The trouble is that everyone seems to be combining a huge spread of risks as if they were all the same. I don't see how anybody sane could try to text whilst driving, it just takes too much attention off the road. Talking on a hands-free isn't in the same league, and although it does represent some degree of distraction from the road I reckon it's not so much of a distraction as a cute girl in her summer clothes on the sidewalk. But maybe I shouldn't mention that, or the safety lobby will try to get them banned too:-(
A colleague told me about how his knockout girlfriend once lifted her skirt a bit and caused a couple of patrolling campus police to crash! I was on the floor laughing at that one.
This is exactly why I've shied away from doing any extensive JavaScript programming. Indeed, anytime I have to create websites, the most annoying thing is to get it to look good in all the major browsers, with IE being the greatest pain in the ass.
This is truly insane. There should be limits on how long a judge can lock you away "for contempt." Also, there should be some evidence that you have the ability to comply with the court order. What we now have is a system so broken that any judge, if he so wishes, can hit you with a confiscatory order and lock you away for years for "noncompliance".
This is NOT the type of country I want to live in. I would rather live in the old Soviet Union!
... I do not however have any problem at all with people being tossed in jail for however long for failing to comply with a court order. If we didn't allow that we'd have far less justice than we have now.
What if the order was confiscatory, as is apparently the problem in this particular case? If you don't have 2.5 million dollars to give to your ex, you are unable to comply, period. There should be at least some evidence that YOU DO have the money, not just some idle speculation.
This sort of thing scares the hell out of me, because I am in a divorce situation, and to think I could be thrown in jail for noncompliance with a confiscatory order for an indefinite amount of time!
I would rather have a non-functional "justice" system rather than one that does injustice to innocent individuals!
Wow, 14 years. If I were locked away for just a few months, I'd loose everything. I'd have nothing left. And as one who have been falsely accused more times than I care to think about, this deeply scares me.
But it would appear that many doesn't care that the (in)justice system does harm to innocent people. Oh, I know -- it "did something". Well, if that's what it's all about, time for me to check out of this country! I don't think even China would be that bad!
It's not about lying, it's about refusing to comply with an order. For example, what if rather than lying a witness simply refuses to answer questions, or even to show up to testify? Or refuses to turn over evidence? It's not perjury, but the state has a strong interest in compelling people to provide evidence, otherwise the legal system would not work. Maybe the current procedure isn't the best imaginable, but I'm not sure that a jury trial is the solution.
You assume that the legal system "works" at all. Nope. It is broken. It's one where it will slam you whether you are innocent or not just so it looks as though "something was done."
Not MY definition of a working legal system!
Re:SFTP support is still spotty ....
on
R.I.P. FTP
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· Score: 1
Of course, I think anyone who uses Windows for web services get what they deserve. Windows might be good for some things; serving the Web is not one of them.
Why the hell would ANYONE still be using FTP these days? I don't even allow its mere existence on my servers!
sftp or scp is fine. Regular old FTP? This is NOT the 80's!
Encryption doesn't protect you from the legal system. It may physically keep them out, but once a judge orders you to provide the password and you refuse, you get to go to jail until you comply.
Well, how long can they keep you there? It's no joke -- I actually HAVE forgotten the passphrases to a couple of my encrypted drives, PGP-encrypted files, and the like.
So I guess they'll have to jail me for life then, because I can't recall them for the life of me.
Of course, my other ruse is to simply say the file is just a series of random bits I use for entropy. And actually have such files on the drive for that very reason.
Ah, but everyone forgets that, at least in the US, there is constitutional protections against self-incrimination. Not that the government follows the Constitution anymore, but that's another issue.
So this is where I'd keep mouth shut and let lawyer do all the talking. Learn from Reiser's idiot mistake for doing an even more idiotic thing. Murder is so 20th-century. Far worse than murder is to allow the person to live and face her own miserable life. Perfectly legal, and not much to plan. And it works. But I digress...
Yep. This is one more example of why we all should make strong and daily use of encryption. Of course, the next thing they'll try is "Use of Encryption is Suspicious!"
