You can go through an interesting process to ENFORCE your contract. You know, that thing you sign when you buy their SERVICE, which says "unrestricted internet access" ? Yeah bingo... read tomhudson's slashdot journal to get an idea of HOW to go about hammering assholes who back down on contracts.
About the only right humans have in the so called "society" we live in, is the right to freely contract (read, associate and exchange value and come to agreements with others). Everything from sales, purchases, to marrying someone or letting a rapist have his way with you, it is ALL contracts. Accords, agreements, even when you surrender to a bad guy, you've agreed to let him have his way. All things boil down to that. So enforce your contract. You bought 5 megs down 1 meg up, unrestricted internet access. Period. Enforce it. Take them up for violation of contract, there are remarkable collections processes available. Hell, a smart and asshole type individual willing to take it far enough, and with a stomach for leaving lots of people unemployed (whom I'd actually wager DESERVE it) could end up owning Cox@home:)
And again the little collectivists bitch and moan that solutions are not being forced down others' throats.
Why not take up onion routing and stop bitching. Perhaps develop another solution if current standards of encryption are not acceptable.
Perhaps a particular method where ALL content from server to client is ONLY available to server and client in question? Perhaps some form of consistent session SSL/TLS type validation?
Consistently switching ports? Perhaps some public gateways being used to setup the transaction? Perhaps a tunnel being requested before setting up any other form of transaction? I don't know yet... I'm throwing stuff out.
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that people need to stop asking for others to solve their problems. Until that happens, expect our "messiahs" to be more along the lines of "false prophets". We, as a group (geeks, nerds, computer people, gearheads, whatever term you want to use) will continually be shafted each time we look to a central organization to stand up for us. There can be no perfect system of control, so instead, the tools must be designed to provide us with the privacy, reliability and speed we seem to occasionally desire.
Just an idea, of course. I'm no big shot developer. Just another former geek who still tinkers.
I should've proofread. I should've instead mentioned, that it wasn't to replace Netware 8, but instead to replace the Windows desktop which they lost to the competing Active Directory services provided by microsoft's own Windows 2000 and later editions.
As a result, while buying Suse may have been a smart business investment, be assured that Novell will have little compunctions overwriting the will of their programmers who may or may not enjoy working with Unix, if a good screwover/partnership with Microsoft is more profitable.
Customers and employees are only valuable if they have a voice, and most of the monolithic corporations aren't exactly known for their respect for customers or employees.
Recall that in 1776, at least 5 to 10% of the American populace valued some concept of freedom. They had had themselves a revolution back in 1774 and were pretty eager to not let the other 90 to 95% of cowards and sheep give it up. Yet no later than 1791 they had lost everything they had gained, and centralized government, control, and slow growing tyranny was back in mode.
What do you expect of that precedent? Yep, exactly... seems to have some eeerie similarities here. While there will always be pro freedom groups, much like in real life, they will mostly be demonized, or called "unrealistic" or "idealists". Amazing that so many give up their birthrights for a mess of porridge. Not to quote religious texts, so I'll simply make a reference, but I seem to recall a story in that book a lot of westerners take as fact, which recalled a parable of some guy who sold his birthright for the same old mess of porridge. Interesting parallel? I seem to run into a lot of those lately.
Indeed... that's why I specifically termed "the so called OSS movement"... or "the so called Linux movement".
Frankly, I kind of like Linux. Even though I keep my servers more heterogeneous than that. Another "Rule #1" among all my others.
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket."
Let me rephrase, I still like Linux. If MS and Novell turn it into something else, we shall see. If that occurs I have no doubts that the market forces (not just referring to money here, people) will force a massive fork in ideologies, just as it did between AT&T and Berkeley.
Yep, I'm not talking about the companies we've known and been supported by (and have supported when our cash flows and cheapness allowed) but more referring to those particular bastions of liberty like Novell, Sun, IBM, etc. Sure, IBM may be "reformed" today, but either way, even that company has some blood on its hands far into the past.
Novell has more recent blood. Microsoft I don't even need to go into.
Going off to RedHat, Mandrakesoft and Canonical (or hell, even the nonprofits, Gentoo Foundation, etc) I don't recall them contributing to any mass murders or federal kangaroo courts or burials of individuals or groups. If you can, please notify me. There is a difference between a company that grew up AROUND the OSS and a company that is trying to capture a new piece of something they can make a quick buck on.
While making a quick buck is definitely part of human nature, I can't seem to recall too many of the "pre-OSS" companies that were built around sustainability of any kind (other than vendor lockin type crap.)
