You are missing the point... The point isn't that delaying movies in Canada will stop piracy... it is that movie theaters in Canada (most being within 100km from the U.S. border), who will be losing all the first-run ticket sales to nearby theaters in the U.S. (you know that all the nerds are going to have to see Transformers on opening day, even if it means a road trip), and Canadian consumers will be pissed off and complain that they have to wait and see a movie, will put pressure on the government to change the laws to crack down on piracy.
A Canadian boycot of U.S. movies in retaliation would be unlikely, because so many U.S. movies are filmed in Canada that it would have serious negative effects on the economies of Vancouver and Toronto (popular places for U.S. movie production).
I agree with you the non-movie related commercials suck, but I enjoy seeing the movie trailers. I consider it part of the whole movie experience, and I am often disapointed when there aren't enough trailers.
Because they sell to the government! Selling a functioning product is less important than having good political connections. Most of the shit the government buys is overpriced and barely works... it just doesn't usually get the same attention.
I like how to show that the PR firm is evil, the example they give is "to criticize the environmental group Greenpeace". As if critizing a political action group is somehow wrong or bad. Or as if Greenpeace has never done anything to deserve criticism.
The weird things isn't that people forgot to wet the sponge so it wouldn't catch on fire...
The weird thing is that people are so afraid of bacteria that they are going be microwaving their sponges!! Not only that, I see they sell anti-bacteria material sponges pre-made at the store... and anti-bacterial soap... and anti-bacterial air-sprays (don't worry about lung cancer from breathing that crap!). Anti-bacterial teething rings... anti-bacterial towels... anti-bacterial shaving cream...
When did people get paranoid about bacteria all of a sudden? You gotta admit, bacteria isn't a significant problem for most people in the industrialized world, even without all the extreme anti bacteria tactics people are using.
I consider Bioshock to be 100% part of the system shock series. It is basicly art-deco System Shock. The fact that they decided to change the setting is actually proof that they are NOT running the franchise into the ground (as the old sci-fi setting would be getting a bit boring).
yes, yes, get hysterical about absurdly exaggerated scenarios. with luck, nobody will notice that your scenarios are just made up bullshit and may end up being convinced by your shrill bleating.
It isn't absurd... it happens every day. The government creates overly elaborate rules, that virtually no-one can follow, and then politicians see to it that the rules are only enforced on people it doesn't like.
For example, a black person drives through a lilly white suburb... the cops stop him and give him a ticket for going 2 miles an hour over the speed limit... or not stopping long enough at a stop sign... or having a burned out tail light... and when they give the ticket, they call for backup, search his car, and give him the 3rd degree to keep him out of the neighborhood. Technically, they are doing everyone 100% according to the law, and not doing anything racist, but everyone knows they don't treat white people the same way and are using the laws to enforce de-facto segregation. Do you deny that this happens EVERY SINGLE DAY ALL OVER AMERICA???
Or, a rich developer wants a peice of valuable real estate in order do a very lucritive development project. Unfortunatly, the land is currently occupied by working class families, who have lived in the neighborhood for generations. The developer talks to the major and the city council, and the city counsel votes to declare the area a blighted community, which allows them to take the houses at a fraction of the value and give them to the developer, and the developer makes a big donation to the mayors re-election campaign. Do you deny this happens TIME AND TIME AGAIN IN AMERICA?
Or, there is a city, and more and more of the local resteraunts are non-white ethnic resteraunts. The local residents want to get rid of ethnic minorities, so they pass a law that says all buisnesses that recieve too many complaints about "bad smells" get shut down by the city. The residents then file smell complaints on all the non-white owned buisnesses, and pretty soon a multicultural establishments are run out of town and only white-owned buisnesses exist. Technically, according to the law, the city didn't discriminate. All they did was enforce the smell complaint ordinance, in a completly non-biased manner. After all, who could complain about a law to limit bad smells! Do you deny that this happened? (In this specific case, it happened in Canada, but I am sure it could just as easily happen in the U.S.)
Or, how about this... The Republican governor wants to win re-election. The governor decides to send the state police to patrol outside the voting stations in mostly poor, black, areas that vote primarily democratic. The state police pull people over, harrass people, arrest people on small insignificant infractions like j-walking and unpaid parking tickets. Technically, the police are simply enforcing the law. They are not falsly accusing anyone of breaking the law. All the arrests are 100% legit. But we all know what the real intention is! Do you deny this has happened many times in the U.S.?!?!?
So, let me give you an entirely realistic scenario. There is a site that is very critical of G.W. Bush, and the Iraq war. The Republicans want to shut down the site. So they get the F.E.C. to investigate the site, sieze records, sieze computer servers, and to go over every legal document they can. If the blog owners have made the slightest mistake anywhere in their paperwork, forgot to delcare a $10 donation at any time in their history, accidently made a statement about an election within 30 days of an election... they go to jail. And even if they have somehow managed to comply with 10,000 pages of election laws absolutly perfectly (which is completly unlikely), it will take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend themselves in court!