Well, they can prance all they wanna. They can't do diddly unless they get the passphrase from you. But, of course, you do recall how forgetful you are? Or did you forget!:-)
Yeah, honestly I'm a little confused by the question. If you want to use DNS to connect to internal servers via VPN, then don't you want to route your DNS traffic through the tunnel to use internal DNS servers? And once you're doing that, how could the ISP possibly hijack that DNS traffic? It's encrypted.
It may be that the list of DNSes for the computer to check starts with ISP DNS first, then if that fails it next tries the VPN's DNS.
Of course, if the ISP is hijacking lookups instead of letting them fail, that's going to screw everything up.
Verizon and FairPoint does this. Alas, there's no other option I know of that can beat the fibre-optics to the last mile. But at least the aformentioned provides an opt-out DNS server to use. Good luck getting it out of their tech support, as you will spend 10-15 minutes just explaining what the problem is. They are CLUELESS to the max.
Ah, but this is the same company that can't tell the difference between.002 dollars and.002 cents....
I am poking fun at Mass Holes. But I have good reason too.
Quite a few of them have been a thorn in my side in the past. Busybodies; unable to mind their own business. I had to sue a couple of Mass Holes just for that reason -- and won.
Not everyone in Mass is a Mass Hole, but then Mass seems to have a ready supply of them.
This is not meant to be a scientific assessment, but an opinion based on personal observation and experience.
And yes, I commit the "sin" of ad-hominem, but it's all in good fun.
I find the cop's descriptions most amusing. I am still trying to figure out what a "B.C. Operating System" is. If it's that ancient, it must be PCDOS or something.
But the "black screen with white letters" almost had me in stitches!
Of course, what's NOT funny is that they make a mockery of the law doing nutso stuff like this. Kinda reminds me of "Operation Sun Devil" -- you know, the whole thing about Grups Cyberpunk being "a manual for Computer Crime!", and the 911 Administrative Manual being used as the excuse to seize many computers, kicking doors in and all, when the same was available via mail order for less than $20 from the same phone company that was pressing charges...
And you can sum it all up with one word:
STOOPID!
Now, the more pressing question is, of course, is what do we DO with all these idiots?
I can think of a few things...
---
Don't know what it is? Gotta be a bomb! That's Idiot Thinking for you!
It would seem that Mass is given to crass overreaction, as is evident by the overreactions to The MIT babe wearing an LED circuit on her jacket, and by the LED ads that Time/Warnet (I think) placed all over Boston.
I know there are idiots in the world. But none are finer than the Mass Holes.
Perhaps Mass Holes will grow up one day and become real people with brains. Yeah, right.
I'm sure it feels good to think that you're the only one willing to do anything about the problem. I just don't think that taking power away from individuals is the right approach — and, whether you realize it or not, that is exactly what you are proposing. You want the power of the individual to be manifest in spending power. I want the power of the individual to be manifest in a strong community with a useful representative organization (which doesn't preclude also having the power to effect change through spending habits — I'm personally a big believer and practitioner of consumer activism). We already have that organization, we've just disconnected it from the community it's supposed to represent. I want to restore that connection, while you want to take away the organization's power.
I do NOT want to take power away from the Individual, but give more power to the Individual. For those things that directly affect us, like water, air, food, electricity, we all as individuals should have as much power over those things as possible. Currently, we do not. All that power rests in the hands of the handful that controls them.
We do seem to have a general agreement, so that's good. And no, I don't think I'm the "only one", though it certainly feels that way sometimes.
-Flajann
Only YOU can save Mankind. If not you, then whom?
Again, you do not understand Libertarianism. Libertarianism is not Anarchy. There is a government, but it has a limited role. It's role is to defend the land, and to make sure there is consequence for one person slamming another person in the nose. Beyond that, it should do little else. Enforcing contracts agreed upon by mutual consent and understanding is another limited role a Libertarian Government should have.
So educate me.
So how would Libertarianism deal with things like spectrum disputes or unfair trade practice complaints? Under a libertarian society, how would a seller of homeopathic remedies be dealt with when it's shown that they're selling sugar pills? Or when it turns out some device is jamming a wide array of consumer devices?
Under a 'liberal' Government you'd have the FTC, the FAA and the FDA. How would a theoretical Ron Paul administration do this? Coase theorem?
