We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I interpret the constitution as I can best interpret what I think they were trying to say. There is no other way I can see to do it; it's antiquated, insufficient to the task, and more generally, completely invalid as a contract. I read it in my understanding of the English that was current when it was written, or in the case of the amendments, the English that was current when they were written. I try to put it all together; some things (like this issue) seem blindingly obvious to me, yet not to you (and others, of course.)
Broadly, reading the entire document, and subsequently coming to the belated conclusion that the framers seem clearly — to me — to not actually have meant us harm, I interpret the individual portions with that in mind.
Since the undermining of the principle of private property ownership would be one of the most grevious imaginable harms of all to citizens, commerce, and the nation, I find it relatively easy to conclude that my interpretation of what may, or may not, be done with privately held land, is correct.
I will make a further observation here. When you get an informed citizen to willingly part with land for a specific recompense, you have brokered a fair deal, at least, as best humans can. But when you take land for a value that you place upon it, rather than the value the owner places upon it, then no matter how good your intentions, you are engaged in theft. This is because land values move radically with the current state of affairs, and of course, this is one of the key reasons why people invest in land. They are entitled to this investment. They may be wrong; in that case, they will not find a buyer at the new price. They may be right, in which case, they deserve the reward to be reaped by having risked their capital in such an enterprise. But when you snatch the land from them at an arbitrary valuation, you have turned the investment into lost time -- and we are each only given so many days to live, at least, thus far in human history. This is not only theft, this is destabilizing, unfair, and downright evil. Barring the generation of such social good as to be almost incomparable in human experience, no land should ever be taken from its rightful owner, and should such a situation come about, then the value of the land should clearly reflect that almost unimaginable value. Anything else — anything — can be justified by nothing you will ever find in a document any sane person would freely put a signature to.
You may indeed draw a different conclusion, and you may gather a huge host of like-minded people behind you, and I will still disagree.
In the end, it doesn't matter a lot anyway, as the constitution is not a binding contract. I never signed it, nor would I, if the opportunity were offered. I could write a far, far better document. One that at least some people would sign, I am certain. Accordingly, so can others. Perhaps some day someone will generate an instrument that people can agree to in order to become citizens. Certainly, should that day come, the document won't be as poorly written as the constitution and its amendments are; for who would be so ignorant and self-destructive as to sign it, actually understanding it as it is today?
There are good apples and bad apples in every bunch. My point is that as a group, we do elect officials. In a company we support the appointment of leaders as well by choosing to work under them.
Here's the problem in a nutshell. I want to live until I die naturally.
The system gives me precisely these two choices:
Elect a good apple, who promises death in 4 years by gunshot to the head
Elect a bad apple, who promises death in 4 years by knife to the heart
Once elected, both can be utterly counted on to deliver death immediately, by poison.
Now, what was it you were saying about there being a point in fighting for greater "understanding" of my position? Also, how exactly did I "choose" to "work under" either of these clowns?
Even were I to vote, no question about it, I'd be choosing not to work under the worst of them, should I actually be able to determine who is worse, which has never been obvious to me, considering that every election I have ever seen in my 50-odd years has been a choice between several people I am utterly appalled to think might have even the tiniest possible fraction of decision making authority over me.
At least, by not voting, it can honestly be said that I am not attempting to delegate decision making authority over me to anyone. That puts all politicians and other participating citizens in the position of attempting to be my slavemasters, a position they are willing and able to enforce by coercion, theft, and violence.
A position, by the way, that I entirely deny the validity of, though not its power. I never signed off on the constitution as a contract obligating me to its terms, nor would I today if that choice were offered. It is a terribly unclear, unfair, and ill-conceived document. No imaginable court of law would hold me to your claim I owed you five dollars without both of our signatures on a contract; how is it then, exactly, that I am legally beholden to the elected officials and the decisions they make, or the framers of the constitution, people long dead and obviously not well informed about my situation? Neither the framers nor today's politicians are my representives, for they do not represent me, and they are not my delegated masters, for I have never signed over that authority to them.
Voting and not voting both effect(sic) the result of an election.
Let's examine the facts of the matter. I'm handing over my very, very tiny fraction of the choice between the crap from the one party and the dung from the other that are offered me, to others. And this is significant, exactly how?
To say my choice "affects an election" certainly sounds very important. But when the choice is between eating crap and eating dung, one can confidently disregard the entire process. It is all the same in the end. The system has taken almost every right and liberty its slaves might have had at any one point, and all they are doing now is figuring out how to divide up the rest of them. I decline to participate in the process. I do not support coercion, theft, or violence until "done unto me." At that point, I still claim the rights of discretion and patience.
And do you honestly think that Shell wouldn't have hired mercenaries to do the same thing if that had been cheaper or easier?
I think that the mercenaries would be destroyed by the armed forces of the government, Shell would be ousted, and another company more to the liking of the locals would obtain the privilege of going after those natural resources. In your imaginary "Shell is the devil" scenario, you must remember that Shell, no matter how evil you think they are, is not alone here. Exxon and a hundred others wait in the wings to take their place. If that can be accomplished by being a bit nicer, do you think they won't jump at the chance? On the one hand, you presume that the local resources are so valuable that Shell will literally do anything to get them (you base this on the fact that they're doing things you don't like already.) Do you not see that if you are correct and such resources exist with such value, that the motivation for any other company is equally strong, and that if the local government is not in control, they could hire mercenaries to, for instance, decapitate Shell's local (or even global) leadership? This is only one of many reasons that your imaginary paramilitary view of corporations is nonsense, but it is sufficient to destroy your entire line of reasoning.
