Why must the US continue to militarize and occupy foreign nations not related to the terrorist attack?
Because the US populace is a bunch of ignorant sheep, who will go with whatever someone in their local group hears on the news and passes on to those who think the news is morbid or uninteresting. But then, that's how it is in most countries. The US is really no different, it just happens to be the big dog on the block right now.
Like all would-be (or actual) empires, the US populace and leadership will get theirs. No empire in our recorded history has stood the test of time, and the US won't either. It will either fall easily (and relatively peacefully) like the British Empire, from the inside under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption like the USSR, or to near annihilation via nuclear/chemical/biological attacks from external locations. It just depends on the course of history and the choices of its leadership and populace in general which one becomes a reality.
The reason it works that way is because laws as written are not really complete. Mostly, they modify existing laws, and as such, do not make sense when taken out of the context of the original law they were written to modify.
More than likely, the section of the PATRIOT Act that would be used would actually be a modification of an existing portion of US law. Ergo, the court would only declare that modification made by the PATRIOT Act to that specific section of law unconstitutional (or possibly even the entire law that was modified, though that occurs much less often).
This is because the courts do not (there are exceptions) consider questions that are not put in front of them. Since you would not be fighting the use of other sections of the PATRIOT Act, they would not review them. This is not always the case (sometimes they review further than they are asked to), but rarely do courts act outside of this guideline.
I think a good extension of your question would be: Instead of cutting the good parts out and using them, they cut bad sections out as people complain about them?
People need to tell Congress to RTFM! (Constitution:)
It's not just people who run businesses who are taxed. In fact, most of the people I know who participate in barter do not do so while in their official work capacity. It's something done on the side. Then again, I'm not sure what the point of this has devolved into. The IRS wants a cut of something that it doesn't deserve a cut of, and people who claim it when the IRS has been given no evidence to the contrary are being levied with what amounts to a stupidity tax. Those who want to pay it or don't have the common sense of a rock will pay it, and it's pretty easy for even the people who think they're obligated to pay it to not do so without fear of negative repercussions.
You still have yet to detail any economic concepts that I fail to grasp. You didn't even use any yourself, just "tax tips" that don't really relate to ("much" at the least, "most" at the best) bartering except in specific cirumstances. Of course, you can go on and on about how I don't understand economics. I may even be wrong, and economists apply the same concepts differently based on the subject. That just makes them even further from hard scientists than they would have been otherwise. However, you still won't even acknowledge that you apply value-for-time (the same time, no less) differently based on whether it is the person who put in the time, or the person paying for the time to be put in. It's still the same work, and the same person did it. Value is applied to one half of the transaction, but the inverse of that value is not applied to the other. That alone shows that your logic is suspect, and until you put that issue to rest, nothing else you write will be taken any more seriously than what you've written in the past. No wonder people think (well, those people who do actually stop to consider such things) economics is such a marginal soft science. Math is so much nicer, because you have to take into account all of the constituent parts on both sides of the equation, instead of saying "Presto! I've created something out of thin air!" Oh well, such is the price that people pay for believing in those who can't even model their own theories.
If this is a waste of your time, I suggest you do something else. If you realize it's a waste and still persist, what's that say about you? I'm not forcing you to come here, that's a choice you made on your own. The only person wasting your time is you (if in fact this is a waste of time).
You're apparently not familiar with the IRS' rules on bartering. They make no distinction as to how you procure an item or the cost that you spend on it (unless it was a business purchase), only the market value of it.
First off, you should keep your numbers straight. If you trade $500 worth of parts and $300 worth of labor for $800, the person has gained $800 worth of value-added parts, not $1000. The person has also lost $800 in cash, that they more than likely gained through their own labor. If you don't value labor at anything, the person making the purchase actually lost $300 as a result of paying $800 for $500 worth of parts. Either the labor is worth something or it is not. You can't conveniently say that person A's labor is not worth $300 for the purposes of their loss in the transaction, but that it is worth $300 for the purposes of taxing person B. There is no wealth "created" in your example. Creating wealth is what happens when you print a sheet of money, not when you give labor or items in exchange for labor or items.
Wealth is not the same as value. Let me use a more extreme example. I can trade a 1oz gold coin for 60 1oz silver coins (assuming fictitious prices of $300 and $5 an ounce, respectively) at a trade of equal value. No wealth has been created simply because I value a lot of silver over a little gold. The same is true of your example. No wealth has been created because I value 8 $100 bills more than 8 hours of my time and $500 worth of parts.
Giving something value for the purpose of taxing that value (the $300 of labor in your example would be taxed just like the $500 in parts: as something of value) while not providing a reciprocal route (allowing the person who spent $300 worth of time to deduct it from income) is a despicable thing.
I don't need economic arguments, because I was not arguing economics. You're also not arguing from an economic standpoint. At least economists apply terms evenly. You claim work=property (something that has value to be taxed) for the party to be taxed and work!=property for the person doing the work (so they can't claim it as a loss). If a chiropractor works on another chiropractor for reciprocity, it seems you would claim they both made money! Hell, if they were Hollywood big-shots who charged $1,000 a session, it seems you would claim that $2,000 in wealth was created, since that is also a barter, and is governed by the exact same set of rules that EVERY OTHER example that has been tossed back and forth is governed by.
Also, you seem to not understand why I brought up depreciation. I understand that depreciation is a loss based on numerous factors, but when bartering is concerned, they don't care about depreciation like they do with things such as business inventory. You can claim a loss with business depreciation. Not with bartering, they don't allow loss claims. Please carefully read the plain-English text of the IRS regulation, just so that you're not confused:
You must include in your income, at the time received, the fair market value of property or services you receive in bartering.
Nowhere in their regulations does it take into account what you give away in the trade. It doesn't matter if you give someone $1000 worth of lumber for $1 worth of services. You can't claim a $999 loss, even if you can absolutely document that the fair market value of the lumber was $1000, and you lost $999 on the deal. It is what you receive that is taxed, period, period, period. What about that very simple concept do you fail to understand? They don't care if you take a loss in bartering. It's not considered in the same way as operating or capital losses are. It's strictly the market value of what you receive. If you answer nothing else directly, at least affirm or deny that you understand that before continuing.
always figgure anything sold cost about half as much for the person selling it
As far as barter is concerned, in many, many cases this is patently false. Only if I produced the chair would that be even remotely likely to be the case. More often, the item traded will have depreciated in value from its initial cost. That's what happens over time. Most things depreciate in value. There are exceptions, but that is all they are: exceptions.
Actually, as far as market value for time is concerned, actual working trades are zero sum, or nearly. What most people don't take into account is that a person's time and energy have value.
You can say that my spending 25 hours to create a work of (anything) only cost me my materials, and everything else is pure profit. I personally think that is the logic of idiots and fools. My time has value. Everyone's time has value. I'm not saying that's exactly what you believe, only that it sounds that way.
Let me put these rules in an even more crystal clear light. I buy an item for $10.00. I decide I don't want it. I trade it to a person who has walked out of the same store behind me for something they bought for $10.00 because I like it better, and he likes what I have. Under the IRS' rules, we both made $10.00, effectively creating $20.00 in wealth. We did nothing but trade items of equal value, and owe taxes at whatever ridiculous rate the IRS wants this year on those $10.00 of "income."
Like most people who believe in actual work for value, and not some socialist utopian ideal of labor being worth nothing but to the common good, I see time spent at work as actually being worth what someone else will pay for it. I can make $25.00/hour for my time, because the skills I possess allow me to ask that and easily receive it. It took me a lot of time and effort to build a skill set that enables me to do that. It all has value, and just because a group of politicians and bureaucrats say that my time is worthless (and hence is 100% "income") doesn't make it so. Perhaps legally, but not morally or ethically.
It is my absolute RIGHT to work in a proper and legal (not the neosocialist definition, but anything that is not harmful or fraudulent) profession, and much like I won't pay a tax being levied on me before I can vote, speak, or breathe, (or worship, print things, be a part of a peaceful assembly, bear arms, demand a jury trial, demand the execution of a writ of habeas corpus, confront an accuser in court, defend my life and/or property, demand that the law be applied uniformly to myself and others, petition for redress of grievances, etc) I won't pay a tax levied on me to exercise my right to work. If I do not own absolute right to my time (unless sentenced for violation of other laws), I do not own my life, and am thus a slave. Last I checked, slavery was outlawed (again, unless duly sentenced for another crime).
