You are acting on the premise that others owe you their labour. Don't like the electic company? Buy your own generator to get off the grid. Or stop using electricity. (Yes, many people in the world get by without it; electricity is a privilege.) And I won't get into the mess caused by government colluding with electric companies, which is why they are a monopoly to begin with. Don't like FICO? Save up an pay for a house in cash, or rent, because there is always some landlord that will take you no matter how much of a scumbag you are. Register an escrow with the government to get around their imposed requirement to have liability insurance. Don't like OnStar listening in on people? Don't buy the stupid service. In every case, there is no power over you because you have the choice to not utilize those people's services. It only becomes control over you if you believe that they owe you their labour. But all that aside, your premise is that yo have a right to other people's labour. That is a privilege, not a right, any more than your programmer's mindis anyone else's right.
Government is supposed to be accountable to the people, but it is actually accountable to the most powerful gang, whether that gang be a labour union, corporate lobby, church, ethnic race, etc. Businesses are supposed to be accountable to the people since dissatisfied customers mean your business ceases to exist, but in today's reality they exploit the government (in the instances it become the strongest gang, out-muscling the other gangs that want to exploit you) to oppress the people via government enforced DMCA, government protected utilities and cable TV monopolies, corporate bailouts on the tax payer's dime, etc.
Using OnStar's technology, neither the government nor OnStar's employees can: 1) Give you a traffic ticket. 2) Track your every move. 3) Run your plates every 5 seconds. 4) Use the above things to get a mistaken police report and hunt you down at any moment while you are on the street. (These things happen in nornal police work; I expect Britain's cameras to amplify this problem.) 5) Force you to participate in the system whether you like it or not. 6) Force you to pay for the system if you disagree with it. (IE-Taxes paying for cameras.)
People need to understand the difference between a business and a government. Businesses have no power over you; government does. Government can and will do all the above things with their own systems. OnStar provides a service, and if you don't like it then you don't pay for it and you don't participate in it. Try that with the government and they take away your driving rights and through you in jail. And of course if the government does start reglating OnStar, forcing them to provide the cops with an OnStar backdoor, you can always cancel the service.
So in summary: OnStar / private business == Voluntary services Government == Involuntary coersive force
Because the government and phone company got in bed with each other back in the old old days when it was being rolled out for the first time. The government decided it would be a good idea to give them a government protected monopoly. (Cable companies got the same thing, which is why satelite kicked them in the rear so bad when it came out.) The government broke up the monopoly it created for long distance phone calls, but it never did the same for local service. Hence the problem we see today. This is just SBC using the monopoly the government gives them. If you don't like it then channel your hatred towards taking down the government, not the company. Once the market is actually deregulated and SBC actually has to compete for local service, things will be much better.
High DSL and cable modem prices just give an extra incentive to investors to roll out power-line access (like www.current.net in Cincinnati) and other undiscovered alternative technologies. Prices that are forced artificially low drive out investment from potentially competing technolgies since it is harder to compete against thin margins. (Plus an investor would not want to to push much of his capital in a heavily regulated industry since the government could usurp it away on a whim.) Indeed, the current oil situation, if it persists, is perhaps the catalyst that will produce new feats of engineering for fuel efficient cars, more advanced hybrid engines, and alternative fuel sources. So unless you want the technology to stagnate, you should not be bothered by the current temporary high prices. They will only last until alternative (and superior) technologies are invented by a profit motive of sticking it to the DSL companies. Let's not destroy that motive.
Let's apply the statement above when one needs open heart surgery and needs to decide who will cut him open. Obviously there are experts. The problem is identifying them. If you truly do posses greater expertise than someone else then you personally know by virtue of your superior knowledge. On the other hand, if you are dumber than someone else then you probably don't this since, by definition, you are dumb. And lastly, if you are a student trying to gain a teacher and judge between a true expert and a moron who thinks he's an expert, since you lack the ability to judge the knowledge they promote (or else you'd not be a student), you cannot determine who the expert is.
The problem thus is not that no experts exist, but that it is difficult for common people and stupid pseudo-experts to identify who the real experts truly are.
> Who determines who the "experts" and "authorities" are?
Indeed, existentialism is a good ideal to hold. How can any expert or authority be determined? I agree that it is impossible! That is why when I have health problems I usually let any Joe off the street operate on me. Because afterall, who is to determine who is an expert in open heart surgery or who is an authority on anesthesia?
Much of your campaign focuses on wealth distribution, and I agree with you that corporations have no rights, only actual people do. But what I have not been able to resolve with the Greens is the role corporations play in producing the goods and services that satisfy society's needs. The laws of economics prove that taxing wealth-creation (income taxes, dividend taxes, etc.) creates a disincentive for society to produce, and subsidizing consumption (of health care, etc.) creates an incentive to consume more. Before wealth can be distributed, it of course must first be created by someone. How do you get around this dilemma of decreasing production and increasing consumption as a side effect of wealth equalization? Do you have a plan to overcome the problem of distributing wealth without decreasing the amount of wealth produced for distribution?
