I know exactly what you mean. Because that is the point I was making to GP;)
I think we have a case of premature interjection. I'll let you and the GP work it out.
is it conceivable that It may have made the rules so that It can tamper with them?
Yes, I completely understand your hypothetical - it's entirely possible (in the philosophical sense).
science can't speculate on any motivation behind observed phenomena, including whether motive exists at all or not.... science can tell you the mechanics of some phenomenon but it is neutral to it and won't help you decide if it is "good", "bad" or "uncaring"
That's where I'm disagreeing with you. Science can't tell you if something is good or bad - that's ethics, but it can help you figure out if something is good or bad. For example, science won't tell you anything about Mr. X's morals, but it might tell you whether he pushed his wife down the stairs or if it was an accident.
You are falling for the same trap as GP: anthropomorphizing the universe, in your case by ascribing to it the characteristic of "uncaring"
I'm actually trying to do the opposite of anthropomorphizing, I'm stating that the universe lacks human characteristics. A person might care if someone lives or dies, but a gun is indifferent - and I'm saying the nonliving parts of the universe act more like the gun. And I think this is quite testable - walk into traffic and see how people react, but do the same with an avalanche...
"Why" demands intention otherwise it would be randomness,
"Why?" demands choice otherwise it would all be uniform. I don't think either statement is a very compelling argument.
devoid of intentionality asking "why" is meaningless.
1. Why does the wind blow? Because of temperature differences. (no intent)
2. Why did you hit him? Because I was mad and wanted to hurt him. (intent).
I think you're assuming that the answer to "Why the universe?" will take that form of #2. I'd suggest that that's what you want it to be, but no-one knows enough to even make a good guess.
Yes. But soft power is only useful when hard power is being held back.
they can just hypnotize the government like some voodoo witchdoctor to do their dirty work for them
I think you're overestimating the ability of one to mesmerize the other - politicians are masters of the power of persuasion, and for the most part wouldn't get to where they are without some strength of will. The two may often work together, but I don't think that there's any real contest of which one's stronger. Even a fairly weak country can allow corporate investment and then nationalize whatever was built.
That group operates subject only to limited liability, so its "rights" should have be limited at the least.
I would agree with that in some ways. Limited liability should be balanced by greater scrutiny. Even better would be to have several different balances - like an option for inspections every month instead of every year that would lower fines for minor violations.
If it's a tool, why should it have any right?
The tool doesn't have any rights - the user does. There's a reason it's called a 'legal fiction' - it's just a legalism. Some important points from the article:
In the common law tradition, legal fictions are suppositions of fact taken to be true by the courts of law, but which are not necessarily true.... The term "legal fiction" is not usually used in a pejorative way in spite of the negative connotation of the phrase, and have been characterized as scaffolding around a building under construction.
In the common law tradition, only a person could sue or be sued.... To resolve the issue, courts created an elegant solution--a corporation is a person, and could therefore sue and be sued, and thus held accountable for its debts.
Personally, I like the fact that I could sue a corporation, if necessary.
Your post is that of a tool.
If you're referring to my last line, it might have been a little overzealous. On the other hand, you seemed quite taken with the strength of your own argument. I only meant to bring you down off your soapbox, and no farther.
You have an important point - the government isn't doing its job. But that's the government fault, not the corporation's.
To complete your analogy, what if the police hardly ever went after car thieves? While the criminals would bear responsibility for their own actions, the responsibility for the skyrocketing crime rates would fall on the police. Your suggestion would seem to be to disregard the rights of people with cars!
People that legally purchased cars and corporations that try to stay within the bounds of the law should keep their rights. Those that break the law should be prosecuted, and as long as there's only one group with the legal right to do so, the results of failing to prosecute them fall primarily on that group.
artistic parent would strive to create more valuable art in order to provide more revenue from that art to his/her children.
And they can do this by selling their creations and saving the money - just like the rest of us.
Or even better, they can pass a work onto their children for them to sell later, as many things get more valuable after the creator is dead. Even better, they could leave a secret cache of their second-rate work and rough drafts to enrich their descendants - imagine a new work from Picasso or Shakespeare popping up on the market today.
I understand that the legal language reads that way, but I'll maintain that the practical effects are in line with what I've written.
But that doesn't matter - even if a corporation is a person, then they are still a separate entity from the government.
Did you know, at one time, we didn't recognize them unless we had an important public project.