You can couch it in friendly terms if you wish, but the logic displayed is specious at the absolute best, and requires assumptions that would be wrong under numerous other entirely-likely circumstances. Depreciation is the largest of these, while value for time is the least recognized and most important.
You can argue all you want about how I'm wrong. It certainly won't surprise me if you choose to do so. But then, you're probably going to pay income and payroll taxes all your life. You'll pay for the privilege to have your rights violated. So really, it shows that the words are not what is really valuable (like the IRS' regulations). The actions are what is valuable. My actions support my rights, not some socialist utopia brought into the harsh light of reality.
Don't you just love the IRS? You trade a $20.00 chair for a $20.00 back adjustment, and the IRS claims both parties are $20.00 richer.
Under their logic, your trade has "created" $40.00 in wealth, and there was no loss by either party to offset this "income."
Then again, trading any sort of actual work for return compensation (whether goods, services, or cash) does not constitute income (unless you're the IRS), so nobody actually has a moral or ethical obligation to pay "income" taxes on what is not actually income.
Speaking from an employer point-of-view, it is basically paid vacation, whether you wish to acknowledge that or not. A paid vacation is where an employer pays an employee when they don't show up to do work. During paid maternity leave, and employer is paying someone who is not going to show up to work. They are, in fact, the same from a financial standpoint. They are also the same from a sociological standpoint: a reward of payment for services NOT rendered as an act of good will. That is all: an act of good will. It's an act of good will that has a real, definite cost. Someone will bear that cost, period. More on that further below...
j-pimp never said that (s)he didn't support pregnant women. From a personal standpoint, it sounds like much the opposite. What it DOES sound like, however, is that from a political standpoint the parent does not support forcing businesses to pay for something that will end up increasing costs for everyone involved.
Much like other costs of doing business, these don't typically hurt businesses all that much. They can (and do) pass the costs on to their customers and their employees. Customers in the form of higher costs for service, and employees through lower pay packages, slower promotion routes, and hard-nosed insurance administrators who discourage a higher percentage of insured from pursuing reimbursement.
In the end, it's quite true that these things have a way of coming back around to bite people in the ass. Those people certainly won't be the businesses involved. While certain people are definitely helped by these regulations where they otherwise likely wouldn't have been, there are also people hurt by these regulations who otherwise likely wouldn't have been. The latter case just isn't done directly, so fewer people bitch about it. The fact that it's not talked about often doesn't mean it's a non-issue though.
Personally, I don't find the post that started this all (the one that prompted the comment about needing his dick cut off due to some perceived irresponsibility assumed to be inherent from his own comment) to be very insulting. It really was matter-of-fact, and quite true. People who want certain benefits should realize that someone (most likely them) will have to give something up in return for those benefits. They're not free, so people shouldn't expect them to be. Those who are lucky enough to work for one of those rare companies that are run by people who care are the exception. It wasn't a case of telling people that they should sit down, shut up, and not ask for benefits. It was a simple case of telling people to wake up, open their eyes, and realize that there are consequences (good, bad, and neutral) to every action. One of the consequences to demanding health care of any kind (not just maternity care) is that it costs money, and few people are going to volunteer to pay it for you. In the business world, you can't keep from having the cost passed on. It's simply not possible. It will occur one way or the other. The original poster was simply stating that those looking for that type of health care (I would extend that to any benefit, period) should be aware that it WILL cost them, one way or the other, short term or long term. Just simple economics, nothing more. Sad that people had to get bent out of shape about it.
Keep in mind, these statements are my personal opinion.:)
Patents are probably one of the stickiest issues in American jurisprudence, and always have been. First off, they were implemented in order to protect inventors from predation. I personally have mixed feelings, because they also penalize individual inventors who happen to not be as quick off the line. I think that the damage caused by patents versus no patents are about equal. There is no more total benefit to having them than there is to not having them. There is a good possibility of predation with or without the system. The type of predation is the only difference. Therefore, I can neither agree nor disagree with your conclusion. It simply is.
Also, I think that we aren't speaking to each other about regulations, rather at each other. By "regulation" I mean administrative rule. Things that are not law, but rather bureaucratic decisions made by some agency that is authorized by law to administer something. Regulations happen when the law DOESN'T lay things out clearly, and is a major part of the problems with the U.S. today. Laws that are precise are fine, in fact a necessity (this is assuming laws are necessary, a fact debated by some, but without the purview of my comments at this time), but regulations are much, much less so.
The difference with acoustics versus higher wavelengths is that acoustics are governed by law. You are basically free to do as you will, but if damage can be shown (disturbing the peace is considered public harm), you are penalized according to law. Spectrum laws grant authority to the FCC to administer them. The FCC in turn develops rules and regulations and fines and licensing schemes to administer the spectrums under their control. Note, this includes broadcasts that turn back into the visual and audible spectrum, and censoring the media according to bureaucratic whim (and not law). That's where all these problems stem from: regulation.
Anyway, predictions of chaos are, more often than not, greatly overstated. People have a way of working things out. In any system, even one with no "legitimate rule of law," there will be consequences to violators of the norms. This is simple group theory. The type of group doesn't matter. As for chaos, it's usually very short-term, and usually stems from a rapid change in the status quo. In this case, complete deregulation WOULD cause chaos, for a time. Then, means to cope would develop. Things like broadcast error correction, so that overlapping broadcasts could be separated out. Eventually intelligent filtering, which will probably be a long, long way off because there's no incentive to develop it. It would be great to have, and could greatly increase the usable space in the broadcast spectrums, but there's no reason to develop what isn't necessary in a no-competition field. Look at technologies like fiber optics, and what they are doing to increase useable space across the visible wavelengths. Does this happen in the broadcast spectrums? No, because there's not as much drive to squeeze every useable drop of a given wavelength. Where are the technologies to increase the resolution of transmitters and receivers? They sure are developing them quickly in the unregulated visual spectrum.
Companies and individuals don't have to develop new technologies in many broadcast areas because many hurdles are artificially erased by spectrum monopolies. When there is conflict, there is development to overcome those conflicts. There is drive to find ways around things. With static regulation, those conflicts and drives artificially disappear.
The problem is that regulators don't want to allow unregulated markets, because they might discover themselves without any power left. There will always be predators, regulated or not, because predators (of the human variety) are good at adapting to any environment. There will always be people too ignorant or stupid for their own good. Then again, I'm a fan of letting people sink or swim on their own merits. I
Much like there are laws regarding abuse of speech, it would be easy to make common sense laws about abuse of radio. Somewhere upstream of this post is an example of taking a loudspeaker out at midnight and seeing if they regulate speech. Yes, speech is regulated: destructive uses of speech are not allowed. It also makes sense that uses of airwaves that do not materially harm others should be allowed. Note, while I said it would be easy, that only means physically easy. However, the modern framework of government makes it impossible to pass common-sense laws. There are always more than enough people opposed to anything relating to common sense to derail them from passing.
Your example about broadcasting noise at inordinately large power levels in order to block regular signal would fall under abuse of spectrum. Since it's pretty easy to track a signal back to its source, it's pretty easy to keep most abuses in check. This, of course, is not a complete solution for the same reason that sound ordinances are not. You can have someone driving around who the police never find. Same with spectrum abuse. It's just something people have to live with though. Nothing is a truly complete solution, and iron-fisted regulation is worse than many other possible results...
I don't think regulations (being mostly administrative and bureaucratic in nature) are ever really necessary. Just simple laws written to allow damages and penalties for abuse. The law is not an appropriate medium for detailing all possible uses and how they should occur, nor are bureaucracies. It IS appropriate to outline what is considered abusive behaviour, or steps to identify abusive behaviour within a (socio-politically) accepted context. It'll never be quite right, but then the law is rarely entirely right, and often entirely wrong.
Not that it really matters. Most people will be sheep most of the time. They baa amongst themselves without any real effect, taking sides among those who actually follow through. The few people with integrity AND a clue AND the willpower will attempt to fight the influence of the few people with no integrity who lust for power (and the few with no clue who blunder into power). That's been human history, and there are no signs of it changing.