So lets rehash... sure, while many programmers may be paid for the code they write for the OSS community at large (and that's a good thing for them, while the current paradigm lasts), lets get serious, it DOES depend WHO pays them and more precisely, whose agenda they are playing into. I can safely bet that Novell doesn't have a huge stake in Linux succeeding, they just needed to buy something they could buy and quickly turn around and sell to replace their rather sluggish Netware 8 (or was it 9? I haven't kept up with versions since then), I believe it was (the one that ran Tomcat and seemed to make extensive use of Java.) I actually ran the trial run of the last Netware and was rather disappointed by how sluggish it was.
That being said, my whole point was, "be VERY careful whom you bed with for the night, or you might wake up with crabs and STD's." While it may seem that your new "born again Christian" girlfriend has "given up her gang bang ways," you should still wear a condom for the first few years:)
Microsoft and Novell have been "bed buddies" since they've been around (and while I'm sure Novell as an entity would love to do Microsoft one for rendering NDS obsolete with their ADS, they were still "lovers" at some point), you can pretty much guarantee that if you let either into your bed, you'll get whatever STD's they've both got from their past partnership.
I'm not sure if "being supported by giant corporations" was such a good idea for the so called "linux movement".
Sure, easy cash was one thing, but selling out to Novell and the rest was a pretty stupid mistake. Recall the kindness of Novell when they buried one Kevin Mitnick for "looking at, and copying their source code"... yeah, that Novell.
I have 50 bucks that say this will all be done to try to put Red Hat and the other useful groups out of business. After that, expect to see them claim that "most of the GPL source is no longer in use" etc. Hell, after Stallman dies, I can almost guarantee that they'll buy out the entire GNU foundation or buy seats on the leadership of the GNU and steer it back into the fold.
By hijacking the website, ANY possible damage that is incurred by the person visiting the website, that could not have occurred from said website, can and should be used to hold the injecting ISP's liable for "fraud", "wire fraud", "internet fraud", "conspiracy to commit fraud", "electronic fraud" along with any "accessory to fraud" charges that can be used. It isn't double jeopardy if they are tried for criminal trespass to chattel, though that might take someone with more knowledge of common law copyrights than I have. So hit them for criminal charges, and then sue them for damages.
One big ISP getting put out of business would teach the rest a pretty important lesson. "Stop fucking with Joe, he fucked back without even needing a lawyer. Joe's not very nice to assholes who impersonate him and put his customers at risk."
Actually, the copyright owners of said domain CAN, and SHOULD demand ALL revenues that the ISP derived off of the serving of said ad pages, and any other related income they received as a result of said copyright violations.
I keep saying, this is like the NAFTA and WTO, they can be tools for the masses or for the masters, but so far, only the so called "masters" have used them. Peons will be peons.
That they are, in fact, I seem to recall the Dao as being the chinese swords. Variations on said weapon were the Dadao and Ram dao, but I've yet to actually hold one in my own hands.
This reminds me of the "big business shouldn't buy research" crap. "Only government should have the right to buy schools and influence the thinking of kids or teachers or administrati."
Because we all know that government is NOT business... right? Show me ONE government thug, in even the poorest, crappiest country, that lives as poorly as the average chump voter on the street. Yet, because of some Judeo-Christian system in the west, and simple ruler worship in the east, everyone is buried in this fallacy of the "infallibility of rulers" doctrine. Hell, the hypocrisy is so grand in the west that we call our slave drivers our "representatives".
I tell you what, I occasionally wear a nice suit, but I don't wear Armani or Prada to every meeting I have. I also don't have a limo, my own serf paid body guard detail (secret service, etc) and my own intelligence agency and royal food taster:)
And I'm among those who are fairly "well off".
Do you know what that means? That somehow, the slavemasters got the chumps to think they were "represented".
Yep, yes siree, we are SO represented by a bunch of guys who've never worked on a damn thing in their lives, they never even read the legislation they unanimously or near unanimously pass, but they somehow "represent" me? Hell, they don't even TALK about the issues I'm interested in.
I think the problem is that, where two to three centuries ago, people thought government was EVIL, today they think of it as their personal Jesus Christ. Not sure where the stupidity gene kicked in, but modern man is dumber and far less capable of looking past lies and propaganda. Quite amazing since modern man proclaims himself "educated" and enshrines his degrees and certificates. (I know I used to think all of my wall mounted plaques made me far better than my fellow men, until I met a few guys who changed my mind.) Perhaps we need to rethink our paradigm, instead of having it thought out for us before we're old enough to make our own judgments.
And the irony of it all is that there are small farmers who sell locally instead of to the big agri business chains. If they don't get stupid, or TOO greedy, they can stay in business long past the time when hired hands do all the work.