If you are harming someone, then you are dealt with. If you are not harming anyone, then you're fine. It's very simple. Why make it more complicated than that?
Besides, we all know how well the FDA works. They are influenced by special interests, too, and how many bad drugs have gotten past them and hurt or killed many?
I don't believe in homeopathy, obviously. But they, at least, are flat-out honest about how they prepare their "drugs" -- by diluting out a poison so much that you'd be lucky just to get a single molecule of it in your dosage.
As long as the honesty is there and the consumer is informed, then it's incumbent upon the consumer to make an informed and rational choice. No one is being harmed by sugar-water, unless, of course, they are doing this in lieu of seeking real medical help.
The placebo effect is a powerful one, so personally I am mixed on what to tell people about homeopathy. Yet, I must be honest about it. It's nothing more than the placebo effect. The normal claims of Homeopathy are pure nonsense, and I won't skip a heartbeat pointing that out. But if the placebo effect is actually doing someone good, I'm not sure how I would handle that.
In New Hampshire, you may own a gun freely, without having to register it or anything. So the actual figure may be higher than reported. Not everyone here is open to letting everyone know they own a gun.
But contract enforcement is coercive. Aren't libertarians against coercion?
I could start ranting that contract law is unnecessary, and people will be honorable out of their own self-interest, to preserve their reputation and livelihood. I could then continue on about how the non-enforcible contracts will have greater value due to people learning personal responsibility from the deregulation of contracts. Oh, and the markets will thrive under these new conditions and we'll all be wealthier.
And if you say that's nonsense and argue that contracts are justified because they're opt-in, well it's all opt-in. Nobody is forcing you to live in this country. You can leave if you don't like it.
Why should I have to leave the country? That's not "opt-in", that's OPT-OUT. I was born here giving no choice as to the way things are, and I have to choose to opt-out by leaving?
What is wrong with this picture?
Besides, not all libertarians think alike. In fact, just the opposite is true. But that's besides my point.
There are non-coercive means to enforce contracts. But really, this is about mutual honor and respect. You create a network of those you can respect and trust, and carry out business with them. You check references. You avoid those that don't measure up. It's that simple. Then the system becomes self-enforcing in a passive way.
So your answer is to take away the government's ability to do anything about this, aside from prosecuting individuals for individual crimes (note: no one at Philip Morris has committed a crime in selling their product),
I personally consider it a crime to promote killer products, especially to children, as Phillip Morris has done actively in the past. I am just old enough to recall the Phillip Morris candy cigarettes.
Also, Government defines what is a "crime" and what is not, and it generally has no rhyme or reason outside of the flexing of power, control, and a appeal to populism.
and simply rely on the magical free market to grant people the ability to fix this problem by voting with their wallets (something that we're perfectly capable of doing right now, and yet still people the world over are buying cigarettes, smoking, getting cancer, and dying)?
Or at least stop busting the street drug pusher for selling his killer products.
Do you not see how ridiculous that is?
Anymore ridiculous than the current state of affairs?
Of course modern democracy is flawed.
So let's fix it instead of settling for the flaws.
Of course voting seems to accomplish little.
The entire concept of Voting is flawed at a fundamental level, nevermind all the games that are played.
Of course corporations have too much power.
As do governments.
Of course individuals, particularly in corporations, are not held accountable for their actions enough. And of course ridiculous things like the "War On Drugs" are causing more problems than they solve, and completely missing the real problems. We're in agreement on that.
I just don't buy the ridiculous libertarian notion that if we just leave it all alone and let the market rule, with people "voting with their wallets" — something that far too few can be bothered to do in this day and age — that everything will be just perfect.
Nothing will ever be perfect. We must work toward perfection.
The system must be allowed to properly evolve. Currently, it does not. Evolution entails elimination of the failures. Current-day governments, by their very nature, have eliminated this component entirely. Government agencies, ministries, and departments keep growing by leaps and bounds, even when they have outlived their usefulness. This is not evolution in the Darwinian sense, but a cancer.