Yes, but it'll have been destroyed long before you get the subpoena. That's all that matters. If you're destroying it in order to keep from complying with a subpoena, then you're in trouble. It's called being proactive.:)
Amen. All these people who ooh and ahh about military strength don't seem to recall history. Any conventional army can be beaten with guerrilla tactics. The only way a conventional army can win utterly is to absolutely destroy all defenders. It's been happening as long as there have been armies. It happened in Vietnam. It will happen again in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the end, the US will eventually go the way of Britain, Rome, Mongolia, etc.
In a transaction involving equal value, there is zero income to either party, so it's not that it's illegal or unconstitutional. It simply doesn't apply. I trade 2 hours of my time, at a market value of $25.00 an hour, for $50.00 in cash. My client has received $50.00 worth of services, and lost $50.00 in cash. He is no better off. I have given up $50.00 worth of time and received $50.00 worth of cash. I am no better off. Zero income.
Also, if you want to look at it another way, you cannot turn an inalienable right (to the pursuit of happiness, i.e. pursuit of an occupation, in case you don't understand the terminology of that time) into a privilege. The exercise of rights may not be taxed, because the power to tax is the power to destroy. The government does not have the power to destroy rights under color of law. The only reason they tax income is through semantic manipulation. Everyone has an absolute right to pursue lawful employment or self-employment, to trade their time and effort (the basis for all private property rights) for remuneration whether in the form of currency or physical goods. Then again, Americans are mostly sheep who will follow along with whatever Donald Duck tells them to do (referring to a WWII propaganda film by Walt Disney, in case you were unaware).
Income is only derived from activities involving banking. Interest, capital gains, appreciation of value, etc. Working is not an income-producing activity for most people.
In the end, you don't argue with the wording, you argue that the wording doesn't apply. That's how the law works. In most cases, the 16th amendment is simply irrelevant.
Even if they managed to convert the right to employment into a privilege, it would be immoral and unethical, and should be ignored. Then again, Americans are still sheep. Oh well, too bad for them.
The foundation our system of government is built upon is the concept that government exists to protect rights. Arguing that the government should take over a service, system, or network is a de facto admission that the service in question is fundamental to protecting the rights of the public in general. So yes, I would say it is at the heart of the matter, even if it wasn't explicitly stated.
Government subsidies do not a fair market make. Quite the opposite. They are designed to protect a specific special interest: the target of the subsidy. In this case, that would be a telephone service. A government-run industry is just as abusive as a privately-run monopoly, though for different reasons.
Monopolies abuse the consumer to the benefit of the producer, as there is no price competition. Government subsidies (this type, anyway, as there are subsidies that abuse the consumer as well) tend to abuse service providers, because they produce prices lower than a market would normally bear. This also means that government-run services tend to become true legal monopolies, even if they don't start out that way. They fairly limit entry into a market by underpricing services (by relying on guaranteed income through taxation).
Yes, infrastructure services tend to lend themselves to a single service provider. The reason for this is the natural barrier to entry. It's very expensive to build any sort of service infrastructure. There's not much money in building a redundant network just to get into a price war. It's easier to simply buy (whether you upgrade or not later) existing infrastructure. That's not fair or unfair, it's simply the nature of this one particular market type.
Anyway, my personal definition of a "fair" market is one where anyone has an opportunity to enter without being intentionally hindered. Most powerful industries, even non-monopoly industries, use government as a bludgeon to help prevent entrance by "non-approved" entities. Politicians use government to help prevent entrance of competition into politics. Domestic industries use government subsidies and excessive import taxes to help prevent foreign industry from introducing competitive products into our markets. Labor companies used government as a bludgeon to arrest and fine/imprison any group of people who dared to ask for better working conditions and then had the gall to not show back up for work if the answer was no. That is, until juries started voting "not guilty" even though they were guilty under the law.
The pattern here is that "government" is the problem, not the solution. Government has no business playing favorites among private industry.
In the above examples, the only thing they have a legitimate power to do is levy import taxes. Subsidies are designed to redistribute wealth on an arbitrary basis. They are always used to support one group at the expense of one or more other groups, without exception. This very basic underlying fact is why they are and always will be unethical.
Not currently, but I have the capacity to do so if necessary. However, that was not my point, which you seemed to miss entirely. It is a personal problem, meaning I deal with it myself and don't (or in the hypothetical, won't) demand the labor of others to satisfy my needs. I also believe that others should take responsibility for their own choices and actions. If you wish to get something, you do it on the terms of the seller, or terms the seller is willing to negotiate with you.
If I can't procur it at a cost I find to be acceptable (work, trade, pieces of paper with pictures on them, etc), I do without. If I can get what I need and/or want through others on a cooperative basis, I do so. It's not hard to figure out whether something is worth the advertised price. If you want it more than you want to save on the cost, you buy it. If the cost isn't personally worth it to you, you don't. The simplest of economic decisions.
One of the best examples I can think of is addictive drugs, because almost everyone has had or knows someone personally who has had, a problem with addiction. Nicotine would be the most common, but as it's legal, and hence cheap, it doesn't work as well. So I'll use heroin as my example instead. Take your typical heroin junkie who's got a serious need to score. He's semi-functional, holds down a job as a drywall taper. Normally, he can pay for his fixes by above-board work. He exchanges bottom-of-the-barrel living conditions for enough disposable cash to get his fixes regularly. This junkie gets laid off. Now he doesn't have any disposable cash. But he's still got a dependency. Can't just quit, so he turns to robbing houses. Now, before this point, this junkie worked in a cooperative (i.e. non-coercive) fashion to deal with his dependency. At this point, he has become someone with entitlement issues, taking from others so that he can continue on as normal. This junkie comes one night to rob my house. I shoot this junkie in the leg to protect my rights.
That's where the US is at now. People believing they have the right to have specific things as a matter of course, not just the right to attempt to procure those things. The former is an entitlement, the latter is a right. Nobody has an absolute right to telephone service. You have the right to procure telephone service, so long as you do not violate the rights of others. This is the difference between being free to print materials and distribute them (freedom of press) and the right to be given the machinery and other supplies to print materials as a matter of course. One is absolutely a right. You can feel free to print and distribute materials. However, the government isn't violating your rights by failing to regulate the costs of printing machinery, or by not giving you paper and other materials to print with. The only thing that is guaranteed is to be free to pursue an activity. Rights do not guarantee success.
I could go on about the ethics of entitlement, but as ingrained as it is in most members of Western society, I doubt it would go anywhere useful.
I wouldn't suggest that you sue them, as there are no grounds to do so. I'm firmly against frivolous lawsuits. That's a rant for another time though.:)
You seem to have the choice of paying their advertised price for cable-modem only or paying an additional $1.47 more a month for basic cable and not have to pay the modem-only fee. Sounds like you chose to pay slightly more for a service than you actually had to. I'd suggest dropping basic cable service, since you said you don't use it, and you'll save enough to get probably 1/3-1/4 knocked off one month of the year. The actual percentage depends, of course, on what Cox's rates are. I'd assume for a 1Mb connection you're looking at between $45-$65/month, or a total cost of $60-$80/month + taxes & franchise fees.
Personally, I'm disinclined to like most cable companies. However, I also recognize the value in their services. Having run on both fast and slow cable connections, and had some experience with ADSL, I personally find much more bang for my buck with these two types of connection service as opposed to a dial-up link (I prefer cable). I live in BFE and can get a broadband link for the same price as a telco line and dial-up. Granted, Charter Communications tends to price a LOT more competitively than other cable companies, but they also have more left-coast competition. They probably price higher the further east you head.