I've known a few in my times, both in the USA AND abroad. You can't live on a credit card forever if you choose to be one, and most of these guys are trying the easy way out of selling directly to the big agribusiness. They got greedy, and now they're fucked, and are fucking their fellow farmers through the bureaucracy they serve. Surprise, surprise, surprise!
Women's lib had backers for different reasons, none liberty related, they just needed more workers in the factories. Pay attention... 1 salary in the "pre" women's lib days paid for house, hearth and put enough money away for both people to retire pretty well off.
1 salary today can't pay the mortgage. 2 salaries can barely keep a roof over the heads of hurriedly conceived babies.
Equal rights... same deal. The north needed the slaves of the south. They then needed to have a bone thrown to them.
Environmental movements?? Hah... yes... we all know how thoroughly researched their studies were. Did you know that half the gases they talked about are "heavier than air" even when relatively warm? You know what I really liked? A little thing I heard on the grapevine, where they removed sulfur (cause its so eeeeevil) from truck diesel, and how somehow the amount of sulfur in some other fuels (plane fuel?) has increased at the same time.
I haven't had a chance to verify these grapevine rumors, but I'm willing to bet cash they're fairly accurate. Sort of how Al Gore in his movie tells us how ice cores showed cleaner cross sections from the moment the Clean Air Act was passed... are you people THAT gullible? Clean Air Act wasn't even enforced until almost 10 years later... its like any bureaucracy, it takes time to get full steam AFTER its "enforce" period begins. For Gore to suggest that the ice cores would be clear and a difference be visible immediately is to say that Congress and their vote on a bunch of paperwork, not those chimney scrubbing devices cleaned up the atmosphere.
What do I know. People expect government to solve things. They believe popular history as taught by the enforcement and compliance arm of the government they are enslaved to... public schools. At least under communism, the people could see the tyrants for what they were. THAT is why I believe a revolution will happen but ONLY if a revolt does not. Mind you a "revolution" is something ELSE than a "revolt," a revolution involves a change in a system, or the scrapping of a system altogether. Revolts involve violence and aimless anger of the exploitees at the exploiters and usually result in huge crackdowns, which result in further violence and fear and rarely result in "freedom". What happened in 1776 was a fluke, and was quickly corrected, not by the king, mind you, but by those who would be kings, for at least 4 years a piece. Only 10 years later, the whole continent continued on the path to central government tyranny. Just deserts. And the Bill of Rights? It was a handbrake (more precisely a bone to pacify the recently retired revolutionaries) thrown onto the Leviathan that was the Constitution, but with all the loopholes for growth that the nascent tyranny required. The peons didn't hold onto their rights and gave them up without so much as a whimper. Just deserts. Now you had better hope that handbrake serves to stop the handcart to hell, because it sure as hell won't stop the Leviathan. Stop trying to save the system. It doesn't want to be saved. It merely wants willing participants. Save those you love, save yourself... the rest will get what they want, and no one, not you, not me, can save them against their wills.
I'm quite familiar with Ron Paul. I'm also familiar with how he's not yet managed to change a damn thing. If he COULD change anything, and made it to president, you can be assured that he would be JFK'ed before he actually changed anything.
Don't delude yourself that things would change with Ron in office. All it would do is give the idea of liberty a bad name... "see those liberty lovers presided over a great economic collapse... see how bad liberty is? no safety in liberty!"
You did notice my suggestion was in reference to "kidnappers and garden variety thugs"... I have no delusions about trying to fight the collective... the collective destroys itself without my help:)
Seriously though, did you read my comment? Try it. Then post. Actually, forget wounded knee, remember that little issue with the poor deluded soldiers who wanted their benefits after WW1? Didn't get paid did they? That little Bonus Army incident? And to this day, even after the broken promises of vietnam, korea and the first gulf war, these schmucks still enlist... guess someone has to feed the meat grinder, otherwise it might rust shut and allow people to live happier lives for it.
And we all miss the point again, that the natives actually HAD property rights. that they were stupid enough to violate the laws of contracts is a different story. Either way, they lived here, and weren't just random wild animal attacks. These were people defending homelands. Some of which were sold away (much like the Palestinians sold their homelands to the israelis and then got pissed later when the israelis collected) and some were taken by force. Those defending lands taken by force were prior owners, and thus your precious "pioneers" were actually the equivalent of murderers, thugs, and home invaders. If someone came to your town and demanded it be torn down, and burned everyone out of farm and home, you might take a bit of offense too.
Your analogy is poor. A better analogy is..."any serf desiring the protection of a castle must let the lord have prima nocta with his future wife". that one is more accurate with what is happening in the world today. If you don't mind letting your lord screw your wife before you do, then your idea of "society" is right on.