The scenario I give above is not exasurated or imagines. It was actually the Republican strategy to try to shut down moveon.org. Fortunatly, idiot facists like you have thus far failed to extend
The cost of the penalty in anti-trust trials is insignificant compared to the cost of the prosecution - it's not something countries do to make money.
It is not the penalty I am talking about. Europe would like to promote domestic software companies, so they are going after the large foreign software company.
"regulation" is a different word from "prohibition", and different again from "limitation" and "restriction".
Free, by definition, means without regulation or restriction. By definition, if you support regulating speech, you are against freedom of speech. It is only freedom of speech, if it is absolute or unconditional. Period. End of story.
No one should have to reveal anything, or justify anything, or report anything, or licence anything, in order to speak their mind. People should be able to promote any political idea, when they want, how they want, for who they want, and the facists like you should keep your evil hands out of it!
If I have to fill out a form to get freedom of speech, I don't have speech. If I need a licence to run a blog, it means the government can revoke my licence if it doesn't like what I say, based on some obscure technicality. Screw that!
You have never been to Europe, right? Perhaps you watch a lot of Fox News?
Of course I have been to Europe. And I have never actually watched Fox News except for YouTube clips. But of course, in your mind everyone who disagrees with the utter unquestionable moral superiority and infailability of lily white European socialism must be some stereotypical redneck of your imagination.
Europe is NOT full of monopolies because the EU actively fights against them (example: Microsoft) and all other kinds of trade barriers within the EU.
Or rather, Europe fights against foreign monopolies (example: Microsoft). But that isn't progressive, every place is keen to punish foreign competition in order to give advantage to its own companies. But I don't see it fighting against France Telecom, or Lufthansa, or huge media conglomerates like Vivendi. Look at the downright nasty things Airbus has done to force countries into purchasing Airbus planes (like threatening to vote against full E.U. membership to countries who don't purchase Airbus planes... or making disaster relief funds for tsunami stricken countries contingent on purchasing Airbus planes). The E.U. can be outright predatory when it comes to promoting its own interests.
Of course the E.U. cracked down on Microsoft. They are a visible U.S. company, Europe would like a big piece of that cash pie, and so it promotes E.U. self-interest while scoring cheap points on the anti-American front. Protecting the consumers has nothing to do with it.
The BBC and many other national public broadcasters are NOT monopolies because there is plenty of competition!
And Microsoft isn't really a monopoly either. You can choose MacOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc., etc.. Microsoft was accused of competing "unfairly". Well, if forcing all people who own a TV to pay a licensing fee for a television station they may or may not choose to watch is not unfair competition, I don't know what is. Could you imagine if every computer was forced to purchase a Microsoft license, regardless if you decide to run Microsoft products or not? It would be considered scandalous!
This happens to be the case in Norway as well - for reasons of protecting our language from the massive English influence on the commercial TV-stations.
Or rather, behavior that is considered right-wing xenophobia in North America is considered perfectly reasonable in Norway (at least, that is the impression I gather from your statement). If someone would be proposing the same sorts of "language protection" in the U.S., they would be considered more along the lines of David Duke or Jean-Marie Le Pen.
And as far as Norway is concerned this is about Norwegian consumer protection laws that far better than anything the US has ever seen - they actually protect the consumer! Think democractic socialism where consumers actually have rights.
U.S. consumer protection laws don't have any bearing on the legitimacy of European consumer protection laws. In both places, the consumer protection laws seem to be designed around giving the power-elites more power - With the power elites in Europe being the government autocrat variety, and the power elites in the U.S. being the big business variety. In both places I am highly skeptical of them actually protecting the consumer.
The only thing that protects the consumer are consumers. When the government "protects" the consumer, it turns into a rent seeking scheme where companies bribe politicians in order to avoid government crackdown, and those who remain honest and don't bribe politicians are the ones most likely to suffer. If the E.U. was really concerned about protecting its citizens, it would ban DRM outright - That would be a completely political/national/economicly neutral and universal way to make sure the customer would be protected from lock-in.
Norway is a great friend of the US - and loves America! The population has nothing but great respect for the US.
People keep mistaking this for censorship. Nobody would have been censored. The same statements would have continued. The astroturfing would go on, just as strong and annoying as always. Under this law, you can say whatever the hell you want. You just have to report the money that you are making by saying it, and register as a paid lobbying group. You know why? Because you are a paid lobbying group! If you are getting tens of thousands of dollars from a political campaign to smear another political campaign, you are part of a political campaign.