The bottom line is that all actions of individuals that are not forbidden or punished by the government are the result of permission by the government, implicit or explicit. If Shell is acting in a way you don't like here, you can be absolutely dead certain it is with the co-operation of the local government. Otherwise, it would not be Shell you would be complaining about. They'd be out, and someone else would be in. The responsibility is squarely in the local government's lap. Period.
...if you wern't blinded by your Libertarian ideology you would be more honest and admit that, yet for you suddenly crimes become non crimes when committed by private corporations.
I did not in any way endorse rape; I simply pointed out that it is the responsibility of the government to police such acts, and that Nike wasn't raping anyone, people were. This means that people, not Nike, are to be held accountable for this. I rather doubt you'll find that Nike's corporate charter includes the specific or indirect authority for their officers or employees to rape subordinates or co-workers. You may, in your rush to villify them, indeed think that is the case. I highly doubt it, and therefore, I lay the problem at the feet of the local government. Unless it is legal in their country, in which case, no crime has technically transpired. There are many examples of highly distasteful (to us) behaviors along these lines: the Chinese execute newborns, the Vietnamese eat cats and dogs, the indians cut off female genitals, and various muslim cultures work from legal structures I would argue are not even out of the caves. You can (as can we all) decide that a corporation is acting in such a way as to make you decide that supporting it by using its products is too distasteful, and in that case, you should make sure you tell them so they know what you're doing as well as why. Otherwise, you're a drop in the dark and will have no effect. However, you cannot make what is a crime here, a crime somewhere else. Perhaps you love cats (I do); the Vietnamese would kill it without a thought. Quite cruelly. Here, such an act would result in jail time. There, it simply results in lunch or dinner.
You have to separate your sensibilities from reality and act rationally. Will you go off to Vietnam and kill every cat-eater you see? How do you think that'll work out for you? Now, will you go to Nigeria and set fire to the nearest Shell platform? Will you be surprised if the local government executes you for it? Somehow, I get the impression that you would be. Because you don't understand the forces invol
Yes, but there is a difference. Our nation is founded upon, and gains all of its authority from, our constitution and the subsequent amendments. We have the right, and I would argue also the obligation, to hold our government to the terms upon which it was founded and which give it the only legitimacy it has.
Other governments hold power through such diverse mechanisms as pure force, "god"-given authority, near-universal acceptance of the fact of the matter, myth, and in some rare cases, philosophically.
Each underlying mechanism for a form of government presents a unique set of problems and solutions to its subjects. In our case, if we allow our government to stray much further from the constitutional basis upon which we originally agreed to acccept its domination, we will have made a change that we very well may not be able to undo. In my opinion, this would be a disaster unmatched in all of the history of the US to date.
...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Note the public modifier in that statement.
Having read that, note this, from amendment X:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people.
The power to take land for public use is specified. Your argument appears to be that the legal authority to take land for private use, which was never granted at all, descends to the state. It does not. No such legal authority was described by the constitution to do any descending. So now the question is, since this putative authority is not reserved for the feds, is it forbidden to the states? To answer that question, we turn, of course, right back to the constitution:
From amendment XIV:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States
Land ownership is one of the privileges accorded to our citizens. Clearly, any state making a law that abridges that privilege is manifestly unconstitutional.
There you have it. No legal authority can exist for any state to take land for private use as such action would enormously (completley, in fact) abridge the privilege of land ownership. Anything you have read, heard or thought to the contrary is sophist nonsense.
Note that I use the phrases "authority" and "power" as two completely disjoint concepts. Obviously, the government has whatever power it cares to take, because as things stand today, we cannot stop that process. This includes the power to take land, silence you, deny you representation and communication, and so on. But it can never obtain authority when such authority does not exist in the first place. In these matters, ethically and morally, it is a ship completely adrift. My land is my land, and it cannot be legally taken by the state with an authority going back to the constitution. And by the way, that includes for purposes of collecting taxes. Constitution, section 10:
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters
of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but
gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts;
...that's it. They can take taxes in coin, but not in property. Niggling about what "coin" means in terms of nickle, copper and paper aside, the intent was clearly to exerpt items such as property, spouses, slaves and titles from being used to pay any debt.
We've let the government screw us. It is operating without legal authority in many areas. We must begin to recognize this. If the public can be informed of the facts of the matter, which are after all quite simple, positive change may be able to take hold.
You cite actions of corporations in lands where my government is unable to control the actions of those corporations. In those lands, control over the corporation must be exercised by the local government. The reason that corporations are not allowed to be powers unto themselves here is because we have learned that this is not a good strategy. Nigeria, Indonesia, and so forth are suffering from *government* problems because control over these issues has to come from a sensible, well structured government. You cannot easily control a corporation which is doing something that is legal, profitable, and moderately (or more than) sustainable.
Here, a corporation (or a person) spills oil, we give it a fair amount of trouble; see the Exxon Valdez spill, and others. The countries you cite would do well to learn from our example(s) in this area. I cannot imagine thousands of spills would result when each spill results in an immediately payable hundred million dollar penalty, for instance. If such penalties are not in place, I can only conclude that those countries have decided that the good coming from the oil company outweighs the bad under their system of government. I might agree, or not, but I am not interested in enforcing my opinion upon them. I am concerned about my system of government, frankly, and not theirs.
You quote Shell using the local police and/or military for their purposes. Were I a local, I would blame the government here; just as the company that wants my land to build a hotel on is not at fault, the government is at fault if they allow it to be taken. In your example, without a corrupt or compliant government, there would be no problem. You're pointing the finger at the wrong party. Shell isn't the problem. The police are the problem, and underneath that, the legal system that allows or encourages these actions. In other words, the government and its agents.