Btw, I own some land... if your wife is pretty I might let you move in. So long as I can open your mail, check your drawers, and watch you get it on whenever I am not getting it on with her. Sound like a deal? This is what you're trying to justify, serf boy.
You can already stop kidnappers, fugitives and their ilk before they do harm.
Carry a gun. Learn to use it. Carry ammo. Practice often. Learn hand to hand.
Not only will your gait improve and be that of a man who can handle himself (or woman) but your health and confidence levels will increase as a result of being less fearful of things around you.
Oh wait... lets see... Gun... 750 bucks average, one time purchase, spare mags, another 90 bucks at 15 bucks per mag... Ammo for a full year of practice plus membership at a "gym" (aka range). 500 bucks per year. Privacy benefits? Priceless.
But why should you learn to handle yourself and demand others do as well, when you can demand that fallible people with authoritarian complexes be paid to "spy on and protect" you? After all, they're good because they wear uniforms, right? They're good because they have clearance, right? You know Stalin had clearance too. As did the thugs who've murdered innocents throughout history. Innocents they were paid to "protect".
Pfft... no surprise. Just deserts for the stupid peons.
Almost makes you wish the aliens would just decloak the mothership EMP the place and begin the ground assault. I wonder how truly worthless our militaries would prove to be in the face of creatures that would just eat them, with no regard to fair fighting or tactics or anything at all.
Oh well, I guess "grumble while the shackles are put on" is a close second. It'd be worth seeing the Alien onslaught, just to see the aliens snack on all the talking heads and politicians, just before the power dies and the cameras blink out:)
Wishful thinking, I know. It would be one hell of a Deus Ex Machina though.
Because we all know that "top secret clearance background checks" will keep guys like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and every one of our presidents, from having their finger on "ye olde nuke button" ??
Somehow, it seems that those with that kind of clearance are always far worse tyrants than the petty crook you can take a pistol to when he starts shit with you. The kind of "top secret clearance" thugs are FAR deadlier, and no private civilian has the resources to resist their aggression when it bears down.
Somehow I always think that giving "top secret clearance" spooks our full faith and credit is about as stupid as saying "mafia kingpins all wear pin striped Armani suits" and thus we let the solid grey Prada wearing ones right in because we all know no mafia boss or enforcer would EVER wear prada... but what do I know?
Actually life liberty and PROPERTY, if you recall.
What is YOUR LIFE, YOUR BODY, YOUR HOME, if not YOUR PROPERTY?
Personal effects, papers, secrets, privacy... all of it is based on the concept that YOU OWN YOURSELF!
When others own you, they can dictate whatever they please to THEIR PROPERTY.
It is ALL about property, and the fact that in their hatred of property rights, the idiot socialists have given property rights to those who should not have had them in the first place. "Government." "Social programs." "Public Administrators."
Now they are merely reaping the end result of their hard fought campaign to strip self ownership away from the individual. Just deserts, baby. Just deserts.
Isn't it ironic, that communism and fascism aren't all that different? Its just a different economic model, in that in one, the government OWNS and CONTROLS everything to the benefit of the owners of the government, while in the other, the government is OWNED by a few and controls everything to the benefit of those same few.
Communism, and Fascism, in practice, were the precursors to what we have today. Even socialism is too limited a term to cover the social and economical controls imposed from above.
Those guilty, however, reside next door, not at some white washed building in DC.
I wrote to my various congress critters, state side and federal side... so far, I have yet to ever get anything back but a cookie cutter letter. Hell even the signature was a copy.
Pretty sad that people like you still believe that congress critters listen.
Social security has not, and will not pay for a single member of my family. I'm sure it will pay for all those people who depend on it. Of course, they'll have to fight with all the other weaklings who depended on the empty promises of FDR (who was a central banker, by family and by profession, so don't bad mouth him, Social security was needed to keep peons in their place and keep fleecing them of a goodly section of the fruits of their labor.)
I recall that old story from the early days of social security, how people who put weeks of SS payments in, collected 20 to 30 grand? And remember how SS was passed as a "special dedicated account for each taxpayer, that nobody could touch" ? Hahaha... and yet it is insolvent? How is that possible? Someone lied to you... and you passed the lie on, and those you've lied to will lie to others, all expecting it to be the truth.
Slashdot Mirror
You can go through an interesting process to ENFORCE your contract. You know, that thing you sign when you buy their SERVICE, which says "unrestricted internet access" ? Yeah bingo... read tomhudson's slashdot journal to get an idea of HOW to go about hammering assholes who back down on contracts.
