A free market is, by definition, characterized by FREEDOM . . . including, but possibly not limited to, freedom from coercion and fraud. The deliberate introduction of harmful substances into the food supply constitutes both, and as such, is not countenanced by libertarians, or even anarcho-capitalists like myself.
Christianity as I understand it is based on love, not authority. I admit there is a nasty authoritarian streak in much organized Christianity, but I view that as a corruption, not a result, of Christian teaching.
As for myself, I distrust almost all human authority, and follow it only to the extent necessary, while doing what I can to undermine the logical and moral flaw that underlies most of it: the idea that some people have the right to rule and control others without their consent. If we are created in the image of God, then each of us innately and inherently possesses infinite dignity and worth. And if so, then each of us is meant to rule himself or herself - NOT to dominate or oppress others, nor to be dominated nor oppressed by others.
Human authority - whether religious, political, or financial - is based on fear. But we were made to love, not to fear. Any organization motivated primarily by fear rather than love is inherently corrupt, and doomed to eventual self-destruction. As long as people obey out of fear, they cannot voluntarily and willingly cooperate out of love, but it is only out of love, broadly defined, that personal and spiritual growth and progress can take place.
Keep in mind that there is a HUGE difference between today's institutionalized, Americanized, politicized, and neo-totalitarian brand of organized "Christianity," and the original Christian faith taught, lived, and made possibly 2000 years ago by Christ Himself.
I consider myself an aspiring follower of Christ, and have a certain degree of tolerance and respect for other faith systems as well, but have absolutely no use for the more organized forms of "Christianity."
If you remove from the Christian set of moral codes those codes that overlap with a lot of others (e.g. don't murder people and take their stuff), what are you left with that's uniquely Christian, though?
Not to sound flippant, but you are left with Jesus Christ, and what He represents to Christians: forgiveness from our multitudinous ways of harming ourselves and those around us, and a bridge between man and God, as we believe He was and is both.
There is nothing particularly unique about Christian moral teaching, as we believe God has written this part on our consciences as well as on the world around us, and people can and do rediscover it all the time, more or less independently. But no one lives up to this, or any, moral code perfectly, all the time. We call this sin: failure to live up to even our own imperfect standards, much less God's perfect ones. And in Christ (not in Christianity, but in Christ Himself) we have a way of forgiveness and restoration, and the strength to try to do better next time.
Don't mean to "preach," but you did ask.:)
Re:Lets invent yet another language!
on
Groovy in Action
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Groovy is not "just another language" competing directly, in the same space, with others. It tries to fill a specific niche that, at least arguably, nothing else filled well, if at all: the ability to do high-level scripting, a la Python or Ruby, targeting the Java VM, and thus being able to inteoperate well in both directions with the Java class library as well as existing Java code. (Note: BeanShell was an attempt to fill a similar niche, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with it to know how well it did so. Jython and JRuby are other attempts, but are mostly existing languages implemented for the JVM, not new languages specifically designed for the JVM environment.)
If that's what the patent covers . . . transforming signals into the frequency domain . . . isn't there about 200 years of prior art in the form of Fourier transforms???
Sorry, but . . . speaking as a Christian of sorts (I'd call myself an aspiring Christian, not necessarily a practicing one) . . . this kind of bigotry and intolerance is neither unique to Christians, nor non-Christians, nor any particular sect of Christendom. The problem is fundamentally with (fallen) human nature itself. Some people, for whatever reason, like to control others. People of this sort are attracted to positions of power: sometimes religious, sometimes financial, sometimes governmental. They often abuse this power to the detriment of everyone else.
In a world where power were decentralized, limited, and exercised mostly by individuals or small groups rather than large ones, this would be less of a problem: people with this tendency would still exist, probably in about the same numbers, but their ability to harm others would be far less.
bees, humans, and so on have evolved for millions of years eating natural foods with DNA produces through natural processes. The further we get from those natural nutrition sources that are body is equipped to handle, the less efficiently your body may be able to use those foods.