You quote sexual abuse and bring up Nike in Indonesia. Nike is a corporation. It can't rape anyone, or abuse anyone. People do these things. These people, and the things they do, are subject to the laws of the land, whatever they are. So, what are the laws? What does the government do, and what are they supposed to do?
Let me give you an example. Here, smoking pot is illegal. You, in your wisdom, may truly believe that smoking pot is a Bad Thing. So, some US citizen goes off to some other country where smoking pot is legal. Do you blame:
The citizen, for smoking where it is legal?
The corporation, for selling pot?
The country, for permitting such acts?
Considering the premise that you think pot does harm, who is at fault here? Is anyone? If not, why not? (If you can't wrap your head around pot as harmful substance, substitute something else forbidden here and allowed elsewhere... there are thousands of examples from sexual favors to drugs to polygamy and polyandry.)
You are making up events and situations that do not exist in order to create a contrary talking point for yourself. I do not advocate anything that would lead to the imaginary results you are postulating; I am simply describing the problems that we actually have at the present time. Prospective (however unlikely) solutions, such as forbidding the government from taking one's land barring a specific major military, transport infrastructure, or environmental need will in no way empower corporations totake up arms against me, or against you.
Well, the problem is, once an issue like this has gone through the supreme court, we no longer have any viable options to repair the situation unless the composition of the court changes radically (unlikely... they have to resign or actually die); appeals will be denied, and you're done for.
You and I agree: Such registration is blatantly obvious ex post facto action by the government. Your views and mine, however, do not count. There is no legal mechanism by which we can apply a correcting force.
The bottom line is, registration is well established as a legal, outside the ex-post-facto concept mechanism, and this almost certainly means that DNA registration, for whatever reason, will also be deemed to be non-punative and therefore not subject to ex-post-facto restrictions.
The thing that comes immediately to mind here is the supreme court declaring that California's growing pot for use inside California's border's constituted "interstate" commerce. Sophist? Well, yes, I suppose, but really it's more like absurdity. It it sophist if I look you in the eye and claim to be a large boulder, not a person? My argument has no technical merit, so it is just absurd, I think. The government freely does this kind of thing and there isn't squat we, as law-abiding citizens, can do about it.
Libertarians who fail to realize the corrosive effects of private greed are blind
No corporation can force me to give them my DNA. No corporation can jail me. No corporation can force me to give them money. No corporation can force me to work for them. No corporation can encourage me to do anything with any force stronger than dissasociation from that corporation's products, services, or opportunity at a job with them. I retain my freedom to travel, speak, act, and so on outside the domain of the corporation with complete impunity, regardless of what they might want to do.
But the government can do all these things. They can force me to give them DNA. The government can jail me for arbitrary terms. The government can take my money without my co-operation, any recompense, or requirement for a criminal conviction, and to add insult to injury the government can, and does, then use that money for purposes that are morally and ethically repugnant to me. The government can cause me to be ostracized by my community by accusation and/or hounding me publicly. The government can make me join the military, and they can keep me there against my will. The government can keep me from getting jobs by declaring I am a security risk, a sex offender, a felon, and so on. No matter if I am, or not. They can prevent me from flying by putting me on a list. Should they do so, I can't get off the list, and they will refuse to tell me why. They can cart me off to jail, deny me access to communications and representation, directly steal my land, stipulate what I may do to and with myself in my bedroom, my living room, eavesdrop on me, sell and give away information about me... and there is not one blessed thing I can do about it.
I have seen the government do all of these things in the last few years with the single exception of drafting people into the army from civilian life, but that I saw in the 60's and 70's and I have no doubt they will do it again, given another war, perhaps in Iran or somewhere similar such that our cannon fodder becomes a wee bit too thinned out for their requirements.
I don't see corporations as any kind of a serious threat to liberty. I see the current state of government as the very antithesis of liberty. I look around me, and all I see are sheep. Mutton Jeff, as it were.
They are not me. I did not elect them. There is no one in federal office that I have ever cast a vote for, nor anyone I perceive would represent even a fraction of my views should I vote for them. Those in office, and even those who run for office from the two parties and fail to obtain that lofty goal, do not represent my views. They do not do, or assert they will do, as I would have them do, nor do they show any signs of understanding my views.
I am ready to consider, however, that those in office may "be you", as you so artfully put it.
Actually, since the law changed after he committed the acts he was convicted of, even if the change came before the conviction, then applying the law to him is Ex Post Facto. (See the second paragraph of the definition [lectlaw.com]) and thus, plainly unconstitutional.
No. The government turned that one around using the pedophiles. (First they came for the pedophiles, but I did not object, because I was not a pedophile.)
What they did is make a law that required many years worth of previously convicted sex criminals (not just pedophiles, actually... people who had sex with 16 y/os and so forth as well) to "register" after they were convicted. They claimed that this was a "function of registration", which they asserted the state had an obligation to do, rather than "punishment", and so it was not ex post facto. Same mommy-magic applies here. They're not punishing, they're just keeping track. Any negative consequences of registration are not the intent of the state, so they don't count against the method. Which includes the registrant's being lynched or murdered by their neighbors. And btw, that's the exact reasoning of the supreme court.
Every right you let go because of some exceptional circumstance is a right that will be taken from others eventually. Sooner or later, those "others" will include you. Count on it.
You need to re-examine your assumptions. This is not a democracy in the sense that the citizens get to compose or vote on federal laws. What you can do is vote on one of generally two possible choices of people who were selected by their respective political parties for each of three positions (two senators and a congress-critter, usually) who, once actually elected, will then go do those tasks. Or not... you don't actually have to vote.
Once those people are in office, you can write or fax them, and if you're lucky, an aide will read your communication before it gets round-filed. The reason the aide will do this is to determine if you are going to contribute money, generally speaking. Because if you're not, they have more important opinions to consider, such as those coming down from the PACs and other special interest groups that support them financially. If you are, and it is more than a pittance, you'll get a nice reply, and your opinion will no doubt be considered in balance with the amount you contributed and the amount any contrary opinions contributed.
