Why is the country so pro-government all of a sudden, when its so easy to prove that its exactly those in the elite that control its every move?
elite or élite (-lt, -lt)
n. pl. elite or elites
A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status: "In addition to notions of social equality there was much emphasis on the role of elites and of heroes within them" (Times Literary Supplement).
It seems to me that it's pretty clear that by definintion, the political elites are the ones who make command decisions in the economy and in politics. I can't imagine many other ways that it would work really. Even if we had a pure democracy where we voted on every issue, then we would all be elite by definition.
In the war against Iraq, many of those at the top of the pyramid (G.H. Bush, Cheney, Schwartzkopf, etc) were found GUILTY [deoxy.org] by the International War Crimes Tribunal.
That's an interesting site, but after looking at it a few minutes it seemed to be pretty clear that this website is biased against the American government. A quick look at the judges who convicted George H.W. Bush and others seemed to convince me that it was hardly an impartial decision. International law is a tricky thing at best, and I doubt the credibility of a body of judges who are activists in the case they are considering.
Freedom of Speech is gone when it is regulated. With the FCC punishing anti-government sentiment from its beginning, its obvious there is no freedom of speech in the TV and radio media. Since the newspapers are now controlled by those same media mavens, they too should be ignored.
I think you are saying that because the FCC regulates the media that the media is not free to publish what they want. In the article, the doctrine of no prior restraint clearly delineates where the Supreme Court stands on this issue. Media and newspapers can publish what they want, but they can also be held liable for what they publish.
Even lifetime Libertarians though are towing the government line and wanting revenge, even though the proof against Afghanistan and bin Laden is shamefully non-existant.
While I don't disagree that there might be many people who have changed their views after the destruction in New York and in Washington, I take exception to your assertion about the lack of evidence against bin Laden. It is clear that the US government has such evidence. It is also clear it wants to keep it secret in order to protect the sources and methods of the intelligence community. President Bush, members of other NATO countries, and many others who have seen the evidence have said that it is convincing. The question of the release of such information is a difficult one, but I am sure that there are people inside the government to find good unclassified evidence to present to the American people.
Want to stop terrorist militant attacks on our nation? Limit the powers of Congress as set forth in the Constitution. Create a new foreign policy of non-intervention by our government, remove all sanctions and embargos, tariffs and subsidies. Let good people trade with whoever they want, and stop subsidizing big business in every way.
I agree that non-intervention is a good policy in some instances, but I would also argue that engagement can lead to positive results as well.
The thing is, people around the world like America. They want American companies in thier contries, and they like American dollars to flow into their pockets. Disengagement with the world would most likely breed alot more anger against America than it would solve.
On the issue of free trade, I think that we should raise our tariffs against those who are trying to beseige American industry. A good case in point is the steel industry in America. Foreign steel manufacturers are flooding the American market with cheap steel. Most of it is poorly made by underpaid workers in unsafe conditions. Right now the steel industry in America is in big trouble because it is not making a profit on making steel in America. At some point, we are going to have to make the choice between putting a higher tariff on foreign steel and protecting our industries or allowing our steel industries to go broke. One could make the argument that the lack of a native steel industry is a blow to national security. If our nation were to enter a prolonged conventional war or face some sort of massive diaster, it would be hard to come up with a large quantity of steel quickly. Remember, the Founding Fathers wanted the US Government to be funded purely through tariffs of foreign goods.
I think a far greater threat to the average American is the income tax, which both invades privacy and takes grossly unproportional amounts of money from different social classes.
Another one of the sad realities of foriegn affairs is the fact that if we don't stick up for the interests of American business, then another country will step in and take the opportunity. Oil is an important part of our economy, and although this might distress some people, it isn't for our own benefit either. Europe needs oil far more badly than America does, because America has a fairly large supply of domestic production. One of the main reasons we fought Desert Storm was because our European allies need oil just as badly as we do. It's a sad fact that the people in the Middle East happen to sit on such a large natural resource, yet have little political will to exploit it for their own uses. They gladly watch as different Western countries court them with different offers to attain their oil. Yet they are unwilling to invest their vast oil fortunes in native industry that could compete with the West instead of simply supply it. This is an obvious route to development.
Limit big government, and you will limit so many problems that we face in the world and locally each and every day. Give the government more power, and you only make it worse.
I agree that big government is a bad thing in many ways, but on the other had, the political reality is that everyone has a stake in what the government does. Over half of the Federal budget is entitlement programs such as Social Security, Welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid. Congress has determined that the Government is willing to pay the medical and personal expenses of retired Americans. Are there other avenues for this money that make more sense? Yes. Are old people going to vote for them? No. Fear mongering and scare tactics do more to influence too many voters decisions than a hard look at political reality.