And at one time usury was a crime, and getting rid of those laws was one of the most important economic advancements in history. In the same line allowing individuals to form collectives is also an important improvement - how bad would things be if every large company was owned by one person?
While there's much room for improvement, like properly punishing actual criminals, making companies extensions of the government is way overboard. Putting both political and economic control of a country in the hands of a single group is how authoritarian regimes start.
Why do companies like Clearchannel and XM satellite radio even *exist*? Because of government regulation and interference only.
Even if it weren't for corporate charters people would still form companies. And, as far as I know, XM doesn't need any monopolistic broadcast licenses, anyone can launch its own satellite service.
So we have a collectivist entity created by government charter (a private corporation), and given by the government an effective monopoly over a means of communication, and you say that it does not violate my natural rights if they censor the content the broadcast?
Except that they aren't really a monopoly (in the economic sense). Even if Clearchannel owned every bit of radio spectrum, they would sill compete with XM, the internet, iPods, CDs, TV, live performances, etc. If you want a real monopoly, try a cable broadband provider in a rural area.
Firstly, to say that this isn't government censorship is deeply dishonest.
I wouldn't call it censorship, but I would agree that the bulk of the blame falls on the government. When they assume regulatory powers and distort the market, they assume responsibility for the effects that their regulations have.
I'm discussing *natural rights*, so all the legal precedent is completely irrelevant - including all of the legal precedents that give legal rights to non-persons. I am making a *moral* arugment, not a *legal* one.
If your *natural right* to freedom of speech is violated, then it becomes a freedom of speech issue, regardless of whether some court has decided that this doesn't violate your *legal rights*.
You are correct on these points.
XM radio does not have property rights, or rights of any kind, because it is not a person. It's also a monopoly.
Having a monopoly is not a violation of anyone's natural rights. Also, XM might not be a person, but it is owned by people who do have rights, so the tool they use to express their collective will is also treated as if it had rights.
These guys obviously have an audience; if no-one will carry them, their *natural rights* are being violated (not to mention the *natural rights* of their audience.)
This is where you go off the deep end. You have seriously confused natural rights with some kind of socialist rights.
If you just said that they have certain rights, I might say you were morally wrong, but that would just be a difference of opinion. When you state that they have certain rights under a certain system when they clearly don't, then you're factually wrong, and that isn't an opinion.
I consider myself rather cynical, but even I wouldn't call employees "property".
He wasn't saying that. The property he referred to is the satellite, broadcast equipment, etc.
So, that leaves us with entities with the rights of real live humans,
Humans have rights, so a group of humans working together has the same rights.
with absolutely no morals,
The corporation is just a tool for the owning group to use. Tools don't have morals.
a single-minded obsession with profit,
Just like a hammer is obsessed with nails - that's what it's built for.
and no reason to fear serious punishment.
Tools can't fear anything. If you want to make a tool obey the law, you have to affect the person wielding it.
So yeah, I damned well do think we should have the right to tell these legal fictions what they can and can't do with "their" property - Starting with not allowing them to own property in the first place.
Nice rhetoric, too bad there's nothing but emotional appeal for anti-capitalists there.
How can "voting with your dollars" be democratic?
It isn't, the phrase is just an analogy.
You don't have the right to broadcast audio speech over radio waves at frequencies and strengths that would give you a mass audience unless you pay massive licensing fees that are prohibitive to any working class individual.
This is a bad thing (but in some ways it was inevitable for a period of history - basic radio has limited bandwidth), but it is getting better fast - see YouTube, MySpace, etc.
We need social democratic management of the means of speech in a mass society.
That's your opinion. I strongly disagree.
True free speech can only prosper when both the right to speak and the right to be heard is available to all equally.
No, free speech is when the government can't stop you from saying something. If you physically can't speak, don't have the tools to communicate in the way you want, or can't find an audience, that's your problem.
Who exactly approves the corporate charter?
The government approves the corporate charter.
All parts of government are bound by the Bill of Rights.
Yes, and yes.
A corporate charter is a part of government allowing a group of people to be seen as "one".
Almost. A corporate charter is a way of registering a group of people so that they can be legally treated as a group.
Therefore, corporations should be bound by the same restrictions that government is.
Now you're getting silly. The government is just recognizing them, not assimilating them. You might as well sue me for sexual discrimination, because I'm a US taxpayer, and therefor part of the government, and I only date women.