To follow up with more details on my previous reply,
here is a detailed research into the history of the Cuyahoga River burning that correct many of the misconceptions over this issue. It shows that it had burned several times, and that the 1969 fire was not as bad as past ones. It explains how the state legislature passed a law in 1951 that made the corporate pollution 100% legal so long as the corporations lined the government's pockets by paying for a permit:
"In the wake of the June 1969 fire, many city officials pointed fingers at the state of Ohio for creating a legal regime which made it unduly difficult for the city to maintain local river quality. Specifically, officials pointed to the state water pollution permitting system which insulated permitted facilities from public nuisance actions and generally inhibited local efforts to combat pollution. Had the state been more aggressive and cooperative, local officials suggested, the Cuyahoga would have been in much better shape."
Cleveland mayor Stokes alleged that "[t]he State has capriciously been circumventing the laws of Ohio by issuing licenses to polluters..."
Clean Water Task Force Director Edward J. Martin noted that: "All of the industries mentioned in your letter are under State Ohio Water Pollution Control Board permit [sic] to discharge wastes. The City of Cleveland has no further jurisdiction over these discharges since the State has assumed primary responsibility for enforcement in the Cuyahoga River."
The state's water pollution control board licensed industrial facilities along the river, providing potential immunity from suit. "We have no jurisdiction over what is dumped" in the river, explained Utilities Director Ben. S. Stefanski II. "The state licenses the industries and gives them legal authority to dump in the river. Actually, the state gives them a license to pollute."
Ohio had various programs, yet it preempted local efforts and common law remedies while failing to devote resources in water pollution control.
Clean Water Task Force Director Edward J. Martin noted that: "All of the industries mentioned in your letter are under State Ohio Water Pollution Control Board permit [sic] to discharge wastes. The City of Cleveland has no further jurisdiction over these discharges since the State has assumed primary responsibility for enforcement in the Cuyahoga River."
The state's water pollution control board licensed industrial facilities along the river, providing potential immunity from suit. "We have no jurisdiction over what is dumped" in the river, explained Utilities Director Ben. S. Stefanski II. "The state licenses the industries and gives them legal authority to dump in the river. Actually, the state gives them a license to pollute."
The history of the Cuyahoga River suggests that the inherent limitations of the common law were exacerbated by government policy. Specifically, there is reason to believe that common law actions, in particular municipal actions to abate public nuisances, could have played a more substantial role in curtailing pollution along the Cuyahoga.
Governments granting special immunities to corporations is not Libertarian, and that is why the Cuyahoga River burned!
Note, the article does say that common law, while it unfairly gets a bum rap, is not the silver bullet for pollution, and many other Libertarians would agree. They are called "geolibertarians". Google for them to see how they would handle pollution, or go to Holistic Politics.
I'm a fellow Clevelander familiar with the burning river. A company (I believe a realtor stationed on the river bank) did try to sue over the pollution in the Cuyahoga River. The problem is that the Ohio General Assembly (or some other regulatory agency) had declared the river to be in the custody of a specific governmental body charged with maintaining "public" resources. Since this agency had granted permission to the corporations to dump an amount of pollution in the river and since the corporations were within the allowed threshold, the courts declared that the pollution was legal, despite the fact that other people were suffering damage from the pollution. This is an example of how Big Government ruins the environment, and how a Libertarian solution of full private liability in torts was denied the a chance to solve the problem.
Bottom line is that people were *not* free to sue over the pollution because the government claimed its "wise" stewardship superceded private lawsuits. It was government interventions that *allowed* the Cuyahoga River to catch on fire. Real change came about when things got so bad that the government was no longer able to get away with granting special immunities to corporations that they should not have been granting in the first place!
Freely giving something to someone else is not a loss of freedom. The insurance is something they give oyu oand you must give something in return; both sides benefit. You are certainly free to not do so. Government mandated "black boxes" in your cars is a loss of freedom. (Which, BTW, the NTSB is trying force on us.) Insurance is a privelege. If you don't want it then don't buy it. (Yes, I know the government requires you to buy it, but that is a case of lost freedom just like forced black boxes.) When you don't buy it then you are no worse off than you were before. So how is trading value for value in a mutually beneficial arrangement a loss of freedom? Unless you have a right to other people's labour and thus can claim a loss of rights when you don't get those products handed out to you, there is no loss on your part.
That is exactly what Progressive is doing by making it voluntairy. There is a big difference between having the choice to voluntarily share information about your life's activities (TripSense) versus actually being physically forced to share it against your will (George Orwell's "1984"). You are more than welcome to not use the device and continue paying the rates you are paying now if your privacy is worth more than the amount of savings you get by mathematically proving you are less likely to crash your car. Now when the government starts legislating that you must use this device against your will or when the government steals this data from an insurer and slaps them with a gag order (as has happened with the grocery discount cards to profile the eating habits of a potential terrorists), then you have something to worry about.