I leave it to you to determine if those people are in any way likely to do what it is you want to have done, when they make those choices. I know they never, ever do what I want done, in fact, they seem to spend 100% of their time doing what I don't want done, but hey, that's just me.
This would have to be done in a manner we can trust them to actually execute this policy.
The problem here is that we can't trust the government. We already know that. They said that the SSN would only be used for social security. They said that there would be no new taxes. They said that there were weapons of mass destruction. They said that eminent domain was a tool never to be used for commercial interests. They said that no citizen could be held without a right to a hearing or the ability to contact a lawyer. They said that no person's privacy could be invaded without a warrant. They said the patriot act was only to fight terrorism. They said that they would make no law regarding the establishment of religion. They say that intrastate commerce is magically interstate commerce. I could go on for pages.
They lie. They lie all the time. They're not lying for our benefit, either — they lie to do us harm, to hide things from us, to get certain people into office (or keep them there), they lie to take our property, our freedom, to erode our rights, and to diminish our ability to hold them accountable.
You give them your DNA, and they'll swear up and down that they'll hash it and throw away the raw data. But mark my words, that DNA will appear in a database not too long afterwards in the hands of not only the government, but your insurance company, your employer, and your potential spouse.
Anything you do to extend the power of the government will be misused. Anything. Our government is completely, utterly, absolutely out of control.
They're not going to "give everything away." Or at least, not at this time.
Right now, you get to listen to a sing up to five times. You can't save it. If you like it, you still have to pay for it. The selection is pitifully small. Click on rock. Look at the list of bands. Just pitiful.
So in the end, you probably don't have the tune you wanted, you have limited listening times, you have to be on napster to actually listen, and eventually, they want you to pay.
At least, that's how I read what the site told me. I'm still on my "no more buying or downloading music" kick unless it's in highres MP3, is legal (meaning actually free by intent of the artist or legitimately paid for by me) and there is no DRM.
I suggest everyone consider the same. If you buy DRM, you are supporting it.
I don't think you understood my post. Please read it again; if you still think your answer was relevant, please explain to me exactly what you think I was saying, or asking. I am utterly bewildered by your response at this point.
Heating by electricity is more expensive than heating by gas, because the power plant has to burn more gas to supply that electricity than you would have had to burn yourself to heat your home directly.
I don't actually know this, but I strongly suspect the power plant pays considerably less for gas (or whatever they're using to make power... water, nuclear fuel, coal, geothermal) than I do. I'd like to know how that factors out. My computers produce a lot of "waste" heat and I can tell you for a fact that they contribute a lot, percentage-wise, to reducing my heating bill, because my home is unusually well insulated. In the summer, this works against me, as the A/C has to work harder.
For the winter, I'm not arguing the efficiency, but the actual costs at the homeowner's bill... just not too sure about that one. Those people are in business to make a profit. I find it's best to keep that in mind.
Yes, same company, same people. Imagemaster's core lives on in a Windows application called "WinImages." Haven't heard anything about Perry since he sold ASDG.
Government should only build roads, protect borders, and keep order by punishing evildoers.
Suggestion for you. Modify to:
Government should only...
Improve, manage and maintain physical and educational infrastructure
(FWIW, my take on physical infrastructure is communications, roads, airlanes, waterways, distribution mechanisms for heat and power.)
Protect the citizens, infrastructure and land from physical aggression, be it external or internal, large or small.
(Note that I define theft as physical aggression.)
Anything else is government stepping out of bounds. When you call for the goverment to protect you from "evildoers", you create a class of government rulemakers that can define what YOU do as evil, regardless of the actual or relative nature of your actions.
You could be smoking pot to reduce your glaucoma, for instance, and end up in prison. You could build a home on some lovely location, and then the government could come along, decide your tax base isn't sufficient to their needs, and take your home and land. You could be attempting to purchase a drug such as alchohol on a Sunday and find yourself on the wrong end of someone's encysted religious agenda. You could be playing a Led Zeppelin song to a cabbie and find yourself the subject of a cavity search sans your preferred partner, lubricant, and molded accessories. You could be broadcasting your opinion to some subset of the masses and say something some moron somewhere decided was "evil", and find yourself a half a million dollars poorer.
You wouldn't want to live anywhere these kinds of thing could happen, would you?
Re:One Point For Gmail
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Has there been any FCC action since that ARRL recommendation came out (2004?).
There's no sign of movement from them yet, though they pretty much have to respond eventually. If I understand the process correctly. Perhaps we simply need a wardfrobe malfunction.
Like someone is going to get in trouble for violating HIPAA by relaying the injuries someone has at an emergency scene.:)
Exactly. I don't think the FCC has lifted a significant finger at well-intentioned ARO operations in decades. Nor should they, IMHO.
A few years back, I invented an SSTV mechanism (AVT) that used a specialized digital header over any AFSK capable audio channel for both synch and mode setting purposes. It got all over the HF SSTV slices in short order because it was a good deal more reliable and recoverable than the pure analog modes then in use. Technically, this was crossing a line or two. No reaction at all from anyone. Well, it's in the ARRL handbook now, but other than that, no reaction.
Some of the hams around here have extended the coverage on VHF units and from time to time, you can hear them briefly (and typically, anonymously) tag the local highway patrol dispatcher to let them know there's an emergency (Montana is still very rural.. we're 300 miles from the nearest actual city in Montana where I am.) Anyway, no one complains, least of all people dragged in from dead snowmobiles or out from under a horse. But not the authorities, either. Used to happen a lot, less now that we've finally got a bare minimum of cell coverage.
