I really don't understand the hostility here. I did't understand it when it started and I don't understand it now. A subquorum of scientists at a particular venue voted for change the definition of an arbitrary system of classification. Yet people are treating people who call Pluto a "planet" like they were flatearthers or holocaust deniers.
It's just a friggin name!
Yes, it's stupid for the New Mexico legislature to be involved in an issue like this. But it's just as stupid for you guys to be taking sides in this absurd political tempest. Stop pretending you're an enlightened progressive just because you don't call Pluto a "planet". Sheesh.
The problem with the Libertarian Party (big L) is that they're run by ideological purists. They've got about much chance of winning as the Green Party does with a purist progressive environmentalist candidate. Bother parties will get just enough votes to keep themselves on the radar, but neither will be able to win until the field pragmatic realist candidates.
The average voter could support a tax cut, but the Liberatarian Party wants to abolish the IRS. Too extreme. The average voter could support marijuana decriminalization, but the LP wants to legalize all drugs. Too extreme. The average voter could support school vouchers, bu the LP wants to eliminate all public education. Too extreme. There is a strong individualist streak in the American psyche, but there is not an anarchist streak. The LP needs to stop appealing to anarcho-capitalists and start appealing to individualists.
Either the Libertarian Party reforms, or libertarians will gravitate to other parties.
Funny you bring up gay marriage. Mainstream Democrats weren't in favor of gay marriage UNTIL Bush got into office. It's a very very recent idea to hit the mainstream. But along came Bush who was openly in favor of civil unions, and so the Democrat Party latched onto gay marriage as a way to differentiate themselves.
Separation of religion and politics is an interesting idea, and suggest that you should not let your view on spiritual matters influence your view on material matters, and vice versa.
Most of us aren't so schizoid. Our spiritual beliefs are not so shallow we can stuff them in a box and ignore them when the real world intrudes. Our spiritual viewpoints broadly overlap our temporal viewpoints. Our spiritual beliefs inform our political opinion.
Case in point: My religion says to feed and clothe the poor. Not in the distant afterlife or some etheric plane, but in the real world of the here and now. While my religion may not tell me what political policies should hold sway in the land, it most certainly will inform my political opinions on the subject.
The reason we have a separation of church and state, is so that people may be free to believe and worship as they choose. But a separation of religion and politics is to tell other people *what* they may believe. It turns the whole idea upside down.
A conservative will tell you up front that he wants to keep marijuana criminalized. A liberal will tell you that it's no one's right to tell you what you can or cannot ingest, but then ban transfats, and zone pot clubs out of the city. Both are statists, but one is at least an honest statist.
You still can't get past the left/right labellings. Even though that chart attempts to provide four labels instead of two, you still called libertarians "right wing".
Besides, the Nolan Chart is still too simplistic. Nearly everyone is in favor of more economic freedom. The problem is how you define it. Freedom for individuals, or businesses too? And what about the right to bargain collectively for wages?
If you're talking about the state created privilege known as copyright, please name one software license that isn't in some way based on copyright law. You can't. Faulting developers for having a government enforced copyright on their software is as silly as faulting drivers for using government funded roads.
Violators of proprietary software licenses get sued all the time, but violators of Free Software licenses get whacked by the coercive hammer of the state as well! Both the GPL and the BSD licenses have been used as legal weapons against copyright abusers.
So are you saying that people with religious beliefs should not vote? Are you saying that if my religion tells me to feed and clothe the poor, that I'm ineligable for public office? Are you saying that Martin Luther King should have stayed in his church and not bothered with the politics of racism?
I'm not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. But neither am I a liberal. I actually find the fact that so many liberatarians seem to think the Republicans are the party to vote for to be quite puzzling and leads me to believe that the libertarian party members don't believe their own rhetoric.
That one is easy to answer. Libertarians believe in small government. The Republican Party at least talks about small government. It may not actually believe it, and is certainly not doing a damned thing to rein in the growth of government, but at least they are talking about it.