The military is often lambasted for spending too much money, but its whole income is less than 20% of the federal budget. The intelligence community as well has come under fire for failing to detect the terrorist threat, but a careful analysis reveals that the intelligence community has been repeatedly been cut in size, and yet tasked with doing a great deal more than they had to deal with in the Cold War years. At the same time, President Clintion issued an Executive Order in 1995 that disallowed the CIA from recruiting informants who were involved in human rights abuses or illeagal activies. So, we not only cut our intelligence services, but we also blinded them as well. One of the unsavory parts of our political reality is that we must use whatever tactics we can to eliminate threats against our national security. We witnessed on September 11th what happens when we let our gaurd down.
I just hope it doesn't happen again before we are more prepared.
Now we are bombing the shit out of the poorest nation in the world because they are bound under their Holy Law to protect their guest.
That's bullshit. The Koran clearly defines Jihad as being a holy war only against soldiers who are oppressing Muslims. It forbids attacking women or children, or attacking buildings or anything that isn't involved in the conflict. The followers of bin Laden are to Muslims as people who kill abortion activists are to Christians. I just wish that mainstream Islam would be more active in denoucing the attempts of these extremists to soil their religion.
Their attempts to characterize bin Laden as a "guest" protected by Sharia is thin at best. The reason they won't give up bin Laden is because he is the backbone of the Taliban's power. He is a folk hero in Afghanistan, but if Afghans knew the real truth I think they would change their views.
As an intern for a summer session. Yes, they do read the email they recieve. Yes, it is a menial task relegated to interns and junior staff. The biggest problem Congressmen have with email is that the senders usually do not have their physical address included with the email. Because most staffs are instructed to forward email for other districts to their respective Congressmen, very few emails are actually tallied with the other correspondence unless it is clear it is from their district. So, save an interns time and get your email counted by including your postal address with your email. Yes it sounds old fashioned but it's how it works.
At least your attitude on an issue will be tallied with other emails, phones, faxes, and postal mails received by the Congressmen for the month.
If you were to have the misfortune of living in the 1800's, you would realize something: almost no one got rich off of media enterprises. And this was not for a lack of distribution of works, either. A select few artists, such as Charles Dickens, became wealthy in their own time. Many other artists such as Poe, Dickenson, Melville, and others, either died in poverty or were not recognized for the value of their art.
In the grand scheme of things, the filter of time and perspective tends to add value to the works of past artist. Moby Dick and The Raven are examples of 19th centry works that are popular today but were not well recognized or even accepted by the critics of the time as being good examples of art.
Today, however, book companies can make a living off of reprinting these copyright expired works.
Musicians, as well, rarely ever acheived great fame or wealth in their time. Many works for the orchestra familiar today are from artists who did not make much money in their time. People such as Gustov Holst, or Richard Strauss whose works are well known today had little recognition in their own time.
How does this apply to Britney Spears and N' Sync? They are more of a social phenomanon than musical or visual artists. Granted, their works are visually fast and full, and musically upbeat, but little of either philosophical or literary value is contained within. Is this bad? No, not in a artistic sense, thier art stands in its context. What does this mean for the economic value of their works? A 14 year old girl might have biological reasons for wanting to see N' Sync, and a social need as well, because all of her friends are "in to them". Does this mean the work they are producing is valuable? Well, in monotary terms, yes, it is. But will the music of N' Sync stand against Beethoven's 7th? No. Because Beethoven crafted the music as an art form. N' Sync crafts their music as a vehicle to collect teenage dollars.
When all of this is put in a context where people can download any arbitrary work of music without paying money then things become interesting. The concept of economic value is thrown out the window. It has been my experience that people will indeed download Britney Spears over Beethoven, and this is reasonable given other pressures associated with it, not to mention peer approval. Perhaps people enjoy the thrill of 'stealing', or think they are getting the most economicly for free.
But which work is more valuble? My humble opinion is that I would rather familiarize myself with the timeless quality of Beethoven's works rather than the fleeting emotion that Britney would give me. Although other people most likely will reach a different conclusion, I think the crux of the matter is that the value of music is embedded in its quality to the beholder, and that no one monatary value can be attached. Personally, I think that there is little of value in most recent music, and it does not deserve a copyright. If no works had copyrights, then we would go back to the old days were there were only a few rare superstar artists and most others quietly labored away from the spotlight. Others would be subsidized by organizations who have an interest in such things. Bach, for example, was paid by the church to write music and direct choirs. Many orchestras today have composers-in-residence, who produce works that may or may not have great artistic value, but who know in advance that they most likely will not profit greatly from them.
In the end, people will surround themselves with the art they enjoy, so the whole conversation is moot other than to see which big record company and/or profit making artist gets your money.
Re:Affect hardware sales?
on
OS X on x86?
·
· Score: 1
"Oh, wow! I can use something besides the hardware that came with the system"
"What do you mean, you can't order those with my own specs for a hard drive?"
