It's marketing. "Czar" just sounds so much more "secret spy movie star" than "program director". Just like "war on terror" sounds much more righteous than "military conquest".
Effective as in creating the first prerequisite for organized crime (a black market), providing justification for more expansion of government powers? Or effective as in fostering hatred and resent around the world, providing justification for more expansion of government powers? If government is lucky, it will be both.
Any way you look at it, government wins, at the expense of the individual.
Ending or "winning" the war on drugs, or the war on terror, or poverty, or copyright abuse, is the last thing government wants to do. These programs are set up not to succeed, but to provide a steady stream of revenue and justification for expansion of government powers.
That excuse has been used since the beginning of time to justify anything government does: because it benefits "society as a whole".
You're not on to anything new here. This is the oldest line in the book of government (how to rule a people): tell them it's for "society as a whole".
The war on Iraq and its tens of thousands of civilian deaths benefits "society as a whole", right? Bush's religious charity program benefits society as a whole, right? Social security benefits society as a whole, right?
When the Romans set out to conquor the world, by murdering those who didn't accept their rule, they did it for the benefit of "society as a whole".
Why not just say the hell with freedom and go communist? We're halfway there already. (A typical US citizen pays nearly 50% of his yearly earnings to government through federal, state, and local taxes and fees combined.)
Admit it: You have a special interest, which you consider so righteous it must be forced upon people whether they want it or not.
Fascism is corporate government... backed by application of force
There couldn't possibly be a government that doesn't operate on the principle of force. A voluntary government wouldn't be government -- that would be free enterprise.
Does McDonald's posess the right to initiate force as a means to an end?
Force is the fundamental difference between government and everyone else. Government is the organization which holds the unique "right" to initiate force as a means to an end. Others may use force in self-defense (where it is still legal), but any private individual or group who initiates force is a criminal.
I know that if it really came down to your wife or child being killed by the "saviours" -- no matter how rightous you considered their objective beforehand -- you would be filled with rage, just like the Iraqi civilians. How do I know this? Because you're a human being, not an emotionless robot whose calling is to serve the state.
But as for people you don't hold close, or don't know personally -- realize that it is the ultimate endorsement of majority rule to say that one approves of killing individuals, completely against their will, for the "needs of the many" (as defined by the state). It's a dangerously Stalin-esque thought. If that's really what you believe, then so be it, but consider that all wars that have ever been waged in the history of mankind -- especially the most evil, destructive ones -- have been justified by the aggressors with the exact same rationale.
That isn't what I call "needs of the majority". That's what I call tyranny of the majority.
What we're really dealing with here is more than one market. It doesn't make sense when they group everyone into a single "MP3 market" and claim that one company dominates it. For example, I could care less about the software and the music store. I just want a good solid player, and the ability to mount it as a removable disk. I already have the music -- all my cd's have been archived as FLACs, which I can easily convert to MP3 -- and I already have cp, rm, and ls which is all the software I want to deal with. Other people may care only about the software and store, and not even buy an ipod, and still other people may care about all 3 things.
So, apple is actually competing in 3 different markets at the same time with their music endeavors, and also a 4th seperate market which is the sum of the other 3. Apple may dominate the 4th market, but there's plenty of competition in each of the 3 sub-markets.
If there are reasons I have to die in order to save many others, that would be fine by me.
The innocent people in Iraq did not choose to die "in order to save others". Regardless of whether or not others will be saved (which incidentally cannot be proven), the right to make that decision was stripped from them by the aggressors (the US government). When you say "that would be fine by me", you are implying that you made that decision yourself, out of your own free will.
Eliminate your right to choose for yourself, and then answer that question again.
No, I don't believe you can put a price on individual liberty, especially the most important liberty that could ever exist: the right to life itself. Why? Because I would object to anyone putting a price on MY individual liberty, and I realize that it could very well happen, even in my own country by my own government. After all, I am just an individual human being, just like the innocents being slaughtered in Iraq.
I think that is really the difference between your thinking and my thinking -- you don't accept the proposition that your government would ever kill you if it deemed necessary. You don't believe it's possible, while I believe it's very possible.
Put yourself in their shoes. Your wife or child is killed by a so-called "precision" airstrike. What is your natural human reaction? Do you feel rage, or do you just shrug your shoulders and say "well, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"?
Your critial mistake is accepting in the "us and them" groupthink which governments push during wartime. In reality, there is no "us", and there is no "them" -- there are only unique, thinking individuals, each equally deserving of life. If you believe in the "us and them" groupthink, you are accepting that certain people are less deserving of life than others.
