I hear you on that... technically, frivolous or harrasing lawsuits are illegal. But, people getting in trouble for frivilous lawsuits is so rare in the U.S., that it isn't even a concern. I am not saying that bad lawsuits aren't illegal, I am saying that for all practicle purposes they are legal.
That would include limited work time (the 40 hour week), no child labor, the minimum wage, the right to strike, social security . . . hell it would include absolutely EVERYTHING GOOD that has happened to the average people who actually make up the bulk of our society.
Bullshit. Child labor ended long before child labor laws came into effect. 98% of American workers earn more than the new proposed increased minimum wage, let alone the current minimum wage. The 40 hour work week was won by organized labor, not politicians - and the "right to strike" has always existed. In all of these cases, the government simply came in after the fact and took credit for the advances after the fact.
India has a socialist government with far more strict laws on child labor, working conditions, working hours, etc., than the United States. Where do you think there is more child labor, poor working conditions, and longer working hours?
And you think all of this is MY FAULT because they have taken advantage of the system in a thoroughly dishonorable way?
You created a system where the inevitable result is that they would take advantage of the system in a thoroughly dishonorable way. If you club someone in the head with a baseball bat, and you believe that you are "doing brain surgery", it doesn't mean that you aren't guilty of hurting someone. It just means that you are stupid.
I suppose if you were to go walking in a nasty part of town with your gold Rollex hanging loosely on your wrist and somebody took it from you . . . that would be YOUR fault for being wealthy and flaunting it. Right?
First of all, I resent your analogy. The "nasty" part of town is usually a lot safer than bleeding heart white suburban liberals would imagine. The vast majority of people living in the "nasty" '9as you call it) parts of town are simply people with different skin color who choose to live in the city, and wouldn't want to steal your Rolex and would probably give the shirt off their back to help you.
But, just for the sake of arguement, lets say your imaginary "nasty" part of town, full of lurking villians waiting to mug you at any second, really exists. I would say it is damn stupid to walk down that street with your Rolex. You can argue right or wrong, but it ain't gonna get you your Rolex back.
Likewise, you can argue the morality of big government all you like, but all you have to do is look at Stalin, or Castro, or even G.W. Bush to see where your philosophy leads. Your own sense of morality doesn't mean shit when the government YOU built turns into a dictatorship. And more government power, leads to dictatorship.
In fact, I bet you can't come up with a single piece of federal legislation from the last 20-30 years that was sponsored and passed by Republicans that directly benefited the citizens of this country without benefiting corporations primarily. Not one! Go ahead, surprise me.
Why the hell would I want to defend the Republicans? They are part of the same political machine that you support. It is up to you to defend your buddies the Republicans. I can't come up with a single piece of federal legislation by the Republicans in the last 20-30 years that directly benefited the citizens, because there has been NO federal legislation in the last 20-30 years that benifited the citizens. Benfits to the citizens come from empowering them, not from issuing central government edicts. The federal government is the enemy of the citizens, and so are people like you who support the federal government leviathan (and support expanding it further).
But why, when Exxon Mobile sponsers research that promotes it's buisness model, do we consider that suspect? but when national governments funds research that promotes their buisness model, it is considered OK!
One could argue that government funded research is pre-disposed to come to conclusions that give the government an opportunity to increase its power and revenue. I mean, when people say "We need to do something about the enviornment", what they usually mean is "We need to give the government dramaticly more money, and dramaticly more control over our lives... so that it can do something about the enviornment".
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that we should trust the ExxonMobile research... I am saying we should be far more skeptical of government research. (It is not like the government has ever created paranoia and fear about something in order to get people to give up their cash and liberties, right?:) )
And also, when Exxon Mobile funnels money through front organizations to fund Greenpeace, and Greenpeace opposes nuclear power (the only viable alternative to oil on a large scale), why don't we consider Greenpeace to be as suspect as the American Enterprise Institute? I consider the anti-nuclear movement to be by-far the biggest shills for the oil industry.
We had two, actually. The first was in the 1780's, and established the right of a free thinking people to spearate themselves from a government that they felt no longer represented them. The second one in the 1860's revoked that right.
Funny, the people back in the 1860s South weren't too keen on the right of slaves to seperate themselves from those who they felt didn't represent them! Southerers were damn quick to revoke the right to self-determination, and with extreme prejudice.
That's a weak understanding of the Civil War. And especially ironic, given that by that point the north had switched to a wage-labor format, which is actually cheaper labor (use a person up, throw them out, find the next one).
Look, we all understand that the Civil War was a complex subject, and that slavery was only one of the many causes of the Civil War. But don't give me this bullshit that the wage system paid less to workers than they did as slaves!
