Of serious injuries likely to occur in the line of duty, injury due to a lost service weapon is pretty high on the list.
I'd consider adopting one of these weapons after they've seen several years of police/military field duty, and only if they can be authorized for multiple users, and if they don't use a power source that requires periodic replacement, and if the modification doesn't decrease the reliability and serviceability of the overall unit due to increased complication.
A lot to expect? You bet your ass. Necessary in something that you buy in order to protect life, limb, and family? You bet your ass.
Also, I can't comment about the use of automatic weapons to commit crimes in Canada, but that's one thing that's not a problem in the US. Firearms used in the commission of crimes tend to be cheap revolvers here. Even the erroneously-titled "assault weapon" wasn't commonly used in crimes, either before, during, or after the "assault weapons" ban.
What?! Concealed carry permit holders commit crimes all the time with their firearms! Statistics proving the opposite are produced by troublemakers who try to inject logic into this debate!
Giving them the equipment won't necessarily keep you from being shot either. There are people out there who will kill you for your tennis shoes. There are people who will break into your house, rob you blind, and shoot you for the hell of it. I've been to some hellish neighborhoods. I once lived in a neighborhood that had a crack house on either end, and regular gunfire at night. It would be great if it weren't necessary to defend against people like this at times, but it's a reality in the US. Gun control laws don't work with criminals because criminals don't obey the law. I can guarantee that your garden variety criminal won't be buying smart guns unless they can be circumvented.
You're right, your perspective is different. The UK is tiny by comparison to the US, and that means when you expand out the percentages of screwed-up people, you get a lot more here than there. Urban areas tend to concentrate the screwed-up people, so that's where most of the law enforcement is. In rural areas, especially in the west, there may only be a couple law enforcement officials every couple thousand square miles. Response times in an emergency can range from a half hour to several hours. If you are faced with a life-threatening emergency, it falls to YOU to deal with it.
Now, if you want to look at urban areas, in places that deal with extraordinarily high emergency call volume, response times also range from a half hour up. In highly-populated areas, you can count on the fact that it's not possible to pay enough law enforcement to respond immediately to all emergency calls. Again, you have to make due with surviving until the police can come to mop up. They can't actually protect anyone from a crime. It would be impossible. It's unfortunate that most people don't understand that.
The major problem is because most of the voting population lives in suburbia. This is where the populations tend to be just balanced enough in density to be able to afford adequate law enforcement coverage and limit emergency calls to actual emergencies. These tend to be the people who don't understand (and don't take the time to understand) the conditions that occur in the rest of the country. People are too ego-centric regarding their own living conditions to be able to understand that not everyone can be so lucky.
Personally, I find myself lucky to live in a rural area where violent crime is almost non-existent. However, it is almost non-existent because criminals who commit overt acts rarely get away, and this is a well-known fact in this area. Fortunately it is even more rare to actually need to discharge a firearm to prevent a crime. The mere possibility of it happening tends to stop the few criminals who didn't pay enough attention to the propensity for firearm ownership to actually attempt a crime.
I've been rambling off the topic of the parent for quite a while now, so I'll stop.:)
From the section of the Arizona Constitution mentioned in the Cause, it seems as though they have a legal lock, though it will depend on the judge whether they have an actual one.
As far as I can tell, Badnarik wasn't actually arrested for trespass, he was arrested for crossing a police barricade/line. It was certainly a publicity stunt, and an act of civil disobedience which he knew would get him arrested.
In regard to the high-profile nature of the action and the fact that the University has the capacity to obtain remedy for the action should it so desire, I personally see no problem with the action he took. I think it would only be hypocritical of him if he attempted to duck responsibility for his actions, as that is really the basis of libertarian thought. As long as he accepts the responsibility and consequences, he did not act in a hypocritical manner. That is just my opinion though.
I would still disagree that it's a tax issue though. The cause for action makes it pretty clear that it's about a state organization making political contributions through an intermediary (the CPD) and about use of state resources for partisan purposes. It's about violations of the Arizona State Constitution rather than tax statutes.