Really though, is your position so bad? Look at your connection alternatives. IIRC, you can't get DSL, so that leaves you with dial-up. Talk about your bottom-of-the-barrel ROI. If you need a dedicated (or even close to it) connection, you're looking at probably $18.00-$30.00 for a bare telco POTS line. Then you add on even a bare-bones dial-up connection for $10.00/month. If you've only got full-service available, that's as much as $20.00/month. So right there you've got connection costs from $28.00-$50.00/month just for a freakin' 3KB/s line (if you're lucky). If you're on the high end of that, like I am in my area, it doesn't just make sense to fork over the cash for a broadband connection. I'd be an idiot NOT to. So they have occasional outages. 10% packet loss spikes every hour or three. Horrible customer service. It's still worth it. Just think about the alternative. Regulation isn't going to make any of that better, and you're still probably better off, with all of the problems you may have, than you would be with the previous incarnation of connectivity technology. It's all about perspective. That, and I have issues with people falling into the mental trap of believing they've been forced into something when it's really entirely within their control. Look around and realize that you can actually control as much of your life as you want. Be aware of what your choices are, even if you don't like them.:)
An agent from Cox perhaps came to your door, put a gun to your head, and told you to sign a service agreement or they'd kill you? Or maybe one of them abducted your child and would only return said child after you agreed to install and pay for Cox service? Man, those sales guys must be getting pushy...
However, what I would guess you are referring to is that you voluntarily called Cox, voluntarily signed up for their internet service and voluntarily agreed to pay for basic cable when they told you that they would only install internet service for you if you were also a cable customer (I apologize for the inordinately long sentence:). They weren't even nice enough to just install the drop, slap a trap on it, and tack on a $5.00 non-customer charge like several other national cable companies do. But you know what? Obviously you think it's worth the price, at least more often than you think about ditching it for dial-up. So why are you saying they "forced" you to pay? They didn't force you to do anything. They gave you their pricing schedule, and you decided to have service installed anyway.
The only likely deviation from that would be if they did misrepresent the price. Then you might have a legitimate beef, but you still could have dropped the service when you found out there was a discrepancy between their promises and your bill. The choice is still ENTIRELY in your hands.
Maybe I'm wrong, but you'll have to explain to me how they actually forced you into a service agreement that you didn't want.
I'm almost positive (almost, since I cannot read your mind) that I understand what you consider to be wrong with that sentence. I simply disagree with you. Just because I don't see things your way doesn't mean there's no hope for me. It simply means I don't see things your way.
As I see it, dependency on anything is a personal problem. You want help, you find a way to help yourself and/or get others to help you, voluntarily.
You really should look through a decent legal dictionary before commenting on rights vs powers, especially one of the older, period legal dictionaries like Bouvier's.
The blurring of meaning in words, and using one for another indiscriminately is part of the problem with communicating legal (hell, any) issues in English today. Those who cannot or do not understand the importance of distinct meaning, especially where the law is concerned, often resort to dismissing discrete definitions out-of-hand. If you truly care to understand what you're talking about, I again suggest that you look into a period legal source to understand why the term "right" is not used in any constitution (state or federal, that I am aware of) to refer to a power to be delegated to a branch of government. Even the 10th Amendment which you use in support of your argument uses the term power.
Unless the state [constitution] of Texas [...] explicitly [grants] the rights not in their state constitution to the local governments, then this is [...] patently false.
I have to assume this sentence means something other than what it actually says. I'm just not sure what that is supposed to be.
You are correct in that the 10th Amendment gives states all powers (exact term used, not "rights") that are not granted to the federal government. Hence, those not specifically granted are off limits.
That takes care of the federal part. However, you seem to forget the section that says "respectively, or to the people." In each state constitution, there is a delegation of powers to that state's government. The 10th Amendment gives all powers not delegated in the state constitutions to the people. Hence, anything not explicitly stated is off-limits. You haven't stated anything that would actually make my statement untrue. Anything not delegated to a government branch (state or federal, it doesn't matter) is reserved to the people, and hence off-limits to both the state and federal governments. The text of the amendment is crystal clear.
FYI, before you even start your semantic handwaving, democratic republics are a form of democracy.
Hey, at least you get the relationship. Most people don't even know what a republic is, much less how it relates to the term "democracy."
Look, do you know what a municipal bond is? I guess not.
And how are municipal bonds paid off? Everybody now...
An amendment to the Constitution could be passed and ratified declaring that every person born on February 29th was to be taxed doubly. Much like the stadium bond you mentioned, it's termed "tyranny of the majority," which is the reason for the controls in the first place. Actually, with how low voter turnout is, and no minimum requirements for voter participation, more often it's actually tyranny of the minority. The majority barely pull their heads out of their asses long enough to bitch. It doesn't make it right to tax people so that a frickin' sports stadium can be built. That's stupidity (and arrogance) in action. These things are often referred to as democracy, but the number of people weighing in don't make it so. It's more of a farce than anything else.
No, the most they'll do is seize your assets and throw you in prison[...]
Absolute refusal to cooperate IS resistance. Jail is not the end. If they can't get you into jail, they kill you. That is the bottom line. They can't magically force people into jail without something to back it up. If you won't cooperate, you will be killed. Period. And that is really the essence of government. The ability to deal death.
The income tax is repugnant to all senses of liberty, so it's not a tax that I pay. I couldn't even if I wanted to, unless I wanted to apply for an SSN. The IRS won't accept returns without one. So I don't apply. Call it conscientious objection. I'm not a slave, so I won't be taxed simply to exercise my right to trade my sweat (sometimes metaphorically, sometimes not) for someone else's money or
Yes, I know both the plain English and legal definitions. As this is a legal matter, I'm using the legal definition. A business is a monopoly if they control such a substantial portion of the market that they can control entry into the market. As my previous example, a small-town telco is not a monopoly by virtue of being the only one. They would have to actually CONTROL the market. If someone can come in and set up a competing shop, they don't actually control the market, they just have 100% market share. Market share does not necessarily equal control, especially in small markets. While entrance into a telecommunications market may be expensive, it is not as a result of market manipulation by said mom-and-pop phone company. Remember, when debating legal issues, plain English definitions need not apply.
Are you aware the the telephone DID NOT EXIST when the constitution was written?
Yes, I do actually have a decent grasp of history despite having been publicly educated. I fail to see your point, however. Many things that we have now did not exist then, and people have managed to go on living despite governmental intrusion.
WTF are you talking about!? Of course it does. Try never using a telephone again and see how it affects your life.
Would you die without a telephone? Would your rights be in dire peril? Was there nothing before the telephone? Just because people have become dependent on a device that makes life easier and faster doesn't mean it has anything to do with the general welfare of the public. It just speeds up communication. It is still a luxury, and is not absolutely necessary to live out one's life. I've lived much of my life without a phone, and, left to my own devices would probably not have one. You're asking the wrong person if you were expecting me to respond that not using a telephone again would have a deleterious effect on my life.
As always, priorities above basic sanitation, clothing, shelter, and sustenance are personal choices. Others shouldn't have to pay for your personal choices. You can have a grandiose sense of entitlement all you want, it just means you don't have what it takes to live without leeching off those who CAN make it on their own.
Rates increased because of network upgrades, both infrastructure and programming. Since most cable networks are serviced by nationwide companies, they spread these costs across their entire network. That means even networks they haven't yet/won't ever upgrade. You can always choose to not subscribe to the luxury of cable TV. Nobody's forcing you to watch ABC. If you have a job that requires you to have cable TV, I bet you can afford to pay for rates anywhere, or even get satellite access.
As someone who used to work as a contractor for Charter Communications (in many of their systems), I've seen every one of those systems add services and channels while not drastically increasing rates. And I don't even like Charter Communications!:)
I can still get basic cable for $15.00/month, or a digital with the works and cable internet access for some ungodly $190.00/month or so. I can't say that quality has decreased, at least not in my experience.
As for airlines, I don't know what you've been smoking, or what rock you've been hiding under, but there was no airline deregulation. They may have relaxed price controls, but that's it. Air travel is one of the most highly regulated industries on earth.
I've flown pretty regularly to numerous US destinations for the last 15 years, and prices have decreased on a lot of those flights. Just look at Southwest if you want a model of competition. Polite, easy to deal with employees and cheap-as-hell tickets. They are the only airline who consistently made money post-9/11, and they didn't raise their already rock-bottom prices to do it.
In California, they changed the definition of "deregulation" to "different regulation." There was never any real deregulation in California, only lies.
Slashdot Mirror
Why must the US continue to militarize and occupy foreign nations not related to the terrorist attack?