"My ISA legacy devices are what my business depends on"
"It would be swell if I could use this video card in this computer"
Sometimes it is nice to be able to 'lift the hood'
A workstation is nice if you are going to be doing work on purely computational problems. That means businesses. But business don't like paying several times the value of the hardware because of what the label says any more than you do.
Consumers want flexibility for arbitrary interfaces. Even though the number of "tweakers" is small in population, average people know when their video card sucks or when they can't get sound out of their sound card. They would like an alternative other than "ship it back and pay the bill".
Slashdot Mirror
elite or élite (-lt, -lt) n. pl. elite or elites A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status: "In addition to notions of social equality there was much emphasis on the role of elites and of heroes within them" (Times Literary Supplement).
It seems to me that it's pretty clear that by definintion, the political elites are the ones who make command decisions in the economy and in politics. I can't imagine many other ways that it would work really. Even if we had a pure democracy where we voted on every issue, then we would all be elite by definition.
That's an interesting site, but after looking at it a few minutes it seemed to be pretty clear that this website is biased against the American government. A quick look at the judges who convicted George H.W. Bush and others seemed to convince me that it was hardly an impartial decision. International law is a tricky thing at best, and I doubt the credibility of a body of judges who are activists in the case they are considering.
I think you are saying that because the FCC regulates the media that the media is not free to publish what they want. In the article, the doctrine of no prior restraint clearly delineates where the Supreme Court stands on this issue. Media and newspapers can publish what they want, but they can also be held liable for what they publish.
While I don't disagree that there might be many people who have changed their views after the destruction in New York and in Washington, I take exception to your assertion about the lack of evidence against bin Laden. It is clear that the US government has such evidence. It is also clear it wants to keep it secret in order to protect the sources and methods of the intelligence community. President Bush, members of other NATO countries, and many others who have seen the evidence have said that it is convincing. The question of the release of such information is a difficult one, but I am sure that there are people inside the government to find good unclassified evidence to present to the American people.
I agree that non-intervention is a good policy in some instances, but I would also argue that engagement can lead to positive results as well. The thing is, people around the world like America. They want American companies in thier contries, and they like American dollars to flow into their pockets. Disengagement with the world would most likely breed alot more anger against America than it would solve.
On the issue of free trade, I think that we should raise our tariffs against those who are trying to beseige American industry. A good case in point is the steel industry in America. Foreign steel manufacturers are flooding the American market with cheap steel. Most of it is poorly made by underpaid workers in unsafe conditions. Right now the steel industry in America is in big trouble because it is not making a profit on making steel in America. At some point, we are going to have to make the choice between putting a higher tariff on foreign steel and protecting our industries or allowing our steel industries to go broke. One could make the argument that the lack of a native steel industry is a blow to national security. If our nation were to enter a prolonged conventional war or face some sort of massive diaster, it would be hard to come up with a large quantity of steel quickly. Remember, the Founding Fathers wanted the US Government to be funded purely through tariffs of foreign goods. I think a far greater threat to the average American is the income tax, which both invades privacy and takes grossly unproportional amounts of money from different social classes.
Another one of the sad realities of foriegn affairs is the fact that if we don't stick up for the interests of American business, then another country will step in and take the opportunity. Oil is an important part of our economy, and although this might distress some people, it isn't for our own benefit either. Europe needs oil far more badly than America does, because America has a fairly large supply of domestic production. One of the main reasons we fought Desert Storm was because our European allies need oil just as badly as we do. It's a sad fact that the people in the Middle East happen to sit on such a large natural resource, yet have little political will to exploit it for their own uses. They gladly watch as different Western countries court them with different offers to attain their oil. Yet they are unwilling to invest their vast oil fortunes in native industry that could compete with the West instead of simply supply it. This is an obvious route to development.
I agree that big government is a bad thing in many ways, but on the other had, the political reality is that everyone has a stake in what the government does. Over half of the Federal budget is entitlement programs such as Social Security, Welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid. Congress has determined that the Government is willing to pay the medical and personal expenses of retired Americans. Are there other avenues for this money that make more sense? Yes. Are old people going to vote for them? No. Fear mongering and scare tactics do more to influence too many voters decisions than a hard look at political reality.
The military is often lambasted for spending too much money, but its whole income is less than 20% of the federal budget. The intelligence community as well has come under fire for failing to detect the terrorist threat, but a careful analysis reveals that the intelligence community has been repeatedly been cut in size, and yet tasked with doing a great deal more than they had to deal with in the Cold War years. At the same time, President Clintion issued an Executive Order in 1995 that disallowed the CIA from recruiting informants who were involved in human rights abuses or illeagal activies. So, we not only cut our intelligence services, but we also blinded them as well. One of the unsavory parts of our political reality is that we must use whatever tactics we can to eliminate threats against our national security. We witnessed on September 11th what happens when we let our gaurd down.