:)
About the only right humans have in the so called "society" we live in, is the right to freely contract (read, associate and exchange value and come to agreements with others). Everything from sales, purchases, to marrying someone or letting a rapist have his way with you, it is ALL contracts. Accords, agreements, even when you surrender to a bad guy, you've agreed to let him have his way. All things boil down to that. So enforce your contract. You bought 5 megs down 1 meg up, unrestricted internet access. Period. Enforce it. Take them up for violation of contract, there are remarkable collections processes available. Hell, a smart and asshole type individual willing to take it far enough, and with a stomach for leaving lots of people unemployed (whom I'd actually wager DESERVE it) could end up owning Cox@home
And again the little collectivists bitch and moan that solutions are not being forced down others' throats.
Why not take up onion routing and stop bitching. Perhaps develop another solution if current standards of encryption are not acceptable.
Perhaps a particular method where ALL content from server to client is ONLY available to server and client in question? Perhaps some form of consistent session SSL/TLS type validation?
Consistently switching ports? Perhaps some public gateways being used to setup the transaction? Perhaps a tunnel being requested before setting up any other form of transaction? I don't know yet... I'm throwing stuff out.
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that people need to stop asking for others to solve their problems. Until that happens, expect our "messiahs" to be more along the lines of "false prophets". We, as a group (geeks, nerds, computer people, gearheads, whatever term you want to use) will continually be shafted each time we look to a central organization to stand up for us. There can be no perfect system of control, so instead, the tools must be designed to provide us with the privacy, reliability and speed we seem to occasionally desire.
Just an idea, of course. I'm no big shot developer. Just another former geek who still tinkers.
I should've proofread. I should've instead mentioned, that it wasn't to replace Netware 8, but instead to replace the Windows desktop which they lost to the competing Active Directory services provided by microsoft's own Windows 2000 and later editions.
As a result, while buying Suse may have been a smart business investment, be assured that Novell will have little compunctions overwriting the will of their programmers who may or may not enjoy working with Unix, if a good screwover/partnership with Microsoft is more profitable.
Customers and employees are only valuable if they have a voice, and most of the monolithic corporations aren't exactly known for their respect for customers or employees.
I call one Prior Art to the stand.
Recall that in 1776, at least 5 to 10% of the American populace valued some concept of freedom. They had had themselves a revolution back in 1774 and were pretty eager to not let the other 90 to 95% of cowards and sheep give it up. Yet no later than 1791 they had lost everything they had gained, and centralized government, control, and slow growing tyranny was back in mode.
What do you expect of that precedent? Yep, exactly... seems to have some eeerie similarities here. While there will always be pro freedom groups, much like in real life, they will mostly be demonized, or called "unrealistic" or "idealists". Amazing that so many give up their birthrights for a mess of porridge. Not to quote religious texts, so I'll simply make a reference, but I seem to recall a story in that book a lot of westerners take as fact, which recalled a parable of some guy who sold his birthright for the same old mess of porridge. Interesting parallel? I seem to run into a lot of those lately.
Indeed... that's why I specifically termed "the so called OSS movement"... or "the so called Linux movement".
Frankly, I kind of like Linux. Even though I keep my servers more heterogeneous than that. Another "Rule #1" among all my others.
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket."
Let me rephrase, I still like Linux. If MS and Novell turn it into something else, we shall see. If that occurs I have no doubts that the market forces (not just referring to money here, people) will force a massive fork in ideologies, just as it did between AT&T and Berkeley.
Yep, I'm not talking about the companies we've known and been supported by (and have supported when our cash flows and cheapness allowed) but more referring to those particular bastions of liberty like Novell, Sun, IBM, etc. Sure, IBM may be "reformed" today, but either way, even that company has some blood on its hands far into the past.
:)
Novell has more recent blood. Microsoft I don't even need to go into.
Going off to RedHat, Mandrakesoft and Canonical (or hell, even the nonprofits, Gentoo Foundation, etc) I don't recall them contributing to any mass murders or federal kangaroo courts or burials of individuals or groups. If you can, please notify me. There is a difference between a company that grew up AROUND the OSS and a company that is trying to capture a new piece of something they can make a quick buck on.
While making a quick buck is definitely part of human nature, I can't seem to recall too many of the "pre-OSS" companies that were built around sustainability of any kind (other than vendor lockin type crap.)