Now please explain to me how having a choice between lowering your rates in exchange for less privacy, or keeping the rates you already pay now, harms you. Or do you think that insurance companies should not pry into personal information to determine your risk, such as age, gender, neighbourhood, speeding tickets, and past car crashes?
Unless you don't think government is for sale then it is always biased. That is the point of the quote: the dominant faction in government (which are the corporations today) *will* control the curriculum. It differs from a private school because you are forced to fund it. If parents find out that a private school is being manipulated by a corporation, the school stops getting funded as the parents send their kids elsewhere the moment the semester ends. Alas, state controlled education makes a protected monopoly making it financially infeasible to go elsewhere. Now you have to try and wrest control of the government from the corporation. The former choice is much easier than the latter when there is no protected monopoly. When government has nothing to sell, the corporations lose their power. This is why corporations in America have been the #1 advocates of government regulation and control since the 1800's. They fear having to stand on their own feet without the government propping them up. (Or in this case, fear our kids not learning corporate approved curriculum.)
Public school are accountable to no one but the lobbyists. Have any idea why they put in Coke machines in every school despite the fact the sugar is well known to decrease student perfrormance? Because of the money. Don't like how the religious lobby is twisting evolution in Ohio? The will of the public matters not here in secular Cleveland there because the rligious right elects more people in the rest of Ohio than anyone else. Well maybe that is what you mean by "accountable to the public", which John Stuart Mill described as the "tyrrany of the majority". Thus the quote noting public control fof curriculum leads to a tyrrany over the mind by the dominate force in government, be it a king or a societal majority.
So if you want to escape what the majority forces on your, try sending your kid to a private school. But now that's not afforable because the government created a protected monopoly that you are forced to fund, controlled by a few people in the state capitol, and so the education "market" now displays the same innificiencies as other any other market monopoly
Perhaps this is a good example of why school curriculum should not be controlled by governments. As John Stuart Mill said in arguing for school vouchers, "A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation...it establishes a despotism over the mind...."
If you advocate public schools and thus want the government to control what your child learns then come to expect more of this.
Since when was capitalism failing in the software industry? Last I heard, even the open source companies like Red Hat were making money by selling their products and services to willing consumers. (And don't forget, selling corporate stock on Wall Street.) Microsoft, Apple, id, Adobe, Eidos, etc. are raking in millions to billions by selling software products to willing consumers. And the proprietary software that is not in CompUSA is making lots of money. Anyone care to take a guess at how much money was made from proprietary rendering software in movies like Lord of the Rings and Shrek 2? Or the money made through proprietary software developed by the IT staff in Fortune 500 companies? So please explain, how is capitalism is on its last battle and in need of being saved??
Alan Greenspan wrote about monopolies in a great essay simply called "Anti-trust". He makes the case that there are two types of monopolies. One type is like Microsoft. The other type maybe is like ARM, though I am not too familiar with ARM's situation. The example Mr. Greenspan used was ALCOA, an aluminum manufacturer at the time the essay was written. The company, he said, was a monopoly because it was so efficient at making its product that no one was at all capable of producing aluminum so cheaply. How this differs from a Microsoft monopoly is that if ALCOA used its monopoly status to inflate prices then it would cease to be a monopoly, since low prices are exactly what made it a monopoly. Thus it was not a coersive monopoly. He went on to point out how this has a net benefit for everyone (as anyone who understands the economics of efficiency knows) and denounced how the government was trying to punish ALCOA for being a monopoly. (IE-It was being punsihed for coming up with superior manufacturing techniques.) Perhaps a modern day ALCOA is Wal-Mart, which, putting aside you opinions on labour, largely sells thing cheaply because of their new innovations in supply chain logistics. I believe they came up with many new tricks in transporting inventory that make their inventory costs very low. So if Wal-Mart becomes (or is) a monopoly, it is because they have low prices. But if they try to strong-arm prices then they get screwed. This is why Wal-Mart is not harmful for consumers in the way Microsoft is.
However, changing the whole IT infrastructure of hundreds or thousands of companies, governmental institutions and organizations is not easily or quickly done.
Then they should not have chosen the Microsoft platform. No one put a gun to their head and forced them to go that route. If they do not like it now then they should "eat their own dogfood."
The view seems to be that EU has no right to fine Microsoft for violating the EU anti-monopoly laws, since MS is an american corporation.
It is the law that is unjust regardless of the fact that MS is an American company. If a group of individuals want to do business somewhere then no one has a right to force their will upon them anymore than the individuals of the company have a right to force their will upon anyone else. I'd say the same about the US politicians forcing their will upon the employees of Microsoft. I suggest reading "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat to understand exactly why such laws are unjust.
For example, the americans would probably be quite upset if a dutch company would start selling cannabis in the US and would state that the americans have no right to punish it for it's actions since it's not an american corporation.
And US drug laws are as wrong as the EU laws fining Microsoft. That Dutch company should be able to sell its goods in the US! Neither my government nor anyone else has the right to stop them. So smoke up!
