The TSA hasn't taken your rights away. They are a government funded agency that circumvents those rights if you want to fly. Do I like it? No. But I don't fly... it would bother me more if I flew, I suppose. I have not flown since 2000, so I have not given up my rights to the TSA.
You still have to go to the counter, get your ticket and submit yourself to the TSA search. They don't come to you and do it, so YOU are alienating your rights in order to fly, and recall what Jefferson said... only YOU can give up your inherent rights. The abuses of the police are something that can happen and we allow it to. But we have elected those idiots. We have given up our rights for safety or something else. No one came in, invaded, and took our rights. We LET them go. And that is the big problem I have with your conclusion. WE GAVE THEM UP. That means they ARE inherent. You may not have consented to the changes, but through your inaction and voting for these idiots, you bloody well approved.
Live in reality? I think you're close, but not quite. Inherent rights are not "missing" or "alienable" when the person has them gives them up. It's pretty fucking simple. And when the government doesn't honor the Constitution, the founders had a plan for that. Overthrow it. Of course no one will, because they GAVE UP that inherent right to do so when they say "I don't want to get shot or put in jail for attempting to overthrow the government." That's yet another VOLUNTARY surrender of a right you're born with.
I guess the French philosophers and the Founding Fathers (who frequently quoted the French)... were just idiots, (Thomas Paine, etc.)
I'm glad we cleared that up and hundreds of years of philosophy. Jefferson said that we have inherent rights and since all power of the government is granted by the people, there can be no removal of those rights by power, dictate, or "explanation" (as in your case.)
Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man. --- Thomas Jefferson.
Inalienable rights: Rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights." Morrison v. State, Mo. App. 252 S.W. 2d 97, 101
Need I go on? Your ideas are not new. They've been presented by various state-centric and group-derived philosophies like Marxism. It's not that they are intentionally missing the point, it's just that they have not understood what the Enlightenment took hundreds of years to produce.
Indeed, the real problem is the general lack of logical reactions. Closing the subreddits that were questionable was the correct thing. But you mention censorship abuse, and quite frankly, it's the logical "next step" in the "war on X" ("X" being your vice or illegal activity of choice.)
We've seen metric tons of examples of this happening with "Intellectual Property" protection. Companies sending out DMCA takedown notices for stuff they don't even own... and stomping fair-use because a baby is dancing to a few seconds of a song that some lawyer somewhere thinks needs a royalty payment...
It's maddening, and things like this are just catalysts for the busybodies to do "what's best for us"....
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -- C.S. Lewis
You do have a point there. It is rather hideous.:) Of course there are a few tweaks and greasemonkey scripts that make it less than hideous... almost tolerable.:)
Seriously? *boggle*. Yes, there are dark corners of reddit (since you can make your own subreddit if you want), but if you stick to the lighted areas (linux, debian, buildapc, metal, etc.) you won't be "shocked." Just going to 4chan's main site is enough to induce vomiting without going to/b....
If it were anybody but SomethingAwful, I'd agree with you. SA has had a boner for Reddit for YEARS... it's really childish, to be honest. Just because they happen to latch onto a specific thing that might actually be good doesn't absolve them of the e-penis envy they've had for years.
There's also that 19% VAT... (7% on food and the like, according to the World Factbook).Plus 4.5% or so property tax, a corporate tax of 15%. And according to figures, the marginal tax rate is 45%, with an average tax rate of 40%... Just like the fees and other levies the US government has, Germany gets you in one way or another.
I do not believe tax rates are the problem. It is the spending problems of the government. The United States government wastes a great deal of money, yet claims they need more all the time. There is a spending problem in the US, and until we elect people who recognize that it's not a revenue problem, we will turn this ship around... until then, we're in the handbasket, and the politicians have the handle strolling down.
I think they might... deep down... But if they embrace their own Arab Spring, it'll take a bit longer... they're pretty fat with oil profits. Of course if they follow Egypt's path... they'll have a banana-republic style military government unwilling to finish the transition.:)
Besides, there are people who wish Saudi Arabia to move into the 20th century (at least).. but they are facing a vertical battle of epic proportions... which is why "long" was in caps. I guess I should've made it bold too...
Just out of curiosity, do they only do that whole "death" thing for Saudi citizens? For instance, if I tweeted "Mohammed fucked camels, and he liked it." would I be on the Saudi "kill 'em when they get here" list?
Seems like Saudi Arabia still has a LONG way to go if it wants to embrace liberty (even a little bit.)
There's a huge difference between MARGINAL and EFFECTIVE tax rates. Simply looking at that percentage gives you nothing in the way of revenue. When JFK LOWERED the top marginal rate in his first year in office, the Federal Government got MORE revenue through taxation than they had in the last 20 years.