And believe it or not, there are indeed genuine libertarians within the Republican party. Many libertarian positions were shocking in 1977, to both mainstream parties. Now many of them are standard conservative positions, just in a more moderate form. Lower taxes, reduced spending, etc. And not just economic positions. It was a Republican president to abolished the draft, and only Democrats have ever proposed returning to it.
An R-tard like George W. Bush would be just as bad if he were from the Democratic party.
Doctor his photo, change his name, take away his affected Texan accent, but keep everything else the same... it would be really easy to mistake him as a Democrat. And of course, do the same with Clinton and you could mistake him for a Republican.
Liberals and conservatives have merged into a muddled centrism, leaving any sort of actual ideological differences to the libertarians and progressives.
I think you are confused. We don't have, and should not have, a separation of politics and religion. What we have instead is a separation of *state* and religion. This is a very different thing.
I don't think you want to be arguing that Martin Luther King should have stayed back in his home church instead of championing equal rights for all men.
I know just as many BSD using libertarians as Linux using libertarians, despite very different philosophies in licensing. But they are still far fewer than the number of libertarians I know that use Mac and Windows.
Maybe, just maybe, political leanings have nothing to do with ones choice of software.
If you absolutely must divide the political world into two parts, then there's a fifty/fifty chance that your definition of right wing will include libertarians.
I was going to write a post about the political leanings of operating systems, but stopped myself just in time. Because it's stupid.
Stop obsessing with what other people are doing. Stop obsessing with who they vote for, what football team they rally behind, and what desktop they use. It's no one's business but their own what brand of automobile they drive.
So what if I don't use the same software license as you? What business could it possibly be of yours?
That explains 1993, but it doesn't explain 2007. You can put a fully featured FreeBSD box in front of a staunch Linux advocate, and he'll think it's just another Linux distro.
The mindshare investment is red herring. It's just as much work to move from Debian to Fedora, as it is to move from Debian to FreeBSD. The acclimatization is on the order of a few hours at most.
Had Linus waiting another year or two to make his public release, you might all be running *BSD on your home machines, and arguing why it hadn't taken over the desktop yet.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that the main reason people are using Linux instead of BSD is because there are more *proprietary* drivers for Linux. Contrary to popular Slashdot opinion, Linux advocates care more about proprietary video drivers than they do about licensing.
The GPL on the Linux kernel is like a Carbon Offset. It let's you criticize other poeple for using proprietary software without feeling guilty for using it yourself.
Maybe because AT&T decided to sue BSDi at precisely the same time that Linus was looking for a i386 based Unix? That lawsuit scared people away, not the license.
The outrage isn't what the city is doing, it's why the city is doing it. They aren't trying to discover the blogger so they can reward him, they're doing it so they can shut him up and get back to corruption as usual.
This isn't a video of some criminal holding up a liquor store. Hell, it's not even a video of someone running a traffic light. It's a video of someone buying a classified ad! Geez!
I'm a FreeBSD user, and one thing I've noticed about many Linux advocates, is their near total lack of objectivity. I realize that all advocates try to minimize their system's weakness and emphasize its strengths. But sometimes it seems like Linux advocates truly cannot comprehend that their beloved system is mortal, imperfect and will not cure their acne.
It wasn't just the US intelligence community claiming this. It was EVERY intelligence community. Saddam had them at one time, that's undisputed fact. But he refused to offer any evidence that he got rid of them. We (the UN) gave him more than enough time to demonstrate his compliance with the resolutions, be he never even bothered to try. We warned him once. We warned him twice. We warned him a third and a fourth time. We tried every available option before invasion. Then when we did used the last option, nearly every Democrat in congress voted to do so.
Saddam was bluffing, but we had no way of knowing until we called him on it.
BUT REGARDLESS: two wrongs do not make a right! You are not justified in lying because someone else is lying. You are not justified in manufacturing fake news because someone else is doing it.
The high moral ground cannot be purchased with lies and forgeries.
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I call them that because, according to the set of axises I used, they are right-wing.
ANY set of axes you use will have a right half and a left half.
I really don't understand the hostility here. I did't understand it when it started and I don't understand it now. A subquorum of scientists at a particular venue voted for change the definition of an arbitrary system of classification. Yet people are treating people who call Pluto a "planet" like they were flatearthers or holocaust deniers.