If Europeans think Microsoft is unfair with their products, there is an easier solution that levying fines upon the company: stop buying the product. If everyone in Europe did just that then things would be much better for them. On the other hand, if the Nation of Europe's government wins out with this fine then what Bill ought do is be be like John Galt and close down every European operation plus terminate all Microsoft exports to Europe. Granted, Microsoft would loose a ton of money, but it would probably hurt Europe Microsoft than Microsoft. On the other hand, if Microsoft is as unfair as the Europeans seem to think that they are then they should be able to fare just fine without Microsoft. Being one who uses Apple and Linux exclusively, I personally believe either of these two scenerios would be better than levying fines since it takes the moral high ground of free wil and, more importantly, also lets the Europeans get their hands on the cool (ie non-Microsoft) toys!
Well I also disagree with my proposal. The only reason I propose it is so that people can see how awful our taxation is and then become so upset that they abolish nearly all of our taxation.:)
(As an aside, the only government funding I see as justifiable is a land value rent as per Thomas Paine and Henry George.)
The IRS web site claims that they will not send you money unless you file a return requesting it. That tells me they do not even bother to send a refund check of their own free volition.
Some may praise the tax collectors for getting all the money from tax fraudsters. But there is anoter side of this that should be considered. I don't know the stats for MA, so I will use the IRS as an example. The IRS web sites says that it has $2.5 billion that it owes people for the year 2000. It says that if the money is not claimed then the IRS keeps it for good. There are a few issues with this.
* If they know that they owe $2.5 billion then they must know who they owe it to. So why do they not return it? Compare that to what happens if you do not give them money they think belongs to them.
* If they do not want to return it to its owners then why not disperse it through universal income tax credits rather than keeping it? In other words, they engage in what for a private citizen would be "tax fraud".
* So some people cheat on their taxes. This is offset some by the IRS keeping money that is not theirs. Thus in the interest of fairness, until a tax collection agency cracks down on themselves kepeing money that is not "theirs" (though saying a tax collection agency "owns" any of the money it collects is a bit absurd...), we should oppose such agencies cracking down on us.
The problem with this is that people still pay the taxes by means of the higher prices for goods and services such a corporate tax would cause. The problem arises in that people do not "see" the taxes directly so do not realize that they are paying it. This give the government power to tax us even more than they do now by sneaking it past us (which they are already doing to some extent as it is). At least when you tax the citizenry directly they know the costs and can judge if they think it is fair. I've heard it is estimated that 50% of your income already goes to taxes once you factor in all the hidden taxes (corporate taxes, gas taxes, utility taxes, etc., and also including non-income taxes like sales and property taxes). So let's abolish all of those other taxes and institute a 50% income tax. Let's see how people like it once they know exatly what it really costs them.
What I mean is to clarify vague claims like "You have a right to be happy". Does this mean that if you are unhappy for some reason then your rights are infringed upon and government is obliged to step in and cheer you up, or does it just mean that no one may interfere in your personal affairs that you do for your own happiness? If you take the first case then the government's main duty would be providing amusements for people, as opposed to giving people the freedom to amuse themselves. Saying you have a "right to happiness" implies that possessing it is a right, and so not possessing it is a rights infringement. The "right to pursue happiness" implies that the government should not interfere in your attempts to seek out your own amusement, but it has no obligation to provide you with entertainment. That doesn't seem bleak to me.
This actually isn't censorship. It is absurd as saying a program with a security feature that lets people encrypt data so that you cannot read it is censorship. A government mandating such rules is worse than a software company, since it is coersive. Furthermore, Adobe is not saying that you are not allowed to look at currency images. Rather, they are saying that they are not willing to sell you a program that lets you look at currency images. It is a subtle but very significant difference. Forcing them to make a program against their will in order to conform to your whim is more commonly known as "slavery".
Suppose Photoshop did block more benign things, like pr0n. You do not have to buy Photoshop. You can use other photo editing tools. And if there are no alternative programs then you are free to write your own photo editor if you are able to. No one has a right to photo editors, rather we have a right to pursue photo editors. Like you don't have a right to happiness, but rather the right to the pursuit of happiness. The right *to* other things is more commonly known as "looting". So in truth, no one is stopping you from looking at whatever you want to look at. You just may have to go through a little bit more effort to achieve what you want. There's no such thing as a free lunch. We must earn what we desire.
Now suppose that government stepped in and decided what you can and cannot see. Now you no longer can use other photo editors nor can you write your own. Souind familiar? This is the mentality that caused the DMCA to come into being. Now *that* is actual censorship!
I suggest reading "Atlas Shrugged". Though I do have some issues with parts of the book, there is one theme that really strikes true and relates to the UN in situation. More specifically, it's the situation where some entity creates something amazing, perhaps revolutionizing society, and then those who do nothing to actually create progress demand a piece of it. In "Atlas Shrugged", it was an industrialist creating a new steel alloy that was vastly superior to existing steel, and all of society demanded a supposed "right" to control his creation. In this case, the US government and various US-based organizations (for the most part; I know it's not 100% US) revolutionized the world. Now the UN is trying to make claim to some sort of right over that. I suggest that if the UN wants it then they should create something better. Creation, not leeching, is what causes progress in the world.