Re:One Point For Gmail
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However, you do need to have your home box running 24/7 and pay for a domain name
No, you don't need a domain name, you just need an IP. On the other hand, if you've already got a domain name, you can certainly use it.:-)
Re:One Point For Gmail
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You know that's illegal right? Encryption is not to be used on ham radio.
Re:One Point For Gmail
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when you put it like that I dont know why anyone bothers with gmail at all!:-D
As I said in my other posts, I'm not saying this is what anyone else should do. I'm just pointing out some of what you *can* do and what some of the compromises are. In my situation, the servers had to be there anyway (they do other stuff for us, but only on our LAN), they had to be running all the time anyway, and so there was no particular downside to making them my mail-bitches, as it were.:-)
by the way are you backing up off-site as well?
Yes. The company has a once-a-month evolution where we back up all our customer registration data, financial data, email, source code and our various documents to optical media and drop them into a safety deposit box at the bank. We keep the last 12 months there. Older stuff comes out and goes into a warehouse.
There is a window of vulnerability from a catastrophe, but it's not all that wide — we can live with it, I think. The biggest risks here are lightning, fire, and tornados. For lightning, we've done what we can. For fire, we're good. For tornados, the computer center is brick and concrete, but I'm not going to say that's enough. I've seen what a big one can do firsthand. However, if we get hit hard enough to damage that building, there probably won't *be* any of the other buildings left, and so our short term data loss won't seem like much in comparison to the rest of the pushups we'd have to do to get back on our feet.
Slashdot Mirror
Broadly, reading the entire document, and subsequently coming to the belated conclusion that the framers seem clearly — to me — to not actually have meant us harm, I interpret the individual portions with that in mind.
Since the undermining of the principle of private property ownership would be one of the most grevious imaginable harms of all to citizens, commerce, and the nation, I find it relatively easy to conclude that my interpretation of what may, or may not, be done with privately held land, is correct.
I will make a further observation here. When you get an informed citizen to willingly part with land for a specific recompense, you have brokered a fair deal, at least, as best humans can. But when you take land for a value that you place upon it, rather than the value the owner places upon it, then no matter how good your intentions, you are engaged in theft. This is because land values move radically with the current state of affairs, and of course, this is one of the key reasons why people invest in land. They are entitled to this investment. They may be wrong; in that case, they will not find a buyer at the new price. They may be right, in which case, they deserve the reward to be reaped by having risked their capital in such an enterprise. But when you snatch the land from them at an arbitrary valuation, you have turned the investment into lost time -- and we are each only given so many days to live, at least, thus far in human history. This is not only theft, this is destabilizing, unfair, and downright evil. Barring the generation of such social good as to be almost incomparable in human experience, no land should ever be taken from its rightful owner, and should such a situation come about, then the value of the land should clearly reflect that almost unimaginable value. Anything else — anything — can be justified by nothing you will ever find in a document any sane person would freely put a signature to.
You may indeed draw a different conclusion, and you may gather a huge host of like-minded people behind you, and I will still disagree.
In the end, it doesn't matter a lot anyway, as the constitution is not a binding contract. I never signed it, nor would I, if the opportunity were offered. I could write a far, far better document. One that at least some people would sign, I am certain. Accordingly, so can others. Perhaps some day someone will generate an instrument that people can agree to in order to become citizens. Certainly, should that day come, the document won't be as poorly written as the constitution and its amendments are; for who would be so ignorant and self-destructive as to sign it, actually understanding it as it is today?
Here's the problem in a nutshell. I want to live until I die naturally.
The system gives me precisely these two choices:
Once elected, both can be utterly counted on to deliver death immediately, by poison.
Now, what was it you were saying about there being a point in fighting for greater "understanding" of my position? Also, how exactly did I "choose" to "work under" either of these clowns?
Even were I to vote, no question about it, I'd be choosing not to work under the worst of them, should I actually be able to determine who is worse, which has never been obvious to me, considering that every election I have ever seen in my 50-odd years has been a choice between several people I am utterly appalled to think might have even the tiniest possible fraction of decision making authority over me.
At least, by not voting, it can honestly be said that I am not attempting to delegate decision making authority over me to anyone. That puts all politicians and other participating citizens in the position of attempting to be my slavemasters, a position they are willing and able to enforce by coercion, theft, and violence.
A position, by the way, that I entirely deny the validity of, though not its power. I never signed off on the constitution as a contract obligating me to its terms, nor would I today if that choice were offered. It is a terribly unclear, unfair, and ill-conceived document. No imaginable court of law would hold me to your claim I owed you five dollars without both of our signatures on a contract; how is it then, exactly, that I am legally beholden to the elected officials and the decisions they make, or the framers of the constitution, people long dead and obviously not well informed about my situation? Neither the framers nor today's politicians are my representives, for they do not represent me, and they are not my delegated masters, for I have never signed over that authority to them.
Let's examine the facts of the matter. I'm handing over my very, very tiny fraction of the choice between the crap from the one party and the dung from the other that are offered me, to others. And this is significant, exactly how?
To say my choice "affects an election" certainly sounds very important. But when the choice is between eating crap and eating dung, one can confidently disregard the entire process. It is all the same in the end. The system has taken almost every right and liberty its slaves might have had at any one point, and all they are doing now is figuring out how to divide up the rest of them. I decline to participate in the process. I do not support coercion, theft, or violence until "done unto me." At that point, I still claim the rights of discretion and patience.