And in the end, the south actually won... if you look at an electoral map; or the balance of power in the Senate
And I can look at a map, and see that the greatest amount of poverty in the United States is in the South. Slavery totally messed up the Southern economy, and impoverished both black slaves, and whites as well (who had to compete with slaves cost-wise, even if they weren't slaves). Slavery, like Communism, is an attempt to escape the market value of labor - and it has the same economy destroying effects as Communism.
but bringing a frivolous lawsuit against someone is not legal.
Huh? What? Something is totally legal, if you can't get in trouble for it. The worst you can get for a frivolous lawsuit is having to pay the other guys legal fees. But that in itself is extremly rare in the United States - So rare as not to even be a concern.
The same people who are up in arms against touch screen voting now, are the ones who were up in arms in 2000 about paper voting.
In 2000: "Confused old people, and illiterate people, accidently voted for the wrong candidate! This is an outrage! We need a new electronic touch screen system so that the illiterate and easily confused can vote! We need to stop these people from stealing our democracy!"
OK, a new system was developed so even people who can't read the name of the candidate can look at the picture of the smiling face from TV and place their vote... the system is totally screwed up, but what were you expecting from a big government contract? It works as well as anything the government provides.
So, now that the system is in place:
"Paper ballots are the only trustworthy method of voting! Electronic machines are too prone to fraud! We need to stop these machines from stealing our democracy!"
Damn, can't we get a consistent arguement? Are we supposed to make voting so damn easy that even the braindead can do it? Or are we supposed to make the process open and transparent and eliminate fraud? Because the two are often mututally exclusive! I don't care which one you choose, as the voting outcome is pretty much decided through campaign finance laws, gerimandering, candidate elgibility requirements, government funding, etc., before a single vote is ever placed... a more accurate voting system won't have any effect on the politicians who are elected. But I don't like having to pay for a new system every time some "activists" don't like the result of an election and decide voting fraud is the problem.
Mussolini was right, the merging of corporate and government interests has definite advantages . ..
In Mussolini's "Corporatism", corporations weren't competing private entities, but were state regulating bodies that governored specific industries. So in "Corporatism", the State Industrial Planning Board, a branch of the government, would be a "corporation".
The modern day equivalents to "corporations" as Mussolini saw it, would be the Department of Education, the Federal Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration - Those responsible for national planning and regulation.
"This prospect in Italian Fascist Corporativism claimed to be the direct heir of Georges Sorel's anarcho-syndicalism, wherein each interest was to form as its own entity with separate organizing parameters according to their own standards, only however within the corporative model of Italian Fascism each was supposed to be incorporated through the auspices & organizing ability of a statist construct." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism
"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it."
You are guilty of creating the current situation. It was so-called "progressives" and leftists who have for years been pushing for increased executive powers, centralized control, nationalization or at least nationalized controls of industries, etc. People like you have created the vast state apparatus that is now being abused. Yeah, I understand that you probably think "I don't support Bush or the Republicans, what are you talking about"? But who for years built a government so huge, powerful, and all encompassing that it had so much power to be abused and made such a tempting target for the power hungry to control? Who supported giving the President and the government of the United States such vast unchecked powers? Bush and the current political system is your Frankenstien monster... you might not have intended to create it, but you should have known better! You are the source of this evil!
Much like in the Soviet Union, or in China, etc, well intentioned leftists and socialists build the political infrastructure of facism, and then when a dictator takes over want to complain "Well, that is not what we wanted! We wanted equality and social justice!"... it doesn't matter what you want, it only matters that dictatorship is the unescapable, inevitable result of the big centralized government that you support!
Get ready for this sort of thing to happen every other day. Now that Boston has shown the world how much of a bunch of paranoid assholes they are, every dork with an agenda and some light brights is going to shut your city down every time they get bored!
I mean, damn, the people in Dallas, or San Fransisco, or New York, or any of the other cities didn't have to wait an hour because of an imagined bomb threat. Oh, thats right, they aren't morons!
We have now given any group or organization, who chooses to do so, a perfect offensive weapon against the United States.
All you need to do is place a few strange looking items (they don't even need to look like bombs), in a few strange places in a city, and you can bring the economy of that city to a standstill. Closing roads, bridges... evacuating buildings, etc. The cost to the economy of Boston is probably at least in the tens of millions, but if they are shutting down major travel and shipping arteries, railroads, etc, the cost could be in the billions! The powers that be have essentially given any mischief maker, any geurilla artist, or any pissed off group a way to shut down the economy of major U.S. urban areas, with virtually no cost or effort. If you are smart enough to read this, you are smart enough to shut down the economy of any major U.S. urban area!
In WWII, the Alies needed to carpet bomb German cities to destroy their economy. Now, the power to carry out strategic warfare against the economy of the United States has been put into the hands of any goofball or dork who wants to make a statement... and all by the very people supposed to "protect" America!
It would be retailers who would be fined for selling them once they are banned, like they would be fined for selling other banned items like freon.