I would agree with you if it were true that it was a private matter. However, it is funded and controlled by the CPD, which is a government organization. Also, it's not a "television show" in the sense that it's filmed in a studio under the auspices of a specific network. It is open to any broadcaster (though subject to innumerable governmental regulations I'm sure), and no broadcaster owns the "content," only their specific instance of the content that they captured on their equipment. I fail to see how it can be construed as anything but a public matter.
The only thing that might be construed as "private" is the fact that the college campus on which the debates took place was not a public university.
I'm not sure where your tax comment comes in. Nobody has accused anybody of evading taxes in this issue. The defendent is a government entity after all. Anyway, nobody's going after the broadcasters, who are the only people involved (as bystanders anyway) who could possibly be evading taxes. Then again, the broadcasters don't run the show, they just broadcast it. And they didn't trespass against the broadcasters, or even the CPD, since neither own the property.
Really, you're running all these different things together and seem to be saying that they're all one entity. It's not one entity running a TV show and arresting someone for trying to get on that show. It's one entity putting on a debate, a huge group of other entities producing a bunch of television shows based on that debate, and a 3rd entity on whose property the other two are doing their things. The issue is between entity #1 and the complainant, and has very little to do with the other entities involved.
Actually, it depends on the law in the specific state. More than likely, if he is legally capable of serving papers, there is no trespass where no forced (break a physical object open) entry occurs.
It's because of the last part, about having a percentage place in an opinion poll. That part was put in there in order to keep anyone other than Republicrats out. It has no place as a requirement. The other two are valid requirements, because they're necessary to take office. How opinion polls place you prior to an election mean nothing, because that can change drastically. Upset elections do happen.
Winning electoral votes is no a good measure of popularity, as in a hypothetical 60-40 vote split, the electoral split will be around 90-10. They don't correlate due to the nature of a winner-take-all system.
As an extreme example of the absurdity of using electoral votes as a measure of popularity, a candidate could take 48% of the vote in all 50 states (minus 47% for his opponent and a 5% third party showing) and win 100% of the electoral votes. Also, taking into account the number of voters versus the number of potential voters those numbers make the electoral vote even less representative of the true sentiment.
What you probably failed to realize is that the "half dozen" candidates is in regards to the number with a mathematical possibility of winning. It is the count of all candidates on enough ballots to be able to win. That count is not two.
He said chance, not likelihood. Generally, there are about 6 candidates who have a mathematical possibility of winning, and exclusion by a publicly-funded commission of those who can possibly win is pure partisan politics. Of course they'll have almost no chance to win if they're consistently excluded from the highest-profile taxpayer-funded (though not taxpayer-directed) advertisement. This is America. If it's not on TV, it doesn't exist for a majority of the sheeple out there.
Now, call me stupid, but why can't someone just come out once and for all and say: 'TERRORISTS COULD KILL YOU!' and then let people get on with their lives, like normal, rational people? I don't live in the US myself, but I imagine these endless 'warnings' all over the media, day in and day out, must get very, very tiring.
It would make sense to depend on personal responsibility instead of endless media dogging. However, that is assuming that most US citizens have the slightest scrap of sense outside their own little shell. Unfortunately, they don't. Maybe it's in the water, maybe it's been bred or beaten out of them, but whatever the reason, common sense is very uncommon in the USA.
The politically and media savvy know that the above is true, and would be lost without the ability to exploit it. Hence, the current political environment where someone is elected with 16% of the available vote.
Even though the candidate didn't say it, I'm pretty sure they will use a free market.
I forgot, this is Slashdot. Nobody actually reads anything but the comments.:)
I should clarify. Because it would be a government transaction, technically it's not free-market, since that means a transaction without overriding government control. The two are mutually exclusive. Badnarik means to sell the land under covenant. Even if it were auctioned to the highest bidder, and all purchased by oil and timber companies wanting to pillage and plunder, they could be sued into oblivion for breaking the covenants. But then, if you'd read the environmental links from the story you'd maybe have gotten the gist of it.
How would corporations lose liability?