No, because it isn't as simple as disclosing payment. There are a whole slew of laws, and forms, and procedures, and bizintine regulations that must be followed in order to comply with the laws. Which has several effects:
1. It means that the only people who can do lobbying are people with enough money and legal clout to handle dealing with all the regulations.
2. It means that the government can revoke the right to lobby from people it doesn't like, based on some invevitable mistake someone will make with the thousands and thousands of pages of regulations, and the 20+ forms they need to fill out. Those is power have the ability to arbitrarily jail those who they don't like. The Democrats and the Republicans will be fine, but small political parties, anti-war groups, black power groups, etc., will find themselves being thrown in jail on minor technicalities (this already happens, but this kind of legislation will make it worse).
3. The government will be able to harass bloggers who they don't like, by accusing bloggers of secretly taking payment, and therefore secretly being a lobbyist. The blogger's reputation will be hurt, their computer equipment will be siezed by law enforcement, and they will face the choice of hiring lawyers and engaging in a long drawn out legal fight to prove their innocence, or shutting down their blog.
Free and unrestricted speech is so absolutly vital to the political process, and laws like these have such incredable danger of being used as de-facto censorship programs, and have such a chilling effect on freedom of speech, that a rather insignificant problem like astroturfing is not worth the risk of ending freedom of speech.
We live in a country where people are being fined millions of dollars for wardrobe malfunctions during a dance routine, where U.S. citizens are being sent to military prisons overseas without trial, where police officers can confiscate your vehicle and property if they suspect you are drunk (without any proof), and so any assurances you give me that "this law will not be used for de-facto censorship" are total bullshit. There is no reason any sensible person would expect this law to be anything but a censorship program.
Freedom of speech means freedom of speech! Hand off! STOP! Congress shall make no law! Do you understand?
Astroturfing is much more akin to ADVERTISING than honest opinion. It is not individual speech, or political speech. It is commercial speech. A firm has been paid to sell an idea. The same way another firm has been paid to sell a bottle of shampoo.
Except that the government does not want to supress shampoo comercials, the same way it would like to supress political speech that is critical of it's policies. G. W. Bush could care less if you like Head & Shoulders better than Herbal Essensces Shampoo... but he may push to have your Free-Speech Licence taken away if you blog against the war in Iraq.
You cannot have a democratic society, without political speech that completly free and unrestricted.
I don't think this is about giving more choice to consumers. Europe is full of monopolies like the BBC who agressively go after people for fees the same way the RIAA goes after people for file sharing, and countries like France where the "visual style" of clothing is considered and IP and people can go to jail for copying another's "style"... and the same EU that wants to make it illegal to sell Champaign that isn't from Champaign, or make it illegal to sell Parmisan cheese made outside of Parmigiano. Monopolies and restrictions in order to benifit certain companies and economic interests are rampant in Europe. There are hundreds of things hurting European consumers far worse than iTunes.
This action is more about protectionism, and scoring a few cheap political points with the anti-American populous by going after a visible U.S. corporation, than about protecting consumers. If the E.U. really wanted to protect consumers, they would simply ban all DRM, and the problem would be solved! Of course, then they would piss off big European media companies like Vivendi, who are looking to create a DRMed locked-in European digital music monopoly.
Yes, because we all know that the First Amendment and Freedom of Speech is just a big corporate propoganda tool, and as soon as we give the politicians in Washington (who are untainted and uncorrupted by corporations), the power to decide what sort of speech is legal and illegal, all our problems will go away.
Those foolish, foolish idiots at Slashdot, for not showing absolute faith in a U.S. government censorship regime! Don't they know that the only thing the government would censor, is bad-evil-terrible corporate propoganda!? No politician would ever use censorship for political gain... that is unthinkable.
Since Slashdot is not immune to the same sorts of underhanded marketing, it is only fair that we revoke Slashdot's Speech Licences and silence this dastardly corporate propoganda tool! Only when the voices of the people on Slashdot are silenced, can our benevolent leaders like The Great Bush protect us from the evil Corporations!
Political statements paid for by a campaign to get someone elected are NOT heavily shielded by the First Amendment.
NO!!! Absolutly wrong! ALL political statements are freedom of speech! All of them! Unconditionally! Otherwise it isn't freedom of speech. Supreme Court be damned, these are the same people who say it is Constitutional to send people to Gitmo for life without a trial.
If you support the regulation of political statements, you are against freedom of speech. Period. End of story. You are against freedom of speech! Period. End of story!
So the FSF and EFF pay their bloggers $100000 or more a year? I know a guy in the EFF who'd feel rather cheated if that were the case.
So no-one who blogs in favor of the EFF makes more than $100,000 a year? Because if they do, it doesn't matter if they get paid directly by the EFF or not. The people in power who might dislike the EFF could argue that the person was being indirectly paid for blogging... that they recieved their $100,000 a year job at Hypothetical Electronics Inc. with the understanding that they would blog in favor of the EFF.