Governments of today continue to employ supperannuated systems of thought and governance, international policies, and the like. Those running the show have little understanding, usually, of how to deal with complex dynamical systems. They do not understand about emergence, perpetual novelty, or the concept that you can't have unlimited growth in a limited environment.
We need a change -- a change far greater than the governments of today will ever allow. And hence lies the dilemma.
I find it supremely ironic that everyone understands that there's a problem, yet so many are so willing to throw up their hands in the air and allow the problem to continue. And when it all comes crashing down like a house of cards, I hope I am not around to be able to tell you, "I told you so". But somehow, I don't think I'll be so lucky...
The problem I have with the existing system is that it concentrates too much power into the hands of too few, and the Individual needs and concerns are lost. It's a "winner takes all" system where the Majority grants power to a handful to beat up on the Minority -- and everyone else.
These systems are old, sluggish, and extremely unfair to the Individual. The Individual is not given many choices to redress these issues, as the System itself have become too entrenched and tenacious.
I actually have something quite a bit different in mind, something that does not have a name yet, something that is similar to Libertarianism, but is kinda on another "dimension" for lack of a better word. A part of it has to do with what I call "Fractalization of Power". Another component has to do with having "Virtual Nations" -- that is, a means to break the geographic monopoly of our existing government infrastructures, which is really an extension of ancient human tendency -- tribalism. But I am still working out the details.
The truth is today that, yes, you can expat if you don't like your home government, but where do you expat to? Another government that's just as broken -- or worse? That is the problem.
The ultimate freedom would be the freedom of citizenship without ties to geography. Governments should have to *compete* for our citizenship. At that point, the governments will be more likely to serve the needs of us Individuals, rather than forcing us Individuals to serve its greed for power and control. Those who like the way US does things can remain a citizen of it. Those who disagree can renounce citizenship and associate with a different country -- without having to physically relocate there; or better yet -- create your own and invite people in.
Well, I know many here are going to slam me for these ideas, so slam away!
So corporations are also free as long as they do no harm to individuals.
So if, for example, a corporation is harming individuals by, say, polluting the environment those individuals live in, what exactly is supposed to prevent this? Consumers "voting" with their wallets? You do realize that, unlike voting with ballots, voting with wallets is a form of "democracy" that not everyone can afford, right? Therefore what you're talking about, from the consumer perspective, is really freedom for those who can afford it. As for those who can't afford to vote with their wallets, you want to diminish the effect of voting with their ballots.
Huh? Do you really think voting at the ballot amounts to anything? Not going to get into that discussion here. But recall that voting with one's wallet was highly effective during the civil right's struggles in the 50s and 60s -- by the very people you might say "could not afford it".
So corporations who violate these principles will find themselves out of business before long.
Right. That works really well. That's why we have nothing but entirely ethical corporations in the world.
What we have today in the world are corporations that have been granted a title of unaccountability by the very governments you love so much. If corporations were more accountable, and I mean the INDIVIDUALs who own and run them, this world would be a much better place, I think!!!!
After all, any corporation who does anything unethical (ie. harming the environment, harming workers, etc) will be "voted" into nonexistence by all the ethical consumers.
Modern libertarianism is mostly a wonderful idea combined with utopian ideology that fails the "Real World Test", spurred on by the false dichotomy of minimalist, impotent, barely-recognizable government vs. enormous, bloated, control-everything-you-ever-do government.
Again, you do not understand. In the "real world" of today, governments give corporations the green light to do whatever they want with no accountability to the citizen. So they pollute and wreck the environment until citizens start screaming LOUDLY to the GOVERNMENT, and then the government may or may not do something. It's all backwards. And even if the government does something, the individuals responsible are never held directly responsible. Has anyone at Phillip Morris ever gone to jail for producing a product that has killed countless? Government spends all its time going after the small-fry drug pushers on the street and slams them hard for selling product that may kill a few people, but big corporations like Philip Morris still sells their killer product to many the world over and that's perfectly OK.
Am I the only person on this planet that sees something wrong with this?
Or how about how the US government spending billions, snipe our freedom and privacy, and harass everyone at airports to "save" us from some vague threat of "terrorism" when only a handful are ever killed by, yet 41,000 people or so die on our roadways every YEAR without a concern?