You don't even need to artificially modify the genome, to encounter ill effects from eating non-natural "foods."
HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) could not be part of a genuinely natural diet, because it relies on an abundance of what we might falsely consider "natural" corn. This corn actually has been selectively bred for centuries to produce bigger and more sugar-laden varieties. And even with current varieties of corn, HFCS could not be produced in sufficiently large quantities, nor at sufficiently low cost, to compete with natural sources of sugar, except for the fact that it is highly subsidized by the GOP in exchange for the latter's near-dominance over the politics of agricultural states.
But HFCS contains high levels of fructose, which, unlike other sugars, suppresses the production of a key hormone called leptin, which regulates appetite. This is currently believed to account for a significant portion of the increase in obesity of Americans, both relative to people elsewhere in the world, and also relative to previous generations of Americans.
Our species f*cks with nature quite a bit. Mostly this is to our benefit . . . but not always. We should be much more careful about introducing rapid changes into environments we do not fully understand. And I say this even as an anarcho-capitalist. I don't believe in government solutions to private problems - or any other problems - but I also don't believe in doing f*cked-up experiments that affect the lives or property of other people without their consent. On that basis, I believe that GMO "food" should be clearly labeled as such, and should be grown in such a way that it cannot "accidentally" contaminate non-GMO crops. And agricultural should be neither subsidized nor taxed; markets should decide what is produced, when, and by whom. One result would be the eventual recovery of the miserable economy of Africa, which has been hurt greatly by agricultural subsidies in the developed world (especially the U.S.).
I share this concern. Until some of the legal issues around software patents are resolved, one way or another, using Microsoft technology in any form comes with a certain degree of risk. And I agree that for now there are better ways to write new cross-platform software.
But you have to understand how this development could help to undermine Microsoft's entire empire. Most business PC users depend on custom software, and much of that software is written in some incarnation of VB. If they no longer need 'Doze to run this custom software, and if they can run OpenOffice, Firefox, PostgreSQL, Apache, etc. for their other needs, then there's a very good chance that they don't truly need 'Doze anymore, or for that matter anything else from Microsoft.
Please forgive what might be a handful of newbie question, but: (a) does the VB.NET environment support most of Windows Forms; (b) does it support database access through ODBC, OLE DB, some equivalent to the.NET native providers, or some combination of the above; and (c) can it expose and consume Web services with reasonable ease? These would be the 3 requirements I think my company, a large bank, would need in order to seriously consider something like this.
If I were permitted by my company to do so, I would at least consider doing the opposite: developing.NET software using Mono under Linux, and using 'Doze only for testing. To me this is just one more reason not to have to run an inferior OS, even though I must develop software targeting that OS. It's also one more reason for companies to reduce their dependence on Microsoft. If they can port their.NET apps to Mono, then their developers no longer need 'Doze, and sooner or later their desktop users will no longer need it either.
Microsoft dominates the desktop portion of the IT industry. It is only one of many players in the much more competitive server and middleware space, and its offerings are inferior to the competition except for two advantages. One is the ease of integration with its desktop and development tools. Second and probably more important is the large pool of people who know or think they know Microsoft technologies. The perception in many IT shops is that this pair of advantages translates into lower cost, which, in the short term, it usually does. In the longer term, vendor lock-in and constant platform churn (deprecation of APIs, etc.) represent a huge cost, but this doesn't bother IT managers much, because it's mostly internal. It translates into a steady stream of work for their development and sysadmin staff, which they can sell to the business as "upgrades" and "improvements." Dumb businesses buy this, so M$ makes a lot of money, even in a space where its offerings suck. Smart businesses don't, and M$ makes a lot of money from them too, but only on the desktop.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but would go much further.
For instance, I think you're missing the fact that the federal government, by illegally granting monopoly status to telecom and railroad companies, and by claiming jurisdiction over the airwaves, has done far more to set back the cause of common access to infrastructure, than to advance it. It has a proven track record of acting in the interests of those who fund it, not those whom it supposedly represents. Even if it had the legitimate power to provide Internet infrastructure, it has done just hte opposite, by systematically eliminating any form of competition that it possibly could.