Slashdot Mirror
You are acting on the premise that others owe you their labour. Don't like the electic company? Buy your own generator to get off the grid. Or stop using electricity. (Yes, many people in the world get by without it; electricity is a privilege.) And I won't get into the mess caused by government colluding with electric companies, which is why they are a monopoly to begin with. Don't like FICO? Save up an pay for a house in cash, or rent, because there is always some landlord that will take you no matter how much of a scumbag you are. Register an escrow with the government to get around their imposed requirement to have liability insurance. Don't like OnStar listening in on people? Don't buy the stupid service. In every case, there is no power over you because you have the choice to not utilize those people's services. It only becomes control over you if you believe that they owe you their labour. But all that aside, your premise is that yo have a right to other people's labour. That is a privilege, not a right, any more than your programmer's mindis anyone else's right.
Government is supposed to be accountable to the people, but it is actually accountable to the most powerful gang, whether that gang be a labour union, corporate lobby, church, ethnic race, etc. Businesses are supposed to be accountable to the people since dissatisfied customers mean your business ceases to exist, but in today's reality they exploit the government (in the instances it become the strongest gang, out-muscling the other gangs that want to exploit you) to oppress the people via government enforced DMCA, government protected utilities and cable TV monopolies, corporate bailouts on the tax payer's dime, etc.
Using OnStar's technology, neither the government nor OnStar's employees can:
1) Give you a traffic ticket.
2) Track your every move.
3) Run your plates every 5 seconds.
4) Use the above things to get a mistaken police report and hunt you down at any moment while you are on the street. (These things happen in nornal police work; I expect Britain's cameras to amplify this problem.)
5) Force you to participate in the system whether you like it or not.
6) Force you to pay for the system if you disagree with it. (IE-Taxes paying for cameras.)
People need to understand the difference between a business and a government. Businesses have no power over you; government does. Government can and will do all the above things with their own systems. OnStar provides a service, and if you don't like it then you don't pay for it and you don't participate in it. Try that with the government and they take away your driving rights and through you in jail. And of course if the government does start reglating OnStar, forcing them to provide the cops with an OnStar backdoor, you can always cancel the service.
So in summary:
OnStar / private business == Voluntary services
Government == Involuntary coersive force
Because the government and phone company got in bed with each other back in the old old days when it was being rolled out for the first time. The government decided it would be a good idea to give them a government protected monopoly. (Cable companies got the same thing, which is why satelite kicked them in the rear so bad when it came out.) The government broke up the monopoly it created for long distance phone calls, but it never did the same for local service. Hence the problem we see today. This is just SBC using the monopoly the government gives them. If you don't like it then channel your hatred towards taking down the government, not the company. Once the market is actually deregulated and SBC actually has to compete for local service, things will be much better.
High DSL and cable modem prices just give an extra incentive to investors to roll out power-line access (like www.current.net in Cincinnati) and other undiscovered alternative technologies. Prices that are forced artificially low drive out investment from potentially competing technolgies since it is harder to compete against thin margins. (Plus an investor would not want to to push much of his capital in a heavily regulated industry since the government could usurp it away on a whim.) Indeed, the current oil situation, if it persists, is perhaps the catalyst that will produce new feats of engineering for fuel efficient cars, more advanced hybrid engines, and alternative fuel sources. So unless you want the technology to stagnate, you should not be bothered by the current temporary high prices. They will only last until alternative (and superior) technologies are invented by a profit motive of sticking it to the DSL companies. Let's not destroy that motive.
Let's apply the statement above when one needs open heart surgery and needs to decide who will cut him open. Obviously there are experts. The problem is identifying them. If you truly do posses greater expertise than someone else then you personally know by virtue of your superior knowledge. On the other hand, if you are dumber than someone else then you probably don't this since, by definition, you are dumb. And lastly, if you are a student trying to gain a teacher and judge between a true expert and a moron who thinks he's an expert, since you lack the ability to judge the knowledge they promote (or else you'd not be a student), you cannot determine who the expert is. The problem thus is not that no experts exist, but that it is difficult for common people and stupid pseudo-experts to identify who the real experts truly are.
> Who determines who the "experts" and "authorities" are?
Indeed, existentialism is a good ideal to hold. How can any expert or authority be determined? I agree that it is impossible! That is why when I have health problems I usually let any Joe off the street operate on me. Because afterall, who is to determine who is an expert in open heart surgery or who is an authority on anesthesia?
Much of your campaign focuses on wealth distribution, and I agree with you that corporations have no rights, only actual people do. But what I have not been able to resolve with the Greens is the role corporations play in producing the goods and services that satisfy society's needs. The laws of economics prove that taxing wealth-creation (income taxes, dividend taxes, etc.) creates a disincentive for society to produce, and subsidizing consumption (of health care, etc.) creates an incentive to consume more. Before wealth can be distributed, it of course must first be created by someone. How do you get around this dilemma of decreasing production and increasing consumption as a side effect of wealth equalization? Do you have a plan to overcome the problem of distributing wealth without decreasing the amount of wealth produced for distribution?