The answer to this is glaringly obvious if you actually read about his positions.
As far as land being expensive, it is not! Land is only expensive in municipalities and highly populated areas. You can go to the middle of nowhere and it is dirt cheap (if you know what I mean). A lot of mining companies, oil companies, and so forth, own huge chunks of land and they cost very little. For example, I am pretty sure land in Alaska would be worth very little (away from the cities that is).
Land is expensive when there is competition to procur it. Ergo, if the millions of acres of federal land go up for sale, there will be competition from environmental groups and individual citizens to purchase that land.
You might be sure of your position, but real estate markets have a way of surprising people.
Name a situation (in the USA) where a company has purchased land at market value (i.e. without any government "help" at all), raped it, and left it to rot. I'm not familiar with any. That's not to say it has never happened, but I'd be interested in looking into the circumstances behind such an occurrance. So please, fill me in.
If you want to debate this issue further, please actually read his platform work.
My educational experience was similar, and I went to a high school in a town with an incredible tax base of upscale properties. Playground of the rich and all. Nothing exceptional at all about it, despite loads of money poured into the school. My last two years in high school I attended a nearby community college full-time to satisfy graduation requirements. The experience was immeasurably better than high school, and cost significantly less than the per-student public school allocation. So, I got a better education that cost less money. I learned to write through my reading competency, which was developed on personal time. I learned my basic math skills from my father, and my advanced math skills at college. I learned my science and technology skills through personal study. Basically, the only thing I learned in public school was about the effects of the aggressive social dog-packs that the public school system fosters so well.
I also agree with your ideas regarding the choice as existing only between private education and home-schooling. My only real choice at this time is home schooling, since I'm not religious, and wouldn't want my children to go through religious indoctrination in the place of governmental indoctrination. YMMV in this regard though.
With the amount of charitable organizations devoted to almost every aspect of human advancement I can think of (and I'm sure many I haven't), it troubles me that there are those out there who think privatized education can't work. Even the poor brought up in the early years of the USA could read. Most college students today can't get through the popular literature of the time without help, not to mention period 8th-grade literary instruction material. Our educational system is not better than the private system in place prior to Horace Mann. It is much, much worse.
As far as reading capability, I wouldn't even give public schools that early skill to develop. Basic literacy is easily established by the age of 5 with even minimal time spent on instruction.
If you think back about the worst cases of land rape through the course of US history, you'll find that almost none of them occurred on private land.
They happened on public land where the government sold rights to corporations for tax dollars. Most of the "private" land cases came from the government giving public land to a company wholesale in exchange for taxes.
Now, you see private land being stewarded, even by larger companies. These same companies will rape public lands, but no their own. Do some research, you'll find it to be true.
Also, like another reply to this said, read what he actually wrote. He said nothing about selling all lands on the market or auctioning them. Even if that happened, we wouldn't end up with environmental disasters, because the immense costs that these lands (coupled with the loss of laws that shield corporations from liability) would require those companies to manage the lands they purchased sustainably, or face bankruptcy.
We're not talking about chump change here. There are world conservation groups with vast reserves of capital and large member populations who would have more money to give (with reduced taxation). You really think they won't be able to compete with the giant companies, or at least make it so expensive for them that they'd have to maintain the land purchases' workability for many years to come in order to recoup the cost?
You should look into the major multinational environmental groups. They've got more money than you obviously think, and can draw on tens of thousands of supporters. The companies they compete against only have the upper hand as a result of current laws, laws that would go away at the same time these lands were transferred. Loss of governmental protections would be a great equalizer.
It's funny (and due to big-government-sponsored education) that anyone has a good opinion of Lincoln at all. Lincoln was about preserving the Union at any cost. Lincoln would have butchered his own mother and sold her for stew meat if it meant keeping the Union together. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't free the slaves. It freed Southern slaves, and only so long as they fought for the North. All anyone has to do is actually RTFP (read the fucking proclamation:) to know that.
The hypocrisy of calling Lincoln an abolitionist is engraved into history so deeply it can only be hidden by complete ignorance and apathy!