So lets rehash... sure, while many programmers may be paid for the code they write for the OSS community at large (and that's a good thing for them, while the current paradigm lasts), lets get serious, it DOES depend WHO pays them and more precisely, whose agenda they are playing into. I can safely bet that Novell doesn't have a huge stake in Linux succeeding, they just needed to buy something they could buy and quickly turn around and sell to replace their rather sluggish Netware 8 (or was it 9? I haven't kept up with versions since then), I believe it was (the one that ran Tomcat and seemed to make extensive use of Java.) I actually ran the trial run of the last Netware and was rather disappointed by how sluggish it was.
That being said, my whole point was, "be VERY careful whom you bed with for the night, or you might wake up with crabs and STD's." While it may seem that your new "born again Christian" girlfriend has "given up her gang bang ways," you should still wear a condom for the first few years
Microsoft and Novell have been "bed buddies" since they've been around (and while I'm sure Novell as an entity would love to do Microsoft one for rendering NDS obsolete with their ADS, they were still "lovers" at some point), you can pretty much guarantee that if you let either into your bed, you'll get whatever STD's they've both got from their past partnership.
I'm not sure if "being supported by giant corporations" was such a good idea for the so called "linux movement".
Sure, easy cash was one thing, but selling out to Novell and the rest was a pretty stupid mistake. Recall the kindness of Novell when they buried one Kevin Mitnick for "looking at, and copying their source code"... yeah, that Novell.
I have 50 bucks that say this will all be done to try to put Red Hat and the other useful groups out of business. After that, expect to see them claim that "most of the GPL source is no longer in use" etc. Hell, after Stallman dies, I can almost guarantee that they'll buy out the entire GNU foundation or buy seats on the leadership of the GNU and steer it back into the fold.
Am I surprised? Nope, not one bit.
Oops, did I forget to mention?
By hijacking the website, ANY possible damage that is incurred by the person visiting the website, that could not have occurred from said website, can and should be used to hold the injecting ISP's liable for "fraud", "wire fraud", "internet fraud", "conspiracy to commit fraud", "electronic fraud" along with any "accessory to fraud" charges that can be used. It isn't double jeopardy if they are tried for criminal trespass to chattel, though that might take someone with more knowledge of common law copyrights than I have. So hit them for criminal charges, and then sue them for damages.
One big ISP getting put out of business would teach the rest a pretty important lesson. "Stop fucking with Joe, he fucked back without even needing a lawyer. Joe's not very nice to assholes who impersonate him and put his customers at risk."
Actually, the copyright owners of said domain CAN, and SHOULD demand ALL revenues that the ISP derived off of the serving of said ad pages, and any other related income they received as a result of said copyright violations.
I keep saying, this is like the NAFTA and WTO, they can be tools for the masses or for the masters, but so far, only the so called "masters" have used them. Peons will be peons.
That they are, in fact, I seem to recall the Dao as being the chinese swords. Variations on said weapon were the Dadao and Ram dao, but I've yet to actually hold one in my own hands.
Shame, they look pretty and decently balanced.
This reminds me of the "big business shouldn't buy research" crap. "Only government should have the right to buy schools and influence the thinking of kids or teachers or administrati."
:)
Because we all know that government is NOT business... right? Show me ONE government thug, in even the poorest, crappiest country, that lives as poorly as the average chump voter on the street. Yet, because of some Judeo-Christian system in the west, and simple ruler worship in the east, everyone is buried in this fallacy of the "infallibility of rulers" doctrine. Hell, the hypocrisy is so grand in the west that we call our slave drivers our "representatives".
I tell you what, I occasionally wear a nice suit, but I don't wear Armani or Prada to every meeting I have. I also don't have a limo, my own serf paid body guard detail (secret service, etc) and my own intelligence agency and royal food taster
And I'm among those who are fairly "well off".
Do you know what that means? That somehow, the slavemasters got the chumps to think they were "represented".
Yep, yes siree, we are SO represented by a bunch of guys who've never worked on a damn thing in their lives, they never even read the legislation they unanimously or near unanimously pass, but they somehow "represent" me? Hell, they don't even TALK about the issues I'm interested in.
I think the problem is that, where two to three centuries ago, people thought government was EVIL, today they think of it as their personal Jesus Christ. Not sure where the stupidity gene kicked in, but modern man is dumber and far less capable of looking past lies and propaganda. Quite amazing since modern man proclaims himself "educated" and enshrines his degrees and certificates. (I know I used to think all of my wall mounted plaques made me far better than my fellow men, until I met a few guys who changed my mind.) Perhaps we need to rethink our paradigm, instead of having it thought out for us before we're old enough to make our own judgments.
Nature finds a way... always has.
And the irony of it all is that there are small farmers who sell locally instead of to the big agri business chains. If they don't get stupid, or TOO greedy, they can stay in business long past the time when hired hands do all the work.