Libertarians, constitutionalist, traditional conservatives, and anarcho-capitalists (such as myself - the most radical of the bunch) definitely do not believe government should "provide infrastructure," for these among other reasons. Some traditional conservatives did accept a governmental role in this regard, but not a federal role - they argued that it should be done by the most local (and therefore most responsive and accountable) level of government possible, which certainly would not be the fedgov.
Since the fedgov has done far more to hinder than to promote competition and the consumer benefits that would have followed, and since it has no jurisdiction over this area anyway, I'd argue strongly for a smaller rather than greater federal role. Deregulating the airwaves, and revoking the illegally granted telecom (and other) monopolies, would allow competition to emerge. The results would be much better than a government-provided service possibly could be, not to mention less expensive.
Best option, IMHO, would be to use GPL with pay-for-business-use clause.
You can't, because the freedom to use for any purpose is one of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the GPL, and in fact all free and open-source software licenses, pretty much by definition.
You can charge for rights to distribute outside the terms of the GPL, for instance by incorporating into a proprietary software package.
You also can charge for use of trademarks, or, as in the case of Java, require conformance with various tests designed to ensure compatibility, as a condition of permission to use the trademark.
But one purpose of the GPL is to guarantee that the software remains free to use for any purpose, commercial or not. If you don't want that, then the GPL isn't for you.
Libertarians tend to believe in global warming, though not necessarily human-caused global warming. However, they also believe in voluntary cooperation, rather than government force, as the only morally acceptable solution to this or any other problem. Forcing people to act contrary to their own interests, even if it is for a "good cause," invariably makes problems worse and not better.
My personal take is that global warming is here, and is a GOOD thing, regardless of who caused it. It is likely to have the same effect that it did last time it happened, in the early 15th century: a massive increase in agricultural productivity, corresponding improvements in human lifespan and quality of life, and a great expansion of creativity, commerce, art, etc., just like the last Renaissance. This isn't to say there won't be problems and challenges too; obviously, coastal and/or desert regions will have to adapt, and some people - actually quite a few - may find themselves displaced. Governments will of course continue to try to stand in the way of progress, as they always do, but hopefully they will not succeed.
1. CF bulbs are an appropriate replacement for incandescents in some, BUT NOT ALL, applications.
Much more importantly:
2. It is none of the government's business. Any lawful powers a government can have must have been delegated, directly or indirectly, by the people. But people do not have the right to control the purchasing decisions of others - only their own. Since that right does not exist, it cannot be delegated, and cannot be among the lawful powers of the California government, nor of any other. Of course all governments exercise illegitimate, usurped powers all the time, but it is not right, it is not lawful, it should not happen, and those responsible should, at a bare minimum, be removed from office, and held civilly and criminally accountable for any harm they may have caused.
Harmful monopolies are harmful precisely because they initiate force and/or fraud, neither of which are allowed in a libertarian society. Libertarians (and anarchists, such as myself) would prefer to address the root of the problem, which is the initiation of force and/or fraud. If that were done, the symptom would take care of itself.
No person has a right to rule over another without the latter's informed consent.
The implications are staggering, and most people, even libertarians, have not fully thought them through, although there are those within both classical liberal and anarcho-capitalist traditions who've at least tried (e.g., Bastiat, Spooner, Rousseau, Mises, Rothbard).
One of them is that coercive government as we know it is inherently wrong and illegitimate, regardless of its size, the form in which it takes, who is nominally or actually in control, and any of its specific actions or inactions.
Another is that, with or without government, society will collapse into chaos unless people learn to rule themselves, at least most of them, and at least most of the time.
I'm a theologically conservative Christian and a libertarian, and I can tell you that those rights absolutely do apply to everyone, including Muslims. The general proof is complex, but, for Christians, it should be a no-brainer, because of the second of the 2 Great Commandments: that we love our neighbor as ourselves. There is nothing remotely loving about violating the rights of other people, and, therefore, we shouldn't. We should respect those rights, EVEN IF WE DISAGREE WITH THE WAY THEY ARE USED.