It's just a friggin name!
Yes, it's stupid for the New Mexico legislature to be involved in an issue like this. But it's just as stupid for you guys to be taking sides in this absurd political tempest. Stop pretending you're an enlightened progressive just because you don't call Pluto a "planet". Sheesh.
The problem with the Libertarian Party (big L) is that they're run by ideological purists. They've got about much chance of winning as the Green Party does with a purist progressive environmentalist candidate. Bother parties will get just enough votes to keep themselves on the radar, but neither will be able to win until the field pragmatic realist candidates.
The average voter could support a tax cut, but the Liberatarian Party wants to abolish the IRS. Too extreme. The average voter could support marijuana decriminalization, but the LP wants to legalize all drugs. Too extreme. The average voter could support school vouchers, bu the LP wants to eliminate all public education. Too extreme. There is a strong individualist streak in the American psyche, but there is not an anarchist streak. The LP needs to stop appealing to anarcho-capitalists and start appealing to individualists.
Either the Libertarian Party reforms, or libertarians will gravitate to other parties.
Funny you bring up gay marriage. Mainstream Democrats weren't in favor of gay marriage UNTIL Bush got into office. It's a very very recent idea to hit the mainstream. But along came Bush who was openly in favor of civil unions, and so the Democrat Party latched onto gay marriage as a way to differentiate themselves.
Separation of religion and politics is an interesting idea, and suggest that you should not let your view on spiritual matters influence your view on material matters, and vice versa.
Most of us aren't so schizoid. Our spiritual beliefs are not so shallow we can stuff them in a box and ignore them when the real world intrudes. Our spiritual viewpoints broadly overlap our temporal viewpoints. Our spiritual beliefs inform our political opinion.
Case in point: My religion says to feed and clothe the poor. Not in the distant afterlife or some etheric plane, but in the real world of the here and now. While my religion may not tell me what political policies should hold sway in the land, it most certainly will inform my political opinions on the subject.
The reason we have a separation of church and state, is so that people may be free to believe and worship as they choose. But a separation of religion and politics is to tell other people *what* they may believe. It turns the whole idea upside down.
A conservative will tell you up front that he wants to keep marijuana criminalized. A liberal will tell you that it's no one's right to tell you what you can or cannot ingest, but then ban transfats, and zone pot clubs out of the city. Both are statists, but one is at least an honest statist.
You still can't get past the left/right labellings. Even though that chart attempts to provide four labels instead of two, you still called libertarians "right wing".
Besides, the Nolan Chart is still too simplistic. Nearly everyone is in favor of more economic freedom. The problem is how you define it. Freedom for individuals, or businesses too? And what about the right to bargain collectively for wages?
If you're talking about the state created privilege known as copyright, please name one software license that isn't in some way based on copyright law. You can't. Faulting developers for having a government enforced copyright on their software is as silly as faulting drivers for using government funded roads.
Violators of proprietary software licenses get sued all the time, but violators of Free Software licenses get whacked by the coercive hammer of the state as well! Both the GPL and the BSD licenses have been used as legal weapons against copyright abusers.
So are you saying that people with religious beliefs should not vote? Are you saying that if my religion tells me to feed and clothe the poor, that I'm ineligable for public office? Are you saying that Martin Luther King should have stayed in his church and not bothered with the politics of racism?
I'm not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. But neither am I a liberal. I actually find the fact that so many liberatarians seem to think the Republicans are the party to vote for to be quite puzzling and leads me to believe that the libertarian party members don't believe their own rhetoric.
That one is easy to answer. Libertarians believe in small government. The Republican Party at least talks about small government. It may not actually believe it, and is certainly not doing a damned thing to rein in the growth of government, but at least they are talking about it.
And believe it or not, there are indeed genuine libertarians within the Republican party. Many libertarian positions were shocking in 1977, to both mainstream parties. Now many of them are standard conservative positions, just in a more moderate form. Lower taxes, reduced spending, etc. And not just economic positions. It was a Republican president to abolished the draft, and only Democrats have ever proposed returning to it.