It amazes me how few people realize that the Civil War was more about tariffs than slavery. It's like saying we invaded Iraq to free the Iraqi people. It's post-war spin. Putting a positive face on otherwise completely ulterior motives.
I'm not saying that there were not positive results from either action, but I also like to point out blatant propaganda when I see it.
I'm not going to comment much on the justice part other than to say it can be arbitrary, capricious, and depends solely on the subjective opinion of each individual. It is an ideal, something to strive for but something that will rarely (if ever) be realized.
As for democracy, it is the cornerstone liberty is founded on. However, I may not be using the term democracy as you define it. I use the classical definition: all power derives solely from the people. Democracy has no further definition than that in my view. I don't want a classical democracy, where no rights exist except the right to vote, where all else is privilege subject to the public jury to decide between right and wrong.
The United States' Constitutional Republic is a 3rd tier extension of the the concept of democracy. The "republic" is a type of democracy where legislative power is delegated by the people to a certain body of individuals. After all, in a democracy it's hard to be at every public trial to make sure your voice is heard. The Constitution then narrowed the concept of republican government by implementing a set of rules that could only very rarely be changed, and then only with the overwhelming consent of the seperate legislative bodies of the Republic.
So, your all-encompassing statement that libertarians only believe in the first (of your three values) is both overly broad (for a very diverse group) and completely incorrect. I, and all the libertarians I know, believe in fighting for all three concepts. If you could explain how you came to the conclusion that libertarians don't believe in democracy, I would be interested to hear it.
All that said, which "democracy" is it that you believe should exist here?:)
I wouldn't say that collusion that does not involve fraud "harms" anyone. Even if a price is high, if someone is willing to pay it then the item is obviously worth more to them than whatever amount of money they parted with.
As far as essentials go, I have a hard time buying the what-if of price fixing regarding those markets. Trying to prevent entry into an essentials market would be like trying to prevent the Amazon from flooding.
I agree that collusion does nobody any favors. Due to the nature of changing markets, it would be hard to maintain any drastic level of collusion for long.
However, I also believe that human ingenuity thrives at its best through adversity. When circumstances occur that provide adversity, there will be individuals who will adapt new or old technologies or processes to overcome whatever barrier lies before a goal. This is the basis for progress.
Current events have made it clear that the hurdles faced today are most easily crossed through the use of a corporate shield. Those with fewer scruples will always find a way to profit at the expense of others.
Well, racketeering is only illegal if you don't give to the major political parties. All these companies give lots of money to both parties, so they're untouchable.
Kinda like the meth dealers/sheriff's department here...
How to give a corporation the death penalty: Let the government confiscate it and start competing with other businesses in that industry.
Considering the track record of Congressional officials, this would be a death penalty. They'd run it into the ground.
Then again, it'd be as likely that they'd use the legislative process to run competitors out of business, and enact regulations to raise the barrier of entry to limit further competition.
I'm all for dissolution for corporate crimes. Corporations owe their existence to the state they are incorporated in. If they violate their charter, they should be dissolved.
Umm, I hope you're not trying to imply that commodities are stable and not prone to massive little-to-no-notice fluctuations. If so, please don't post to tell me that. I'd really rather not die laughing.:)
I would agree with everything here but the unstable bottom line conclusion. Generally when a company reaches the stage where they can engage in that sort of activity (gouging, undercutting , etc) the instability in their bottom line consists of growth or a lot of growth. Not always true, but true for the most part.:)
MS is a legal monopoly not necessarily as a result of a monetary barrier, or a lack of competition, but because it wields exclusionary power. This exclusionary power may not be wielded directly at another company (though it has been in the past), but the indirect effects are the same.
The term "instability" as refers to stock prices generally means that it swings from profitable to not profitable unexpectedly.
Slashdot Mirror
Of serious injuries likely to occur in the line of duty, injury due to a lost service weapon is pretty high on the list.
I'd consider adopting one of these weapons after they've seen several years of police/military field duty, and only if they can be authorized for multiple users, and if they don't use a power source that requires periodic replacement, and if the modification doesn't decrease the reliability and serviceability of the overall unit due to increased complication.