Sorry. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I am going nuts. Maybe I am insane. But it seems to me that your beloved government has its priorities severely misplaced.
And Obama has wound up being one big disappointment. Still won't bring those troops home. Welcome to the new boss....
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The trouble is that everyone seems to be combining a huge spread of risks as if they were all the same. I don't see how anybody sane could try to text whilst driving, it just takes too much attention off the road. Talking on a hands-free isn't in the same league, and although it does represent some degree of distraction from the road I reckon it's not so much of a distraction as a cute girl in her summer clothes on the sidewalk. But maybe I shouldn't mention that, or the safety lobby will try to get them banned too :-(
A colleague told me about how his knockout girlfriend once lifted her skirt a bit and caused a couple of patrolling campus police to crash! I was on the floor laughing at that one.
This is exactly why I've shied away from doing any extensive JavaScript programming. Indeed, anytime I have to create websites, the most annoying thing is to get it to look good in all the major browsers, with IE being the greatest pain in the ass.
This is NOT the type of country I want to live in. I would rather live in the old Soviet Union!
... I do not however have any problem at all with people being tossed in jail for however long for failing to comply with a court order. If we didn't allow that we'd have far less justice than we have now.
What if the order was confiscatory, as is apparently the problem in this particular case? If you don't have 2.5 million dollars to give to your ex, you are unable to comply, period. There should be at least some evidence that YOU DO have the money, not just some idle speculation.
This sort of thing scares the hell out of me, because I am in a divorce situation, and to think I could be thrown in jail for noncompliance with a confiscatory order for an indefinite amount of time!
I would rather have a non-functional "justice" system rather than one that does injustice to innocent individuals!
Wow, 14 years. If I were locked away for just a few months, I'd loose everything. I'd have nothing left. And as one who have been falsely accused more times than I care to think about, this deeply scares me.
But it would appear that many doesn't care that the (in)justice system does harm to innocent people. Oh, I know -- it "did something". Well, if that's what it's all about, time for me to check out of this country! I don't think even China would be that bad!
It's not about lying, it's about refusing to comply with an order. For example, what if rather than lying a witness simply refuses to answer questions, or even to show up to testify? Or refuses to turn over evidence? It's not perjury, but the state has a strong interest in compelling people to provide evidence, otherwise the legal system would not work. Maybe the current procedure isn't the best imaginable, but I'm not sure that a jury trial is the solution.
You assume that the legal system "works" at all. Nope. It is broken. It's one where it will slam you whether you are innocent or not just so it looks as though "something was done."
Not MY definition of a working legal system!
Of course, I think anyone who uses Windows for web services get what they deserve. Windows might be good for some things; serving the Web is not one of them.
Why the hell would ANYONE still be using FTP these days? I don't even allow its mere existence on my servers! sftp or scp is fine. Regular old FTP? This is NOT the 80's!
Encryption doesn't protect you from the legal system. It may physically keep them out, but once a judge orders you to provide the password and you refuse, you get to go to jail until you comply.
Well, how long can they keep you there? It's no joke -- I actually HAVE forgotten the passphrases to a couple of my encrypted drives, PGP-encrypted files, and the like.
So I guess they'll have to jail me for life then, because I can't recall them for the life of me.
Of course, my other ruse is to simply say the file is just a series of random bits I use for entropy. And actually have such files on the drive for that very reason.
Ah, but everyone forgets that, at least in the US, there is constitutional protections against self-incrimination. Not that the government follows the Constitution anymore, but that's another issue.
So this is where I'd keep mouth shut and let lawyer do all the talking. Learn from Reiser's idiot mistake for doing an even more idiotic thing. Murder is so 20th-century. Far worse than murder is to allow the person to live and face her own miserable life. Perfectly legal, and not much to plan. And it works. But I digress...
Of course, if you get whacked too hard, you'll forget far more than just the passphrase. :-)
Well, they can prance all they wanna. They can't do diddly unless they get the passphrase from you. But, of course, you do recall how forgetful you are? Or did you forget! :-)
Yeah, honestly I'm a little confused by the question. If you want to use DNS to connect to internal servers via VPN, then don't you want to route your DNS traffic through the tunnel to use internal DNS servers? And once you're doing that, how could the ISP possibly hijack that DNS traffic? It's encrypted.