The anti-democratic thrust of opinion in what are called democratic societies is really ferocious.
Don't forget that "democracy" itself is merely a means to keep certain elites in power, by perverting the natural desire that all people for freedom and self-determination (at least for themselves) into a collective rather than individual right. We supposedly have the right to rule others, through voting, but we do not have the right to rule ourselves, unless the "majority" agrees. That is completely twisted, but you will find that not only public "education," but most of the other support structures around "democracy," are designed for exactly the same purpose: to thwart every person's natural desire for freedom.
There has long been worldwide distrust and hatred of the U.S. government, apart from the people. However, when the U.S. people consistently vote for politicians who expand the government's aggression against the rest of the world, then some of the people most badly affected by that aggression - particularly, but not exclusively, Arabs and Muslims - tend to begin to blame the people as well. That isn't entirely fair, as we honestly don't have a lot of choices, nor a system that encourages choice. And most of us frankly have no idea what awful suffering we inflict on people elsewhere, especially in those nations with whom we have had declared or undeclared wars. I'd like to think we would act and live differently if we did. But to the admittedly limited extent to which we govern ourselves, we are responsible for the actions of the government, and will be perceived accordingly by those elsewhere.
As a believer in liberty, limited government, and rule of law, I'm no fan of the Democrats. BUT I do recognize that with a divided government, less gets done. And the less that gets done, the better off all of us are. Fewer wars are started. Fewer liberties are infringed. Fewer taxes get raised. Fewer vile "regulations" get passed. Fewer obstacles are placed in the path of economic growth and prosperity. Hence, although I'd never have voted for any Democrat, I'm still glad they took at least the House.
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A free market is, by definition, characterized by FREEDOM . . . including, but possibly not limited to, freedom from coercion and fraud. The deliberate introduction of harmful substances into the food supply constitutes both, and as such, is not countenanced by libertarians, or even anarcho-capitalists like myself.
It's well known that the US is one of the most religious countries on the face of the earth.
And one of the least spiritual.
The worst enemies of Jesus were the religious teachers and leaders of His day.
Christianity as I understand it is based on love, not authority. I admit there is a nasty authoritarian streak in much organized Christianity, but I view that as a corruption, not a result, of Christian teaching.
As for myself, I distrust almost all human authority, and follow it only to the extent necessary, while doing what I can to undermine the logical and moral flaw that underlies most of it: the idea that some people have the right to rule and control others without their consent. If we are created in the image of God, then each of us innately and inherently possesses infinite dignity and worth. And if so, then each of us is meant to rule himself or herself - NOT to dominate or oppress others, nor to be dominated nor oppressed by others.
Human authority - whether religious, political, or financial - is based on fear. But we were made to love, not to fear. Any organization motivated primarily by fear rather than love is inherently corrupt, and doomed to eventual self-destruction. As long as people obey out of fear, they cannot voluntarily and willingly cooperate out of love, but it is only out of love, broadly defined, that personal and spiritual growth and progress can take place.
Keep in mind that there is a HUGE difference between today's institutionalized, Americanized, politicized, and neo-totalitarian brand of organized "Christianity," and the original Christian faith taught, lived, and made possibly 2000 years ago by Christ Himself.
I consider myself an aspiring follower of Christ, and have a certain degree of tolerance and respect for other faith systems as well, but have absolutely no use for the more organized forms of "Christianity."
If you remove from the Christian set of moral codes those codes that overlap with a lot of others (e.g. don't murder people and take their stuff), what are you left with that's uniquely Christian, though?
Not to sound flippant, but you are left with Jesus Christ, and what He represents to Christians: forgiveness from our multitudinous ways of harming ourselves and those around us, and a bridge between man and God, as we believe He was and is both.