Another line of thinking is that corporations were allowed to be made for the public good
Corporations exist for the good of the people who own them (shareholders), the good of the people that do business with them (people and businesses), and the people that get hurt by them (people who sue, etc) - it prevents ambiguity over who can do what, and who did what. Some people use their right to free speech for good (slavery abolitionists) others evil (neo-Nazis) but most are neutral, and in the same way some people use their right to peaceably assemble for good (charities, activist groups) others evil (Enron) but most are just doing their thing.
When clearchannel controls more than half the radio market they carry as much or more power than government
I'm sorry, but that's just silly. If you mean using force, the national guard base near where I live could easily crush any one corporation in the US if no-one else intervened. In other ways, they could be prosecuted as a monopoly and break it up, the FCC could revoke its licenses, or the federal government could nationalize them.
It's true that corporations have a lot of influence, but don't overestimate them - the government could destroy any of them without breaking a sweat.
First, the question you're moving toward is "Why does anything exist at all, and why does the stuff that exists exist in the way is does?", which is sometimes called the fundamental ontological question. Nobody has an answer for this, or knows what format the answer would take, or even has a vague concept of how to go about answering it. Even if you follow a western religion, questions like "Why does God exist at all?" and "Why is God X, rather than Y or Z?" (i.e. good rather than evil or neutral) still go unanswered.
Second, it's true that science does not by definition rule out supernatural events, but on the other hand the results of science strongly argue against their existance. Even your "tweaker" entity would, given enough experimentation, show its intervention statistically (i.e. people who pray are more likely to survive, etc.) if it did anything other than generate the laws of physics.
Third, I have some quibbles:
"To speculate on the motivation..."
It sounds like you're already assuming that there's a mind behind it.
Some people dislike this and they look for explanations in meta(beyond) physics."
They can just as easily say that some people don't like the uncaring universe that science reveals, and that's why they run to religion.
My right to do what I want doesn't infringe on your right to live without being punched in the face.
Exactly! You have the right to swing your fist, until that involves my nose, and then you have to get my permission (like you'd get for a boxing match). You have the right to live as you like, until that involves my house, and then you have to work out some sort of deal with me. In neither case should a third party get to decide if my reasons are "proper" - it's my stuff, so it should be my choice.
Those laws were put in place because people did exactly that.... "Hey it's my bus and I think people I don't like should have to sit in the back."
Except that isn't exactly true. Things like Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes were the government forcing people to act like bigots, even if they weren't. Modern anti-discrimination law is the same thing in reverse ("diversity" has replaced "segregation"), and it's still forcing people to comply with an ideology. Just because the ideology is a better one doesn't make forcing it on people any better.
Re:Less profitable if they can breed.
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It may not happen any time soon, but you can be sure it will happen eventually.
Well, sure. My (poorly made) point was that public pressure can make a difference. At the very least it gave us a few more years before such technology will be used, that way we're more prepared for it. On the other hand, it might just demonstrate that the customers are the ones dictating what companies end up doing.
Re:Less profitable if they can breed.
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The Human Mutation
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Well if Monsanto, or any of the other big firms into genetic research produce them, you can be sure that they'll be sterile.
If you're talking about the "terminator gene", Monsanto has pledged not to use it.
They wouldn't want anyone breeding their own after delivery; they'd want you to go back to the source for another fresh batch of clones.
They might want repeat business? I may die of shock!
Studies have shown that removal of the foreskin dramatically lowers the risk of the man contracting HIV due to unprotected sex.
A few small (but highly publicized) studies of highly at-risk adults in third-world African nations with high HIV infection rates have shown a connection. On the other hand, the dozens of studies of circumcisions done on children in first-world western countries with low rates of infection (and a different HIV strain), as well as large-scale statistical studies of first worlders, show no connection.
On the other hand, there's quite a few people that seem desperate to produce some post-hoc reason why circumcision is good. First it stopped masturbation (yeah right), then it prevents HPV (at least that was an honest mistake), now it prevents HIV (maybe, but not for the group of people I was talking about). That's why the African studies are front-page news, and few of the newspaper articles point out any of the contradictory evidence.
For contrast look at the opinions of medical groups - as far as I can tell, none of them actually advocate routine circumcision for children - they are either neutral ("it's up to the parents") like the AMA or moderately against it ("we recommend against it").
It's also a stupid fucking irrelevant argument because it should not be any more or any less her responsibility to not have a child.