A lot to expect? You bet your ass. Necessary in something that you buy in order to protect life, limb, and family? You bet your ass.
Also, I can't comment about the use of automatic weapons to commit crimes in Canada, but that's one thing that's not a problem in the US. Firearms used in the commission of crimes tend to be cheap revolvers here. Even the erroneously-titled "assault weapon" wasn't commonly used in crimes, either before, during, or after the "assault weapons" ban.
What?! Concealed carry permit holders commit crimes all the time with their firearms! Statistics proving the opposite are produced by troublemakers who try to inject logic into this debate!
There shall be no logic here!
Ignorance is strength!
</inflammatory>
Giving them the equipment won't necessarily keep you from being shot either. There are people out there who will kill you for your tennis shoes. There are people who will break into your house, rob you blind, and shoot you for the hell of it. I've been to some hellish neighborhoods. I once lived in a neighborhood that had a crack house on either end, and regular gunfire at night. It would be great if it weren't necessary to defend against people like this at times, but it's a reality in the US. Gun control laws don't work with criminals because criminals don't obey the law. I can guarantee that your garden variety criminal won't be buying smart guns unless they can be circumvented.
:)
You're right, your perspective is different. The UK is tiny by comparison to the US, and that means when you expand out the percentages of screwed-up people, you get a lot more here than there. Urban areas tend to concentrate the screwed-up people, so that's where most of the law enforcement is. In rural areas, especially in the west, there may only be a couple law enforcement officials every couple thousand square miles. Response times in an emergency can range from a half hour to several hours. If you are faced with a life-threatening emergency, it falls to YOU to deal with it.
Now, if you want to look at urban areas, in places that deal with extraordinarily high emergency call volume, response times also range from a half hour up. In highly-populated areas, you can count on the fact that it's not possible to pay enough law enforcement to respond immediately to all emergency calls. Again, you have to make due with surviving until the police can come to mop up. They can't actually protect anyone from a crime. It would be impossible. It's unfortunate that most people don't understand that.
The major problem is because most of the voting population lives in suburbia. This is where the populations tend to be just balanced enough in density to be able to afford adequate law enforcement coverage and limit emergency calls to actual emergencies. These tend to be the people who don't understand (and don't take the time to understand) the conditions that occur in the rest of the country. People are too ego-centric regarding their own living conditions to be able to understand that not everyone can be so lucky.
Personally, I find myself lucky to live in a rural area where violent crime is almost non-existent. However, it is almost non-existent because criminals who commit overt acts rarely get away, and this is a well-known fact in this area. Fortunately it is even more rare to actually need to discharge a firearm to prevent a crime. The mere possibility of it happening tends to stop the few criminals who didn't pay enough attention to the propensity for firearm ownership to actually attempt a crime.
I've been rambling off the topic of the parent for quite a while now, so I'll stop.
From the section of the Arizona Constitution mentioned in the Cause, it seems as though they have a legal lock, though it will depend on the judge whether they have an actual one.
As far as I can tell, Badnarik wasn't actually arrested for trespass, he was arrested for crossing a police barricade/line. It was certainly a publicity stunt, and an act of civil disobedience which he knew would get him arrested.
In regard to the high-profile nature of the action and the fact that the University has the capacity to obtain remedy for the action should it so desire, I personally see no problem with the action he took. I think it would only be hypocritical of him if he attempted to duck responsibility for his actions, as that is really the basis of libertarian thought. As long as he accepts the responsibility and consequences, he did not act in a hypocritical manner. That is just my opinion though.
You are quite right, I stand corrected.
I would still disagree that it's a tax issue though. The cause for action makes it pretty clear that it's about a state organization making political contributions through an intermediary (the CPD) and about use of state resources for partisan purposes. It's about violations of the Arizona State Constitution rather than tax statutes.