It may be that the list of DNSes for the computer to check starts with ISP DNS first, then if that fails it next tries the VPN's DNS.
Of course, if the ISP is hijacking lookups instead of letting them fail, that's going to screw everything up.
Verizon and FairPoint does this. Alas, there's no other option I know of that can beat the fibre-optics to the last mile. But at least the aformentioned provides an opt-out DNS server to use. Good luck getting it out of their tech support, as you will spend 10-15 minutes just explaining what the problem is. They are CLUELESS to the max.
Ah, but this is the same company that can't tell the difference between .002 dollars and .002 cents....
I'll consider myself lightened then!
So where might you hail from, flajann?
Just across the border in Southern New Hampshire.
I am poking fun at Mass Holes. But I have good reason too.
Quite a few of them have been a thorn in my side in the past. Busybodies; unable to mind their own business. I had to sue a couple of Mass Holes just for that reason -- and won.
Not everyone in Mass is a Mass Hole, but then Mass seems to have a ready supply of them.
This is not meant to be a scientific assessment, but an opinion based on personal observation and experience.
And yes, I commit the "sin" of ad-hominem, but it's all in good fun.
But the "black screen with white letters" almost had me in stitches!
Of course, what's NOT funny is that they make a mockery of the law doing nutso stuff like this. Kinda reminds me of "Operation Sun Devil" -- you know, the whole thing about Grups Cyberpunk being "a manual for Computer Crime!", and the 911 Administrative Manual being used as the excuse to seize many computers, kicking doors in and all, when the same was available via mail order for less than $20 from the same phone company that was pressing charges...
And you can sum it all up with one word:
STOOPID!
Now, the more pressing question is, of course, is what do we DO with all these idiots?
I can think of a few things...
--- Don't know what it is? Gotta be a bomb! That's Idiot Thinking for you!
I know there are idiots in the world. But none are finer than the Mass Holes.
Perhaps Mass Holes will grow up one day and become real people with brains. Yeah, right.
I'm sure it feels good to think that you're the only one willing to do anything about the problem. I just don't think that taking power away from individuals is the right approach — and, whether you realize it or not, that is exactly what you are proposing. You want the power of the individual to be manifest in spending power. I want the power of the individual to be manifest in a strong community with a useful representative organization (which doesn't preclude also having the power to effect change through spending habits — I'm personally a big believer and practitioner of consumer activism). We already have that organization, we've just disconnected it from the community it's supposed to represent. I want to restore that connection, while you want to take away the organization's power.
I do NOT want to take power away from the Individual, but give more power to the Individual. For those things that directly affect us, like water, air, food, electricity, we all as individuals should have as much power over those things as possible. Currently, we do not. All that power rests in the hands of the handful that controls them.
We do seem to have a general agreement, so that's good. And no, I don't think I'm the "only one", though it certainly feels that way sometimes.
-Flajann
Only YOU can save Mankind. If not you, then whom?
Again, you do not understand Libertarianism. Libertarianism is not Anarchy. There is a government, but it has a limited role. It's role is to defend the land, and to make sure there is consequence for one person slamming another person in the nose. Beyond that, it should do little else. Enforcing contracts agreed upon by mutual consent and understanding is another limited role a Libertarian Government should have.
So educate me.
So how would Libertarianism deal with things like spectrum disputes or unfair trade practice complaints? Under a libertarian society, how would a seller of homeopathic remedies be dealt with when it's shown that they're selling sugar pills? Or when it turns out some device is jamming a wide array of consumer devices?
Under a 'liberal' Government you'd have the FTC, the FAA and the FDA. How would a theoretical Ron Paul administration do this? Coase theorem?
If you are harming someone, then you are dealt with. If you are not harming anyone, then you're fine. It's very simple. Why make it more complicated than that?
Besides, we all know how well the FDA works. They are influenced by special interests, too, and how many bad drugs have gotten past them and hurt or killed many?