And what happens if the retailers refuse to stop selling the bulbs and refuse to pay the fines? Just because you apply a layer of abstraction before you actually start throwing people in prison, doesn't mean it isn't the threat of prison or death that is used to enforce laws. All laws, at their core, are enforced with the threat of imprisonment or violence.
One of the problems with parodying right-wingers is that the parody is often indistingushable from actual right -wing positions. Such is the case with your post.
I love it that distrust and skepticism about the government is now "Right Wing". Back in the day, those people would be called "Anarchist" or "Liberals". But I guess nowadays you are considered some sort of "Nazi" if you don't blindy accept all expansions of government power, even on the most mundane things such as light bulbs. Clearly, you have showed that my parody of people like you is dangerously close to the truth.
I resent you comparing the RIAA to the Mafia. The Mafia has traditionally increased people's freedom and personal choice (by providing goods and services that wouldn't be available via traditional sources because of government prohibition), while the RIAA decreases people's freedom and personal choice by encouraging government prohibition.
Where is the enviornment being "ravaged" by computer waste? Can you point to areas where there has been a signifanct loss of wildlife and habitat, or point to some real statistics about increased death rates? Or is this just FUD?
I mean, I have seen places where the enviornment really has been ravaged... but it certainly wasn't ravaged by computer waste. Can you point out even one of these mad-max enviornmental wastelands created by computer waste?
In other news, Green Party declares that anything they don't like to be "Bad for the Enviornment".
"Brocolli, definitly should be banned. It is bad for the enviornment!" said a spokesman.
When some people questioned the statement, the Green Party spokesman responded: "Scientists have proved Global Warming is a fact! If we don't do something now, climate change will have disasterous effects! Only a right-wing zealot, ignorant of enviornmental science, would suggest we shouldn't ban brocolli when the costs of inaction are so high!"
With bullshit like "Visa is bad for the enviornment", people wonder why enviornmentalism isn't taken more seriously! The Green movement is dead. It has been taken over by a bunch of reactionary leftists, and no longer has anything to do with protecting the enviornment.
Yes, only when the U.S. government has absolute power to dictate the actions of companies, even outside the U.S., including punishing them for actions that are legal both countries, can this scourge of overzealous government control be ended!
The key to fighting totalitarianism, is to give the government totalitarian control so it can fight totalitarianism!
If doing something is good (installing energy saving bulbs), then it is only logical that the government throwing anyone who doesn't do the good thing in jail is also good! After all, a police state is a small price to pay to save a little bit of energy!
Up next, I propose manditory minimum sentences of at least five years for people who don't floss (poor dental hygene hurts all of us! Including the children!) And only one of those gosh-darned extremist Libertarians would oppose the reasonable action of sending in a paramilitary SWAT team every time someone leaves their faucet running too long!
And, without a doubt, reading blogs like Slashdot is harmful to your health... it keeps you from being outside and getting exercise! Not to mention the millions of lost man-hours to our economy caused by people reading Slashdot at work. And don't get me started on the energy wasted running the Slashdot servers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Only someone totally brainwashed by the Capitalist system to destroy the enviornment, and someone who hates Democracy and Social Welfare to the core, would suggest that we don't criminalize Slashdot!
Thank god for the progressive state of California to realize that personal freedom and individual choice is simply a barrier to be smashed and destroyed in the struggle to make a better world!
While the lose of something like a supply of floppy disks doesn't seem that bad from a PC standpoint (after all, PCs become obsolete fairly quickly), there are a lot of pieces of musical equipment that continue to use floppy disks, that are still desirable pieces of equipment.
You forget about all the lottery winner, gamblers, and a myrid of TV contestants who DO pay taxes on there winnings. Yeah, this guy didn't accept it, but are you really thinking wa person winning 200 million will not collect because of taxes?
The difference is that that lottery winners, gamblers, and TV contestants win cash, which is easier to tax (you can pay taxes out of your winning). However, taxing these kinds of things as income only works with big things like lottery (millions of dollars), or TV (where the person is on television, and so is easy for the IRS to identify). Most gamblers don't bother to declare their income. If the winnings are less than $10,000 (which is virtually all of winnings... lotteries and sweepstakes are the exception), people just don't declare it. If there was a more modest tax sceme for winnings (i.e. pay a flat 1% or 2%, similiar to sales tax, at the time of winning), no doubt there would be more tax revenue.
Do you understand that each item taxed will have a different peak tax rate? And that the peak tax has been as high as 90% during some points in the US's history?
I understand that the U.S. has a higher tax revenue, adjusted for inflation, now that tax rates are somewhat more reasonable. And I also understand that each item taxed will have a different peak tax rate... and I think the peak tax rate for contest winnings are much lower than income. Contest winnings are NOT income. The reason contest winnings are considered to be income is that congress approved an income tax and not a contest tax, and so the IRS gets around this ambiguity in the law by deciding that contest winnings are income, circumventing the legislative process.