And blaming the decline of the space program (which is a bloated mess in the first place, thank you Space Shuttle) on lower taxes is far too stupid. Most of the Federal Government's income is derived not from income tax, but fees and regulatory cash... But let's not let that get into a good whiny rant about how Germany pays more tax and is fine... right?
I think people will pay a little more if they have a better experience. Stores have forgotten that, and like the failure of all those who tried to compete with Wal Mart on price, they lost. Retailers can't compete on price with the online retailers, even with sales tax (which is a nightmare of logistical nonsense just waiting in the wings)..
Retailers need to stop focusing on price and margins and wonder if there is still such a thing as customer loyalty. I don't know if there is, but companies like Best Buy don't seem to give a shit about trying. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work... but for fuck's sake, how can these companies make the SAME EXACT mistakes that their dead competitors make and expect to come out on top, or even alive for that matter? It's like watching monkeys throw shit at each other. It's funny, but you don't want to get any on you.
Well said. The problem here is, like Garth Brooks, some companies believe that used games are somehow the bane of their existence. I've seen games sell upwards of a million or more copies in a week, and how again is used killing them? Oh, it's out of their control. Something I don't care about.
I know people use it all the time, but damnit, the First Sale doctrine is alive and well. If they want to "license" us a copy of the game, then we should be able to exchange media when ours is scratched by our kids playing frisbee. We should also be able to get a replacement if we break the disc. Currently, you're mostly shit outta luck with respect to the latter (and the former, but it varies by publisher.) But if they want this sort of licensing model (effectively killing used game sales), then they should be prepared for the consequences of their new model.
Trouble is, they want (like the music and movie industry) to have it both ways. No need for them to uphold any sort of content licensing agreement, but if they want to squeeze you, the customer, about something like used games or DLC, then they want that power. Funny how companies are like that.:)
And no, I am not interested in their game. They (and EA) have decided to make it difficult for me, so I will make it difficult for them to continue with this business model by NOT buying their games. Quite simply, if it's not "evil pirates" it's those goddamned "evil used buyers." I'm tired of fucking hearing it. Clamping down on your paying customers is NOT going to solve the infringement problem... nor is it going to garner you any goodwill, which once you lose, takes YEARS to get back.
Find three copies of Vanilla Ice's Song "Ice Ice Baby" on the site, and someone, somewhere will find a way to call that "willfiull infringement".... and have Dropbox shutdown. Why? Because the *AA's are criminal organizations, and copyright is and never will be a property right, but since we don't have the money to enforce the Constitution (we being the normal people)... corporations will assfuck us while the government holds us down.
Fuck 'em all. I don't give a shit about copyright anymore. I hate it all.
Tell that to the Chechens, or the Christians in Myanmar, or any neighbor of any other neighbor in Africa....
Just because it's spread out over decades doesn't make the US any more aggressive than any other industrialized nation. the US may be the "most recent" if you want to argue semantics... but hyperbole like "by far the most aggressive" just turns your opinion into a diatribe.
Ever wonder why Iran doesn't rail against Great Britain or the UN? Oh wait... they did. Sacked the British embassy... (Just give a look at the border maps after WW2 if you want to see why....)
If only that were a plain old "corporate policy..." The very act of government coercing google with their "letter" nullifies the freedom of "it's their sandbox" regarding their own stance on what is or is not allowed on their blogger hosting site. Having said that, is there a public forum anywhere on the internet that can be 1st Amendment friendly and not subject to the whims of "this isn't a public square"?
If there isn't one, we need one. And not one granted by the "benevolence" of Corporate PR...
I've got enough stuff in my closet (PS2 RPGs etc.) so that if I can't participate in "new" media, I'll be dead before I finish the OLD media.
Apple's "App Store" and "IOS-ification" of OSX has moved my solely to Linux... it was an easy transition, and now I run debian even... instead of Fedora (just a personal preference...)
Suffice to say, the only people who will be "crushed" by the participation problem are people who don't know any better.
I will be the final arbiter of what runs on MY computers. Not some nebulous "trusted computing" that is in the back pocket of proprietary software conglomerates. There's no point in it unless the real agenda is to wrest control from users' hands. (The recent "secureboot" crap for Windows 8 is a prime example.) It's my computer. It's my data. It's not yours. It won't ever be yours. And no amount of fearmongering will convince me you have my best interests in mind.
Kiss my ass. No, really. Not on the left cheek, not on the right cheek, but RIIIIGHT in the MIDDLE.
Slashdot Mirror
The TSA hasn't taken your rights away. They are a government funded agency that circumvents those rights if you want to fly. Do I like it? No. But I don't fly... it would bother me more if I flew, I suppose. I have not flown since 2000, so I have not given up my rights to the TSA.
