especially the last decade or two. It's really discouraging that the vast majority of the political leadership supports the vast majority of those foreign policies...
The last president that did a good job for America in terms of the world view was Clinton.
Well Hillary has been the foreign relations person for the last five years. She's working on the same foreign policy position as her husband did when he was president. So what do you think of the "world view" that Hillary has been promoting?
Meh. Maybe. Assuming we don't keep centralizing everything like we're currently doing with governments, networking, communication networks, and media producers. The trend is more and more concentrated power in bigger and bigger machines. Server farms have given way to big iron and virtualization. The Internet is evolving from millions of loosely connected web sites to Google, Facebook, Amazon and a few others in control of most content. So maybe you get Verizon's AI in conflict with Comcast's, but that doesn't mean they won't agree that meatspace humans are nothing but a drag on their efficiency.
The other thing that these guys never consider is that as AI improves (if it ever does to the level they contemplate), it will be natural that people will want to imbue those systems with the own intelligence and personality, rather than some generated artificial version. The human-machine interfaces are advancing at least as fast as the ability of computers to make autonomous decisions, and it's an easier path to immortality than trying to extend the lifespan of a meatspace body. So you could just as easily end up with human intelligences occupying the same machine resource space as the AI entities. So maybe the real conflict will be between the virtual space humans and the meatspace humans. After all, you can support a lot more virtual humans with Earth resources than you can meatspace humans...
Then why shouldn't the government have complete access to your data? Honestly, we use Google, Facebook, ect... they all have detailed records of our activities and identities that they aggregate and sell for profit.
Not really. They have access to a lot of data and activity that I either don't care about or would just as soon let them use as going through the various other ways of performing online activities while keeping it secret. It's convenient. But I have control over what data of mine they have access to and what they don't. Less control than, say, Verizon has, but I don't expect they're opening encrypted packets to get a look at my browsing habits.
I expect most people do the same. If I want to do something in private, then I make sure it's private. It used to be private to have a phone conversation on a land line unless there was a pretty serious suspicion (with lots of LEOs and judges agreeing) that I was involved in criminal activity. But no more. We need our own government respecting our privacy before we have any hope that they will help protect it from anyone else.
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Murder would be illegal because it obviously takes liberty away from the victim.
What about things that don't obviously take liberty away from the victim? With free association, I can chose to not do business with companies that sell my private information. The problem is, when every business does it, I no longer have the liberty to chose.
Not true - your relationship with any other private entity or business is always voluntary. But you can't get a bank account without handing over your social security number because the government requires the banks to do that. There are very few businesses that won't take your money without having your personal information, unless it's because government regulations say they have to collect it.
Otherwise known as the "Fuck you, got mine" philosophy of political thought.
No, you're thinking of welfare-state progressivism, which guarantees basic living expenses, health care and control of property for certain groups regardless of their contribution, and fuck you if you want any freedom or opportunity to work your way to a better class.
Yes. Why is a small explosive a WMD but an assault rifle with multiple large magazines, which is much more deadly, is perfectly legal?
It's NOT "much more deadly" - unless you take one to a place where everyone else has been disarmed.
Anybody can get struck by a meteor when walking down the street. Or impaled by a bull statue while playing in the park. Shit happens, but that doesn't necessarily make it a general rule.
Way to completely miss the point. Have a rule of law means that "anybody" can't be targeted randomly and made to suffer at the hands of an unresponsive faceless bureaucracy when they are doing nothing wrong. The current state of things is such that everyone is doing something illegal in some way much of the time, and it's just a matter of picking the right rule at the right time.
Anyhow, we're digressing quite far from the subject of Obama's climate change plan, which you fear will be used by local tin-pot dictators to arbitrarily target people they don't like.
Quite wrong. Sackett was about massive overreach of the EPA, something that also enabled York county to overreach due to funding grants from the EPA to set up the type of system easily exploited by tin pot dictators. Obama's climate change plan will simply make this much worse, and you won't hear about all the abuses of people that roll over and capitulate because they can't afford a long court battle against an entity with limitless funding.
My opinion there is that power-hungry tin-pot dictators gonna be power-hungry tin-pot dictators and will find a way to abuse the law to play their tin-pot dictator games no matter what the law is. It seems that the problem you're complaining about is more a consequence of the existence of these petty local dictators than of any particular law.
Again, quite wrong. It's the laws (and interpreted policies from law - remember how far the clean water act of 1972 was stretched to victimize the Sacketts) that enable these kinds of abuses. Without that, the people targeted by those dictators would have better ways to redress the issues and, more importantly, have the law on their side, instead of having to battle over rules that allow "discretionary" enforcement.
- If yes, then I'm with you: this country needs a good harsh crackdown on corruption and favoritism, from the highest to the lowest level.