I just hope it doesn't happen again before we are more prepared.
Now we are bombing the shit out of the poorest nation in the world because they are bound under their Holy Law to protect their guest. That's bullshit. The Koran clearly defines Jihad as being a holy war only against soldiers who are oppressing Muslims. It forbids attacking women or children, or attacking buildings or anything that isn't involved in the conflict. The followers of bin Laden are to Muslims as people who kill abortion activists are to Christians. I just wish that mainstream Islam would be more active in denoucing the attempts of these extremists to soil their religion. Their attempts to characterize bin Laden as a "guest" protected by Sharia is thin at best. The reason they won't give up bin Laden is because he is the backbone of the Taliban's power. He is a folk hero in Afghanistan, but if Afghans knew the real truth I think they would change their views.
As an intern for a summer session. Yes, they do read the email they recieve. Yes, it is a menial task relegated to interns and junior staff. The biggest problem Congressmen have with email is that the senders usually do not have their physical address included with the email. Because most staffs are instructed to forward email for other districts to their respective Congressmen, very few emails are actually tallied with the other correspondence unless it is clear it is from their district. So, save an interns time and get your email counted by including your postal address with your email. Yes it sounds old fashioned but it's how it works.
At least your attitude on an issue will be tallied with other emails, phones, faxes, and postal mails received by the Congressmen for the month.
If you were to have the misfortune of living in the 1800's, you would realize something: almost no one got rich off of media enterprises. And this was not for a lack of distribution of works, either. A select few artists, such as Charles Dickens, became wealthy in their own time. Many other artists such as Poe, Dickenson, Melville, and others, either died in poverty or were not recognized for the value of their art.
In the grand scheme of things, the filter of time and perspective tends to add value to the works of past artist. Moby Dick and The Raven are examples of 19th centry works that are popular today but were not well recognized or even accepted by the critics of the time as being good examples of art.
Today, however, book companies can make a living off of reprinting these copyright expired works.
Musicians, as well, rarely ever acheived great fame or wealth in their time. Many works for the orchestra familiar today are from artists who did not make much money in their time. People such as Gustov Holst, or Richard Strauss whose works are well known today had little recognition in their own time.
How does this apply to Britney Spears and N' Sync? They are more of a social phenomanon than musical or visual artists. Granted, their works are visually fast and full, and musically upbeat, but little of either philosophical or literary value is contained within. Is this bad? No, not in a artistic sense, thier art stands in its context. What does this mean for the economic value of their works? A 14 year old girl might have biological reasons for wanting to see N' Sync, and a social need as well, because all of her friends are "in to them". Does this mean the work they are producing is valuable? Well, in monotary terms, yes, it is. But will the music of N' Sync stand against Beethoven's 7th? No. Because Beethoven crafted the music as an art form. N' Sync crafts their music as a vehicle to collect teenage dollars.
When all of this is put in a context where people can download any arbitrary work of music without paying money then things become interesting. The concept of economic value is thrown out the window. It has been my experience that people will indeed download Britney Spears over Beethoven, and this is reasonable given other pressures associated with it, not to mention peer approval. Perhaps people enjoy the thrill of 'stealing', or think they are getting the most economicly for free.
But which work is more valuble? My humble opinion is that I would rather familiarize myself with the timeless quality of Beethoven's works rather than the fleeting emotion that Britney would give me. Although other people most likely will reach a different conclusion, I think the crux of the matter is that the value of music is embedded in its quality to the beholder, and that no one monatary value can be attached. Personally, I think that there is little of value in most recent music, and it does not deserve a copyright. If no works had copyrights, then we would go back to the old days were there were only a few rare superstar artists and most others quietly labored away from the spotlight. Others would be subsidized by organizations who have an interest in such things. Bach, for example, was paid by the church to write music and direct choirs. Many orchestras today have composers-in-residence, who produce works that may or may not have great artistic value, but who know in advance that they most likely will not profit greatly from them.
In the end, people will surround themselves with the art they enjoy, so the whole conversation is moot other than to see which big record company and/or profit making artist gets your money.
"Oh, wow! I can use something besides the hardware that came with the system"
"What do you mean, you can't order those with my own specs for a hard drive?"
"My ISA legacy devices are what my business depends on"
"It would be swell if I could use this video card in this computer"
Sometimes it is nice to be able to 'lift the hood'
A workstation is nice if you are going to be doing work on purely computational problems. That means businesses. But business don't like paying several times the value of the hardware because of what the label says any more than you do.
Consumers want flexibility for arbitrary interfaces. Even though the number of "tweakers" is small in population, average people know when their video card sucks or when they can't get sound out of their sound card. They would like an alternative other than "ship it back and pay the bill".