First off, men have a choice between difficult-to-reverse vasectomies, and condoms with a 20% yearly failure rate. Women have pills, IUDs, and diaphragms with less than 1% failure rates, and after-the-fact emergency contraception and abortion, with essentially 0% failure rates. So yeah, 50/50 responsibility seems a bit off.
And that wasn't the point, if person A sabotages the efforts of person B, person A should be held as the responsible party. I've met a girl that lied about taking her pills without telling her boyfriend, in order to get pregnant and thus get him to marry her, and a guy how messed with his girls pills so he could be a daddy. I believe that both should be condemned.
You'll have to admit that is rare... I know there were a lot of "ohh please baby the condom sucks" or "don't worry I'm on the pill" variety.
Of course that's rare, my point was that no matter how freaky the situation is, the legal system treats all paternity suits the same - DNA = legal responsibility. On the other had, if a guy kills a girl rather than getting her pregnant, there's several degrees of murder and manslaughter to cover it, and a chance at an affirmative defense, like showing that it was an accident or self defense. If you knock her up, that's it, end of game.
Often custody battles and divorce is with some blue collar guy and a blue collar girl who have grown to hate each other over time... Just protect yourself.
Right, most people are OK - and that's great. It's just that when someone does gets hurt, our culture and our legal system both tend to protect women much better. The same legal system that's so anti-sexist that it mandates that businesses can't discriminate against women also has no problem with giving men harsher sentences for crimes and forcing men to sign up with selective service.
I have no problem with encouraging self-reliance and caution, as long as it's done equally. But it's sexist to suggest that men have to be on the lookout all the time while women have a much better safety net. And as a side note, there's no way that a newborn can protect themselves from circumcision, or that a three-year-old should be expected to take responsibility for preventing child abuse - and we do take the abuse of a girl more seriously.
On paper women seem to have an advantage in practice They don't.
Well, things are getting better (in some places more than others), but I still think that (at least on average) they still do.
The systems lean towards women because they traditionally have had less of a voice.
Automatically giving mothers custody was due to gender roles. Dad's job was to get money, mom did the touchy-feely stuff, especially with young children. The idea that women "don't have a voice" came a fair bit after sexist divorce law was in place.
If the father demands custody and seems sincere then he doesn't have to pay child support.
OK, most of your post was reasonable, even if I had quibbles with it, but this is just silly. Support is determined by custody and income levels - you can get on your knees and beg the court for custody, but if the other parent still gets primary custody you will still owe support.
The US isn't that kind to women.
It isn't that kind to men either.
Still make less.
And men still ends up working more hours and giving more financial support. Imagine an alternate universe where a major part of a woman's attractiveness and social standing is based on her income, where girls are raised to to "suck it up" and "be a woman" means to be competitive, and where women are expected to be the primary breadwinners, pay for dates, and give expensive gifts. Don't you think they'd put more effort into work, and thus earn more in that world?
I'm not saying that there's not a lot of sexism in business, but not all of the "pay gap" is caused by discrimination.
Still lots of rape and sex crimes.
True, but at least they're acknowledged as being crimes:
Many places still treat the rape of a man as something to be joked about (rather than a crime). Boys statutorily raped by teachers still end up paying their rapists child support (even after she's convicted) - while men still get convicted of rape when the 16-year-old they had sex with admits that she showed the man her fake ID that said she was 18. And then there's the fact that women can use any type of deceit to get pregnant - not just pretending to be on the pill or poking holes in condoms, but even by giving oral sex with a condom and using the resulting "sample" to get pregnant, and the man can still end up owing child support.
And that doesn't included things like circumcision/genital mutilation - even taking a single drop of blood from a girl to symbolize an ancient ceremony is illegal in the US, but even jerks with no medical training can circumcise a boy (and keep in mind there aren't any medical groups, or any major studies, that show that circumcision in western countries has any significant medical benefit - plus there's no guidelines on how much tissue can be removed, and no requirement for painkillers).
And it doesn't include sexist culture like the "don't hit a girl"/"slap him if he gets fresh" advice, the idea that women "getting even" is OK while men should never consider such a thing - along with a host of other cultural biases (in the middle and upper classes of western countries at least).
Still a lot of chauvinist pigs who can't see the forest from the trees.
Yeah, it's amazing that some people don't get that sexism exist against, and hurts, both sexes. But in men's defense, we have come a long, long way in just three generations - and in women's defense, they can't hear what men don't say, and not enough men are pointing out the bigotry that hurts them.