I've known a few in my times, both in the USA AND abroad. You can't live on a credit card forever if you choose to be one, and most of these guys are trying the easy way out of selling directly to the big agribusiness. They got greedy, and now they're fucked, and are fucking their fellow farmers through the bureaucracy they serve. Surprise, surprise, surprise!
Women's lib had backers for different reasons, none liberty related, they just needed more workers in the factories. Pay attention... 1 salary in the "pre" women's lib days paid for house, hearth and put enough money away for both people to retire pretty well off.
1 salary today can't pay the mortgage. 2 salaries can barely keep a roof over the heads of hurriedly conceived babies.
Equal rights... same deal. The north needed the slaves of the south. They then needed to have a bone thrown to them.
Environmental movements?? Hah... yes... we all know how thoroughly researched their studies were. Did you know that half the gases they talked about are "heavier than air" even when relatively warm? You know what I really liked? A little thing I heard on the grapevine, where they removed sulfur (cause its so eeeeevil) from truck diesel, and how somehow the amount of sulfur in some other fuels (plane fuel?) has increased at the same time.
I haven't had a chance to verify these grapevine rumors, but I'm willing to bet cash they're fairly accurate. Sort of how Al Gore in his movie tells us how ice cores showed cleaner cross sections from the moment the Clean Air Act was passed... are you people THAT gullible? Clean Air Act wasn't even enforced until almost 10 years later... its like any bureaucracy, it takes time to get full steam AFTER its "enforce" period begins. For Gore to suggest that the ice cores would be clear and a difference be visible immediately is to say that Congress and their vote on a bunch of paperwork, not those chimney scrubbing devices cleaned up the atmosphere.
What do I know. People expect government to solve things. They believe popular history as taught by the enforcement and compliance arm of the government they are enslaved to... public schools. At least under communism, the people could see the tyrants for what they were. THAT is why I believe a revolution will happen but ONLY if a revolt does not. Mind you a "revolution" is something ELSE than a "revolt," a revolution involves a change in a system, or the scrapping of a system altogether. Revolts involve violence and aimless anger of the exploitees at the exploiters and usually result in huge crackdowns, which result in further violence and fear and rarely result in "freedom". What happened in 1776 was a fluke, and was quickly corrected, not by the king, mind you, but by those who would be kings, for at least 4 years a piece. Only 10 years later, the whole continent continued on the path to central government tyranny. Just deserts. And the Bill of Rights? It was a handbrake (more precisely a bone to pacify the recently retired revolutionaries) thrown onto the Leviathan that was the Constitution, but with all the loopholes for growth that the nascent tyranny required. The peons didn't hold onto their rights and gave them up without so much as a whimper. Just deserts. Now you had better hope that handbrake serves to stop the handcart to hell, because it sure as hell won't stop the Leviathan. Stop trying to save the system. It doesn't want to be saved. It merely wants willing participants. Save those you love, save yourself... the rest will get what they want, and no one, not you, not me, can save them against their wills.
I'm quite familiar with Ron Paul. I'm also familiar with how he's not yet managed to change a damn thing. If he COULD change anything, and made it to president, you can be assured that he would be JFK'ed before he actually changed anything.
Don't delude yourself that things would change with Ron in office. All it would do is give the idea of liberty a bad name... "see those liberty lovers presided over a great economic collapse... see how bad liberty is? no safety in liberty!"
Oh well.
I'm almost willing to think you read it backwards... but then again... I'm tired of arguing even these small points.
You did notice my suggestion was in reference to "kidnappers and garden variety thugs"... I have no delusions about trying to fight the collective... the collective destroys itself without my help :)
:)
Seriously though, did you read my comment? Try it. Then post. Actually, forget wounded knee, remember that little issue with the poor deluded soldiers who wanted their benefits after WW1? Didn't get paid did they? That little Bonus Army incident? And to this day, even after the broken promises of vietnam, korea and the first gulf war, these schmucks still enlist... guess someone has to feed the meat grinder, otherwise it might rust shut and allow people to live happier lives for it.
Just deserts
So, who may I vote for, oh greatly insightful one... Fidel Castro lookalike #1 or #2 or Benito Mussolini #1 or #2?
Not much variety in choices.
Would you like to be sodomized with a police baton, or a private security baton?
And we all miss the point again, that the natives actually HAD property rights. that they were stupid enough to violate the laws of contracts is a different story. Either way, they lived here, and weren't just random wild animal attacks. These were people defending homelands. Some of which were sold away (much like the Palestinians sold their homelands to the israelis and then got pissed later when the israelis collected) and some were taken by force. Those defending lands taken by force were prior owners, and thus your precious "pioneers" were actually the equivalent of murderers, thugs, and home invaders. If someone came to your town and demanded it be torn down, and burned everyone out of farm and home, you might take a bit of offense too.