Because the US populace is a bunch of ignorant sheep, who will go with whatever someone in their local group hears on the news and passes on to those who think the news is morbid or uninteresting. But then, that's how it is in most countries. The US is really no different, it just happens to be the big dog on the block right now.
Like all would-be (or actual) empires, the US populace and leadership will get theirs. No empire in our recorded history has stood the test of time, and the US won't either. It will either fall easily (and relatively peacefully) like the British Empire, from the inside under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption like the USSR, or to near annihilation via nuclear/chemical/biological attacks from external locations. It just depends on the course of history and the choices of its leadership and populace in general which one becomes a reality.
Welcome to American jurisprudence.
:)
The reason it works that way is because laws as written are not really complete. Mostly, they modify existing laws, and as such, do not make sense when taken out of the context of the original law they were written to modify.
More than likely, the section of the PATRIOT Act that would be used would actually be a modification of an existing portion of US law. Ergo, the court would only declare that modification made by the PATRIOT Act to that specific section of law unconstitutional (or possibly even the entire law that was modified, though that occurs much less often).
This is because the courts do not (there are exceptions) consider questions that are not put in front of them. Since you would not be fighting the use of other sections of the PATRIOT Act, they would not review them. This is not always the case (sometimes they review further than they are asked to), but rarely do courts act outside of this guideline.
I think a good extension of your question would be: Instead of cutting the good parts out and using them, they cut bad sections out as people complain about them?
People need to tell Congress to RTFM! (Constitution
It's not just people who run businesses who are taxed. In fact, most of the people I know who participate in barter do not do so while in their official work capacity. It's something done on the side. Then again, I'm not sure what the point of this has devolved into. The IRS wants a cut of something that it doesn't deserve a cut of, and people who claim it when the IRS has been given no evidence to the contrary are being levied with what amounts to a stupidity tax. Those who want to pay it or don't have the common sense of a rock will pay it, and it's pretty easy for even the people who think they're obligated to pay it to not do so without fear of negative repercussions.
You still have yet to detail any economic concepts that I fail to grasp. You didn't even use any yourself, just "tax tips" that don't really relate to ("much" at the least, "most" at the best) bartering except in specific cirumstances. Of course, you can go on and on about how I don't understand economics. I may even be wrong, and economists apply the same concepts differently based on the subject. That just makes them even further from hard scientists than they would have been otherwise. However, you still won't even acknowledge that you apply value-for-time (the same time, no less) differently based on whether it is the person who put in the time, or the person paying for the time to be put in. It's still the same work, and the same person did it. Value is applied to one half of the transaction, but the inverse of that value is not applied to the other. That alone shows that your logic is suspect, and until you put that issue to rest, nothing else you write will be taken any more seriously than what you've written in the past. No wonder people think (well, those people who do actually stop to consider such things) economics is such a marginal soft science. Math is so much nicer, because you have to take into account all of the constituent parts on both sides of the equation, instead of saying "Presto! I've created something out of thin air!" Oh well, such is the price that people pay for believing in those who can't even model their own theories.
If this is a waste of your time, I suggest you do something else. If you realize it's a waste and still persist, what's that say about you? I'm not forcing you to come here, that's a choice you made on your own. The only person wasting your time is you (if in fact this is a waste of time).
You're apparently not familiar with the IRS' rules on bartering. They make no distinction as to how you procure an item or the cost that you spend on it (unless it was a business purchase), only the market value of it.
First off, you should keep your numbers straight. If you trade $500 worth of parts and $300 worth of labor for $800, the person has gained $800 worth of value-added parts, not $1000. The person has also lost $800 in cash, that they more than likely gained through their own labor. If you don't value labor at anything, the person making the purchase actually lost $300 as a result of paying $800 for $500 worth of parts. Either the labor is worth something or it is not. You can't conveniently say that person A's labor is not worth $300 for the purposes of their loss in the transaction, but that it is worth $300 for the purposes of taxing person B. There is no wealth "created" in your example. Creating wealth is what happens when you print a sheet of money, not when you give labor or items in exchange for labor or items.
Wealth is not the same as value. Let me use a more extreme example. I can trade a 1oz gold coin for 60 1oz silver coins (assuming fictitious prices of $300 and $5 an ounce, respectively) at a trade of equal value. No wealth has been created simply because I value a lot of silver over a little gold. The same is true of your example. No wealth has been created because I value 8 $100 bills more than 8 hours of my time and $500 worth of parts.
Giving something value for the purpose of taxing that value (the $300 of labor in your example would be taxed just like the $500 in parts: as something of value) while not providing a reciprocal route (allowing the person who spent $300 worth of time to deduct it from income) is a despicable thing.
I don't need economic arguments, because I was not arguing economics. You're also not arguing from an economic standpoint. At least economists apply terms evenly. You claim work=property (something that has value to be taxed) for the party to be taxed and work!=property for the person doing the work (so they can't claim it as a loss). If a chiropractor works on another chiropractor for reciprocity, it seems you would claim they both made money! Hell, if they were Hollywood big-shots who charged $1,000 a session, it seems you would claim that $2,000 in wealth was created, since that is also a barter, and is governed by the exact same set of rules that EVERY OTHER example that has been tossed back and forth is governed by.
Also, you seem to not understand why I brought up depreciation. I understand that depreciation is a loss based on numerous factors, but when bartering is concerned, they don't care about depreciation like they do with things such as business inventory. You can claim a loss with business depreciation. Not with bartering, they don't allow loss claims. Please carefully read the plain-English text of the IRS regulation, just so that you're not confused:
You must include in your income, at the time received, the fair market value of property or services you receive in bartering.
Nowhere in their regulations does it take into account what you give away in the trade. It doesn't matter if you give someone $1000 worth of lumber for $1 worth of services. You can't claim a $999 loss, even if you can absolutely document that the fair market value of the lumber was $1000, and you lost $999 on the deal. It is what you receive that is taxed, period, period, period. What about that very simple concept do you fail to understand? They don't care if you take a loss in bartering. It's not considered in the same way as operating or capital losses are. It's strictly the market value of what you receive. If you answer nothing else directly, at least affirm or deny that you understand that before continuing.
always figgure anything sold cost about half as much for the person selling it
As far as barter is concerned, in many, many cases this is patently false. Only if I produced the chair would that be even remotely likely to be the case. More often, the item traded will have depreciated in value from its initial cost. That's what happens over time. Most things depreciate in value. There are exceptions, but that is all they are: exceptions.
Actually, as far as market value for time is concerned, actual working trades are zero sum, or nearly. What most people don't take into account is that a person's time and energy have value.
You can say that my spending 25 hours to create a work of (anything) only cost me my materials, and everything else is pure profit. I personally think that is the logic of idiots and fools. My time has value. Everyone's time has value. I'm not saying that's exactly what you believe, only that it sounds that way.
Let me put these rules in an even more crystal clear light. I buy an item for $10.00. I decide I don't want it. I trade it to a person who has walked out of the same store behind me for something they bought for $10.00 because I like it better, and he likes what I have. Under the IRS' rules, we both made $10.00, effectively creating $20.00 in wealth. We did nothing but trade items of equal value, and owe taxes at whatever ridiculous rate the IRS wants this year on those $10.00 of "income."
Like most people who believe in actual work for value, and not some socialist utopian ideal of labor being worth nothing but to the common good, I see time spent at work as actually being worth what someone else will pay for it. I can make $25.00/hour for my time, because the skills I possess allow me to ask that and easily receive it. It took me a lot of time and effort to build a skill set that enables me to do that. It all has value, and just because a group of politicians and bureaucrats say that my time is worthless (and hence is 100% "income") doesn't make it so. Perhaps legally, but not morally or ethically.
It is my absolute RIGHT to work in a proper and legal (not the neosocialist definition, but anything that is not harmful or fraudulent) profession, and much like I won't pay a tax being levied on me before I can vote, speak, or breathe, (or worship, print things, be a part of a peaceful assembly, bear arms, demand a jury trial, demand the execution of a writ of habeas corpus, confront an accuser in court, defend my life and/or property, demand that the law be applied uniformly to myself and others, petition for redress of grievances, etc) I won't pay a tax levied on me to exercise my right to work. If I do not own absolute right to my time (unless sentenced for violation of other laws), I do not own my life, and am thus a slave. Last I checked, slavery was outlawed (again, unless duly sentenced for another crime).