I don't believe in homeopathy, obviously. But they, at least, are flat-out honest about how they prepare their "drugs" -- by diluting out a poison so much that you'd be lucky just to get a single molecule of it in your dosage.
As long as the honesty is there and the consumer is informed, then it's incumbent upon the consumer to make an informed and rational choice. No one is being harmed by sugar-water, unless, of course, they are doing this in lieu of seeking real medical help.
The placebo effect is a powerful one, so personally I am mixed on what to tell people about homeopathy. Yet, I must be honest about it. It's nothing more than the placebo effect. The normal claims of Homeopathy are pure nonsense, and I won't skip a heartbeat pointing that out. But if the placebo effect is actually doing someone good, I'm not sure how I would handle that.
I have no idea what the situation is in Nevada.
But contract enforcement is coercive. Aren't libertarians against coercion?
I could start ranting that contract law is unnecessary, and people will be honorable out of their own self-interest, to preserve their reputation and livelihood. I could then continue on about how the non-enforcible contracts will have greater value due to people learning personal responsibility from the deregulation of contracts. Oh, and the markets will thrive under these new conditions and we'll all be wealthier.
And if you say that's nonsense and argue that contracts are justified because they're opt-in, well it's all opt-in. Nobody is forcing you to live in this country. You can leave if you don't like it.
Why should I have to leave the country? That's not "opt-in", that's OPT-OUT. I was born here giving no choice as to the way things are, and I have to choose to opt-out by leaving?
What is wrong with this picture?
Besides, not all libertarians think alike. In fact, just the opposite is true. But that's besides my point.
There are non-coercive means to enforce contracts. But really, this is about mutual honor and respect. You create a network of those you can respect and trust, and carry out business with them. You check references. You avoid those that don't measure up. It's that simple. Then the system becomes self-enforcing in a passive way.
So your answer is to take away the government's ability to do anything about this, aside from prosecuting individuals for individual crimes (note: no one at Philip Morris has committed a crime in selling their product),
I personally consider it a crime to promote killer products, especially to children, as Phillip Morris has done actively in the past. I am just old enough to recall the Phillip Morris candy cigarettes.
Also, Government defines what is a "crime" and what is not, and it generally has no rhyme or reason outside of the flexing of power, control, and a appeal to populism.
and simply rely on the magical free market to grant people the ability to fix this problem by voting with their wallets (something that we're perfectly capable of doing right now, and yet still people the world over are buying cigarettes, smoking, getting cancer, and dying)?
Or at least stop busting the street drug pusher for selling his killer products.
Do you not see how ridiculous that is?
Anymore ridiculous than the current state of affairs?
Of course modern democracy is flawed.
So let's fix it instead of settling for the flaws.
Of course voting seems to accomplish little.
The entire concept of Voting is flawed at a fundamental level, nevermind all the games that are played.
Of course corporations have too much power.
As do governments.
Of course individuals, particularly in corporations, are not held accountable for their actions enough. And of course ridiculous things like the "War On Drugs" are causing more problems than they solve, and completely missing the real problems. We're in agreement on that.
I just don't buy the ridiculous libertarian notion that if we just leave it all alone and let the market rule, with people "voting with their wallets" — something that far too few can be bothered to do in this day and age — that everything will be just perfect.
Nothing will ever be perfect. We must work toward perfection.
The system must be allowed to properly evolve. Currently, it does not. Evolution entails elimination of the failures. Current-day governments, by their very nature, have eliminated this component entirely. Government agencies, ministries, and departments keep growing by leaps and bounds, even when they have outlived their usefulness. This is not evolution in the Darwinian sense, but a cancer.
Governments of today continue to employ supperannuated systems of thought and governance, international policies, and the like. Those running the show have little understanding, usually, of how to deal with complex dynamical systems. They do not understand about emergence, perpetual novelty, or the concept that you can't have unlimited growth in a limited environment.
We need a change -- a change far greater than the governments of today will ever allow. And hence lies the dilemma.
I find it supremely ironic that everyone understands that there's a problem, yet so many are so willing to throw up their hands in the air and allow the problem to continue. And when it all comes crashing down like a house of cards, I hope I am not around to be able to tell you, "I told you so". But somehow, I don't think I'll be so lucky...