"In the wake of the June 1969 fire, many city officials pointed fingers at the state of Ohio for creating a legal regime which made it unduly difficult for the city to maintain local river quality. Specifically, officials pointed to the state water pollution permitting system which insulated permitted facilities from public nuisance actions and generally inhibited local efforts to combat pollution. Had the state been more aggressive and cooperative, local officials suggested, the Cuyahoga would have been in much better shape."
Cleveland mayor Stokes alleged that "[t]he State has capriciously been circumventing the laws of Ohio by issuing licenses to polluters..."
Clean Water Task Force Director Edward J. Martin noted that: "All of the industries mentioned in your letter are under State Ohio Water Pollution Control Board permit [sic] to discharge wastes. The City of Cleveland has no further jurisdiction over these discharges since the State has assumed primary responsibility for enforcement in the Cuyahoga River."
The state's water pollution control board licensed industrial facilities along the river, providing potential immunity from suit. "We have no jurisdiction over what is dumped" in the river, explained Utilities Director Ben. S. Stefanski II. "The state licenses the industries and gives them legal authority to dump in the river. Actually, the state gives them a license to pollute."
Ohio had various programs, yet it preempted local efforts and common law remedies while failing to devote resources in water pollution control.
Clean Water Task Force Director Edward J. Martin noted that: "All of the industries mentioned in your letter are under State Ohio Water Pollution Control Board permit [sic] to discharge wastes. The City of Cleveland has no further jurisdiction over these discharges since the State has assumed primary responsibility for enforcement in the Cuyahoga River."
The state's water pollution control board licensed industrial facilities along the river, providing potential immunity from suit. "We have no jurisdiction over what is dumped" in the river, explained Utilities Director Ben. S. Stefanski II. "The state licenses the industries and gives them legal authority to dump in the river. Actually, the state gives them a license to pollute."
The history of the Cuyahoga River suggests that the inherent limitations of the common law were exacerbated by government policy. Specifically, there is reason to believe that common law actions, in particular municipal actions to abate public nuisances, could have played a more substantial role in curtailing pollution along the Cuyahoga.
Governments granting special immunities to corporations is not Libertarian, and that is why the Cuyahoga River burned!
Note, the article does say that common law, while it unfairly gets a bum rap, is not the silver bullet for pollution, and many other Libertarians would agree. They are called "geolibertarians". Google for them to see how they would handle pollution, or go to Holistic Politics.
I'm a fellow Clevelander familiar with the burning river. A company (I believe a realtor stationed on the river bank) did try to sue over the pollution in the Cuyahoga River. The problem is that the Ohio General Assembly (or some other regulatory agency) had declared the river to be in the custody of a specific governmental body charged with maintaining "public" resources. Since this agency had granted permission to the corporations to dump an amount of pollution in the river and since the corporations were within the allowed threshold, the courts declared that the pollution was legal, despite the fact that other people were suffering damage from the pollution. This is an example of how Big Government ruins the environment, and how a Libertarian solution of full private liability in torts was denied the a chance to solve the problem.
Bottom line is that people were *not* free to sue over the pollution because the government claimed its "wise" stewardship superceded private lawsuits. It was government interventions that *allowed* the Cuyahoga River to catch on fire. Real change came about when things got so bad that the government was no longer able to get away with granting special immunities to corporations that they should not have been granting in the first place!
Freely giving something to someone else is not a loss of freedom. The insurance is something they give oyu oand you must give something in return; both sides benefit. You are certainly free to not do so. Government mandated "black boxes" in your cars is a loss of freedom. (Which, BTW, the NTSB is trying force on us.) Insurance is a privelege. If you don't want it then don't buy it. (Yes, I know the government requires you to buy it, but that is a case of lost freedom just like forced black boxes.) When you don't buy it then you are no worse off than you were before. So how is trading value for value in a mutually beneficial arrangement a loss of freedom? Unless you have a right to other people's labour and thus can claim a loss of rights when you don't get those products handed out to you, there is no loss on your part.
> Stay the f**k out of my life
That is exactly what Progressive is doing by making it voluntairy. There is a big difference between having the choice to voluntarily share information about your life's activities (TripSense) versus actually being physically forced to share it against your will (George Orwell's "1984"). You are more than welcome to not use the device and continue paying the rates you are paying now if your privacy is worth more than the amount of savings you get by mathematically proving you are less likely to crash your car. Now when the government starts legislating that you must use this device against your will or when the government steals this data from an insurer and slaps them with a gag order (as has happened with the grocery discount cards to profile the eating habits of a potential terrorists), then you have something to worry about.
Now please explain to me how having a choice between lowering your rates in exchange for less privacy, or keeping the rates you already pay now, harms you. Or do you think that insurance companies should not pry into personal information to determine your risk, such as age, gender, neighbourhood, speeding tickets, and past car crashes?