You can couch it in friendly terms if you wish, but the logic displayed is specious at the absolute best, and requires assumptions that would be wrong under numerous other entirely-likely circumstances. Depreciation is the largest of these, while value for time is the least recognized and most important.
You can argue all you want about how I'm wrong. It certainly won't surprise me if you choose to do so. But then, you're probably going to pay income and payroll taxes all your life. You'll pay for the privilege to have your rights violated. So really, it shows that the words are not what is really valuable (like the IRS' regulations). The actions are what is valuable. My actions support my rights, not some socialist utopia brought into the harsh light of reality.
Don't you just love the IRS? You trade a $20.00 chair for a $20.00 back adjustment, and the IRS claims both parties are $20.00 richer.
Under their logic, your trade has "created" $40.00 in wealth, and there was no loss by either party to offset this "income."
Then again, trading any sort of actual work for return compensation (whether goods, services, or cash) does not constitute income (unless you're the IRS), so nobody actually has a moral or ethical obligation to pay "income" taxes on what is not actually income.
The point is that it isn't a vacation.
Speaking from an employer point-of-view, it is basically paid vacation, whether you wish to acknowledge that or not. A paid vacation is where an employer pays an employee when they don't show up to do work. During paid maternity leave, and employer is paying someone who is not going to show up to work. They are, in fact, the same from a financial standpoint. They are also the same from a sociological standpoint: a reward of payment for services NOT rendered as an act of good will. That is all: an act of good will. It's an act of good will that has a real, definite cost. Someone will bear that cost, period. More on that further below...
j-pimp never said that (s)he didn't support pregnant women. From a personal standpoint, it sounds like much the opposite. What it DOES sound like, however, is that from a political standpoint the parent does not support forcing businesses to pay for something that will end up increasing costs for everyone involved.
Much like other costs of doing business, these don't typically hurt businesses all that much. They can (and do) pass the costs on to their customers and their employees. Customers in the form of higher costs for service, and employees through lower pay packages, slower promotion routes, and hard-nosed insurance administrators who discourage a higher percentage of insured from pursuing reimbursement.
In the end, it's quite true that these things have a way of coming back around to bite people in the ass. Those people certainly won't be the businesses involved. While certain people are definitely helped by these regulations where they otherwise likely wouldn't have been, there are also people hurt by these regulations who otherwise likely wouldn't have been. The latter case just isn't done directly, so fewer people bitch about it. The fact that it's not talked about often doesn't mean it's a non-issue though.
Personally, I don't find the post that started this all (the one that prompted the comment about needing his dick cut off due to some perceived irresponsibility assumed to be inherent from his own comment) to be very insulting. It really was matter-of-fact, and quite true. People who want certain benefits should realize that someone (most likely them) will have to give something up in return for those benefits. They're not free, so people shouldn't expect them to be. Those who are lucky enough to work for one of those rare companies that are run by people who care are the exception. It wasn't a case of telling people that they should sit down, shut up, and not ask for benefits. It was a simple case of telling people to wake up, open their eyes, and realize that there are consequences (good, bad, and neutral) to every action. One of the consequences to demanding health care of any kind (not just maternity care) is that it costs money, and few people are going to volunteer to pay it for you. In the business world, you can't keep from having the cost passed on. It's simply not possible. It will occur one way or the other. The original poster was simply stating that those looking for that type of health care (I would extend that to any benefit, period) should be aware that it WILL cost them, one way or the other, short term or long term. Just simple economics, nothing more. Sad that people had to get bent out of shape about it.
Keep in mind, these statements are my personal opinion. :)
Patents are probably one of the stickiest issues in American jurisprudence, and always have been. First off, they were implemented in order to protect inventors from predation. I personally have mixed feelings, because they also penalize individual inventors who happen to not be as quick off the line. I think that the damage caused by patents versus no patents are about equal. There is no more total benefit to having them than there is to not having them. There is a good possibility of predation with or without the system. The type of predation is the only difference. Therefore, I can neither agree nor disagree with your conclusion. It simply is.
Also, I think that we aren't speaking to each other about regulations, rather at each other. By "regulation" I mean administrative rule. Things that are not law, but rather bureaucratic decisions made by some agency that is authorized by law to administer something. Regulations happen when the law DOESN'T lay things out clearly, and is a major part of the problems with the U.S. today. Laws that are precise are fine, in fact a necessity (this is assuming laws are necessary, a fact debated by some, but without the purview of my comments at this time), but regulations are much, much less so.
The difference with acoustics versus higher wavelengths is that acoustics are governed by law. You are basically free to do as you will, but if damage can be shown (disturbing the peace is considered public harm), you are penalized according to law. Spectrum laws grant authority to the FCC to administer them. The FCC in turn develops rules and regulations and fines and licensing schemes to administer the spectrums under their control. Note, this includes broadcasts that turn back into the visual and audible spectrum, and censoring the media according to bureaucratic whim (and not law). That's where all these problems stem from: regulation.
Anyway, predictions of chaos are, more often than not, greatly overstated. People have a way of working things out. In any system, even one with no "legitimate rule of law," there will be consequences to violators of the norms. This is simple group theory. The type of group doesn't matter. As for chaos, it's usually very short-term, and usually stems from a rapid change in the status quo. In this case, complete deregulation WOULD cause chaos, for a time. Then, means to cope would develop. Things like broadcast error correction, so that overlapping broadcasts could be separated out. Eventually intelligent filtering, which will probably be a long, long way off because there's no incentive to develop it. It would be great to have, and could greatly increase the usable space in the broadcast spectrums, but there's no reason to develop what isn't necessary in a no-competition field. Look at technologies like fiber optics, and what they are doing to increase useable space across the visible wavelengths. Does this happen in the broadcast spectrums? No, because there's not as much drive to squeeze every useable drop of a given wavelength. Where are the technologies to increase the resolution of transmitters and receivers? They sure are developing them quickly in the unregulated visual spectrum.
Companies and individuals don't have to develop new technologies in many broadcast areas because many hurdles are artificially erased by spectrum monopolies. When there is conflict, there is development to overcome those conflicts. There is drive to find ways around things. With static regulation, those conflicts and drives artificially disappear.
The problem is that regulators don't want to allow unregulated markets, because they might discover themselves without any power left. There will always be predators, regulated or not, because predators (of the human variety) are good at adapting to any environment. There will always be people too ignorant or stupid for their own good. Then again, I'm a fan of letting people sink or swim on their own merits. I
Much like there are laws regarding abuse of speech, it would be easy to make common sense laws about abuse of radio. Somewhere upstream of this post is an example of taking a loudspeaker out at midnight and seeing if they regulate speech. Yes, speech is regulated: destructive uses of speech are not allowed. It also makes sense that uses of airwaves that do not materially harm others should be allowed. Note, while I said it would be easy, that only means physically easy. However, the modern framework of government makes it impossible to pass common-sense laws. There are always more than enough people opposed to anything relating to common sense to derail them from passing.
Your example about broadcasting noise at inordinately large power levels in order to block regular signal would fall under abuse of spectrum. Since it's pretty easy to track a signal back to its source, it's pretty easy to keep most abuses in check. This, of course, is not a complete solution for the same reason that sound ordinances are not. You can have someone driving around who the police never find. Same with spectrum abuse. It's just something people have to live with though. Nothing is a truly complete solution, and iron-fisted regulation is worse than many other possible results...
I don't think regulations (being mostly administrative and bureaucratic in nature) are ever really necessary. Just simple laws written to allow damages and penalties for abuse. The law is not an appropriate medium for detailing all possible uses and how they should occur, nor are bureaucracies. It IS appropriate to outline what is considered abusive behaviour, or steps to identify abusive behaviour within a (socio-politically) accepted context. It'll never be quite right, but then the law is rarely entirely right, and often entirely wrong.
Not that it really matters. Most people will be sheep most of the time. They baa amongst themselves without any real effect, taking sides among those who actually follow through. The few people with integrity AND a clue AND the willpower will attempt to fight the influence of the few people with no integrity who lust for power (and the few with no clue who blunder into power). That's been human history, and there are no signs of it changing.