You still have to go to the counter, get your ticket and submit yourself to the TSA search. They don't come to you and do it, so YOU are alienating your rights in order to fly, and recall what Jefferson said... only YOU can give up your inherent rights. The abuses of the police are something that can happen and we allow it to. But we have elected those idiots. We have given up our rights for safety or something else. No one came in, invaded, and took our rights. We LET them go. And that is the big problem I have with your conclusion. WE GAVE THEM UP. That means they ARE inherent. You may not have consented to the changes, but through your inaction and voting for these idiots, you bloody well approved.
Live in reality? I think you're close, but not quite. Inherent rights are not "missing" or "alienable" when the person has them gives them up. It's pretty fucking simple. And when the government doesn't honor the Constitution, the founders had a plan for that. Overthrow it. Of course no one will, because they GAVE UP that inherent right to do so when they say "I don't want to get shot or put in jail for attempting to overthrow the government." That's yet another VOLUNTARY surrender of a right you're born with.
See, how simple it is?
I guess the French philosophers and the Founding Fathers (who frequently quoted the French)... were just idiots, (Thomas Paine, etc.)
I'm glad we cleared that up and hundreds of years of philosophy. Jefferson said that we have inherent rights and since all power of the government is granted by the people, there can be no removal of those rights by power, dictate, or "explanation" (as in your case.)
Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man. --- Thomas Jefferson.
Inalienable rights: Rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights." Morrison v. State, Mo. App. 252 S.W. 2d 97, 101
Need I go on? Your ideas are not new. They've been presented by various state-centric and group-derived philosophies like Marxism. It's not that they are intentionally missing the point, it's just that they have not understood what the Enlightenment took hundreds of years to produce.
You're confusing statutory rights with inherent rights.
Indeed, the real problem is the general lack of logical reactions. Closing the subreddits that were questionable was the correct thing. But you mention censorship abuse, and quite frankly, it's the logical "next step" in the "war on X" ("X" being your vice or illegal activity of choice.)
We've seen metric tons of examples of this happening with "Intellectual Property" protection. Companies sending out DMCA takedown notices for stuff they don't even own... and stomping fair-use because a baby is dancing to a few seconds of a song that some lawyer somewhere thinks needs a royalty payment...
It's maddening, and things like this are just catalysts for the busybodies to do "what's best for us"....
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -- C.S. Lewis
You do have a point there. It is rather hideous. :) Of course there are a few tweaks and greasemonkey scripts that make it less than hideous... almost tolerable. :)
Seriously? *boggle*. Yes, there are dark corners of reddit (since you can make your own subreddit if you want), but if you stick to the lighted areas (linux, debian, buildapc, metal, etc.) you won't be "shocked." Just going to 4chan's main site is enough to induce vomiting without going to /b....
If it were anybody but SomethingAwful, I'd agree with you. SA has had a boner for Reddit for YEARS... it's really childish, to be honest. Just because they happen to latch onto a specific thing that might actually be good doesn't absolve them of the e-penis envy they've had for years.
There's also that 19% VAT... (7% on food and the like, according to the World Factbook).Plus 4.5% or so property tax, a corporate tax of 15%. And according to figures, the marginal tax rate is 45%, with an average tax rate of 40%... Just like the fees and other levies the US government has, Germany gets you in one way or another.
I do not believe tax rates are the problem. It is the spending problems of the government. The United States government wastes a great deal of money, yet claims they need more all the time. There is a spending problem in the US, and until we elect people who recognize that it's not a revenue problem, we will turn this ship around... until then, we're in the handbasket, and the politicians have the handle strolling down.
I think they might... deep down... But if they embrace their own Arab Spring, it'll take a bit longer... they're pretty fat with oil profits. Of course if they follow Egypt's path... they'll have a banana-republic style military government unwilling to finish the transition. :)
Saudi Arabia is Afghanistan with better cars....
Besides, there are people who wish Saudi Arabia to move into the 20th century (at least).. but they are facing a vertical battle of epic proportions... which is why "long" was in caps. I guess I should've made it bold too...
Just out of curiosity, do they only do that whole "death" thing for Saudi citizens? For instance, if I tweeted "Mohammed fucked camels, and he liked it." would I be on the Saudi "kill 'em when they get here" list?
Seems like Saudi Arabia still has a LONG way to go if it wants to embrace liberty (even a little bit.)
There's a huge difference between MARGINAL and EFFECTIVE tax rates. Simply looking at that percentage gives you nothing in the way of revenue. When JFK LOWERED the top marginal rate in his first year in office, the Federal Government got MORE revenue through taxation than they had in the last 20 years.
And blaming the decline of the space program (which is a bloated mess in the first place, thank you Space Shuttle) on lower taxes is far too stupid. Most of the Federal Government's income is derived not from income tax, but fees and regulatory cash... But let's not let that get into a good whiny rant about how Germany pays more tax and is fine... right?