If "they" were equal to "us" in terms of individual soverignty and right to life, then you wouldn't be able to accept the killing, would you?
I'm waiting to see whether you will honestly admit that you consider yourself, an individual human being, more deserving of life than an individual human being killed in Iraq.
I know, but that's just too much for the ignorant warmongers to swallow at one time. Remember, they actually believe the fairy tale of "precision weapons" and "minimal collateral damage".
Are you actually trying to compare reality to some arbitrary estimate of future events which, by any measure, cannot possibly be guaranteed?
Get out of your armchair and open your eyes. Innocent people are being slaughtered. I don't care how many people you think you are saving -- in their eyes, you are the evil monster, not the righteous saviour. And rightfully so. After all, it's not you who has to deal with lost loved ones, so your opinion doesn't really count for shit, does it?
It blows my mind how common sense goes right out the window when people are talking war.
Thousands dead is no accident, no matter how they try to spin it, especially when it happens repeatedly and endlessly. By any measure, the US government knew damn well that they would kill innocent civilians. Therefore, they made a calculated decision that innocent lives are worth less to them than political objectives. Sound familiar? It should, because that's exactly how Bin Laden thinks.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Bullshit. How do you think a man who has lost his wife to airstrike would answer that? How would you answer that, if it was your wife that was killed by airstrike? Put yourself in their shoes, and you will quickly realize what a hypocrite you are.
Do you have any idea how many innocent civilians the US has killed in Iraq? No matter what estimate you believe, the number is still in the thousands, or more likely, the tens of thousands.
Now, explain to me again how the US can possibly be "in the right"?
electing someone who supports taxes is implicit consent to pay taxes
I can't agree with that. If government were voluntary, it wouldn't be government at all. It would be free enterprise, and you'd be able to refuse the service. As it stands, you can't refuse government, and that's why government is not voluntary.
Since you brought it up, it is the essence of force (involuntary association) which defines government and seperates it from the rest of society. Government is the organization which holds the exclusive "right" to initiate force as a means to an end. Anyone else who initiates force as a means to an end -- without the blessing of government -- is a criminal.
In regards to social contract theory (which I assume is what you were really getting at), here's something to think about. The social contract says that we volunteer to submit to government rule (force). In other words, we voluntarily engage in involuntary association.
Now, voluntary association and force (involuntary association) are the only 2 modes of human interaction possible. Any instance of human interaction must fall into exactly 1 of the 2 categories -- voluntary or involuntary. If an interction isn't voluntary, it must be involuntary.
What the social contract theory really says is that we voluntarily engage in involuntary association with government. And there's the red flag. You cannot volunteer to be forced, any more than you can force a person to volunteer. The two modes of human interaction are mutually exclusive; otherwise, neither would have any meaning at all.
The "purity level" of capitalism is directly proportional to personal freedom. (In particular, the freedom to decide for yourself where, when, and how to invest your wealth.) The political process is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how you became oppressed, or how you became free. What matters is the reality of the situation -- your level of personal freedom. The reality as we speak is that the average US citizen retains approximately 50% of their right to decide how to spend their earnings. That's not capitalism, and you can't spin it any other way.
Free-market capitalism isn't the cure -- it's the problem.
You still don't get it. How can capitalism be the problem when it doesn't even exist? The boogy-man you're looking for is big government, not voluntary trade.
The real source of IP trouble is big government, and the fact that it's thoroughly entangled in the market. Corporations are only playing the hand they've been dealt by government. Success today doesn't mean achievement through voluntary trade, like it used to -- success today means being able to secure a piece of the big government pie. The root of the problem is government.
What we've got in the US isn't capitalism. Not even close. The average US citizen pays nearly 50% of his yearly earnings to government through federal, state, and local taxes and fees combined. Capitalism is founded on free will -- the right to choose for yourself how to spend your own earnings. Pure capitalism would require that each participant in the market retain 100% discretion over where, when, and how to spend their wealth. So, at best, the US is roughly 50% capitalist. In other words, not even close.
Moreover, pure capitalism wouldn't allow for intellectual property, only contract law. Why? Because IP isn't a product of human nature, like a law dealing with force (theft, fraud, rape, murder, etc). IP is a product of government. IP is not force used in defense of force; IP is an initiation of force. In the abscence of government, there would be no IP, but there certainly would still be "laws" against real initiations of force.
In short, the boogy-man you were looking for is big government, not capitalism.
Slashdot Mirror
It's marketing. "Czar" just sounds so much more "secret spy movie star" than "program director". Just like "war on terror" sounds much more righteous than "military conquest".