I think that the mercenaries would be destroyed by the armed forces of the government, Shell would be ousted, and another company more to the liking of the locals would obtain the privilege of going after those natural resources. In your imaginary "Shell is the devil" scenario, you must remember that Shell, no matter how evil you think they are, is not alone here. Exxon and a hundred others wait in the wings to take their place. If that can be accomplished by being a bit nicer, do you think they won't jump at the chance? On the one hand, you presume that the local resources are so valuable that Shell will literally do anything to get them (you base this on the fact that they're doing things you don't like already.) Do you not see that if you are correct and such resources exist with such value, that the motivation for any other company is equally strong, and that if the local government is not in control, they could hire mercenaries to, for instance, decapitate Shell's local (or even global) leadership? This is only one of many reasons that your imaginary paramilitary view of corporations is nonsense, but it is sufficient to destroy your entire line of reasoning.
The bottom line is that all actions of individuals that are not forbidden or punished by the government are the result of permission by the government, implicit or explicit. If Shell is acting in a way you don't like here, you can be absolutely dead certain it is with the co-operation of the local government. Otherwise, it would not be Shell you would be complaining about. They'd be out, and someone else would be in. The responsibility is squarely in the local government's lap. Period.
I did not in any way endorse rape; I simply pointed out that it is the responsibility of the government to police such acts, and that Nike wasn't raping anyone, people were. This means that people, not Nike, are to be held accountable for this. I rather doubt you'll find that Nike's corporate charter includes the specific or indirect authority for their officers or employees to rape subordinates or co-workers. You may, in your rush to villify them, indeed think that is the case. I highly doubt it, and therefore, I lay the problem at the feet of the local government. Unless it is legal in their country, in which case, no crime has technically transpired. There are many examples of highly distasteful (to us) behaviors along these lines: the Chinese execute newborns, the Vietnamese eat cats and dogs, the indians cut off female genitals, and various muslim cultures work from legal structures I would argue are not even out of the caves. You can (as can we all) decide that a corporation is acting in such a way as to make you decide that supporting it by using its products is too distasteful, and in that case, you should make sure you tell them so they know what you're doing as well as why. Otherwise, you're a drop in the dark and will have no effect. However, you cannot make what is a crime here, a crime somewhere else. Perhaps you love cats (I do); the Vietnamese would kill it without a thought. Quite cruelly. Here, such an act would result in jail time. There, it simply results in lunch or dinner.
You have to separate your sensibilities from reality and act rationally. Will you go off to Vietnam and kill every cat-eater you see? How do you think that'll work out for you? Now, will you go to Nigeria and set fire to the nearest Shell platform? Will you be surprised if the local government executes you for it? Somehow, I get the impression that you would be. Because you don't understand the forces invol
Other governments hold power through such diverse mechanisms as pure force, "god"-given authority, near-universal acceptance of the fact of the matter, myth, and in some rare cases, philosophically.
Each underlying mechanism for a form of government presents a unique set of problems and solutions to its subjects. In our case, if we allow our government to stray much further from the constitutional basis upon which we originally agreed to acccept its domination, we will have made a change that we very well may not be able to undo. In my opinion, this would be a disaster unmatched in all of the history of the US to date.
Note the public modifier in that statement.
Having read that, note this, from amendment X:
The power to take land for public use is specified. Your argument appears to be that the legal authority to take land for private use, which was never granted at all, descends to the state. It does not. No such legal authority was described by the constitution to do any descending. So now the question is, since this putative authority is not reserved for the feds, is it forbidden to the states? To answer that question, we turn, of course, right back to the constitution:
From amendment XIV:
Land ownership is one of the privileges accorded to our citizens. Clearly, any state making a law that abridges that privilege is manifestly unconstitutional.
There you have it. No legal authority can exist for any state to take land for private use as such action would enormously (completley, in fact) abridge the privilege of land ownership. Anything you have read, heard or thought to the contrary is sophist nonsense.
Note that I use the phrases "authority" and "power" as two completely disjoint concepts. Obviously, the government has whatever power it cares to take, because as things stand today, we cannot stop that process. This includes the power to take land, silence you, deny you representation and communication, and so on. But it can never obtain authority when such authority does not exist in the first place. In these matters, ethically and morally, it is a ship completely adrift. My land is my land, and it cannot be legally taken by the state with an authority going back to the constitution. And by the way, that includes for purposes of collecting taxes. Constitution, section 10:
We've let the government screw us. It is operating without legal authority in many areas. We must begin to recognize this. If the public can be informed of the facts of the matter, which are after all quite simple, positive change may be able to take hold.
Here, a corporation (or a person) spills oil, we give it a fair amount of trouble; see the Exxon Valdez spill, and others. The countries you cite would do well to learn from our example(s) in this area. I cannot imagine thousands of spills would result when each spill results in an immediately payable hundred million dollar penalty, for instance. If such penalties are not in place, I can only conclude that those countries have decided that the good coming from the oil company outweighs the bad under their system of government. I might agree, or not, but I am not interested in enforcing my opinion upon them. I am concerned about my system of government, frankly, and not theirs.
You quote Shell using the local police and/or military for their purposes. Were I a local, I would blame the government here; just as the company that wants my land to build a hotel on is not at fault, the government is at fault if they allow it to be taken. In your example, without a corrupt or compliant government, there would be no problem. You're pointing the finger at the wrong party. Shell isn't the problem. The police are the problem, and underneath that, the legal system that allows or encourages these actions. In other words, the government and its agents.
You quote sexual abuse and bring up Nike in Indonesia. Nike is a corporation. It can't rape anyone, or abuse anyone. People do these things. These people, and the things they do, are subject to the laws of the land, whatever they are. So, what are the laws? What does the government do, and what are they supposed to do?