An R-tard like George W. Bush would be just as bad if he were from the Democratic party.
Doctor his photo, change his name, take away his affected Texan accent, but keep everything else the same... it would be really easy to mistake him as a Democrat. And of course, do the same with Clinton and you could mistake him for a Republican.
Liberals and conservatives have merged into a muddled centrism, leaving any sort of actual ideological differences to the libertarians and progressives.
I think you are confused. We don't have, and should not have, a separation of politics and religion. What we have instead is a separation of *state* and religion. This is a very different thing.
I don't think you want to be arguing that Martin Luther King should have stayed back in his home church instead of championing equal rights for all men.
I know just as many BSD using libertarians as Linux using libertarians, despite very different philosophies in licensing. But they are still far fewer than the number of libertarians I know that use Mac and Windows.
Maybe, just maybe, political leanings have nothing to do with ones choice of software.
If you absolutely must divide the political world into two parts, then there's a fifty/fifty chance that your definition of right wing will include libertarians.
I was going to write a post about the political leanings of operating systems, but stopped myself just in time. Because it's stupid.
Stop obsessing with what other people are doing. Stop obsessing with who they vote for, what football team they rally behind, and what desktop they use. It's no one's business but their own what brand of automobile they drive.
So what if I don't use the same software license as you? What business could it possibly be of yours?
That explains 1993, but it doesn't explain 2007. You can put a fully featured FreeBSD box in front of a staunch Linux advocate, and he'll think it's just another Linux distro.
The mindshare investment is red herring. It's just as much work to move from Debian to Fedora, as it is to move from Debian to FreeBSD. The acclimatization is on the order of a few hours at most.
Had Linus waiting another year or two to make his public release, you might all be running *BSD on your home machines, and arguing why it hadn't taken over the desktop yet.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that the main reason people are using Linux instead of BSD is because there are more *proprietary* drivers for Linux. Contrary to popular Slashdot opinion, Linux advocates care more about proprietary video drivers than they do about licensing.
The GPL on the Linux kernel is like a Carbon Offset. It let's you criticize other poeple for using proprietary software without feeling guilty for using it yourself.
Why the difference?
Maybe because AT&T decided to sue BSDi at precisely the same time that Linus was looking for a i386 based Unix? That lawsuit scared people away, not the license.
The other poster didn't say anything at all about "previously" proprietary software, only about original software.
No wonder local politics bothers me.
There is no tyrant so terrible as your neighbor across the street who just got elected to the city council.
The outrage isn't what the city is doing, it's why the city is doing it. They aren't trying to discover the blogger so they can reward him, they're doing it so they can shut him up and get back to corruption as usual.
This isn't a video of some criminal holding up a liquor store. Hell, it's not even a video of someone running a traffic light. It's a video of someone buying a classified ad! Geez!
All advocates are a bit unhinged. But only in the Linux community has blind adherance to myth become the norm.
Maybe someone should take away the admin privileges of the "editor" who put up this article
Don't think "free" as in beer. Don't even think "free" as in speech. Think "free" as in I'm free to smack down everyone I disagree with.
I'm a FreeBSD user, and one thing I've noticed about many Linux advocates, is their near total lack of objectivity. I realize that all advocates try to minimize their system's weakness and emphasize its strengths. But sometimes it seems like Linux advocates truly cannot comprehend that their beloved system is mortal, imperfect and will not cure their acne.
It wasn't just the US intelligence community claiming this. It was EVERY intelligence community. Saddam had them at one time, that's undisputed fact. But he refused to offer any evidence that he got rid of them. We (the UN) gave him more than enough time to demonstrate his compliance with the resolutions, be he never even bothered to try. We warned him once. We warned him twice. We warned him a third and a fourth time. We tried every available option before invasion. Then when we did used the last option, nearly every Democrat in congress voted to do so.
Saddam was bluffing, but we had no way of knowing until we called him on it.
BUT REGARDLESS: two wrongs do not make a right! You are not justified in lying because someone else is lying. You are not justified in manufacturing fake news because someone else is doing it.
The high moral ground cannot be purchased with lies and forgeries.