Even if there isn't evidence enough to convict you of "Blogging Without a Licence"... there would be the legal costs of defending yourself, the legal costs Hypothetical Electronics Inc. would have in defending themselves... Hypothetical Electronics Inc. would most likely not allow their employees to blog anymore, as they could make them a target for investigation... there would be the damage to your reputation that comes with being investigated for such a thing. The power it would give the government to go after those who are critical of its policies would cause a chilling effect on blogging and freedom of speech. These kinds of laws are designed as tools to attack political rivals, not so protect the public.
Paid speech is not gratuit, but it is libre. Or to put it in Slashdot terms, there is Free-as-in-Beer, and Free-as-in-Speech. Paid speech is not Free-as-in-Beer (it does cost money), but it is supposed to be Free-as-in-Speech (no one is allowed to stop you from making said speech).
If you are against astroturf campaigns, you are most definitly against freedom of speech. It doesn't matter if you don't like the politics of a group, or you think it is dishonest, or sleazy, etc... Freedom of Speech is not "We allow speech that we all like". Freedom of speech means protecting even extremly unpopular speech like astroturfing.
I don't remember the exemption to the first amendment that says freedom of speech is revoked if you are paid to make the speech.
I do understand that the government does regulate paid speech... the government does also sponser anti-democratic military coups in foriegn countries, and send people off to Gitmo to be held indefinitly without trial. But those things are of very questionable constitutionality.
Requiring people to register in order to exercise their right to speech, even if they ARE paid to make the speech, is completly against the ideals of freedom of speech and public discourse. By selectively revoking the licence of those whome you disagree with, you can give one political group a distinct advantage over another political group.
What is shocking is how willing people are to give up freedom of speech, when they think freedom of speech might in some way benifit someone they don't like.
Can you, for example, tell me where the First Amendment says that you no longer have freedom of speech, if you get paid to make speeches on behalf of someone else?
So great, blogs aren't yet completly and utterly destroyed, like all other venues for political speech... it is only a matter of time until facists such as yourself are stepping up the pressure to licence and regulate blogs. "After all, dude, a buisness could, like, pay a blog to say stuff! I mean, I am all for freedom of speech, but not when there is a remote possibiliy that the speech may in some way benifit big buisness!"
Because enforcing laws against spam are like enforcing laws against oral sex. How exactly do you plan to track down and punish lawbreakers without big brother style surveillance?
Right now, saying "Net Neutrality" is like saying "Power to the people, man!". It is a nice slogan, but it doesn't mean anything until there is some real understanding and consensus on what Net Neutrality really means.
Right now, you don't have the vaugest idea of what any sort of Net Neutrality legislation would entail, because no sort of legislation has been written up. And right now, without any sort of Net Neutrality legislation, companies have yet to choke off bandwidth of less wealthy competitors. It continues to get easier and easier for small companies to compete with big companies over the internet. So you are essentially demanding a solution without knowing what that solution even is, to a problem that doesn't exist and may never exist.
Net Neutrality legislation could indeed be a nightmare that cripples innovation in the internet, in the same way there have been virtually no improvements in land line telephone service since I was born. Net Neutrality legislation could be so gobbled up by special interest lobbying in government to be something 100% completly different than what you want it to be.
The kind of rabid foaming at the mouth mindless support of "Net Neutrality" that you show can be easily exploited. A few big corporations push their client politicians for a "New Neutrality" bill that is full of restrictions that benifit big corporations, and all the "Net Neutrality" zealots jump on supporting it because it vaugly promises "Net Neutrality", and end up promoting legislation that has the complete opposite effect of what "Net Neutrality" is supposed to accomplish - and when someone tries to criticize the legislation as actually being bad for the little guy, you will jump on it with a mindless "NET NEUTRALITY IS NEEDED TO SAVE US FROM THE BIG CORPORATIONS!!! ANYONE WHO OPPOSED NET NEUTRALITY IS FOR THE BIG CORPORATIONS!!! YOU MUST SUPPORT THIS NET NEUTRALITY LEGISLATION OR YOU ARE AN EVIL PUPPET OF THE CORPORATION!!! NET NEUTRALITY GOOD, FIRE BAD!!!! NET NEUTRALITY!!!".
I mean, you support the "Patriot Act", correct? WHAT? You don't support it "Patriot Act"? Why, anyone who would oppose "Patriotism" must be an evil anti-American terrorist! Why are you siding with the evil terrorists? See how easy it is to abuse vauge meaningless non-technical terms like "Net Neutrality" or "Patriot"?
Right now, "Net Neutrality" is a word game. It means nothing until actual legislation is drafted, and then that legislation can be judged on its own merits instead of some empty slogan that may or may not really be what it promises!