."any serf desiring the protection of a castle must let the lord have prima nocta with his future wife". that one is more accurate with what is happening in the world today. If you don't mind letting your lord screw your wife before you do, then your idea of "society" is right on.
Your analogy is poor. A better analogy is..
Btw, I own some land... if your wife is pretty I might let you move in. So long as I can open your mail, check your drawers, and watch you get it on whenever I am not getting it on with her. Sound like a deal? This is what you're trying to justify, serf boy.
You can already stop kidnappers, fugitives and their ilk before they do harm.
Carry a gun. Learn to use it. Carry ammo. Practice often. Learn hand to hand.
Not only will your gait improve and be that of a man who can handle himself (or woman) but your health and confidence levels will increase as a result of being less fearful of things around you.
Oh wait... lets see... Gun... 750 bucks average, one time purchase, spare mags, another 90 bucks at 15 bucks per mag... Ammo for a full year of practice plus membership at a "gym" (aka range). 500 bucks per year. Privacy benefits? Priceless.
But why should you learn to handle yourself and demand others do as well, when you can demand that fallible people with authoritarian complexes be paid to "spy on and protect" you? After all, they're good because they wear uniforms, right? They're good because they have clearance, right? You know Stalin had clearance too. As did the thugs who've murdered innocents throughout history. Innocents they were paid to "protect".
Pfft... no surprise. Just deserts for the stupid peons.
Almost makes you wish the aliens would just decloak the mothership EMP the place and begin the ground assault. I wonder how truly worthless our militaries would prove to be in the face of creatures that would just eat them, with no regard to fair fighting or tactics or anything at all.
:)
Oh well, I guess "grumble while the shackles are put on" is a close second. It'd be worth seeing the Alien onslaught, just to see the aliens snack on all the talking heads and politicians, just before the power dies and the cameras blink out
Wishful thinking, I know. It would be one hell of a Deus Ex Machina though.
Because we all know that "top secret clearance background checks" will keep guys like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and every one of our presidents, from having their finger on "ye olde nuke button" ??
Somehow, it seems that those with that kind of clearance are always far worse tyrants than the petty crook you can take a pistol to when he starts shit with you. The kind of "top secret clearance" thugs are FAR deadlier, and no private civilian has the resources to resist their aggression when it bears down.
Somehow I always think that giving "top secret clearance" spooks our full faith and credit is about as stupid as saying "mafia kingpins all wear pin striped Armani suits" and thus we let the solid grey Prada wearing ones right in because we all know no mafia boss or enforcer would EVER wear prada... but what do I know?
Actually life liberty and PROPERTY, if you recall.
What is YOUR LIFE, YOUR BODY, YOUR HOME, if not YOUR PROPERTY?
Personal effects, papers, secrets, privacy... all of it is based on the concept that YOU OWN YOURSELF!
When others own you, they can dictate whatever they please to THEIR PROPERTY.
It is ALL about property, and the fact that in their hatred of property rights, the idiot socialists have given property rights to those who should not have had them in the first place. "Government." "Social programs." "Public Administrators."
Now they are merely reaping the end result of their hard fought campaign to strip self ownership away from the individual. Just deserts, baby. Just deserts.
Isn't it ironic, that communism and fascism aren't all that different? Its just a different economic model, in that in one, the government OWNS and CONTROLS everything to the benefit of the owners of the government, while in the other, the government is OWNED by a few and controls everything to the benefit of those same few.
Communism, and Fascism, in practice, were the precursors to what we have today. Even socialism is too limited a term to cover the social and economical controls imposed from above.
Those guilty, however, reside next door, not at some white washed building in DC.
I wrote to my various congress critters, state side and federal side... so far, I have yet to ever get anything back but a cookie cutter letter. Hell even the signature was a copy.
Pretty sad that people like you still believe that congress critters listen.
Social security has not, and will not pay for a single member of my family. I'm sure it will pay for all those people who depend on it. Of course, they'll have to fight with all the other weaklings who depended on the empty promises of FDR (who was a central banker, by family and by profession, so don't bad mouth him, Social security was needed to keep peons in their place and keep fleecing them of a goodly section of the fruits of their labor.)
I recall that old story from the early days of social security, how people who put weeks of SS payments in, collected 20 to 30 grand? And remember how SS was passed as a "special dedicated account for each taxpayer, that nobody could touch" ? Hahaha... and yet it is insolvent? How is that possible? Someone lied to you... and you passed the lie on, and those you've lied to will lie to others, all expecting it to be the truth.