There are plenty of countries (such as Canada, where I live), who don't tax contest winnings. And believe me, Canadian politicians LOVE collecting taxes... if they are not collecting taxes on contest winnings, it is most likely for a damn good reason. They would certainly charge taxes on it if they felt that the revenue justified the expense of enforcement.
Never take the laffer curve in an absolute literal model for a tax revenue curve,and remember that it has no predictive value at all.
The bell curve given by laffer has no predictive value, because it is simply designed to illustrate a point. It is not based on actual revenue data, it is simply an example of a hypothetical curve that is easy for econ 101 students to understand. The classic Laffer curve is not a working model, it is a teaching example.
That does not mean that there isn't a real curve, and that tax revenue cannot be predicted by that curve. It just means that the model needs to be worked out on a case by case basis.
The people defending these kind of taxes, by claiming "Well, taxes are needed to provide us with government services", are using faulty logic. In this case, the government IS NOT taxing the guy $20,000... because the guy is simply not going to take the space flight - He can't afford it!
However, if the government charged a lower tax... say $1,000, the guy might actually be able to pay, and therefore the government would actually make MORE money than with the much higher tax rate!
By raising taxes beyond a certain threshold, you actually LOSE tax revenue. Higher taxes != higher tax revenue.
Wouldn't that generate false positives if the billing address is, say, a post office box while the corporate tax forms are filed from the home office?
But unlike all other crimes, Tax Evasion is a crime where you are guilty until proven innocent. Tax authorities investigate, and the obligation is on you to prove to them that the money you make at your P.O. box is being reported at your home office.
The biggest problem in my experience is not in the theoretical vulnerabilities of the technology but the fact that the decision makers that hand out the contracts do not have the technological know-how to give the contract to the 'right' company
That is of course a big problem - But the bigger problem is that the decision makers have no incentive to learn the technological know-how to give the contract to the right company.
I mean, it is not like a buisness, where if you make stupid decisions, you are losing your own money. Government decision makers are gambling with someone elses money. Not only that, but there are powerful forces working to make sure they choose the 'wrong' company... it could be outright bribery, or it could be a government decision maker insisting that the IT company be from his riding or district, or the government decision maker trying to satisfy other political pressures (he needs to hire an IT company with a female CEO to show that the government is "promoting sexual equality"... he has to make sure the IT company is "green" to show that the government is "concerned with the enviornment"... he has to make sure the IT company has no other controversial clients such as tobacco companies or alchoholic beverage companies... all of this extra criteria meaning the person can't simply choose the best IT company outright).
Once the problems became apparent, it was too late to do anything about it as the budget for the whole thing was already used up.
What are these crazy things you Swedes call "budgets"? In the United States, when a government project is a total and utter failure, it means that they just keep dumping more money, and more money, and more money, and more money (much to the contractors delight) into the thing, until they "get it right". Talk about perverse incentive! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
Oh, I understand the purpose - The purpose is to allow someone who developes a new technology to be able to make the research costs back by having a monopoly, thereby encouraging innovation.
But, I see two situations:
1. The new invention is so clear an obvious that there is no effort at all to reverse engineer it when it comes on the market. (i.e. Sporks, intermittent windshield wipers, etc.)
2. The new invention is technically sophisticated, and requires significant effort to reverse engineer.
In case one, we probably don't want those obvious types of things patented anyway. In case two, even if there is no patent, the person will have a monopoly while other companies reverse engineer the product, tool up for production, etc.
I just don't think that people are going to stop innovating because there are no longer patents. In fact, I think it will ACCELERATE innovation. A company won't be able to develop a product, patent it, and just rake in the bucks from their monopoly anymore - They will have to make constant improvements to be ahead of the curve.
The problem is that we are using fiat money, where our money has no real relationship to any real commodity. The U.S. government creates arbitrary amounts of money out of thin air.
If you made a U.S. dollar redeemable for the equivalent of 100 pennies worth of copper, and made a nickle, or quarter, and dime to contain an amount of copper proportional to the amount in the penny, then it would all work out fine.
And you wouldn't need to make it copper nessicarily. Gold, Silver, Platinum, Uranium, Petroleum, Watts of Electricity, virtually any scarce and reasonably stable commodity could be used (Although, if you used something like petroleum, or electricity, you would probably have to replace all coins with paper money, as it would be hard to mint those commodities into coins!)
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I hear you on that... technically, frivolous or harrasing lawsuits are illegal. But, people getting in trouble for frivilous lawsuits is so rare in the U.S., that it isn't even a concern. I am not saying that bad lawsuits aren't illegal, I am saying that for all practicle purposes they are legal.