There is nothing particularly unique about Christian moral teaching, as we believe God has written this part on our consciences as well as on the world around us, and people can and do rediscover it all the time, more or less independently. But no one lives up to this, or any, moral code perfectly, all the time. We call this sin: failure to live up to even our own imperfect standards, much less God's perfect ones. And in Christ (not in Christianity, but in Christ Himself) we have a way of forgiveness and restoration, and the strength to try to do better next time.
Don't mean to "preach," but you did ask. :)
Groovy is not "just another language" competing directly, in the same space, with others. It tries to fill a specific niche that, at least arguably, nothing else filled well, if at all: the ability to do high-level scripting, a la Python or Ruby, targeting the Java VM, and thus being able to inteoperate well in both directions with the Java class library as well as existing Java code. (Note: BeanShell was an attempt to fill a similar niche, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with it to know how well it did so. Jython and JRuby are other attempts, but are mostly existing languages implemented for the JVM, not new languages specifically designed for the JVM environment.)
If that's what the patent covers . . . transforming signals into the frequency domain . . . isn't there about 200 years of prior art in the form of Fourier transforms???
Sorry, but . . . speaking as a Christian of sorts (I'd call myself an aspiring Christian, not necessarily a practicing one) . . . this kind of bigotry and intolerance is neither unique to Christians, nor non-Christians, nor any particular sect of Christendom. The problem is fundamentally with (fallen) human nature itself. Some people, for whatever reason, like to control others. People of this sort are attracted to positions of power: sometimes religious, sometimes financial, sometimes governmental. They often abuse this power to the detriment of everyone else.
In a world where power were decentralized, limited, and exercised mostly by individuals or small groups rather than large ones, this would be less of a problem: people with this tendency would still exist, probably in about the same numbers, but their ability to harm others would be far less.
bees, humans, and so on have evolved for millions of years eating natural foods with DNA produces through natural processes. The further we get from those natural nutrition sources that are body is equipped to handle, the less efficiently your body may be able to use those foods.
You don't even need to artificially modify the genome, to encounter ill effects from eating non-natural "foods."
HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) could not be part of a genuinely natural diet, because it relies on an abundance of what we might falsely consider "natural" corn. This corn actually has been selectively bred for centuries to produce bigger and more sugar-laden varieties. And even with current varieties of corn, HFCS could not be produced in sufficiently large quantities, nor at sufficiently low cost, to compete with natural sources of sugar, except for the fact that it is highly subsidized by the GOP in exchange for the latter's near-dominance over the politics of agricultural states.
But HFCS contains high levels of fructose, which, unlike other sugars, suppresses the production of a key hormone called leptin, which regulates appetite. This is currently believed to account for a significant portion of the increase in obesity of Americans, both relative to people elsewhere in the world, and also relative to previous generations of Americans.
Our species f*cks with nature quite a bit. Mostly this is to our benefit . . . but not always. We should be much more careful about introducing rapid changes into environments we do not fully understand. And I say this even as an anarcho-capitalist. I don't believe in government solutions to private problems - or any other problems - but I also don't believe in doing f*cked-up experiments that affect the lives or property of other people without their consent. On that basis, I believe that GMO "food" should be clearly labeled as such, and should be grown in such a way that it cannot "accidentally" contaminate non-GMO crops. And agricultural should be neither subsidized nor taxed; markets should decide what is produced, when, and by whom. One result would be the eventual recovery of the miserable economy of Africa, which has been hurt greatly by agricultural subsidies in the developed world (especially the U.S.).
I share this concern. Until some of the legal issues around software patents are resolved, one way or another, using Microsoft technology in any form comes with a certain degree of risk. And I agree that for now there are better ways to write new cross-platform software.
But you have to understand how this development could help to undermine Microsoft's entire empire. Most business PC users depend on custom software, and much of that software is written in some incarnation of VB. If they no longer need 'Doze to run this custom software, and if they can run OpenOffice, Firefox, PostgreSQL, Apache, etc. for their other needs, then there's a very good chance that they don't truly need 'Doze anymore, or for that matter anything else from Microsoft.