You find health food in richer states. Poor areas won't have much health food available, rich areas will have health food available. Part of the reason is because of the restrictions placed on healthy food (and the government subsidies on unhealthy stuff, like corn syrup).
Slashdot Mirror
You are missing the point... The point isn't that delaying movies in Canada will stop piracy... it is that movie theaters in Canada (most being within 100km from the U.S. border), who will be losing all the first-run ticket sales to nearby theaters in the U.S. (you know that all the nerds are going to have to see Transformers on opening day, even if it means a road trip), and Canadian consumers will be pissed off and complain that they have to wait and see a movie, will put pressure on the government to change the laws to crack down on piracy.
A Canadian boycot of U.S. movies in retaliation would be unlikely, because so many U.S. movies are filmed in Canada that it would have serious negative effects on the economies of Vancouver and Toronto (popular places for U.S. movie production).
I agree with you the non-movie related commercials suck, but I enjoy seeing the movie trailers. I consider it part of the whole movie experience, and I am often disapointed when there aren't enough trailers.
Protect Consumer Choice... By Restricting Consumers Options!!!
Because they sell to the government! Selling a functioning product is less important than having good political connections. Most of the shit the government buys is overpriced and barely works... it just doesn't usually get the same attention.
If there wasn't any creepily Orwellian government positions like "Heritage Minister", there wouldn't be anyone to bribe, now would there?
I like how to show that the PR firm is evil, the example they give is "to criticize the environmental group Greenpeace". As if critizing a political action group is somehow wrong or bad. Or as if Greenpeace has never done anything to deserve criticism.
The weird things isn't that people forgot to wet the sponge so it wouldn't catch on fire...
The weird thing is that people are so afraid of bacteria that they are going be microwaving their sponges!! Not only that, I see they sell anti-bacteria material sponges pre-made at the store... and anti-bacterial soap... and anti-bacterial air-sprays (don't worry about lung cancer from breathing that crap!). Anti-bacterial teething rings... anti-bacterial towels... anti-bacterial shaving cream...
When did people get paranoid about bacteria all of a sudden? You gotta admit, bacteria isn't a significant problem for most people in the industrialized world, even without all the extreme anti bacteria tactics people are using.
I consider Bioshock to be 100% part of the system shock series. It is basicly art-deco System Shock. The fact that they decided to change the setting is actually proof that they are NOT running the franchise into the ground (as the old sci-fi setting would be getting a bit boring).
yes, yes, get hysterical about absurdly exaggerated scenarios. with luck, nobody will notice that your scenarios are just made up bullshit and may end up being convinced by your shrill bleating.
It isn't absurd... it happens every day. The government creates overly elaborate rules, that virtually no-one can follow, and then politicians see to it that the rules are only enforced on people it doesn't like.
For example, a black person drives through a lilly white suburb... the cops stop him and give him a ticket for going 2 miles an hour over the speed limit... or not stopping long enough at a stop sign... or having a burned out tail light... and when they give the ticket, they call for backup, search his car, and give him the 3rd degree to keep him out of the neighborhood. Technically, they are doing everyone 100% according to the law, and not doing anything racist, but everyone knows they don't treat white people the same way and are using the laws to enforce de-facto segregation. Do you deny that this happens EVERY SINGLE DAY ALL OVER AMERICA???
Or, a rich developer wants a peice of valuable real estate in order do a very lucritive development project. Unfortunatly, the land is currently occupied by working class families, who have lived in the neighborhood for generations. The developer talks to the major and the city council, and the city counsel votes to declare the area a blighted community, which allows them to take the houses at a fraction of the value and give them to the developer, and the developer makes a big donation to the mayors re-election campaign. Do you deny this happens TIME AND TIME AGAIN IN AMERICA?
Or, there is a city, and more and more of the local resteraunts are non-white ethnic resteraunts. The local residents want to get rid of ethnic minorities, so they pass a law that says all buisnesses that recieve too many complaints about "bad smells" get shut down by the city. The residents then file smell complaints on all the non-white owned buisnesses, and pretty soon a multicultural establishments are run out of town and only white-owned buisnesses exist. Technically, according to the law, the city didn't discriminate. All they did was enforce the smell complaint ordinance, in a completly non-biased manner. After all, who could complain about a law to limit bad smells! Do you deny that this happened? (In this specific case, it happened in Canada, but I am sure it could just as easily happen in the U.S.)
Or, how about this... The Republican governor wants to win re-election. The governor decides to send the state police to patrol outside the voting stations in mostly poor, black, areas that vote primarily democratic. The state police pull people over, harrass people, arrest people on small insignificant infractions like j-walking and unpaid parking tickets. Technically, the police are simply enforcing the law. They are not falsly accusing anyone of breaking the law. All the arrests are 100% legit. But we all know what the real intention is! Do you deny this has happened many times in the U.S.?!?!?