Also, the gold diggers who have your kids and divorce you are numerically less then the stupid retards who insists condoms give him a rash and they should do it anyways since she's going on the pill next month.
Do you have numbers for that? (Just kidding). But you forgot to include the ones that accidentally-on-purpose get pregnant to get him to marry her, etc.
I agree that in relation to other injustices in the US the things you've listed are pretty bad, and that some of the other sexism against men that you didn't are even worse (at least from my viewpoint). But you really should keep some perspective - men in the US have both voting and free speech rights, which has led to at least some progress (my state just forced courts to treat all parents as equals last year) - while nobody in SA has any real rights at all.
Slashdot Mirror
But do you have any solid arguments for why they're wrong on this particular issue? Apparently not, at least not for less than $24.
We cover the full spectrum from run-the-economy-by-vote communists to market-worshiping anarcho-capitalists. Enjoy!
I think we have a case of premature interjection. I'll let you and the GP work it out.
is it conceivable that It may have made the rules so that It can tamper with them?
Yes, I completely understand your hypothetical - it's entirely possible (in the philosophical sense).
science can't speculate on any motivation behind observed phenomena, including whether motive exists at all or not. ... science can tell you the mechanics of some phenomenon but it is neutral to it and won't help you decide if it is "good", "bad" or "uncaring"
That's where I'm disagreeing with you. Science can't tell you if something is good or bad - that's ethics, but it can help you figure out if something is good or bad. For example, science won't tell you anything about Mr. X's morals, but it might tell you whether he pushed his wife down the stairs or if it was an accident.
You are falling for the same trap as GP: anthropomorphizing the universe, in your case by ascribing to it the characteristic of "uncaring"
I'm actually trying to do the opposite of anthropomorphizing, I'm stating that the universe lacks human characteristics. A person might care if someone lives or dies, but a gun is indifferent - and I'm saying the nonliving parts of the universe act more like the gun. And I think this is quite testable - walk into traffic and see how people react, but do the same with an avalanche...
"Why" demands intention otherwise it would be randomness,
"Why?" demands choice otherwise it would all be uniform. I don't think either statement is a very compelling argument.
devoid of intentionality asking "why" is meaningless.
1. Why does the wind blow? Because of temperature differences. (no intent)
2. Why did you hit him? Because I was mad and wanted to hurt him. (intent).
I think you're assuming that the answer to "Why the universe?" will take that form of #2. I'd suggest that that's what you want it to be, but no-one knows enough to even make a good guess.
Yes. But soft power is only useful when hard power is being held back.
they can just hypnotize the government like some voodoo witchdoctor to do their dirty work for them
I think you're overestimating the ability of one to mesmerize the other - politicians are masters of the power of persuasion, and for the most part wouldn't get to where they are without some strength of will. The two may often work together, but I don't think that there's any real contest of which one's stronger. Even a fairly weak country can allow corporate investment and then nationalize whatever was built.
I would agree with that in some ways. Limited liability should be balanced by greater scrutiny. Even better would be to have several different balances - like an option for inspections every month instead of every year that would lower fines for minor violations.
If it's a tool, why should it have any right?
The tool doesn't have any rights - the user does. There's a reason it's called a 'legal fiction' - it's just a legalism. Some important points from the article:
In the common law tradition, legal fictions are suppositions of fact taken to be true by the courts of law, but which are not necessarily true.In the common law tradition, only a person could sue or be sued. ... To resolve the issue, courts created an elegant solution--a corporation is a person, and could therefore sue and be sued, and thus held accountable for its debts.
Personally, I like the fact that I could sue a corporation, if necessary.Your post is that of a tool.
If you're referring to my last line, it might have been a little overzealous. On the other hand, you seemed quite taken with the strength of your own argument. I only meant to bring you down off your soapbox, and no farther.
To complete your analogy, what if the police hardly ever went after car thieves? While the criminals would bear responsibility for their own actions, the responsibility for the skyrocketing crime rates would fall on the police. Your suggestion would seem to be to disregard the rights of people with cars!
People that legally purchased cars and corporations that try to stay within the bounds of the law should keep their rights. Those that break the law should be prosecuted, and as long as there's only one group with the legal right to do so, the results of failing to prosecute them fall primarily on that group.
And they can do this by selling their creations and saving the money - just like the rest of us.
Or even better, they can pass a work onto their children for them to sell later, as many things get more valuable after the creator is dead. Even better, they could leave a secret cache of their second-rate work and rough drafts to enrich their descendants - imagine a new work from Picasso or Shakespeare popping up on the market today.