I played "back in the day," but not now, so I can't help you out either. :)
You kick ass. :)
Yes, but it'll have been destroyed long before you get the subpoena. That's all that matters. If you're destroying it in order to keep from complying with a subpoena, then you're in trouble. It's called being proactive. :)
Well, when you wake up, post an intelligent, well-though-out reply. It may be interesting.
I want a return to the days when they dissolve companies for violating laws in a major way.
Of course, Washington state makes far too much money from their violations to want to actually do the right thing.
Amen. All these people who ooh and ahh about military strength don't seem to recall history. Any conventional army can be beaten with guerrilla tactics. The only way a conventional army can win utterly is to absolutely destroy all defenders. It's been happening as long as there have been armies. It happened in Vietnam. It will happen again in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the end, the US will eventually go the way of Britain, Rome, Mongolia, etc.
In a transaction involving equal value, there is zero income to either party, so it's not that it's illegal or unconstitutional. It simply doesn't apply. I trade 2 hours of my time, at a market value of $25.00 an hour, for $50.00 in cash. My client has received $50.00 worth of services, and lost $50.00 in cash. He is no better off. I have given up $50.00 worth of time and received $50.00 worth of cash. I am no better off. Zero income.
Also, if you want to look at it another way, you cannot turn an inalienable right (to the pursuit of happiness, i.e. pursuit of an occupation, in case you don't understand the terminology of that time) into a privilege. The exercise of rights may not be taxed, because the power to tax is the power to destroy. The government does not have the power to destroy rights under color of law. The only reason they tax income is through semantic manipulation. Everyone has an absolute right to pursue lawful employment or self-employment, to trade their time and effort (the basis for all private property rights) for remuneration whether in the form of currency or physical goods. Then again, Americans are mostly sheep who will follow along with whatever Donald Duck tells them to do (referring to a WWII propaganda film by Walt Disney, in case you were unaware).
Income is only derived from activities involving banking. Interest, capital gains, appreciation of value, etc. Working is not an income-producing activity for most people.
In the end, you don't argue with the wording, you argue that the wording doesn't apply. That's how the law works. In most cases, the 16th amendment is simply irrelevant.
Even if they managed to convert the right to employment into a privilege, it would be immoral and unethical, and should be ignored. Then again, Americans are still sheep. Oh well, too bad for them.
The foundation our system of government is built upon is the concept that government exists to protect rights. Arguing that the government should take over a service, system, or network is a de facto admission that the service in question is fundamental to protecting the rights of the public in general. So yes, I would say it is at the heart of the matter, even if it wasn't explicitly stated.
Government subsidies do not a fair market make. Quite the opposite. They are designed to protect a specific special interest: the target of the subsidy. In this case, that would be a telephone service. A government-run industry is just as abusive as a privately-run monopoly, though for different reasons.
Monopolies abuse the consumer to the benefit of the producer, as there is no price competition.
Government subsidies (this type, anyway, as there are subsidies that abuse the consumer as well) tend to abuse service providers, because they produce prices lower than a market would normally bear. This also means that government-run services tend to become true legal monopolies, even if they don't start out that way. They fairly limit entry into a market by underpricing services (by relying on guaranteed income through taxation).
Yes, infrastructure services tend to lend themselves to a single service provider. The reason for this is the natural barrier to entry. It's very expensive to build any sort of service infrastructure. There's not much money in building a redundant network just to get into a price war. It's easier to simply buy (whether you upgrade or not later) existing infrastructure. That's not fair or unfair, it's simply the nature of this one particular market type.
Anyway, my personal definition of a "fair" market is one where anyone has an opportunity to enter without being intentionally hindered. Most powerful industries, even non-monopoly industries, use government as a bludgeon to help prevent entrance by "non-approved" entities. Politicians use government to help prevent entrance of competition into politics. Domestic industries use government subsidies and excessive import taxes to help prevent foreign industry from introducing competitive products into our markets. Labor companies used government as a bludgeon to arrest and fine/imprison any group of people who dared to ask for better working conditions and then had the gall to not show back up for work if the answer was no. That is, until juries started voting "not guilty" even though they were guilty under the law.
The pattern here is that "government" is the problem, not the solution. Government has no business playing favorites among private industry.
In the above examples, the only thing they have a legitimate power to do is levy import taxes. Subsidies are designed to redistribute wealth on an arbitrary basis. They are always used to support one group at the expense of one or more other groups, without exception. This very basic underlying fact is why they are and always will be unethical.
Not currently, but I have the capacity to do so if necessary. However, that was not my point, which you seemed to miss entirely. It is a personal problem, meaning I deal with it myself and don't (or in the hypothetical, won't) demand the labor of others to satisfy my needs. I also believe that others should take responsibility for their own choices and actions. If you wish to get something, you do it on the terms of the seller, or terms the seller is willing to negotiate with you.
If I can't procur it at a cost I find to be acceptable (work, trade, pieces of paper with pictures on them, etc), I do without. If I can get what I need and/or want through others on a cooperative basis, I do so. It's not hard to figure out whether something is worth the advertised price. If you want it more than you want to save on the cost, you buy it. If the cost isn't personally worth it to you, you don't. The simplest of economic decisions.
One of the best examples I can think of is addictive drugs, because almost everyone has had or knows someone personally who has had, a problem with addiction. Nicotine would be the most common, but as it's legal, and hence cheap, it doesn't work as well. So I'll use heroin as my example instead. Take your typical heroin junkie who's got a serious need to score. He's semi-functional, holds down a job as a drywall taper. Normally, he can pay for his fixes by above-board work. He exchanges bottom-of-the-barrel living conditions for enough disposable cash to get his fixes regularly. This junkie gets laid off. Now he doesn't have any disposable cash. But he's still got a dependency. Can't just quit, so he turns to robbing houses. Now, before this point, this junkie worked in a cooperative (i.e. non-coercive) fashion to deal with his dependency. At this point, he has become someone with entitlement issues, taking from others so that he can continue on as normal. This junkie comes one night to rob my house. I shoot this junkie in the leg to protect my rights.
That's where the US is at now. People believing they have the right to have specific things as a matter of course, not just the right to attempt to procure those things. The former is an entitlement, the latter is a right. Nobody has an absolute right to telephone service. You have the right to procure telephone service, so long as you do not violate the rights of others. This is the difference between being free to print materials and distribute them (freedom of press) and the right to be given the machinery and other supplies to print materials as a matter of course. One is absolutely a right. You can feel free to print and distribute materials. However, the government isn't violating your rights by failing to regulate the costs of printing machinery, or by not giving you paper and other materials to print with. The only thing that is guaranteed is to be free to pursue an activity. Rights do not guarantee success.
I could go on about the ethics of entitlement, but as ingrained as it is in most members of Western society, I doubt it would go anywhere useful.
I wouldn't suggest that you sue them, as there are no grounds to do so. I'm firmly against frivolous lawsuits. That's a rant for another time though. :)
:)
You seem to have the choice of paying their advertised price for cable-modem only or paying an additional $1.47 more a month for basic cable and not have to pay the modem-only fee. Sounds like you chose to pay slightly more for a service than you actually had to. I'd suggest dropping basic cable service, since you said you don't use it, and you'll save enough to get probably 1/3-1/4 knocked off one month of the year. The actual percentage depends, of course, on what Cox's rates are. I'd assume for a 1Mb connection you're looking at between $45-$65/month, or a total cost of $60-$80/month + taxes & franchise fees.
Personally, I'm disinclined to like most cable companies. However, I also recognize the value in their services. Having run on both fast and slow cable connections, and had some experience with ADSL, I personally find much more bang for my buck with these two types of connection service as opposed to a dial-up link (I prefer cable). I live in BFE and can get a broadband link for the same price as a telco line and dial-up. Granted, Charter Communications tends to price a LOT more competitively than other cable companies, but they also have more left-coast competition. They probably price higher the further east you head.