That would include limited work time (the 40 hour week), no child labor, the minimum wage, the right to strike, social security . . . hell it would include absolutely EVERYTHING GOOD that has happened to the average people who actually make up the bulk of our society.
Bullshit. Child labor ended long before child labor laws came into effect. 98% of American workers earn more than the new proposed increased minimum wage, let alone the current minimum wage. The 40 hour work week was won by organized labor, not politicians - and the "right to strike" has always existed. In all of these cases, the government simply came in after the fact and took credit for the advances after the fact.
India has a socialist government with far more strict laws on child labor, working conditions, working hours, etc., than the United States. Where do you think there is more child labor, poor working conditions, and longer working hours?
And you think all of this is MY FAULT because they have taken advantage of the system in a thoroughly dishonorable way?
You created a system where the inevitable result is that they would take advantage of the system in a thoroughly dishonorable way. If you club someone in the head with a baseball bat, and you believe that you are "doing brain surgery", it doesn't mean that you aren't guilty of hurting someone. It just means that you are stupid.
I suppose if you were to go walking in a nasty part of town with your gold Rollex hanging loosely on your wrist and somebody took it from you . . . that would be YOUR fault for being wealthy and flaunting it. Right?
First of all, I resent your analogy. The "nasty" part of town is usually a lot safer than bleeding heart white suburban liberals would imagine. The vast majority of people living in the "nasty" '9as you call it) parts of town are simply people with different skin color who choose to live in the city, and wouldn't want to steal your Rolex and would probably give the shirt off their back to help you.
But, just for the sake of arguement, lets say your imaginary "nasty" part of town, full of lurking villians waiting to mug you at any second, really exists. I would say it is damn stupid to walk down that street with your Rolex. You can argue right or wrong, but it ain't gonna get you your Rolex back.
Likewise, you can argue the morality of big government all you like, but all you have to do is look at Stalin, or Castro, or even G.W. Bush to see where your philosophy leads. Your own sense of morality doesn't mean shit when the government YOU built turns into a dictatorship. And more government power, leads to dictatorship.
In fact, I bet you can't come up with a single piece of federal legislation from the last 20-30 years that was sponsored and passed by Republicans that directly benefited the citizens of this country without benefiting corporations primarily. Not one! Go ahead, surprise me.
Why the hell would I want to defend the Republicans? They are part of the same political machine that you support. It is up to you to defend your buddies the Republicans. I can't come up with a single piece of federal legislation by the Republicans in the last 20-30 years that directly benefited the citizens, because there has been NO federal legislation in the last 20-30 years that benifited the citizens. Benfits to the citizens come from empowering them, not from issuing central government edicts. The federal government is the enemy of the citizens, and so are people like you who support the federal government leviathan (and support expanding it further).
But why, when Exxon Mobile sponsers research that promotes it's buisness model, do we consider that suspect? but when national governments funds research that promotes their buisness model, it is considered OK!
:) )
One could argue that government funded research is pre-disposed to come to conclusions that give the government an opportunity to increase its power and revenue. I mean, when people say "We need to do something about the enviornment", what they usually mean is "We need to give the government dramaticly more money, and dramaticly more control over our lives... so that it can do something about the enviornment".
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that we should trust the ExxonMobile research... I am saying we should be far more skeptical of government research. (It is not like the government has ever created paranoia and fear about something in order to get people to give up their cash and liberties, right?
And also, when Exxon Mobile funnels money through front organizations to fund Greenpeace, and Greenpeace opposes nuclear power (the only viable alternative to oil on a large scale), why don't we consider Greenpeace to be as suspect as the American Enterprise Institute? I consider the anti-nuclear movement to be by-far the biggest shills for the oil industry.
We had two, actually. The first was in the 1780's, and established the right of a free thinking people to spearate themselves from a government that they felt no longer represented them. The second one in the 1860's revoked that right.
Funny, the people back in the 1860s South weren't too keen on the right of slaves to seperate themselves from those who they felt didn't represent them! Southerers were damn quick to revoke the right to self-determination, and with extreme prejudice.
That's a weak understanding of the Civil War. And especially ironic, given that by that point the north had switched to a wage-labor format, which is actually cheaper labor (use a person up, throw them out, find the next one).
Look, we all understand that the Civil War was a complex subject, and that slavery was only one of the many causes of the Civil War. But don't give me this bullshit that the wage system paid less to workers than they did as slaves!
And in the end, the south actually won... if you look at an electoral map; or the balance of power in the Senate
And I can look at a map, and see that the greatest amount of poverty in the United States is in the South. Slavery totally messed up the Southern economy, and impoverished both black slaves, and whites as well (who had to compete with slaves cost-wise, even if they weren't slaves). Slavery, like Communism, is an attempt to escape the market value of labor - and it has the same economy destroying effects as Communism.
but bringing a frivolous lawsuit against someone is not legal.