Ok, I stand corrected.
The problem I have with the existing system is that it concentrates too much power into the hands of too few, and the Individual needs and concerns are lost. It's a "winner takes all" system where the Majority grants power to a handful to beat up on the Minority -- and everyone else.
These systems are old, sluggish, and extremely unfair to the Individual. The Individual is not given many choices to redress these issues, as the System itself have become too entrenched and tenacious.
I actually have something quite a bit different in mind, something that does not have a name yet, something that is similar to Libertarianism, but is kinda on another "dimension" for lack of a better word. A part of it has to do with what I call "Fractalization of Power". Another component has to do with having "Virtual Nations" -- that is, a means to break the geographic monopoly of our existing government infrastructures, which is really an extension of ancient human tendency -- tribalism. But I am still working out the details.
The truth is today that, yes, you can expat if you don't like your home government, but where do you expat to? Another government that's just as broken -- or worse? That is the problem.
The ultimate freedom would be the freedom of citizenship without ties to geography. Governments should have to *compete* for our citizenship. At that point, the governments will be more likely to serve the needs of us Individuals, rather than forcing us Individuals to serve its greed for power and control. Those who like the way US does things can remain a citizen of it. Those who disagree can renounce citizenship and associate with a different country -- without having to physically relocate there; or better yet -- create your own and invite people in.
Well, I know many here are going to slam me for these ideas, so slam away!
There are good things and bad things with "big government" and regulation. You can't just assume "big government" == bad.
I don't have to assume. The record speaks for itself.
So corporations are also free as long as they do no harm to individuals.
So if, for example, a corporation is harming individuals by, say, polluting the environment those individuals live in, what exactly is supposed to prevent this? Consumers "voting" with their wallets? You do realize that, unlike voting with ballots, voting with wallets is a form of "democracy" that not everyone can afford, right? Therefore what you're talking about, from the consumer perspective, is really freedom for those who can afford it. As for those who can't afford to vote with their wallets, you want to diminish the effect of voting with their ballots.
Huh? Do you really think voting at the ballot amounts to anything? Not going to get into that discussion here. But recall that voting with one's wallet was highly effective during the civil right's struggles in the 50s and 60s -- by the very people you might say "could not afford it".
So corporations who violate these principles will find themselves out of business before long.
Right. That works really well. That's why we have nothing but entirely ethical corporations in the world.
What we have today in the world are corporations that have been granted a title of unaccountability by the very governments you love so much. If corporations were more accountable, and I mean the INDIVIDUALs who own and run them, this world would be a much better place, I think!!!!
After all, any corporation who does anything unethical (ie. harming the environment, harming workers, etc) will be "voted" into nonexistence by all the ethical consumers.
Modern libertarianism is mostly a wonderful idea combined with utopian ideology that fails the "Real World Test", spurred on by the false dichotomy of minimalist, impotent, barely-recognizable government vs. enormous, bloated, control-everything-you-ever-do government.
Again, you do not understand. In the "real world" of today, governments give corporations the green light to do whatever they want with no accountability to the citizen. So they pollute and wreck the environment until citizens start screaming LOUDLY to the GOVERNMENT, and then the government may or may not do something. It's all backwards. And even if the government does something, the individuals responsible are never held directly responsible. Has anyone at Phillip Morris ever gone to jail for producing a product that has killed countless? Government spends all its time going after the small-fry drug pushers on the street and slams them hard for selling product that may kill a few people, but big corporations like Philip Morris still sells their killer product to many the world over and that's perfectly OK.
Am I the only person on this planet that sees something wrong with this?
Or how about how the US government spending billions, snipe our freedom and privacy, and harass everyone at airports to "save" us from some vague threat of "terrorism" when only a handful are ever killed by, yet 41,000 people or so die on our roadways every YEAR without a concern?
Sorry. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I am going nuts. Maybe I am insane. But it seems to me that your beloved government has its priorities severely misplaced.
And Obama has wound up being one big disappointment. Still won't bring those troops home. Welcome to the new boss....
I want NO ONE controlling my life but ME.
Good luck with your life as a hermit in Antarctica.
Actually, I do just well in Southern New Hampshire.