Yes, we do. But when the law is enabling it, how do you fight it. As an exercise, please list one example of any level of bureaucrat or corrupted official that has been held accountable. Not just had their decision reversed, but actually suffered some kind of penalty for their actions.
- If no, then please show how there's "no way of knowing what is 'allowed'" under Obama's plan.
When we have something other than rhetoric (for example, the first Federal Register that lists the policy decisions the EPA has actually written), then I will be glad to do so.
Even from a quick glance at the summary at Wikipedia, one can see things were just a little bit more complicated than it not being "legal to move dirt from one part of your yard to another". Owning a piece of land does not mean you can do whatever you want with it. And in unfortunate exceptional cases, it does mean you cannot do something seemingly innocuous. That's life. Doesn't mean nobody can move dirt from one part of their yard to another, as you imply.
In a way, it does. Because it means that anybody can be told that they can't use their land for anything, and those decisions are either arbitrary or driven by favoritism, politically connected individuals with personal agendas, and power-hungry tin-pot dictators. The case of Greg Garrett's oyster farm is similar instructive example. The problem with all these types of policies is that there is no way of knowing what is "allowed" - advance permission is often required and costly, and there is no rule of law that says what is allowed or not, it's always discretionary and there is often someone influential with the bureaucrats in charge. At that point most individual have no recourse, because fighting a government bureaucracy is very costly. The Sacketts were able to go to the SCOTUS, and now York County (driven by the head of a PAC that did get approval for his competing oyster farm) has now decided to use the taxpayer's money (including Garrett's own) to send lawyers to the Virginia supreme court to get the outcome they want.
Reminiscent of the Heller decision that allowed local governments to take property from one own and hand it to another private owner just because they can get more revenue. And of course in that case, the "new" owner ended up abandoning the property anyway.
If the weird unsubstantiated story didn't give it away, the sig does.
Someone has never heard of Sackett v. EPA.
I don't get called a crackpot so much anymore, now that Snowden has outed the NSA and the IRS has admitted to targetting grass roots groups and Russ Tice started telling what he knows.
It used to be legal to dump industrial waste into streams. It no longer is. That likely put some folks out of business.
It also used to be legal to move dirt from one part of your yard to another to keep a low spot from having standing water for several days after a rain. It is no longer. And it has made some people's land entirely worthless. And it's the same law - they just call dirt "pollution" and standing storm water "navigable waters". And that is how good intentions are used to allow tyrants to rule.
Well you can ignore the law of supply and demand, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring the law of supply and demand.
Shut up already. It's SCIENCE!
I think his argument is typically referred to as "appeal to authority". It's the same argument used for the so-called "journalist protection" bill that Obama says he could support. Of course he could, even though he would send drones to take out Assange and Snowden if he could. It would be an opportunity to define what a "journalist" is, and if your opinion can't be controlled, you would not be defined as a journalist and your free speech rights would be void.
Fight the Carbon! Ban the Flat Earthers! Carbon must be stopped before it kills us ALL!
Carbon pollution is unadulterated EVIL that must be STOPPED! The top reasons to support Obama's plan to limit and reduce carbon pollution:
'Amazon' and 'antitrust'.
It is not illegal to dominate a sector, nor is it even illegal to have a monopoly. It is only illegal to use your dominant position to engage in anti-competitive practices. Standard Oil was notorious for this. Microsoft also used their OS dominance to muscle in and crush competitors in office applications and browsers. I haven't see Amazon doing anything like that. Their competitors are just a click away.
Actually, thanks to Amazon's "one-click" patent, competitors are now forced to be no less than two clicks away or they're going to get a cease-and-desist from Amazon.
On my way to the Starbucks in the back
It's not a Starbucks. It's the Barnes & Noble Cafe featuring Starbucks coffee.
And next time, I'm probably going to stop at the front and pick up one of those Nook HD+ 9" tablets they now have on fire sale for $150 while they still have them. It now has Google Play and all the apps available there without rooting it, and I can't see why it won't still be a decent tablet even if B&N goes completely under.
we can check them as soon as the Vulcans give us the warp drive.
Dude this is a serious discussion and you're bringing up a FANTASY!! The Vulcans won't give us warp drive - we have to invent it on our own before they show themselves.
You've made a serious mathematical or other error in your calculation - wow. It's not a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001%, it's actually a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance!! Maybe you miscounted the number of intelligent civilizations?
The House actually passed an amendment to the farm bill the other day that would legalize hemp production for academic research purposes by colleges and universities. So there is some hope. Unfortunately, the farm bill itself failed to pass, primarily due to opposition to food stamp cuts and too-generous subsidies.
Actually, I'd argue both Jefferson and Madison are talking sense here. Jefferson points out that a valuable commercial product should be exploited. Madison says that risk amelioration is important to encouraging business innovation.