I understand that the legal language reads that way, but I'll maintain that the practical effects are in line with what I've written.
But that doesn't matter - even if a corporation is a person, then they are still a separate entity from the government.
Did you know, at one time, we didn't recognize them unless we had an important public project.
And at one time usury was a crime, and getting rid of those laws was one of the most important economic advancements in history. In the same line allowing individuals to form collectives is also an important improvement - how bad would things be if every large company was owned by one person?
While there's much room for improvement, like properly punishing actual criminals, making companies extensions of the government is way overboard. Putting both political and economic control of a country in the hands of a single group is how authoritarian regimes start.
Even if it weren't for corporate charters people would still form companies. And, as far as I know, XM doesn't need any monopolistic broadcast licenses, anyone can launch its own satellite service.
So we have a collectivist entity created by government charter (a private corporation), and given by the government an effective monopoly over a means of communication, and you say that it does not violate my natural rights if they censor the content the broadcast?
Except that they aren't really a monopoly (in the economic sense). Even if Clearchannel owned every bit of radio spectrum, they would sill compete with XM, the internet, iPods, CDs, TV, live performances, etc. If you want a real monopoly, try a cable broadband provider in a rural area.
Firstly, to say that this isn't government censorship is deeply dishonest.
I wouldn't call it censorship, but I would agree that the bulk of the blame falls on the government. When they assume regulatory powers and distort the market, they assume responsibility for the effects that their regulations have.
If your *natural right* to freedom of speech is violated, then it becomes a freedom of speech issue, regardless of whether some court has decided that this doesn't violate your *legal rights*.
You are correct on these points.
XM radio does not have property rights, or rights of any kind, because it is not a person. It's also a monopoly.
Having a monopoly is not a violation of anyone's natural rights. Also, XM might not be a person, but it is owned by people who do have rights, so the tool they use to express their collective will is also treated as if it had rights.
These guys obviously have an audience; if no-one will carry them, their *natural rights* are being violated (not to mention the *natural rights* of their audience.)
This is where you go off the deep end. You have seriously confused natural rights with some kind of socialist rights.
If you just said that they have certain rights, I might say you were morally wrong, but that would just be a difference of opinion. When you state that they have certain rights under a certain system when they clearly don't, then you're factually wrong, and that isn't an opinion.
He wasn't saying that. The property he referred to is the satellite, broadcast equipment, etc.
So, that leaves us with entities with the rights of real live humans,
Humans have rights, so a group of humans working together has the same rights.
with absolutely no morals,
The corporation is just a tool for the owning group to use. Tools don't have morals.
a single-minded obsession with profit,
Just like a hammer is obsessed with nails - that's what it's built for.
and no reason to fear serious punishment.
Tools can't fear anything. If you want to make a tool obey the law, you have to affect the person wielding it.
So yeah, I damned well do think we should have the right to tell these legal fictions what they can and can't do with "their" property - Starting with not allowing them to own property in the first place.
Nice rhetoric, too bad there's nothing but emotional appeal for anti-capitalists there.
It isn't, the phrase is just an analogy.
You don't have the right to broadcast audio speech over radio waves at frequencies and strengths that would give you a mass audience unless you pay massive licensing fees that are prohibitive to any working class individual.
This is a bad thing (but in some ways it was inevitable for a period of history - basic radio has limited bandwidth), but it is getting better fast - see YouTube, MySpace, etc.
We need social democratic management of the means of speech in a mass society.
That's your opinion. I strongly disagree.
True free speech can only prosper when both the right to speak and the right to be heard is available to all equally.
No, free speech is when the government can't stop you from saying something. If you physically can't speak, don't have the tools to communicate in the way you want, or can't find an audience, that's your problem.
The government approves the corporate charter.
All parts of government are bound by the Bill of Rights.
Yes, and yes.
A corporate charter is a part of government allowing a group of people to be seen as "one".
Almost. A corporate charter is a way of registering a group of people so that they can be legally treated as a group.
Therefore, corporations should be bound by the same restrictions that government is.
Now you're getting silly. The government is just recognizing them, not assimilating them. You might as well sue me for sexual discrimination, because I'm a US taxpayer, and therefor part of the government, and I only date women.