I would agree with you if it were true that it was a private matter. However, it is funded and controlled by the CPD, which is a government organization. Also, it's not a "television show" in the sense that it's filmed in a studio under the auspices of a specific network. It is open to any broadcaster (though subject to innumerable governmental regulations I'm sure), and no broadcaster owns the "content," only their specific instance of the content that they captured on their equipment. I fail to see how it can be construed as anything but a public matter.
The only thing that might be construed as "private" is the fact that the college campus on which the debates took place was not a public university.
I'm not sure where your tax comment comes in. Nobody has accused anybody of evading taxes in this issue. The defendent is a government entity after all. Anyway, nobody's going after the broadcasters, who are the only people involved (as bystanders anyway) who could possibly be evading taxes. Then again, the broadcasters don't run the show, they just broadcast it. And they didn't trespass against the broadcasters, or even the CPD, since neither own the property.
Really, you're running all these different things together and seem to be saying that they're all one entity. It's not one entity running a TV show and arresting someone for trying to get on that show. It's one entity putting on a debate, a huge group of other entities producing a bunch of television shows based on that debate, and a 3rd entity on whose property the other two are doing their things. The issue is between entity #1 and the complainant, and has very little to do with the other entities involved.
Publicity stunt, yes, but you'll have to explain how it's hypocritical.
In many states, parties to a suit are allowed to serve papers personally.
Actually, it depends on the law in the specific state. More than likely, if he is legally capable of serving papers, there is no trespass where no forced (break a physical object open) entry occurs.
It's because of the last part, about having a percentage place in an opinion poll. That part was put in there in order to keep anyone other than Republicrats out. It has no place as a requirement. The other two are valid requirements, because they're necessary to take office. How opinion polls place you prior to an election mean nothing, because that can change drastically. Upset elections do happen.
Winning electoral votes is no a good measure of popularity, as in a hypothetical 60-40 vote split, the electoral split will be around 90-10. They don't correlate due to the nature of a winner-take-all system.
As an extreme example of the absurdity of using electoral votes as a measure of popularity, a candidate could take 48% of the vote in all 50 states (minus 47% for his opponent and a 5% third party showing) and win 100% of the electoral votes. Also, taking into account the number of voters versus the number of potential voters those numbers make the electoral vote even less representative of the true sentiment.
What you probably failed to realize is that the "half dozen" candidates is in regards to the number with a mathematical possibility of winning. It is the count of all candidates on enough ballots to be able to win. That count is not two.
He said chance, not likelihood. Generally, there are about 6 candidates who have a mathematical possibility of winning, and exclusion by a publicly-funded commission of those who can possibly win is pure partisan politics. Of course they'll have almost no chance to win if they're consistently excluded from the highest-profile taxpayer-funded (though not taxpayer-directed) advertisement. This is America. If it's not on TV, it doesn't exist for a majority of the sheeple out there.
Well, if he's serving Alex Trebek with legal papers it would be a different story. :)
Now, call me stupid, but why can't someone just come out once and for all and say: 'TERRORISTS COULD KILL YOU!' and then let people get on with their lives, like normal, rational people? I don't live in the US myself, but I imagine these endless 'warnings' all over the media, day in and day out, must get very, very tiring.
It would make sense to depend on personal responsibility instead of endless media dogging. However, that is assuming that most US citizens have the slightest scrap of sense outside their own little shell. Unfortunately, they don't. Maybe it's in the water, maybe it's been bred or beaten out of them, but whatever the reason, common sense is very uncommon in the USA.
The politically and media savvy know that the above is true, and would be lost without the ability to exploit it. Hence, the current political environment where someone is elected with 16% of the available vote.
Even though the candidate didn't say it, I'm pretty sure they will use a free market.
:)
I forgot, this is Slashdot. Nobody actually reads anything but the comments.
I should clarify. Because it would be a government transaction, technically it's not free-market, since that means a transaction without overriding government control. The two are mutually exclusive. Badnarik means to sell the land under covenant. Even if it were auctioned to the highest bidder, and all purchased by oil and timber companies wanting to pillage and plunder, they could be sued into oblivion for breaking the covenants. But then, if you'd read the environmental links from the story you'd maybe have gotten the gist of it.