Let me give you an example. Here, smoking pot is illegal. You, in your wisdom, may truly believe that smoking pot is a Bad Thing. So, some US citizen goes off to some other country where smoking pot is legal. Do you blame:
Considering the premise that you think pot does harm, who is at fault here? Is anyone? If not, why not? (If you can't wrap your head around pot as harmful substance, substitute something else forbidden here and allowed elsewhere... there are thousands of examples from sexual favors to drugs to polygamy and polyandry.)
You are making up events and situations that do not exist in order to create a contrary talking point for yourself. I do not advocate anything that would lead to the imaginary results you are postulating; I am simply describing the problems that we actually have at the present time. Prospective (however unlikely) solutions, such as forbidding the government from taking one's land barring a specific major military, transport infrastructure, or environmental need will in no way empower corporations totake up arms against me, or against you.
You and I agree: Such registration is blatantly obvious ex post facto action by the government. Your views and mine, however, do not count. There is no legal mechanism by which we can apply a correcting force.
The bottom line is, registration is well established as a legal, outside the ex-post-facto concept mechanism, and this almost certainly means that DNA registration, for whatever reason, will also be deemed to be non-punative and therefore not subject to ex-post-facto restrictions.
The thing that comes immediately to mind here is the supreme court declaring that California's growing pot for use inside California's border's constituted "interstate" commerce. Sophist? Well, yes, I suppose, but really it's more like absurdity. It it sophist if I look you in the eye and claim to be a large boulder, not a person? My argument has no technical merit, so it is just absurd, I think. The government freely does this kind of thing and there isn't squat we, as law-abiding citizens, can do about it.
No corporation can force me to give them my DNA. No corporation can jail me. No corporation can force me to give them money. No corporation can force me to work for them. No corporation can encourage me to do anything with any force stronger than dissasociation from that corporation's products, services, or opportunity at a job with them. I retain my freedom to travel, speak, act, and so on outside the domain of the corporation with complete impunity, regardless of what they might want to do.
But the government can do all these things. They can force me to give them DNA. The government can jail me for arbitrary terms. The government can take my money without my co-operation, any recompense, or requirement for a criminal conviction, and to add insult to injury the government can, and does, then use that money for purposes that are morally and ethically repugnant to me. The government can cause me to be ostracized by my community by accusation and/or hounding me publicly. The government can make me join the military, and they can keep me there against my will. The government can keep me from getting jobs by declaring I am a security risk, a sex offender, a felon, and so on. No matter if I am, or not. They can prevent me from flying by putting me on a list. Should they do so, I can't get off the list, and they will refuse to tell me why. They can cart me off to jail, deny me access to communications and representation, directly steal my land, stipulate what I may do to and with myself in my bedroom, my living room, eavesdrop on me, sell and give away information about me... and there is not one blessed thing I can do about it.
I have seen the government do all of these things in the last few years with the single exception of drafting people into the army from civilian life, but that I saw in the 60's and 70's and I have no doubt they will do it again, given another war, perhaps in Iran or somewhere similar such that our cannon fodder becomes a wee bit too thinned out for their requirements.
I don't see corporations as any kind of a serious threat to liberty. I see the current state of government as the very antithesis of liberty. I look around me, and all I see are sheep. Mutton Jeff, as it were.
They are not me. I did not elect them. There is no one in federal office that I have ever cast a vote for, nor anyone I perceive would represent even a fraction of my views should I vote for them. Those in office, and even those who run for office from the two parties and fail to obtain that lofty goal, do not represent my views. They do not do, or assert they will do, as I would have them do, nor do they show any signs of understanding my views.
I am ready to consider, however, that those in office may "be you", as you so artfully put it.
No. The government turned that one around using the pedophiles. (First they came for the pedophiles, but I did not object, because I was not a pedophile.)
What they did is make a law that required many years worth of previously convicted sex criminals (not just pedophiles, actually... people who had sex with 16 y/os and so forth as well) to "register" after they were convicted. They claimed that this was a "function of registration", which they asserted the state had an obligation to do, rather than "punishment", and so it was not ex post facto. Same mommy-magic applies here. They're not punishing, they're just keeping track. Any negative consequences of registration are not the intent of the state, so they don't count against the method. Which includes the registrant's being lynched or murdered by their neighbors. And btw, that's the exact reasoning of the supreme court.
Every right you let go because of some exceptional circumstance is a right that will be taken from others eventually. Sooner or later, those "others" will include you. Count on it.
You need to re-examine your assumptions. This is not a democracy in the sense that the citizens get to compose or vote on federal laws. What you can do is vote on one of generally two possible choices of people who were selected by their respective political parties for each of three positions (two senators and a congress-critter, usually) who, once actually elected, will then go do those tasks. Or not... you don't actually have to vote.
Once those people are in office, you can write or fax them, and if you're lucky, an aide will read your communication before it gets round-filed. The reason the aide will do this is to determine if you are going to contribute money, generally speaking. Because if you're not, they have more important opinions to consider, such as those coming down from the PACs and other special interest groups that support them financially. If you are, and it is more than a pittance, you'll get a nice reply, and your opinion will no doubt be considered in balance with the amount you contributed and the amount any contrary opinions contributed.
I leave it to you to determine if those people are in any way likely to do what it is you want to have done, when they make those choices. I know they never, ever do what I want done, in fact, they seem to spend 100% of their time doing what I don't want done, but hey, that's just me.
The problem here is that we can't trust the government. We already know that. They said that the SSN would only be used for social security. They said that there would be no new taxes. They said that there were weapons of mass destruction. They said that eminent domain was a tool never to be used for commercial interests. They said that no citizen could be held without a right to a hearing or the ability to contact a lawyer. They said that no person's privacy could be invaded without a warrant. They said the patriot act was only to fight terrorism. They said that they would make no law regarding the establishment of religion. They say that intrastate commerce is magically interstate commerce. I could go on for pages.