If they're rabid, angry is implied, I suppose. :) (love the nick, btw.)
I think people will pay a little more if they have a better experience. Stores have forgotten that, and like the failure of all those who tried to compete with Wal Mart on price, they lost. Retailers can't compete on price with the online retailers, even with sales tax (which is a nightmare of logistical nonsense just waiting in the wings)..
Retailers need to stop focusing on price and margins and wonder if there is still such a thing as customer loyalty. I don't know if there is, but companies like Best Buy don't seem to give a shit about trying. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work... but for fuck's sake, how can these companies make the SAME EXACT mistakes that their dead competitors make and expect to come out on top, or even alive for that matter? It's like watching monkeys throw shit at each other. It's funny, but you don't want to get any on you.
Well said. The problem here is, like Garth Brooks, some companies believe that used games are somehow the bane of their existence. I've seen games sell upwards of a million or more copies in a week, and how again is used killing them? Oh, it's out of their control. Something I don't care about.
I know people use it all the time, but damnit, the First Sale doctrine is alive and well. If they want to "license" us a copy of the game, then we should be able to exchange media when ours is scratched by our kids playing frisbee. We should also be able to get a replacement if we break the disc. Currently, you're mostly shit outta luck with respect to the latter (and the former, but it varies by publisher.) But if they want this sort of licensing model (effectively killing used game sales), then they should be prepared for the consequences of their new model.
Trouble is, they want (like the music and movie industry) to have it both ways. No need for them to uphold any sort of content licensing agreement, but if they want to squeeze you, the customer, about something like used games or DLC, then they want that power. Funny how companies are like that. :)
And no, I am not interested in their game. They (and EA) have decided to make it difficult for me, so I will make it difficult for them to continue with this business model by NOT buying their games. Quite simply, if it's not "evil pirates" it's those goddamned "evil used buyers." I'm tired of fucking hearing it. Clamping down on your paying customers is NOT going to solve the infringement problem... nor is it going to garner you any goodwill, which once you lose, takes YEARS to get back.
My dog ate it. I accidentally flushed it with my morning poo. It's on Mars. I ate it. I used it to clean the grout in my bathroom.
Find three copies of Vanilla Ice's Song "Ice Ice Baby" on the site, and someone, somewhere will find a way to call that "willfiull infringement".... and have Dropbox shutdown. Why? Because the *AA's are criminal organizations, and copyright is and never will be a property right, but since we don't have the money to enforce the Constitution (we being the normal people)... corporations will assfuck us while the government holds us down.
Fuck 'em all. I don't give a shit about copyright anymore. I hate it all.
Tell that to the Chechens, or the Christians in Myanmar, or any neighbor of any other neighbor in Africa....
Just because it's spread out over decades doesn't make the US any more aggressive than any other industrialized nation. the US may be the "most recent" if you want to argue semantics... but hyperbole like "by far the most aggressive" just turns your opinion into a diatribe.
Ever wonder why Iran doesn't rail against Great Britain or the UN? Oh wait... they did. Sacked the British embassy... (Just give a look at the border maps after WW2 if you want to see why....)
It depends. Broadcast basic is included with a $39/month internet package (I know, I have it)...
That'd work fine, provided there's no "rug pulling" going on after it's established. :)
If only that were a plain old "corporate policy..." The very act of government coercing google with their "letter" nullifies the freedom of "it's their sandbox" regarding their own stance on what is or is not allowed on their blogger hosting site. Having said that, is there a public forum anywhere on the internet that can be 1st Amendment friendly and not subject to the whims of "this isn't a public square"?
If there isn't one, we need one. And not one granted by the "benevolence" of Corporate PR...
Some of the companies that WERE most innovative are doing everything they can to stifle innovation.
There... FTFY. :)
I've got enough stuff in my closet (PS2 RPGs etc.) so that if I can't participate in "new" media, I'll be dead before I finish the OLD media.
Apple's "App Store" and "IOS-ification" of OSX has moved my solely to Linux... it was an easy transition, and now I run debian even... instead of Fedora (just a personal preference...)
Suffice to say, the only people who will be "crushed" by the participation problem are people who don't know any better.
Fuck. Off.
I will be the final arbiter of what runs on MY computers. Not some nebulous "trusted computing" that is in the back pocket of proprietary software conglomerates. There's no point in it unless the real agenda is to wrest control from users' hands. (The recent "secureboot" crap for Windows 8 is a prime example.) It's my computer. It's my data. It's not yours. It won't ever be yours. And no amount of fearmongering will convince me you have my best interests in mind.
Kiss my ass. No, really. Not on the left cheek, not on the right cheek, but RIIIIGHT in the MIDDLE.
Sounds eerily familiar to what he thought Microsoft had done as well... (of course he lost that look & feel lawsuit....)
My guess is he'd lose this one too if it had gone to court.