Another line of thinking is that corporations were allowed to be made for the public good
Corporations exist for the good of the people who own them (shareholders), the good of the people that do business with them (people and businesses), and the people that get hurt by them (people who sue, etc) - it prevents ambiguity over who can do what, and who did what. Some people use their right to free speech for good (slavery abolitionists) others evil (neo-Nazis) but most are neutral, and in the same way some people use their right to peaceably assemble for good (charities, activist groups) others evil (Enron) but most are just doing their thing.
I'm sorry, but that's just silly. If you mean using force, the national guard base near where I live could easily crush any one corporation in the US if no-one else intervened. In other ways, they could be prosecuted as a monopoly and break it up, the FCC could revoke its licenses, or the federal government could nationalize them.
It's true that corporations have a lot of influence, but don't overestimate them - the government could destroy any of them without breaking a sweat.
Second, it's true that science does not by definition rule out supernatural events, but on the other hand the results of science strongly argue against their existance. Even your "tweaker" entity would, given enough experimentation, show its intervention statistically (i.e. people who pray are more likely to survive, etc.) if it did anything other than generate the laws of physics.
Third, I have some quibbles:
"To speculate on the motivation..."
It sounds like you're already assuming that there's a mind behind it.
Some people dislike this and they look for explanations in meta(beyond) physics."
They can just as easily say that some people don't like the uncaring universe that science reveals, and that's why they run to religion.
What? Really? I'm gonna "relabel" my job right now! "Lord Yndrd, VP of Napping" has a nice ring to it...
So the moment money changes hands your rights disappear?
Exactly! You have the right to swing your fist, until that involves my nose, and then you have to get my permission (like you'd get for a boxing match). You have the right to live as you like, until that involves my house, and then you have to work out some sort of deal with me. In neither case should a third party get to decide if my reasons are "proper" - it's my stuff, so it should be my choice.
Those laws were put in place because people did exactly that. ... "Hey it's my bus and I think people I don't like should have to sit in the back."
Except that isn't exactly true. Things like Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes were the government forcing people to act like bigots, even if they weren't. Modern anti-discrimination law is the same thing in reverse ("diversity" has replaced "segregation"), and it's still forcing people to comply with an ideology. Just because the ideology is a better one doesn't make forcing it on people any better.
Well, sure. My (poorly made) point was that public pressure can make a difference. At the very least it gave us a few more years before such technology will be used, that way we're more prepared for it. On the other hand, it might just demonstrate that the customers are the ones dictating what companies end up doing.
If you're talking about the "terminator gene", Monsanto has pledged not to use it.
They wouldn't want anyone breeding their own after delivery; they'd want you to go back to the source for another fresh batch of clones.
They might want repeat business? I may die of shock!
A few small (but highly publicized) studies of highly at-risk adults in third-world African nations with high HIV infection rates have shown a connection. On the other hand, the dozens of studies of circumcisions done on children in first-world western countries with low rates of infection (and a different HIV strain), as well as large-scale statistical studies of first worlders, show no connection.
On the other hand, there's quite a few people that seem desperate to produce some post-hoc reason why circumcision is good. First it stopped masturbation (yeah right), then it prevents HPV (at least that was an honest mistake), now it prevents HIV (maybe, but not for the group of people I was talking about). That's why the African studies are front-page news, and few of the newspaper articles point out any of the contradictory evidence.
For contrast look at the opinions of medical groups - as far as I can tell, none of them actually advocate routine circumcision for children - they are either neutral ("it's up to the parents") like the AMA or moderately against it ("we recommend against it").
It's also a stupid fucking irrelevant argument because it should not be any more or any less her responsibility to not have a child.
First off, men have a choice between difficult-to-reverse vasectomies, and condoms with a 20% yearly failure rate. Women have pills, IUDs, and diaphragms with less than 1% failure rates, and after-the-fact emergency contraception and abortion, with essentially 0% failure rates. So yeah, 50/50 responsibility seems a bit off.
And that wasn't the point, if person A sabotages the efforts of person B, person A should be held as the responsible party. I've met a girl that lied about taking her pills without telling her boyfriend, in order to get pregnant and thus get him to marry her, and a guy how messed with his girls pills so he could be a daddy. I believe that both should be condemned.
"Female circumcision" usually refers to clitoridotomy, clitoridectomy or infibulation.
Circumcision is more like trimming the clitoral hood
That's what a clitoridotomy is, and it's illegal in almost all countries to preform one on a child.
No orgasms for life.
Well, there is the G-spot, but yeah, that kind of thing is horrific.
I get what you were saying now.