They lie. They lie all the time. They're not lying for our benefit, either — they lie to do us harm, to hide things from us, to get certain people into office (or keep them there), they lie to take our property, our freedom, to erode our rights, and to diminish our ability to hold them accountable.
You give them your DNA, and they'll swear up and down that they'll hash it and throw away the raw data. But mark my words, that DNA will appear in a database not too long afterwards in the hands of not only the government, but your insurance company, your employer, and your potential spouse.
Anything you do to extend the power of the government will be misused. Anything. Our government is completely, utterly, absolutely out of control.
- The Last Ship -- "Challenging and entertaining."
- Finnegans Wake -- "Projectile Logorrhea. Unfortunate at best."
</PERKS_HEAD_UP>Right now, you get to listen to a sing up to five times. You can't save it. If you like it, you still have to pay for it. The selection is pitifully small. Click on rock. Look at the list of bands. Just pitiful.
So in the end, you probably don't have the tune you wanted, you have limited listening times, you have to be on napster to actually listen, and eventually, they want you to pay.
At least, that's how I read what the site told me. I'm still on my "no more buying or downloading music" kick unless it's in highres MP3, is legal (meaning actually free by intent of the artist or legitimately paid for by me) and there is no DRM.
I suggest everyone consider the same. If you buy DRM, you are supporting it.
I don't think you understood my post. Please read it again; if you still think your answer was relevant, please explain to me exactly what you think I was saying, or asking. I am utterly bewildered by your response at this point.
I don't actually know this, but I strongly suspect the power plant pays considerably less for gas (or whatever they're using to make power... water, nuclear fuel, coal, geothermal) than I do. I'd like to know how that factors out. My computers produce a lot of "waste" heat and I can tell you for a fact that they contribute a lot, percentage-wise, to reducing my heating bill, because my home is unusually well insulated. In the summer, this works against me, as the A/C has to work harder.
For the winter, I'm not arguing the efficiency, but the actual costs at the homeowner's bill... just not too sure about that one. Those people are in business to make a profit. I find it's best to keep that in mind.
Yes, same company, same people. Imagemaster's core lives on in a Windows application called "WinImages." Haven't heard anything about Perry since he sold ASDG.
Suggestion for you. Modify to:
Government should only...
(FWIW, my take on physical infrastructure is communications, roads, airlanes, waterways, distribution mechanisms for heat and power.)
(Note that I define theft as physical aggression.)
Anything else is government stepping out of bounds. When you call for the goverment to protect you from "evildoers", you create a class of government rulemakers that can define what YOU do as evil, regardless of the actual or relative nature of your actions.
You could be smoking pot to reduce your glaucoma, for instance, and end up in prison. You could build a home on some lovely location, and then the government could come along, decide your tax base isn't sufficient to their needs, and take your home and land. You could be attempting to purchase a drug such as alchohol on a Sunday and find yourself on the wrong end of someone's encysted religious agenda. You could be playing a Led Zeppelin song to a cabbie and find yourself the subject of a cavity search sans your preferred partner, lubricant, and molded accessories. You could be broadcasting your opinion to some subset of the masses and say something some moron somewhere decided was "evil", and find yourself a half a million dollars poorer.
You wouldn't want to live anywhere these kinds of thing could happen, would you?
Oh, wait.
Editors? You must be new here.
Nokia 6600 + Mocha
There's no sign of movement from them yet, though they pretty much have to respond eventually. If I understand the process correctly. Perhaps we simply need a wardfrobe malfunction.
Exactly. I don't think the FCC has lifted a significant finger at well-intentioned ARO operations in decades. Nor should they, IMHO.
A few years back, I invented an SSTV mechanism (AVT) that used a specialized digital header over any AFSK capable audio channel for both synch and mode setting purposes. It got all over the HF SSTV slices in short order because it was a good deal more reliable and recoverable than the pure analog modes then in use. Technically, this was crossing a line or two. No reaction at all from anyone. Well, it's in the ARRL handbook now, but other than that, no reaction.
Some of the hams around here have extended the coverage on VHF units and from time to time, you can hear them briefly (and typically, anonymously) tag the local highway patrol dispatcher to let them know there's an emergency (Montana is still very rural.. we're 300 miles from the nearest actual city in Montana where I am.) Anyway, no one complains, least of all people dragged in from dead snowmobiles or out from under a horse. But not the authorities, either. Used to happen a lot, less now that we've finally got a bare minimum of cell coverage.
No, you don't need a domain name, you just need an IP. On the other hand, if you've already got a domain name, you can certainly use it. :-)
If you're a ham, FYI, Part 15 and part 97 rules are in flux, there is a proposed notice of rulemaking.
As I said in my other posts, I'm not saying this is what anyone else should do. I'm just pointing out some of what you *can* do and what some of the compromises are. In my situation, the servers had to be there anyway (they do other stuff for us, but only on our LAN), they had to be running all the time anyway, and so there was no particular downside to making them my mail-bitches, as it were. :-)
Yes. The company has a once-a-month evolution where we back up all our customer registration data, financial data, email, source code and our various documents to optical media and drop them into a safety deposit box at the bank. We keep the last 12 months there. Older stuff comes out and goes into a warehouse.
There is a window of vulnerability from a catastrophe, but it's not all that wide — we can live with it, I think. The biggest risks here are lightning, fire, and tornados. For lightning, we've done what we can. For fire, we're good. For tornados, the computer center is brick and concrete, but I'm not going to say that's enough. I've seen what a big one can do firsthand. However, if we get hit hard enough to damage that building, there probably won't *be* any of the other buildings left, and so our short term data loss won't seem like much in comparison to the rest of the pushups we'd have to do to get back on our feet.