So, let me give you an entirely realistic scenario. There is a site that is very critical of G.W. Bush, and the Iraq war. The Republicans want to shut down the site. So they get the F.E.C. to investigate the site, sieze records, sieze computer servers, and to go over every legal document they can. If the blog owners have made the slightest mistake anywhere in their paperwork, forgot to delcare a $10 donation at any time in their history, accidently made a statement about an election within 30 days of an election... they go to jail. And even if they have somehow managed to comply with 10,000 pages of election laws absolutly perfectly (which is completly unlikely), it will take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend themselves in court!
The scenario I give above is not exasurated or imagines. It was actually the Republican strategy to try to shut down moveon.org. Fortunatly, idiot facists like you have thus far failed to extend
The cost of the penalty in anti-trust trials is insignificant compared to the cost of the prosecution - it's not something countries do to make money.
It is not the penalty I am talking about. Europe would like to promote domestic software companies, so they are going after the large foreign software company.
"regulation" is a different word from "prohibition", and different again from "limitation" and "restriction".
Free, by definition, means without regulation or restriction. By definition, if you support regulating speech, you are against freedom of speech. It is only freedom of speech, if it is absolute or unconditional. Period. End of story.
No one should have to reveal anything, or justify anything, or report anything, or licence anything, in order to speak their mind. People should be able to promote any political idea, when they want, how they want, for who they want, and the facists like you should keep your evil hands out of it!
If I have to fill out a form to get freedom of speech, I don't have speech. If I need a licence to run a blog, it means the government can revoke my licence if it doesn't like what I say, based on some obscure technicality. Screw that!
You have never been to Europe, right? Perhaps you watch a lot of Fox News?
Of course I have been to Europe. And I have never actually watched Fox News except for YouTube clips. But of course, in your mind everyone who disagrees with the utter unquestionable moral superiority and infailability of lily white European socialism must be some stereotypical redneck of your imagination.
Europe is NOT full of monopolies because the EU actively fights against them (example: Microsoft) and all other kinds of trade barriers within the EU.
Or rather, Europe fights against foreign monopolies (example: Microsoft). But that isn't progressive, every place is keen to punish foreign competition in order to give advantage to its own companies. But I don't see it fighting against France Telecom, or Lufthansa, or huge media conglomerates like Vivendi. Look at the downright nasty things Airbus has done to force countries into purchasing Airbus planes (like threatening to vote against full E.U. membership to countries who don't purchase Airbus planes... or making disaster relief funds for tsunami stricken countries contingent on purchasing Airbus planes). The E.U. can be outright predatory when it comes to promoting its own interests.
Of course the E.U. cracked down on Microsoft. They are a visible U.S. company, Europe would like a big piece of that cash pie, and so it promotes E.U. self-interest while scoring cheap points on the anti-American front. Protecting the consumers has nothing to do with it.
The BBC and many other national public broadcasters are NOT monopolies because there is plenty of competition!
And Microsoft isn't really a monopoly either. You can choose MacOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc., etc.. Microsoft was accused of competing "unfairly". Well, if forcing all people who own a TV to pay a licensing fee for a television station they may or may not choose to watch is not unfair competition, I don't know what is. Could you imagine if every computer was forced to purchase a Microsoft license, regardless if you decide to run Microsoft products or not? It would be considered scandalous!
This happens to be the case in Norway as well - for reasons of protecting our language from the massive English influence on the commercial TV-stations.
Or rather, behavior that is considered right-wing xenophobia in North America is considered perfectly reasonable in Norway (at least, that is the impression I gather from your statement). If someone would be proposing the same sorts of "language protection" in the U.S., they would be considered more along the lines of David Duke or Jean-Marie Le Pen.
And as far as Norway is concerned this is about Norwegian consumer protection laws that far better than anything the US has ever seen - they actually protect the consumer! Think democractic socialism where consumers actually have rights.
U.S. consumer protection laws don't have any bearing on the legitimacy of European consumer protection laws. In both places, the consumer protection laws seem to be designed around giving the power-elites more power - With the power elites in Europe being the government autocrat variety, and the power elites in the U.S. being the big business variety. In both places I am highly skeptical of them actually protecting the consumer.
The only thing that protects the consumer are consumers. When the government "protects" the consumer, it turns into a rent seeking scheme where companies bribe politicians in order to avoid government crackdown, and those who remain honest and don't bribe politicians are the ones most likely to suffer. If the E.U. was really concerned about protecting its citizens, it would ban DRM outright - That would be a completely political/national/economicly neutral and universal way to make sure the customer would be protected from lock-in.
Norway is a great friend of the US - and loves America! The population has nothing but great respect for the US.