Effective as in creating the first prerequisite for organized crime (a black market), providing justification for more expansion of government powers? Or effective as in fostering hatred and resent around the world, providing justification for more expansion of government powers? If government is lucky, it will be both.
Any way you look at it, government wins, at the expense of the individual.
Ending or "winning" the war on drugs, or the war on terror, or poverty, or copyright abuse, is the last thing government wants to do. These programs are set up not to succeed, but to provide a steady stream of revenue and justification for expansion of government powers.
That excuse has been used since the beginning of time to justify anything government does: because it benefits "society as a whole".
You're not on to anything new here. This is the oldest line in the book of government (how to rule a people): tell them it's for "society as a whole".
The war on Iraq and its tens of thousands of civilian deaths benefits "society as a whole", right? Bush's religious charity program benefits society as a whole, right? Social security benefits society as a whole, right?
When the Romans set out to conquor the world, by murdering those who didn't accept their rule, they did it for the benefit of "society as a whole".
Why not just say the hell with freedom and go communist? We're halfway there already. (A typical US citizen pays nearly 50% of his yearly earnings to government through federal, state, and local taxes and fees combined.)
Admit it: You have a special interest, which you consider so righteous it must be forced upon people whether they want it or not.
There couldn't possibly be a government that doesn't operate on the principle of force. A voluntary government wouldn't be government -- that would be free enterprise.
Does McDonald's posess the right to initiate force as a means to an end?
Force is the fundamental difference between government and everyone else. Government is the organization which holds the unique "right" to initiate force as a means to an end. Others may use force in self-defense (where it is still legal), but any private individual or group who initiates force is a criminal.
I know that if it really came down to your wife or child being killed by the "saviours" -- no matter how rightous you considered their objective beforehand -- you would be filled with rage, just like the Iraqi civilians. How do I know this? Because you're a human being, not an emotionless robot whose calling is to serve the state.
But as for people you don't hold close, or don't know personally -- realize that it is the ultimate endorsement of majority rule to say that one approves of killing individuals, completely against their will, for the "needs of the many" (as defined by the state). It's a dangerously Stalin-esque thought. If that's really what you believe, then so be it, but consider that all wars that have ever been waged in the history of mankind -- especially the most evil, destructive ones -- have been justified by the aggressors with the exact same rationale.
That isn't what I call "needs of the majority". That's what I call tyranny of the majority.
What we're really dealing with here is more than one market. It doesn't make sense when they group everyone into a single "MP3 market" and claim that one company dominates it. For example, I could care less about the software and the music store. I just want a good solid player, and the ability to mount it as a removable disk. I already have the music -- all my cd's have been archived as FLACs, which I can easily convert to MP3 -- and I already have cp, rm, and ls which is all the software I want to deal with. Other people may care only about the software and store, and not even buy an ipod, and still other people may care about all 3 things.
So, apple is actually competing in 3 different markets at the same time with their music endeavors, and also a 4th seperate market which is the sum of the other 3. Apple may dominate the 4th market, but there's plenty of competition in each of the 3 sub-markets.
The innocent people in Iraq did not choose to die "in order to save others". Regardless of whether or not others will be saved (which incidentally cannot be proven), the right to make that decision was stripped from them by the aggressors (the US government). When you say "that would be fine by me", you are implying that you made that decision yourself, out of your own free will.
Eliminate your right to choose for yourself, and then answer that question again.
No, I don't believe you can put a price on individual liberty, especially the most important liberty that could ever exist: the right to life itself. Why? Because I would object to anyone putting a price on MY individual liberty, and I realize that it could very well happen, even in my own country by my own government. After all, I am just an individual human being, just like the innocents being slaughtered in Iraq.
I think that is really the difference between your thinking and my thinking -- you don't accept the proposition that your government would ever kill you if it deemed necessary. You don't believe it's possible, while I believe it's very possible.
Perfect, another reason for the US government to wage war.
In a free (voluntary) market. Unfortunately, we don't live in a free market society. Not even close.
I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Bin Laden is an evil monster, because he deliberatey killed innocent people.
The US government is an evil monster, because they deliberately killed innocent people. (Tens of thousands dead is no accident.)
That's what it comes down to.
In other words, you believe that your political goals are so righteous they outweigh a human being's right to life.
Are you willing to openly admit that?
I'd be willing to bet the concept of IP exists in China, it's just that IP is owned by the state instead of private corporations.
Put yourself in their shoes. Your wife or child is killed by a so-called "precision" airstrike. What is your natural human reaction? Do you feel rage, or do you just shrug your shoulders and say "well, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"?