Miguel,
First of all, great work, and congrats!!!
Please forgive what might be a handful of newbie question, but: (a) does the VB.NET environment support most of Windows Forms; (b) does it support database access through ODBC, OLE DB, some equivalent to the .NET native providers, or some combination of the above; and (c) can it expose and consume Web services with reasonable ease? These would be the 3 requirements I think my company, a large bank, would need in order to seriously consider something like this.
Thanks!
If I were permitted by my company to do so, I would at least consider doing the opposite: developing .NET software using Mono under Linux, and using 'Doze only for testing. To me this is just one more reason not to have to run an inferior OS, even though I must develop software targeting that OS. It's also one more reason for companies to reduce their dependence on Microsoft. If they can port their .NET apps to Mono, then their developers no longer need 'Doze, and sooner or later their desktop users will no longer need it either.
Microsoft dominates the desktop portion of the IT industry. It is only one of many players in the much more competitive server and middleware space, and its offerings are inferior to the competition except for two advantages. One is the ease of integration with its desktop and development tools. Second and probably more important is the large pool of people who know or think they know Microsoft technologies. The perception in many IT shops is that this pair of advantages translates into lower cost, which, in the short term, it usually does. In the longer term, vendor lock-in and constant platform churn (deprecation of APIs, etc.) represent a huge cost, but this doesn't bother IT managers much, because it's mostly internal. It translates into a steady stream of work for their development and sysadmin staff, which they can sell to the business as "upgrades" and "improvements." Dumb businesses buy this, so M$ makes a lot of money, even in a space where its offerings suck. Smart businesses don't, and M$ makes a lot of money from them too, but only on the desktop.
The best of a handful of articles I've seen on the subject is here.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but would go much further.
For instance, I think you're missing the fact that the federal government, by illegally granting monopoly status to telecom and railroad companies, and by claiming jurisdiction over the airwaves, has done far more to set back the cause of common access to infrastructure, than to advance it. It has a proven track record of acting in the interests of those who fund it, not those whom it supposedly represents. Even if it had the legitimate power to provide Internet infrastructure, it has done just hte opposite, by systematically eliminating any form of competition that it possibly could.
Libertarians, constitutionalist, traditional conservatives, and anarcho-capitalists (such as myself - the most radical of the bunch) definitely do not believe government should "provide infrastructure," for these among other reasons. Some traditional conservatives did accept a governmental role in this regard, but not a federal role - they argued that it should be done by the most local (and therefore most responsive and accountable) level of government possible, which certainly would not be the fedgov.
Since the fedgov has done far more to hinder than to promote competition and the consumer benefits that would have followed, and since it has no jurisdiction over this area anyway, I'd argue strongly for a smaller rather than greater federal role. Deregulating the airwaves, and revoking the illegally granted telecom (and other) monopolies, would allow competition to emerge. The results would be much better than a government-provided service possibly could be, not to mention less expensive.
Best option, IMHO, would be to use GPL with pay-for-business-use clause.
You can't, because the freedom to use for any purpose is one of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the GPL, and in fact all free and open-source software licenses, pretty much by definition.
You can charge for rights to distribute outside the terms of the GPL, for instance by incorporating into a proprietary software package.
You also can charge for use of trademarks, or, as in the case of Java, require conformance with various tests designed to ensure compatibility, as a condition of permission to use the trademark.
But one purpose of the GPL is to guarantee that the software remains free to use for any purpose, commercial or not. If you don't want that, then the GPL isn't for you.
Libertarians tend to believe in global warming, though not necessarily human-caused global warming. However, they also believe in voluntary cooperation, rather than government force, as the only morally acceptable solution to this or any other problem. Forcing people to act contrary to their own interests, even if it is for a "good cause," invariably makes problems worse and not better.