You'll have to admit that is rare ... I know there were a lot of "ohh please baby the condom sucks" or "don't worry I'm on the pill" variety.
Of course that's rare, my point was that no matter how freaky the situation is, the legal system treats all paternity suits the same - DNA = legal responsibility. On the other had, if a guy kills a girl rather than getting her pregnant, there's several degrees of murder and manslaughter to cover it, and a chance at an affirmative defense, like showing that it was an accident or self defense. If you knock her up, that's it, end of game.
Often custody battles and divorce is with some blue collar guy and a blue collar girl who have grown to hate each other over time ... Just protect yourself.
Right, most people are OK - and that's great. It's just that when someone does gets hurt, our culture and our legal system both tend to protect women much better. The same legal system that's so anti-sexist that it mandates that businesses can't discriminate against women also has no problem with giving men harsher sentences for crimes and forcing men to sign up with selective service.
I have no problem with encouraging self-reliance and caution, as long as it's done equally. But it's sexist to suggest that men have to be on the lookout all the time while women have a much better safety net. And as a side note, there's no way that a newborn can protect themselves from circumcision, or that a three-year-old should be expected to take responsibility for preventing child abuse - and we do take the abuse of a girl more seriously.
Well, things are getting better (in some places more than others), but I still think that (at least on average) they still do.
The systems lean towards women because they traditionally have had less of a voice.
Automatically giving mothers custody was due to gender roles. Dad's job was to get money, mom did the touchy-feely stuff, especially with young children. The idea that women "don't have a voice" came a fair bit after sexist divorce law was in place.
If the father demands custody and seems sincere then he doesn't have to pay child support.
OK, most of your post was reasonable, even if I had quibbles with it, but this is just silly. Support is determined by custody and income levels - you can get on your knees and beg the court for custody, but if the other parent still gets primary custody you will still owe support.
The US isn't that kind to women.
It isn't that kind to men either.
Still make less.
And men still ends up working more hours and giving more financial support. Imagine an alternate universe where a major part of a woman's attractiveness and social standing is based on her income, where girls are raised to to "suck it up" and "be a woman" means to be competitive, and where women are expected to be the primary breadwinners, pay for dates, and give expensive gifts. Don't you think they'd put more effort into work, and thus earn more in that world?
I'm not saying that there's not a lot of sexism in business, but not all of the "pay gap" is caused by discrimination.
Still lots of rape and sex crimes.
True, but at least they're acknowledged as being crimes:
Many places still treat the rape of a man as something to be joked about (rather than a crime). Boys statutorily raped by teachers still end up paying their rapists child support (even after she's convicted) - while men still get convicted of rape when the 16-year-old they had sex with admits that she showed the man her fake ID that said she was 18. And then there's the fact that women can use any type of deceit to get pregnant - not just pretending to be on the pill or poking holes in condoms, but even by giving oral sex with a condom and using the resulting "sample" to get pregnant, and the man can still end up owing child support.
And that doesn't included things like circumcision/genital mutilation - even taking a single drop of blood from a girl to symbolize an ancient ceremony is illegal in the US, but even jerks with no medical training can circumcise a boy (and keep in mind there aren't any medical groups, or any major studies, that show that circumcision in western countries has any significant medical benefit - plus there's no guidelines on how much tissue can be removed, and no requirement for painkillers).
And it doesn't include sexist culture like the "don't hit a girl"/"slap him if he gets fresh" advice, the idea that women "getting even" is OK while men should never consider such a thing - along with a host of other cultural biases (in the middle and upper classes of western countries at least).
Still a lot of chauvinist pigs who can't see the forest from the trees.
Yeah, it's amazing that some people don't get that sexism exist against, and hurts, both sexes. But in men's defense, we have come a long, long way in just three generations - and in women's defense, they can't hear what men don't say, and not enough men are pointing out the bigotry that hurts them.
Also, the gold diggers who have your kids and divorce you are numerically less then the stupid retards who insists condoms give him a rash and they should do it anyways since she's going on the pill next month.
Do you have numbers for that? (Just kidding). But you forgot to include the ones that accidentally-on-purpose get pregnant to get him to marry her, etc.
I agree that in relation to other injustices in the US the things you've listed are pretty bad, and that some of the other sexism against men that you didn't are even worse (at least from my viewpoint). But you really should keep some perspective - men in the US have both voting and free speech rights, which has led to at least some progress (my state just forced courts to treat all parents as equals last year) - while nobody in SA has any real rights at all.