Yes, but Madison was making a more important point about overbearing government regulation (this is from the Federalist Papers arguing for a Constitution that limited government authority). Risk is always a consideration in starting a new business venture, but Madison's point was that when governments go around outlawing things arbitrarily, or, worse, is unable to provide any assurances to a prospective entrepreneur as to their ability to engage in certain commerce, then business innovation will simply cease.
An important lesson for today. In California, if you're shopping for a piece of land to start a business, it's a huge gamble, because in most places the local planning board is unable to tell you what you can and can't do on that land. You have to roll the dice by purchasing the land, explaining your land use proposal, paying the application fees, and hoping that you'll be allowed to use your property.
Do all of you guys commenting have a subscription to get past the WSJ paywall, or are you reading the article from some other method?
Oh... wait. "Reading the article". LOL.
Why did someone mod this as a "Troll" post?
It's a valid damn question, especially in light with all the revelations that Anthropocentric Global Warming isn't as advertised (Which is to say that many are now saying we're cooling...much like the big to-do was about Global Cooling some 30 or so years ago and the reports of at least the models and the samples being dead wrong...)
Well it seems like a troll to the warmists, especially seeing as the claim of "cooling" is bogus - the warming trends have been well below what the models predicted, but there hasn't really been global cooling, just a leveling off of the warming. Plus, I think the party line is that the trends indicate that some explanation is needed for what is happening (ocean sinks, larger seasonal trends than average, using decadal averaging instead of annual, etc.), but that climate change is still indisputable scientific fact, and the evidence is mid-western tornadoes and SuperStorm Sandy.
The days of a 'D' having a chance are loooooong gone - Thanks Fox News!
Not sure why you're blaming Fox News - they're run by the Democrats.
The US never were the good guys
Well it depends on what conflict you're talking about, doesn't it? I think in the most impactful global conflicts of the 20th century (WWI and WWII) they comported themselves quite well. Despite winning in those conflicts, they never claimed new territory for themselves, participated in plunder, and tried to end conflicts with a view toward lasting peace. They have done a lot of work and committed a lot of resources toward relieving poverty and hunger (even though those efforts have often been co-opted for promoting "US interests" - read: US Corporation interests - still, more good than bad there).
I'd say that compared to most empires that became the most powerful in the known world (Rome, the British Empire, Spanish Empire, the Aztecs, etc.), they have a comparatively good track record.
That said, I'm very dissatisfied with the US foreign policy for many years, especially the last decade or two. It's really discouraging that the vast majority of the political leadership supports the vast majority of those foreign policies...
The last president that did a good job for America in terms of the world view was Clinton.
Well Hillary has been the foreign relations person for the last five years. She's working on the same foreign policy position as her husband did when he was president. So what do you think of the "world view" that Hillary has been promoting?
Meh. Maybe. Assuming we don't keep centralizing everything like we're currently doing with governments, networking, communication networks, and media producers. The trend is more and more concentrated power in bigger and bigger machines. Server farms have given way to big iron and virtualization. The Internet is evolving from millions of loosely connected web sites to Google, Facebook, Amazon and a few others in control of most content. So maybe you get Verizon's AI in conflict with Comcast's, but that doesn't mean they won't agree that meatspace humans are nothing but a drag on their efficiency.
The other thing that these guys never consider is that as AI improves (if it ever does to the level they contemplate), it will be natural that people will want to imbue those systems with the own intelligence and personality, rather than some generated artificial version. The human-machine interfaces are advancing at least as fast as the ability of computers to make autonomous decisions, and it's an easier path to immortality than trying to extend the lifespan of a meatspace body. So you could just as easily end up with human intelligences occupying the same machine resource space as the AI entities. So maybe the real conflict will be between the virtual space humans and the meatspace humans. After all, you can support a lot more virtual humans with Earth resources than you can meatspace humans...
Then why shouldn't the government have complete access to your data? Honestly, we use Google, Facebook, ect... they all have detailed records of our activities and identities that they aggregate and sell for profit.
Not really. They have access to a lot of data and activity that I either don't care about or would just as soon let them use as going through the various other ways of performing online activities while keeping it secret. It's convenient. But I have control over what data of mine they have access to and what they don't. Less control than, say, Verizon has, but I don't expect they're opening encrypted packets to get a look at my browsing habits.
I expect most people do the same. If I want to do something in private, then I make sure it's private. It used to be private to have a phone conversation on a land line unless there was a pretty serious suspicion (with lots of LEOs and judges agreeing) that I was involved in criminal activity. But no more. We need our own government respecting our privacy before we have any hope that they will help protect it from anyone else.
Well, the lives of every American are probably more important than their right to due process. The dead have no such guarantee.
Not according to Patrick Henry, and the many patriots that agreed with his stance.