Norway isn't a frien
People keep mistaking this for censorship. Nobody would have been censored. The same statements would have continued. The astroturfing would go on, just as strong and annoying as always. Under this law, you can say whatever the hell you want. You just have to report the money that you are making by saying it, and register as a paid lobbying group. You know why? Because you are a paid lobbying group! If you are getting tens of thousands of dollars from a political campaign to smear another political campaign, you are part of a political campaign.
No, because it isn't as simple as disclosing payment. There are a whole slew of laws, and forms, and procedures, and bizintine regulations that must be followed in order to comply with the laws. Which has several effects:
1. It means that the only people who can do lobbying are people with enough money and legal clout to handle dealing with all the regulations.
2. It means that the government can revoke the right to lobby from people it doesn't like, based on some invevitable mistake someone will make with the thousands and thousands of pages of regulations, and the 20+ forms they need to fill out. Those is power have the ability to arbitrarily jail those who they don't like. The Democrats and the Republicans will be fine, but small political parties, anti-war groups, black power groups, etc., will find themselves being thrown in jail on minor technicalities (this already happens, but this kind of legislation will make it worse).
3. The government will be able to harass bloggers who they don't like, by accusing bloggers of secretly taking payment, and therefore secretly being a lobbyist. The blogger's reputation will be hurt, their computer equipment will be siezed by law enforcement, and they will face the choice of hiring lawyers and engaging in a long drawn out legal fight to prove their innocence, or shutting down their blog.
Free and unrestricted speech is so absolutly vital to the political process, and laws like these have such incredable danger of being used as de-facto censorship programs, and have such a chilling effect on freedom of speech, that a rather insignificant problem like astroturfing is not worth the risk of ending freedom of speech.
We live in a country where people are being fined millions of dollars for wardrobe malfunctions during a dance routine, where U.S. citizens are being sent to military prisons overseas without trial, where police officers can confiscate your vehicle and property if they suspect you are drunk (without any proof), and so any assurances you give me that "this law will not be used for de-facto censorship" are total bullshit. There is no reason any sensible person would expect this law to be anything but a censorship program.
Freedom of speech means freedom of speech! Hand off! STOP! Congress shall make no law! Do you understand?
Astroturfing is much more akin to ADVERTISING than honest opinion. It is not individual speech, or political speech. It is commercial speech. A firm has been paid to sell an idea. The same way another firm has been paid to sell a bottle of shampoo.
Except that the government does not want to supress shampoo comercials, the same way it would like to supress political speech that is critical of it's policies. G. W. Bush could care less if you like Head & Shoulders better than Herbal Essensces Shampoo... but he may push to have your Free-Speech Licence taken away if you blog against the war in Iraq.
You cannot have a democratic society, without political speech that completly free and unrestricted.
I don't think this is about giving more choice to consumers. Europe is full of monopolies like the BBC who agressively go after people for fees the same way the RIAA goes after people for file sharing, and countries like France where the "visual style" of clothing is considered and IP and people can go to jail for copying another's "style"... and the same EU that wants to make it illegal to sell Champaign that isn't from Champaign, or make it illegal to sell Parmisan cheese made outside of Parmigiano. Monopolies and restrictions in order to benifit certain companies and economic interests are rampant in Europe. There are hundreds of things hurting European consumers far worse than iTunes.
This action is more about protectionism, and scoring a few cheap political points with the anti-American populous by going after a visible U.S. corporation, than about protecting consumers. If the E.U. really wanted to protect consumers, they would simply ban all DRM, and the problem would be solved! Of course, then they would piss off big European media companies like Vivendi, who are looking to create a DRMed locked-in European digital music monopoly.
Yes, because we all know that the First Amendment and Freedom of Speech is just a big corporate propoganda tool, and as soon as we give the politicians in Washington (who are untainted and uncorrupted by corporations), the power to decide what sort of speech is legal and illegal, all our problems will go away.
Those foolish, foolish idiots at Slashdot, for not showing absolute faith in a U.S. government censorship regime! Don't they know that the only thing the government would censor, is bad-evil-terrible corporate propoganda!? No politician would ever use censorship for political gain... that is unthinkable.
Since Slashdot is not immune to the same sorts of underhanded marketing, it is only fair that we revoke Slashdot's Speech Licences and silence this dastardly corporate propoganda tool! Only when the voices of the people on Slashdot are silenced, can our benevolent leaders like The Great Bush protect us from the evil Corporations!
Political statements paid for by a campaign to get someone elected are NOT heavily shielded by the First Amendment.
NO!!! Absolutly wrong! ALL political statements are freedom of speech! All of them! Unconditionally! Otherwise it isn't freedom of speech. Supreme Court be damned, these are the same people who say it is Constitutional to send people to Gitmo for life without a trial.