Your critial mistake is accepting in the "us and them" groupthink which governments push during wartime. In reality, there is no "us", and there is no "them" -- there are only unique, thinking individuals, each equally deserving of life. If you believe in the "us and them" groupthink, you are accepting that certain people are less deserving of life than others.
If "they" were equal to "us" in terms of individual soverignty and right to life, then you wouldn't be able to accept the killing, would you?
I'm waiting to see whether you will honestly admit that you consider yourself, an individual human being, more deserving of life than an individual human being killed in Iraq.
I know, but that's just too much for the ignorant warmongers to swallow at one time. Remember, they actually believe the fairy tale of "precision weapons" and "minimal collateral damage".
Are you actually trying to compare reality to some arbitrary estimate of future events which, by any measure, cannot possibly be guaranteed?
Get out of your armchair and open your eyes. Innocent people are being slaughtered. I don't care how many people you think you are saving -- in their eyes, you are the evil monster, not the righteous saviour. And rightfully so. After all, it's not you who has to deal with lost loved ones, so your opinion doesn't really count for shit, does it?
Even if that study is 90% off, that's still 10,000 innocents.
Thousands dead is no accident, no matter how they try to spin it, especially when it happens repeatedly and endlessly. By any measure, the US government knew damn well that they would kill innocent civilians. Therefore, they made a calculated decision that innocent lives are worth less to them than political objectives. Sound familiar? It should, because that's exactly how Bin Laden thinks. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Bullshit. How do you think a man who has lost his wife to airstrike would answer that? How would you answer that, if it was your wife that was killed by airstrike? Put yourself in their shoes, and you will quickly realize what a hypocrite you are.
Now, explain to me again how the US can possibly be "in the right"?
I don't see how the convienience of a tivo is worth more to a senator than a multi-million dollar investment.
I can't agree with that. If government were voluntary, it wouldn't be government at all. It would be free enterprise, and you'd be able to refuse the service. As it stands, you can't refuse government, and that's why government is not voluntary.
Since you brought it up, it is the essence of force (involuntary association) which defines government and seperates it from the rest of society. Government is the organization which holds the exclusive "right" to initiate force as a means to an end. Anyone else who initiates force as a means to an end -- without the blessing of government -- is a criminal.
In regards to social contract theory (which I assume is what you were really getting at), here's something to think about. The social contract says that we volunteer to submit to government rule (force). In other words, we voluntarily engage in involuntary association.
Now, voluntary association and force (involuntary association) are the only 2 modes of human interaction possible. Any instance of human interaction must fall into exactly 1 of the 2 categories -- voluntary or involuntary. If an interction isn't voluntary, it must be involuntary.
What the social contract theory really says is that we voluntarily engage in involuntary association with government. And there's the red flag. You cannot volunteer to be forced, any more than you can force a person to volunteer. The two modes of human interaction are mutually exclusive; otherwise, neither would have any meaning at all.
The "purity level" of capitalism is directly proportional to personal freedom. (In particular, the freedom to decide for yourself where, when, and how to invest your wealth.) The political process is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how you became oppressed, or how you became free. What matters is the reality of the situation -- your level of personal freedom. The reality as we speak is that the average US citizen retains approximately 50% of their right to decide how to spend their earnings. That's not capitalism, and you can't spin it any other way.
You still don't get it. How can capitalism be the problem when it doesn't even exist? The boogy-man you're looking for is big government, not voluntary trade.
The real source of IP trouble is big government, and the fact that it's thoroughly entangled in the market. Corporations are only playing the hand they've been dealt by government. Success today doesn't mean achievement through voluntary trade, like it used to -- success today means being able to secure a piece of the big government pie. The root of the problem is government.
What we've got in the US isn't capitalism. Not even close. The average US citizen pays nearly 50% of his yearly earnings to government through federal, state, and local taxes and fees combined. Capitalism is founded on free will -- the right to choose for yourself how to spend your own earnings. Pure capitalism would require that each participant in the market retain 100% discretion over where, when, and how to spend their wealth. So, at best, the US is roughly 50% capitalist. In other words, not even close.
Moreover, pure capitalism wouldn't allow for intellectual property, only contract law. Why? Because IP isn't a product of human nature, like a law dealing with force (theft, fraud, rape, murder, etc). IP is a product of government. IP is not force used in defense of force; IP is an initiation of force. In the abscence of government, there would be no IP, but there certainly would still be "laws" against real initiations of force.
In short, the boogy-man you were looking for is big government, not capitalism.