Really though, is your position so bad? Look at your connection alternatives. IIRC, you can't get DSL, so that leaves you with dial-up. Talk about your bottom-of-the-barrel ROI. If you need a dedicated (or even close to it) connection, you're looking at probably $18.00-$30.00 for a bare telco POTS line. Then you add on even a bare-bones dial-up connection for $10.00/month. If you've only got full-service available, that's as much as $20.00/month. So right there you've got connection costs from $28.00-$50.00/month just for a freakin' 3KB/s line (if you're lucky). If you're on the high end of that, like I am in my area, it doesn't just make sense to fork over the cash for a broadband connection. I'd be an idiot NOT to. So they have occasional outages. 10% packet loss spikes every hour or three. Horrible customer service. It's still worth it. Just think about the alternative. Regulation isn't going to make any of that better, and you're still probably better off, with all of the problems you may have, than you would be with the previous incarnation of connectivity technology. It's all about perspective. That, and I have issues with people falling into the mental trap of believing they've been forced into something when it's really entirely within their control. Look around and realize that you can actually control as much of your life as you want. Be aware of what your choices are, even if you don't like them.
An agent from Cox perhaps came to your door, put a gun to your head, and told you to sign a service agreement or they'd kill you? Or maybe one of them abducted your child and would only return said child after you agreed to install and pay for Cox service? Man, those sales guys must be getting pushy...
:). They weren't even nice enough to just install the drop, slap a trap on it, and tack on a $5.00 non-customer charge like several other national cable companies do. But you know what? Obviously you think it's worth the price, at least more often than you think about ditching it for dial-up. So why are you saying they "forced" you to pay? They didn't force you to do anything. They gave you their pricing schedule, and you decided to have service installed anyway.
However, what I would guess you are referring to is that you voluntarily called Cox, voluntarily signed up for their internet service and voluntarily agreed to pay for basic cable when they told you that they would only install internet service for you if you were also a cable customer (I apologize for the inordinately long sentence
The only likely deviation from that would be if they did misrepresent the price. Then you might have a legitimate beef, but you still could have dropped the service when you found out there was a discrepancy between their promises and your bill. The choice is still ENTIRELY in your hands.
Maybe I'm wrong, but you'll have to explain to me how they actually forced you into a service agreement that you didn't want.
I'm almost positive (almost, since I cannot read your mind) that I understand what you consider to be wrong with that sentence. I simply disagree with you. Just because I don't see things your way doesn't mean there's no hope for me. It simply means I don't see things your way.
As I see it, dependency on anything is a personal problem. You want help, you find a way to help yourself and/or get others to help you, voluntarily.
You really should look through a decent legal dictionary before commenting on rights vs powers, especially one of the older, period legal dictionaries like Bouvier's.
The blurring of meaning in words, and using one for another indiscriminately is part of the problem with communicating legal (hell, any) issues in English today. Those who cannot or do not understand the importance of distinct meaning, especially where the law is concerned, often resort to dismissing discrete definitions out-of-hand. If you truly care to understand what you're talking about, I again suggest that you look into a period legal source to understand why the term "right" is not used in any constitution (state or federal, that I am aware of) to refer to a power to be delegated to a branch of government. Even the 10th Amendment which you use in support of your argument uses the term power.
Unless the state [constitution] of Texas [...] explicitly [grants] the rights not in their state constitution to the local governments, then this is [...] patently false.
I have to assume this sentence means something other than what it actually says. I'm just not sure what that is supposed to be.
You are correct in that the 10th Amendment gives states all powers (exact term used, not "rights") that are not granted to the federal government. Hence, those not specifically granted are off limits.
That takes care of the federal part. However, you seem to forget the section that says "respectively, or to the people." In each state constitution, there is a delegation of powers to that state's government. The 10th Amendment gives all powers not delegated in the state constitutions to the people. Hence, anything not explicitly stated is off-limits. You haven't stated anything that would actually make my statement untrue. Anything not delegated to a government branch (state or federal, it doesn't matter) is reserved to the people, and hence off-limits to both the state and federal governments. The text of the amendment is crystal clear.
FYI, before you even start your semantic handwaving, democratic republics are a form of democracy.
Hey, at least you get the relationship. Most people don't even know what a republic is, much less how it relates to the term "democracy."
Look, do you know what a municipal bond is? I guess not.
And how are municipal bonds paid off? Everybody now...
An amendment to the Constitution could be passed and ratified declaring that every person born on February 29th was to be taxed doubly. Much like the stadium bond you mentioned, it's termed "tyranny of the majority," which is the reason for the controls in the first place. Actually, with how low voter turnout is, and no minimum requirements for voter participation, more often it's actually tyranny of the minority. The majority barely pull their heads out of their asses long enough to bitch. It doesn't make it right to tax people so that a frickin' sports stadium can be built. That's stupidity (and arrogance) in action. These things are often referred to as democracy, but the number of people weighing in don't make it so. It's more of a farce than anything else.
No, the most they'll do is seize your assets and throw you in prison[...]
Absolute refusal to cooperate IS resistance. Jail is not the end. If they can't get you into jail, they kill you. That is the bottom line. They can't magically force people into jail without something to back it up. If you won't cooperate, you will be killed. Period. And that is really the essence of government. The ability to deal death.
The income tax is repugnant to all senses of liberty, so it's not a tax that I pay. I couldn't even if I wanted to, unless I wanted to apply for an SSN. The IRS won't accept returns without one. So I don't apply. Call it conscientious objection. I'm not a slave, so I won't be taxed simply to exercise my right to trade my sweat (sometimes metaphorically, sometimes not) for someone else's money or
Do you even know what the word monopoly means?
Yes, I know both the plain English and legal definitions. As this is a legal matter, I'm using the legal definition. A business is a monopoly if they control such a substantial portion of the market that they can control entry into the market. As my previous example, a small-town telco is not a monopoly by virtue of being the only one. They would have to actually CONTROL the market. If someone can come in and set up a competing shop, they don't actually control the market, they just have 100% market share. Market share does not necessarily equal control, especially in small markets. While entrance into a telecommunications market may be expensive, it is not as a result of market manipulation by said mom-and-pop phone company. Remember, when debating legal issues, plain English definitions need not apply.
Are you aware the the telephone DID NOT EXIST when the constitution was written?
Yes, I do actually have a decent grasp of history despite having been publicly educated. I fail to see your point, however. Many things that we have now did not exist then, and people have managed to go on living despite governmental intrusion.
WTF are you talking about!? Of course it does. Try never using a telephone again and see how it affects your life.
Would you die without a telephone? Would your rights be in dire peril? Was there nothing before the telephone? Just because people have become dependent on a device that makes life easier and faster doesn't mean it has anything to do with the general welfare of the public. It just speeds up communication. It is still a luxury, and is not absolutely necessary to live out one's life. I've lived much of my life without a phone, and, left to my own devices would probably not have one. You're asking the wrong person if you were expecting me to respond that not using a telephone again would have a deleterious effect on my life.
As always, priorities above basic sanitation, clothing, shelter, and sustenance are personal choices. Others shouldn't have to pay for your personal choices. You can have a grandiose sense of entitlement all you want, it just means you don't have what it takes to live without leeching off those who CAN make it on their own.
Rates increased because of network upgrades, both infrastructure and programming. Since most cable networks are serviced by nationwide companies, they spread these costs across their entire network. That means even networks they haven't yet/won't ever upgrade. You can always choose to not subscribe to the luxury of cable TV. Nobody's forcing you to watch ABC. If you have a job that requires you to have cable TV, I bet you can afford to pay for rates anywhere, or even get satellite access.
:)
As someone who used to work as a contractor for Charter Communications (in many of their systems), I've seen every one of those systems add services and channels while not drastically increasing rates. And I don't even like Charter Communications!
I can still get basic cable for $15.00/month, or a digital with the works and cable internet access for some ungodly $190.00/month or so. I can't say that quality has decreased, at least not in my experience.
As for airlines, I don't know what you've been smoking, or what rock you've been hiding under, but there was no airline deregulation. They may have relaxed price controls, but that's it. Air travel is one of the most highly regulated industries on earth.
I've flown pretty regularly to numerous US destinations for the last 15 years, and prices have decreased on a lot of those flights. Just look at Southwest if you want a model of competition. Polite, easy to deal with employees and cheap-as-hell tickets. They are the only airline who consistently made money post-9/11, and they didn't raise their already rock-bottom prices to do it.
In California, they changed the definition of "deregulation" to "different regulation." There was never any real deregulation in California, only lies.