Unless you don't think government is for sale then it is always biased. That is the point of the quote: the dominant faction in government (which are the corporations today) *will* control the curriculum. It differs from a private school because you are forced to fund it. If parents find out that a private school is being manipulated by a corporation, the school stops getting funded as the parents send their kids elsewhere the moment the semester ends. Alas, state controlled education makes a protected monopoly making it financially infeasible to go elsewhere. Now you have to try and wrest control of the government from the corporation. The former choice is much easier than the latter when there is no protected monopoly. When government has nothing to sell, the corporations lose their power. This is why corporations in America have been the #1 advocates of government regulation and control since the 1800's. They fear having to stand on their own feet without the government propping them up. (Or in this case, fear our kids not learning corporate approved curriculum.)
Public school are accountable to no one but the lobbyists. Have any idea why they put in Coke machines in every school despite the fact the sugar is well known to decrease student perfrormance? Because of the money. Don't like how the religious lobby is twisting evolution in Ohio? The will of the public matters not here in secular Cleveland there because the rligious right elects more people in the rest of Ohio than anyone else. Well maybe that is what you mean by "accountable to the public", which John Stuart Mill described as the "tyrrany of the majority". Thus the quote noting public control fof curriculum leads to a tyrrany over the mind by the dominate force in government, be it a king or a societal majority.
So if you want to escape what the majority forces on your, try sending your kid to a private school. But now that's not afforable because the government created a protected monopoly that you are forced to fund, controlled by a few people in the state capitol, and so the education "market" now displays the same innificiencies as other any other market monopoly
Perhaps this is a good example of why school curriculum should not be controlled by governments. As John Stuart Mill said in arguing for school vouchers, "A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation...it establishes a despotism over the mind...."
If you advocate public schools and thus want the government to control what your child learns then come to expect more of this.
Since when was capitalism failing in the software industry? Last I heard, even the open source companies like Red Hat were making money by selling their products and services to willing consumers. (And don't forget, selling corporate stock on Wall Street.) Microsoft, Apple, id, Adobe, Eidos, etc. are raking in millions to billions by selling software products to willing consumers. And the proprietary software that is not in CompUSA is making lots of money. Anyone care to take a guess at how much money was made from proprietary rendering software in movies like Lord of the Rings and Shrek 2? Or the money made through proprietary software developed by the IT staff in Fortune 500 companies? So please explain, how is capitalism is on its last battle and in need of being saved??
Alan Greenspan wrote about monopolies in a great essay simply called "Anti-trust". He makes the case that there are two types of monopolies. One type is like Microsoft. The other type maybe is like ARM, though I am not too familiar with ARM's situation. The example Mr. Greenspan used was ALCOA, an aluminum manufacturer at the time the essay was written. The company, he said, was a monopoly because it was so efficient at making its product that no one was at all capable of producing aluminum so cheaply. How this differs from a Microsoft monopoly is that if ALCOA used its monopoly status to inflate prices then it would cease to be a monopoly, since low prices are exactly what made it a monopoly. Thus it was not a coersive monopoly. He went on to point out how this has a net benefit for everyone (as anyone who understands the economics of efficiency knows) and denounced how the government was trying to punish ALCOA for being a monopoly. (IE-It was being punsihed for coming up with superior manufacturing techniques.) Perhaps a modern day ALCOA is Wal-Mart, which, putting aside you opinions on labour, largely sells thing cheaply because of their new innovations in supply chain logistics. I believe they came up with many new tricks in transporting inventory that make their inventory costs very low. So if Wal-Mart becomes (or is) a monopoly, it is because they have low prices. But if they try to strong-arm prices then they get screwed. This is why Wal-Mart is not harmful for consumers in the way Microsoft is.
Then they should not have chosen the Microsoft platform. No one put a gun to their head and forced them to go that route. If they do not like it now then they should "eat their own dogfood."
The view seems to be that EU has no right to fine Microsoft for violating the EU anti-monopoly laws, since MS is an american corporation.
It is the law that is unjust regardless of the fact that MS is an American company. If a group of individuals want to do business somewhere then no one has a right to force their will upon them anymore than the individuals of the company have a right to force their will upon anyone else. I'd say the same about the US politicians forcing their will upon the employees of Microsoft. I suggest reading "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat to understand exactly why such laws are unjust.
For example, the americans would probably be quite upset if a dutch company would start selling cannabis in the US and would state that the americans have no right to punish it for it's actions since it's not an american corporation.
And US drug laws are as wrong as the EU laws fining Microsoft. That Dutch company should be able to sell its goods in the US! Neither my government nor anyone else has the right to stop them. So smoke up!