How would corporations lose liability?
The answer to this is glaringly obvious if you actually read about his positions.
As far as land being expensive, it is not! Land is only expensive in municipalities and highly populated areas. You can go to the middle of nowhere and it is dirt cheap (if you know what I mean). A lot of mining companies, oil companies, and so forth, own huge chunks of land and they cost very little. For example, I am pretty sure land in Alaska would be worth very little (away from the cities that is).
Land is expensive when there is competition to procur it. Ergo, if the millions of acres of federal land go up for sale, there will be competition from environmental groups and individual citizens to purchase that land.
You might be sure of your position, but real estate markets have a way of surprising people.
Name a situation (in the USA) where a company has purchased land at market value (i.e. without any government "help" at all), raped it, and left it to rot. I'm not familiar with any. That's not to say it has never happened, but I'd be interested in looking into the circumstances behind such an occurrance. So please, fill me in.
If you want to debate this issue further, please actually read his platform work.
My educational experience was similar, and I went to a high school in a town with an incredible tax base of upscale properties. Playground of the rich and all. Nothing exceptional at all about it, despite loads of money poured into the school. My last two years in high school I attended a nearby community college full-time to satisfy graduation requirements. The experience was immeasurably better than high school, and cost significantly less than the per-student public school allocation. So, I got a better education that cost less money. I learned to write through my reading competency, which was developed on personal time. I learned my basic math skills from my father, and my advanced math skills at college. I learned my science and technology skills through personal study. Basically, the only thing I learned in public school was about the effects of the aggressive social dog-packs that the public school system fosters so well.
I also agree with your ideas regarding the choice as existing only between private education and home-schooling. My only real choice at this time is home schooling, since I'm not religious, and wouldn't want my children to go through religious indoctrination in the place of governmental indoctrination. YMMV in this regard though.
With the amount of charitable organizations devoted to almost every aspect of human advancement I can think of (and I'm sure many I haven't), it troubles me that there are those out there who think privatized education can't work. Even the poor brought up in the early years of the USA could read. Most college students today can't get through the popular literature of the time without help, not to mention period 8th-grade literary instruction material. Our educational system is not better than the private system in place prior to Horace Mann. It is much, much worse.
As far as reading capability, I wouldn't even give public schools that early skill to develop. Basic literacy is easily established by the age of 5 with even minimal time spent on instruction.
If you think back about the worst cases of land rape through the course of US history, you'll find that almost none of them occurred on private land.
They happened on public land where the government sold rights to corporations for tax dollars. Most of the "private" land cases came from the government giving public land to a company wholesale in exchange for taxes.
Now, you see private land being stewarded, even by larger companies. These same companies will rape public lands, but no their own. Do some research, you'll find it to be true.
Also, like another reply to this said, read what he actually wrote. He said nothing about selling all lands on the market or auctioning them. Even if that happened, we wouldn't end up with environmental disasters, because the immense costs that these lands (coupled with the loss of laws that shield corporations from liability) would require those companies to manage the lands they purchased sustainably, or face bankruptcy.
We're not talking about chump change here. There are world conservation groups with vast reserves of capital and large member populations who would have more money to give (with reduced taxation). You really think they won't be able to compete with the giant companies, or at least make it so expensive for them that they'd have to maintain the land purchases' workability for many years to come in order to recoup the cost?
You should look into the major multinational environmental groups. They've got more money than you obviously think, and can draw on tens of thousands of supporters. The companies they compete against only have the upper hand as a result of current laws, laws that would go away at the same time these lands were transferred. Loss of governmental protections would be a great equalizer.
It's funny (and due to big-government-sponsored education) that anyone has a good opinion of Lincoln at all. Lincoln was about preserving the Union at any cost. Lincoln would have butchered his own mother and sold her for stew meat if it meant keeping the Union together. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't free the slaves. It freed Southern slaves, and only so long as they fought for the North. All anyone has to do is actually RTFP (read the fucking proclamation :) to know that.