Huh? What? Something is totally legal, if you can't get in trouble for it. The worst you can get for a frivolous lawsuit is having to pay the other guys legal fees. But that in itself is extremly rare in the United States - So rare as not to even be a concern.
The same people who are up in arms against touch screen voting now, are the ones who were up in arms in 2000 about paper voting.
In 2000:
"Confused old people, and illiterate people, accidently voted for the wrong candidate! This is an outrage! We need a new electronic touch screen system so that the illiterate and easily confused can vote! We need to stop these people from stealing our democracy!"
OK, a new system was developed so even people who can't read the name of the candidate can look at the picture of the smiling face from TV and place their vote... the system is totally screwed up, but what were you expecting from a big government contract? It works as well as anything the government provides.
So, now that the system is in place:
"Paper ballots are the only trustworthy method of voting! Electronic machines are too prone to fraud! We need to stop these machines from stealing our democracy!"
Damn, can't we get a consistent arguement? Are we supposed to make voting so damn easy that even the braindead can do it? Or are we supposed to make the process open and transparent and eliminate fraud? Because the two are often mututally exclusive! I don't care which one you choose, as the voting outcome is pretty much decided through campaign finance laws, gerimandering, candidate elgibility requirements, government funding, etc., before a single vote is ever placed... a more accurate voting system won't have any effect on the politicians who are elected. But I don't like having to pay for a new system every time some "activists" don't like the result of an election and decide voting fraud is the problem.
Mussolini was right, the merging of corporate and government interests has definite advantages . . .
In Mussolini's "Corporatism", corporations weren't competing private entities, but were state regulating bodies that governored specific industries. So in "Corporatism", the State Industrial Planning Board, a branch of the government, would be a "corporation".
The modern day equivalents to "corporations" as Mussolini saw it, would be the Department of Education, the Federal Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration - Those responsible for national planning and regulation.
"This prospect in Italian Fascist Corporativism claimed to be the direct heir of Georges Sorel's anarcho-syndicalism, wherein each interest was to form as its own entity with separate organizing parameters according to their own standards, only however within the corporative model of Italian Fascism each was supposed to be incorporated through the auspices & organizing ability of a statist construct."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism
"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it."
You are guilty of creating the current situation. It was so-called "progressives" and leftists who have for years been pushing for increased executive powers, centralized control, nationalization or at least nationalized controls of industries, etc. People like you have created the vast state apparatus that is now being abused. Yeah, I understand that you probably think "I don't support Bush or the Republicans, what are you talking about"? But who for years built a government so huge, powerful, and all encompassing that it had so much power to be abused and made such a tempting target for the power hungry to control? Who supported giving the President and the government of the United States such vast unchecked powers? Bush and the current political system is your Frankenstien monster... you might not have intended to create it, but you should have known better! You are the source of this evil!
Much like in the Soviet Union, or in China, etc, well intentioned leftists and socialists build the political infrastructure of facism, and then when a dictator takes over want to complain "Well, that is not what we wanted! We wanted equality and social justice!"... it doesn't matter what you want, it only matters that dictatorship is the unescapable, inevitable result of the big centralized government that you support!
Get ready for this sort of thing to happen every other day. Now that Boston has shown the world how much of a bunch of paranoid assholes they are, every dork with an agenda and some light brights is going to shut your city down every time they get bored!
I mean, damn, the people in Dallas, or San Fransisco, or New York, or any of the other cities didn't have to wait an hour because of an imagined bomb threat. Oh, thats right, they aren't morons!
Yes, but in previous years being a virgin wouldn't get you capped by a SWAT team and the bomb squad called in.
We have now given any group or organization, who chooses to do so, a perfect offensive weapon against the United States.
All you need to do is place a few strange looking items (they don't even need to look like bombs), in a few strange places in a city, and you can bring the economy of that city to a standstill. Closing roads, bridges... evacuating buildings, etc. The cost to the economy of Boston is probably at least in the tens of millions, but if they are shutting down major travel and shipping arteries, railroads, etc, the cost could be in the billions! The powers that be have essentially given any mischief maker, any geurilla artist, or any pissed off group a way to shut down the economy of major U.S. urban areas, with virtually no cost or effort. If you are smart enough to read this, you are smart enough to shut down the economy of any major U.S. urban area!
In WWII, the Alies needed to carpet bomb German cities to destroy their economy. Now, the power to carry out strategic warfare against the economy of the United States has been put into the hands of any goofball or dork who wants to make a statement... and all by the very people supposed to "protect" America!
It would be retailers who would be fined for selling them once they are banned, like they would be fined for selling other banned items like freon.
And what happens if the retailers refuse to stop selling the bulbs and refuse to pay the fines? Just because you apply a layer of abstraction before you actually start throwing people in prison, doesn't mean it isn't the threat of prison or death that is used to enforce laws. All laws, at their core, are enforced with the threat of imprisonment or violence.