My personal take is that global warming is here, and is a GOOD thing, regardless of who caused it. It is likely to have the same effect that it did last time it happened, in the early 15th century: a massive increase in agricultural productivity, corresponding improvements in human lifespan and quality of life, and a great expansion of creativity, commerce, art, etc., just like the last Renaissance. This isn't to say there won't be problems and challenges too; obviously, coastal and/or desert regions will have to adapt, and some people - actually quite a few - may find themselves displaced. Governments will of course continue to try to stand in the way of progress, as they always do, but hopefully they will not succeed.
1. CF bulbs are an appropriate replacement for incandescents in some, BUT NOT ALL, applications.
Much more importantly:
2. It is none of the government's business. Any lawful powers a government can have must have been delegated, directly or indirectly, by the people. But people do not have the right to control the purchasing decisions of others - only their own. Since that right does not exist, it cannot be delegated, and cannot be among the lawful powers of the California government, nor of any other. Of course all governments exercise illegitimate, usurped powers all the time, but it is not right, it is not lawful, it should not happen, and those responsible should, at a bare minimum, be removed from office, and held civilly and criminally accountable for any harm they may have caused.
Harmful monopolies are harmful precisely because they initiate force and/or fraud, neither of which are allowed in a libertarian society. Libertarians (and anarchists, such as myself) would prefer to address the root of the problem, which is the initiation of force and/or fraud. If that were done, the symptom would take care of itself.
No person has a right to rule over another without the latter's informed consent.
The implications are staggering, and most people, even libertarians, have not fully thought them through, although there are those within both classical liberal and anarcho-capitalist traditions who've at least tried (e.g., Bastiat, Spooner, Rousseau, Mises, Rothbard).
One of them is that coercive government as we know it is inherently wrong and illegitimate, regardless of its size, the form in which it takes, who is nominally or actually in control, and any of its specific actions or inactions.
Another is that, with or without government, society will collapse into chaos unless people learn to rule themselves, at least most of them, and at least most of the time.
I'm a theologically conservative Christian and a libertarian, and I can tell you that those rights absolutely do apply to everyone, including Muslims. The general proof is complex, but, for Christians, it should be a no-brainer, because of the second of the 2 Great Commandments: that we love our neighbor as ourselves. There is nothing remotely loving about violating the rights of other people, and, therefore, we shouldn't. We should respect those rights, EVEN IF WE DISAGREE WITH THE WAY THEY ARE USED.
The anti-democratic thrust of opinion in what are called democratic societies is really ferocious.
Don't forget that "democracy" itself is merely a means to keep certain elites in power, by perverting the natural desire that all people for freedom and self-determination (at least for themselves) into a collective rather than individual right. We supposedly have the right to rule others, through voting, but we do not have the right to rule ourselves, unless the "majority" agrees. That is completely twisted, but you will find that not only public "education," but most of the other support structures around "democracy," are designed for exactly the same purpose: to thwart every person's natural desire for freedom.
There has long been worldwide distrust and hatred of the U.S. government, apart from the people. However, when the U.S. people consistently vote for politicians who expand the government's aggression against the rest of the world, then some of the people most badly affected by that aggression - particularly, but not exclusively, Arabs and Muslims - tend to begin to blame the people as well. That isn't entirely fair, as we honestly don't have a lot of choices, nor a system that encourages choice. And most of us frankly have no idea what awful suffering we inflict on people elsewhere, especially in those nations with whom we have had declared or undeclared wars. I'd like to think we would act and live differently if we did. But to the admittedly limited extent to which we govern ourselves, we are responsible for the actions of the government, and will be perceived accordingly by those elsewhere.
I'm no fan of Republicans either. I'm a libertarian.
As a believer in liberty, limited government, and rule of law, I'm no fan of the Democrats. BUT I do recognize that with a divided government, less gets done. And the less that gets done, the better off all of us are. Fewer wars are started. Fewer liberties are infringed. Fewer taxes get raised. Fewer vile "regulations" get passed. Fewer obstacles are placed in the path of economic growth and prosperity. Hence, although I'd never have voted for any Democrat, I'm still glad they took at least the House.