The hypocrisy of calling Lincoln an abolitionist is engraved into history so deeply it can only be hidden by complete ignorance and apathy!
It amazes me how few people realize that the Civil War was more about tariffs than slavery. It's like saying we invaded Iraq to free the Iraqi people. It's post-war spin. Putting a positive face on otherwise completely ulterior motives.
I'm not saying that there were not positive results from either action, but I also like to point out blatant propaganda when I see it.
I'm not going to comment much on the justice part other than to say it can be arbitrary, capricious, and depends solely on the subjective opinion of each individual. It is an ideal, something to strive for but something that will rarely (if ever) be realized.
:)
As for democracy, it is the cornerstone liberty is founded on. However, I may not be using the term democracy as you define it. I use the classical definition: all power derives solely from the people. Democracy has no further definition than that in my view. I don't want a classical democracy, where no rights exist except the right to vote, where all else is privilege subject to the public jury to decide between right and wrong.
The United States' Constitutional Republic is a 3rd tier extension of the the concept of democracy. The "republic" is a type of democracy where legislative power is delegated by the people to a certain body of individuals. After all, in a democracy it's hard to be at every public trial to make sure your voice is heard. The Constitution then narrowed the concept of republican government by implementing a set of rules that could only very rarely be changed, and then only with the overwhelming consent of the seperate legislative bodies of the Republic.
So, your all-encompassing statement that libertarians only believe in the first (of your three values) is both overly broad (for a very diverse group) and completely incorrect. I, and all the libertarians I know, believe in fighting for all three concepts. If you could explain how you came to the conclusion that libertarians don't believe in democracy, I would be interested to hear it.
All that said, which "democracy" is it that you believe should exist here?
I wouldn't say that collusion that does not involve fraud "harms" anyone. Even if a price is high, if someone is willing to pay it then the item is obviously worth more to them than whatever amount of money they parted with.
As far as essentials go, I have a hard time buying the what-if of price fixing regarding those markets. Trying to prevent entry into an essentials market would be like trying to prevent the Amazon from flooding.
I agree that collusion does nobody any favors. Due to the nature of changing markets, it would be hard to maintain any drastic level of collusion for long.
However, I also believe that human ingenuity thrives at its best through adversity. When circumstances occur that provide adversity, there will be individuals who will adapt new or old technologies or processes to overcome whatever barrier lies before a goal. This is the basis for progress.
Current events have made it clear that the hurdles faced today are most easily crossed through the use of a corporate shield. Those with fewer scruples will always find a way to profit at the expense of others.
Well, racketeering is only illegal if you don't give to the major political parties. All these companies give lots of money to both parties, so they're untouchable.
Kinda like the meth dealers/sheriff's department here...
How to give a corporation the death penalty: Let the government confiscate it and start competing with other businesses in that industry.
Considering the track record of Congressional officials, this would be a death penalty. They'd run it into the ground.
Then again, it'd be as likely that they'd use the legislative process to run competitors out of business, and enact regulations to raise the barrier of entry to limit further competition.
I'm all for dissolution for corporate crimes. Corporations owe their existence to the state they are incorporated in. If they violate their charter, they should be dissolved.
Umm, I hope you're not trying to imply that commodities are stable and not prone to massive little-to-no-notice fluctuations. If so, please don't post to tell me that. I'd really rather not die laughing. :)
I would agree with everything here but the unstable bottom line conclusion. Generally when a company reaches the stage where they can engage in that sort of activity (gouging, undercutting , etc) the instability in their bottom line consists of growth or a lot of growth. Not always true, but true for the most part. :)
MS is a legal monopoly not necessarily as a result of a monetary barrier, or a lack of competition, but because it wields exclusionary power. This exclusionary power may not be wielded directly at another company (though it has been in the past), but the indirect effects are the same.
The term "instability" as refers to stock prices generally means that it swings from profitable to not profitable unexpectedly.
Yeah, the k5's were horrible back in the Pentium classic era. That was a while ago. AMD has been through three chip families since then.
I'm a libertarian, and believe that limited liability is a major problem.