One of the problems with parodying right-wingers is that the parody is often indistingushable from actual right -wing positions. Such is the case with your post.
I love it that distrust and skepticism about the government is now "Right Wing". Back in the day, those people would be called "Anarchist" or "Liberals". But I guess nowadays you are considered some sort of "Nazi" if you don't blindy accept all expansions of government power, even on the most mundane things such as light bulbs. Clearly, you have showed that my parody of people like you is dangerously close to the truth.
I resent you comparing the RIAA to the Mafia. The Mafia has traditionally increased people's freedom and personal choice (by providing goods and services that wouldn't be available via traditional sources because of government prohibition), while the RIAA decreases people's freedom and personal choice by encouraging government prohibition.
Where is the enviornment being "ravaged" by computer waste? Can you point to areas where there has been a signifanct loss of wildlife and habitat, or point to some real statistics about increased death rates? Or is this just FUD?
I mean, I have seen places where the enviornment really has been ravaged... but it certainly wasn't ravaged by computer waste. Can you point out even one of these mad-max enviornmental wastelands created by computer waste?
In other news, Green Party declares that anything they don't like to be "Bad for the Enviornment".
"Brocolli, definitly should be banned. It is bad for the enviornment!" said a spokesman.
When some people questioned the statement, the Green Party spokesman responded: "Scientists have proved Global Warming is a fact! If we don't do something now, climate change will have disasterous effects! Only a right-wing zealot, ignorant of enviornmental science, would suggest we shouldn't ban brocolli when the costs of inaction are so high!"
With bullshit like "Visa is bad for the enviornment", people wonder why enviornmentalism isn't taken more seriously! The Green movement is dead. It has been taken over by a bunch of reactionary leftists, and no longer has anything to do with protecting the enviornment.
Yes, only when the U.S. government has absolute power to dictate the actions of companies, even outside the U.S., including punishing them for actions that are legal both countries, can this scourge of overzealous government control be ended!
The key to fighting totalitarianism, is to give the government totalitarian control so it can fight totalitarianism!
If doing something is good (installing energy saving bulbs), then it is only logical that the government throwing anyone who doesn't do the good thing in jail is also good! After all, a police state is a small price to pay to save a little bit of energy!
Up next, I propose manditory minimum sentences of at least five years for people who don't floss (poor dental hygene hurts all of us! Including the children!) And only one of those gosh-darned extremist Libertarians would oppose the reasonable action of sending in a paramilitary SWAT team every time someone leaves their faucet running too long!
And, without a doubt, reading blogs like Slashdot is harmful to your health... it keeps you from being outside and getting exercise! Not to mention the millions of lost man-hours to our economy caused by people reading Slashdot at work. And don't get me started on the energy wasted running the Slashdot servers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Only someone totally brainwashed by the Capitalist system to destroy the enviornment, and someone who hates Democracy and Social Welfare to the core, would suggest that we don't criminalize Slashdot!
Thank god for the progressive state of California to realize that personal freedom and individual choice is simply a barrier to be smashed and destroyed in the struggle to make a better world!
While the lose of something like a supply of floppy disks doesn't seem that bad from a PC standpoint (after all, PCs become obsolete fairly quickly), there are a lot of pieces of musical equipment that continue to use floppy disks, that are still desirable pieces of equipment.
# q80
Here are just a few:
http://www.vintagesynth.com/akai/mpc2000.shtml
http://www.vintagesynth.com/emu/emulator3.shtml
http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/sequencers.shtml
You forget about all the lottery winner, gamblers, and a myrid of TV contestants who DO pay taxes on there winnings.
Yeah, this guy didn't accept it, but are you really thinking wa person winning 200 million will not collect because of taxes?
The difference is that that lottery winners, gamblers, and TV contestants win cash, which is easier to tax (you can pay taxes out of your winning). However, taxing these kinds of things as income only works with big things like lottery (millions of dollars), or TV (where the person is on television, and so is easy for the IRS to identify). Most gamblers don't bother to declare their income. If the winnings are less than $10,000 (which is virtually all of winnings... lotteries and sweepstakes are the exception), people just don't declare it. If there was a more modest tax sceme for winnings (i.e. pay a flat 1% or 2%, similiar to sales tax, at the time of winning), no doubt there would be more tax revenue.
Do you understand that each item taxed will have a different peak tax rate? And that the peak tax has been as high as 90% during some points in the US's history?
I understand that the U.S. has a higher tax revenue, adjusted for inflation, now that tax rates are somewhat more reasonable. And I also understand that each item taxed will have a different peak tax rate... and I think the peak tax rate for contest winnings are much lower than income. Contest winnings are NOT income. The reason contest winnings are considered to be income is that congress approved an income tax and not a contest tax, and so the IRS gets around this ambiguity in the law by deciding that contest winnings are income, circumventing the legislative process.