If Europeans think Microsoft is unfair with their products, there is an easier solution that levying fines upon the company: stop buying the product. If everyone in Europe did just that then things would be much better for them. On the other hand, if the Nation of Europe's government wins out with this fine then what Bill ought do is be be like John Galt and close down every European operation plus terminate all Microsoft exports to Europe. Granted, Microsoft would loose a ton of money, but it would probably hurt Europe Microsoft than Microsoft. On the other hand, if Microsoft is as unfair as the Europeans seem to think that they are then they should be able to fare just fine without Microsoft. Being one who uses Apple and Linux exclusively, I personally believe either of these two scenerios would be better than levying fines since it takes the moral high ground of free wil and, more importantly, also lets the Europeans get their hands on the cool (ie non-Microsoft) toys!
Well I also disagree with my proposal. The only reason I propose it is so that people can see how awful our taxation is and then become so upset that they abolish nearly all of our taxation. :)
(As an aside, the only government funding I see as justifiable is a land value rent as per Thomas Paine and Henry George.)
The IRS web site claims that they will not send you money unless you file a return requesting it. That tells me they do not even bother to send a refund check of their own free volition.
Some may praise the tax collectors for getting all the money from tax fraudsters. But there is anoter side of this that should be considered. I don't know the stats for MA, so I will use the IRS as an example. The IRS web sites says that it has $2.5 billion that it owes people for the year 2000. It says that if the money is not claimed then the IRS keeps it for good. There are a few issues with this.
* If they know that they owe $2.5 billion then they must know who they owe it to. So why do they not return it? Compare that to what happens if you do not give them money they think belongs to them.
* If they do not want to return it to its owners then why not disperse it through universal income tax credits rather than keeping it? In other words, they engage in what for a private citizen would be "tax fraud".
* So some people cheat on their taxes. This is offset some by the IRS keeping money that is not theirs. Thus in the interest of fairness, until a tax collection agency cracks down on themselves kepeing money that is not "theirs" (though saying a tax collection agency "owns" any of the money it collects is a bit absurd...), we should oppose such agencies cracking down on us.
The problem with this is that people still pay the taxes by means of the higher prices for goods and services such a corporate tax would cause. The problem arises in that people do not "see" the taxes directly so do not realize that they are paying it. This give the government power to tax us even more than they do now by sneaking it past us (which they are already doing to some extent as it is). At least when you tax the citizenry directly they know the costs and can judge if they think it is fair. I've heard it is estimated that 50% of your income already goes to taxes once you factor in all the hidden taxes (corporate taxes, gas taxes, utility taxes, etc., and also including non-income taxes like sales and property taxes). So let's abolish all of those other taxes and institute a 50% income tax. Let's see how people like it once they know exatly what it really costs them.
What I mean is to clarify vague claims like "You have a right to be happy". Does this mean that if you are unhappy for some reason then your rights are infringed upon and government is obliged to step in and cheer you up, or does it just mean that no one may interfere in your personal affairs that you do for your own happiness? If you take the first case then the government's main duty would be providing amusements for people, as opposed to giving people the freedom to amuse themselves. Saying you have a "right to happiness" implies that possessing it is a right, and so not possessing it is a rights infringement. The "right to pursue happiness" implies that the government should not interfere in your attempts to seek out your own amusement, but it has no obligation to provide you with entertainment. That doesn't seem bleak to me.
This actually isn't censorship. It is absurd as saying a program with a security feature that lets people encrypt data so that you cannot read it is censorship. A government mandating such rules is worse than a software company, since it is coersive. Furthermore, Adobe is not saying that you are not allowed to look at currency images. Rather, they are saying that they are not willing to sell you a program that lets you look at currency images. It is a subtle but very significant difference. Forcing them to make a program against their will in order to conform to your whim is more commonly known as "slavery".
Suppose Photoshop did block more benign things, like pr0n. You do not have to buy Photoshop. You can use other photo editing tools. And if there are no alternative programs then you are free to write your own photo editor if you are able to. No one has a right to photo editors, rather we have a right to pursue photo editors. Like you don't have a right to happiness, but rather the right to the pursuit of happiness. The right *to* other things is more commonly known as "looting". So in truth, no one is stopping you from looking at whatever you want to look at. You just may have to go through a little bit more effort to achieve what you want. There's no such thing as a free lunch. We must earn what we desire.
Now suppose that government stepped in and decided what you can and cannot see. Now you no longer can use other photo editors nor can you write your own. Souind familiar? This is the mentality that caused the DMCA to come into being. Now *that* is actual censorship!
I suggest reading "Atlas Shrugged". Though I do have some issues with parts of the book, there is one theme that really strikes true and relates to the UN in situation. More specifically, it's the situation where some entity creates something amazing, perhaps revolutionizing society, and then those who do nothing to actually create progress demand a piece of it. In "Atlas Shrugged", it was an industrialist creating a new steel alloy that was vastly superior to existing steel, and all of society demanded a supposed "right" to control his creation. In this case, the US government and various US-based organizations (for the most part; I know it's not 100% US) revolutionized the world. Now the UN is trying to make claim to some sort of right over that. I suggest that if the UN wants it then they should create something better. Creation, not leeching, is what causes progress in the world.