There are plenty of countries (such as Canada, where I live), who don't tax contest winnings. And believe me, Canadian politicians LOVE collecting taxes... if they are not collecting taxes on contest winnings, it is most likely for a damn good reason. They would certainly charge taxes on it if they felt that the revenue justified the expense of enforcement.
Never take the laffer curve in an absolute literal model for a tax revenue curve,and remember that it has no predictive value at all.
The bell curve given by laffer has no predictive value, because it is simply designed to illustrate a point. It is not based on actual revenue data, it is simply an example of a hypothetical curve that is easy for econ 101 students to understand. The classic Laffer curve is not a working model, it is a teaching example.
That does not mean that there isn't a real curve, and that tax revenue cannot be predicted by that curve. It just means that the model needs to be worked out on a case by case basis.
The people defending these kind of taxes, by claiming "Well, taxes are needed to provide us with government services", are using faulty logic. In this case, the government IS NOT taxing the guy $20,000... because the guy is simply not going to take the space flight - He can't afford it!
However, if the government charged a lower tax... say $1,000, the guy might actually be able to pay, and therefore the government would actually make MORE money than with the much higher tax rate!
By raising taxes beyond a certain threshold, you actually LOSE tax revenue. Higher taxes != higher tax revenue.
Here is a good explaination:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
Wouldn't that generate false positives if the billing address is, say, a post office box while the corporate tax forms are filed from the home office?
But unlike all other crimes, Tax Evasion is a crime where you are guilty until proven innocent. Tax authorities investigate, and the obligation is on you to prove to them that the money you make at your P.O. box is being reported at your home office.
Yeah, but what you describe pretty much covers any type of prohibitionism. Drugs, booze, guns, pornography, violent video games, etc.
I agree with you that the War on Drugs is stupid, but so many of the people who are against the War on Drugs support some other prohibitionist cause.
The biggest problem in my experience is not in the theoretical vulnerabilities of the technology but the fact that the decision makers that hand out the contracts do not have the technological know-how to give the contract to the 'right' company
That is of course a big problem - But the bigger problem is that the decision makers have no incentive to learn the technological know-how to give the contract to the right company.
I mean, it is not like a buisness, where if you make stupid decisions, you are losing your own money. Government decision makers are gambling with someone elses money. Not only that, but there are powerful forces working to make sure they choose the 'wrong' company... it could be outright bribery, or it could be a government decision maker insisting that the IT company be from his riding or district, or the government decision maker trying to satisfy other political pressures (he needs to hire an IT company with a female CEO to show that the government is "promoting sexual equality"... he has to make sure the IT company is "green" to show that the government is "concerned with the enviornment"... he has to make sure the IT company has no other controversial clients such as tobacco companies or alchoholic beverage companies... all of this extra criteria meaning the person can't simply choose the best IT company outright).
Once the problems became apparent, it was too late to do anything about it as the budget for the whole thing was already used up.
What are these crazy things you Swedes call "budgets"? In the United States, when a government project is a total and utter failure, it means that they just keep dumping more money, and more money, and more money, and more money (much to the contractors delight) into the thing, until they "get it right". Talk about perverse incentive! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
Do we really need a patent system?
Oh, I understand the purpose - The purpose is to allow someone who developes a new technology to be able to make the research costs back by having a monopoly, thereby encouraging innovation.
But, I see two situations:
1. The new invention is so clear an obvious that there is no effort at all to reverse engineer it when it comes on the market. (i.e. Sporks, intermittent windshield wipers, etc.)
2. The new invention is technically sophisticated, and requires significant effort to reverse engineer.
In case one, we probably don't want those obvious types of things patented anyway. In case two, even if there is no patent, the person will have a monopoly while other companies reverse engineer the product, tool up for production, etc.
I just don't think that people are going to stop innovating because there are no longer patents. In fact, I think it will ACCELERATE innovation. A company won't be able to develop a product, patent it, and just rake in the bucks from their monopoly anymore - They will have to make constant improvements to be ahead of the curve.
The problem is that we are using fiat money, where our money has no real relationship to any real commodity. The U.S. government creates arbitrary amounts of money out of thin air.
If you made a U.S. dollar redeemable for the equivalent of 100 pennies worth of copper, and made a nickle, or quarter, and dime to contain an amount of copper proportional to the amount in the penny, then it would all work out fine.
And you wouldn't need to make it copper nessicarily. Gold, Silver, Platinum, Uranium, Petroleum, Watts of Electricity, virtually any scarce and reasonably stable commodity could be used (Although, if you used something like petroleum, or electricity, you would probably have to replace all coins with paper money, as it would be hard to mint those commodities into coins!)