If you support the regulation of political statements, you are against freedom of speech. Period. End of story. You are against freedom of speech! Period. End of story!
So the FSF and EFF pay their bloggers $100000 or more a year? I know a guy in the EFF who'd feel rather cheated if that were the case.
So no-one who blogs in favor of the EFF makes more than $100,000 a year? Because if they do, it doesn't matter if they get paid directly by the EFF or not. The people in power who might dislike the EFF could argue that the person was being indirectly paid for blogging... that they recieved their $100,000 a year job at Hypothetical Electronics Inc. with the understanding that they would blog in favor of the EFF.
Even if there isn't evidence enough to convict you of "Blogging Without a Licence"... there would be the legal costs of defending yourself, the legal costs Hypothetical Electronics Inc. would have in defending themselves... Hypothetical Electronics Inc. would most likely not allow their employees to blog anymore, as they could make them a target for investigation... there would be the damage to your reputation that comes with being investigated for such a thing. The power it would give the government to go after those who are critical of its policies would cause a chilling effect on blogging and freedom of speech. These kinds of laws are designed as tools to attack political rivals, not so protect the public.
Paid speech is not gratuit, but it is libre. Or to put it in Slashdot terms, there is Free-as-in-Beer, and Free-as-in-Speech. Paid speech is not Free-as-in-Beer (it does cost money), but it is supposed to be Free-as-in-Speech (no one is allowed to stop you from making said speech).
If you are against astroturf campaigns, you are most definitly against freedom of speech. It doesn't matter if you don't like the politics of a group, or you think it is dishonest, or sleazy, etc... Freedom of Speech is not "We allow speech that we all like". Freedom of speech means protecting even extremly unpopular speech like astroturfing.
I don't remember the exemption to the first amendment that says freedom of speech is revoked if you are paid to make the speech.
I do understand that the government does regulate paid speech... the government does also sponser anti-democratic military coups in foriegn countries, and send people off to Gitmo to be held indefinitly without trial. But those things are of very questionable constitutionality.
Requiring people to register in order to exercise their right to speech, even if they ARE paid to make the speech, is completly against the ideals of freedom of speech and public discourse. By selectively revoking the licence of those whome you disagree with, you can give one political group a distinct advantage over another political group.
What is shocking is how willing people are to give up freedom of speech, when they think freedom of speech might in some way benifit someone they don't like.
Can you, for example, tell me where the First Amendment says that you no longer have freedom of speech, if you get paid to make speeches on behalf of someone else?
So great, blogs aren't yet completly and utterly destroyed, like all other venues for political speech... it is only a matter of time until facists such as yourself are stepping up the pressure to licence and regulate blogs. "After all, dude, a buisness could, like, pay a blog to say stuff! I mean, I am all for freedom of speech, but not when there is a remote possibiliy that the speech may in some way benifit big buisness!"
Because enforcing laws against spam are like enforcing laws against oral sex. How exactly do you plan to track down and punish lawbreakers without big brother style surveillance?
My guess is you wouldn't be so annoyed if the speech he gave agreed with you! :)
Right now, saying "Net Neutrality" is like saying "Power to the people, man!". It is a nice slogan, but it doesn't mean anything until there is some real understanding and consensus on what Net Neutrality really means.
Right now, you don't have the vaugest idea of what any sort of Net Neutrality legislation would entail, because no sort of legislation has been written up. And right now, without any sort of Net Neutrality legislation, companies have yet to choke off bandwidth of less wealthy competitors. It continues to get easier and easier for small companies to compete with big companies over the internet. So you are essentially demanding a solution without knowing what that solution even is, to a problem that doesn't exist and may never exist.
Net Neutrality legislation could indeed be a nightmare that cripples innovation in the internet, in the same way there have been virtually no improvements in land line telephone service since I was born. Net Neutrality legislation could be so gobbled up by special interest lobbying in government to be something 100% completly different than what you want it to be.
The kind of rabid foaming at the mouth mindless support of "Net Neutrality" that you show can be easily exploited. A few big corporations push their client politicians for a "New Neutrality" bill that is full of restrictions that benifit big corporations, and all the "Net Neutrality" zealots jump on supporting it because it vaugly promises "Net Neutrality", and end up promoting legislation that has the complete opposite effect of what "Net Neutrality" is supposed to accomplish - and when someone tries to criticize the legislation as actually being bad for the little guy, you will jump on it with a mindless "NET NEUTRALITY IS NEEDED TO SAVE US FROM THE BIG CORPORATIONS!!! ANYONE WHO OPPOSED NET NEUTRALITY IS FOR THE BIG CORPORATIONS!!! YOU MUST SUPPORT THIS NET NEUTRALITY LEGISLATION OR YOU ARE AN EVIL PUPPET OF THE CORPORATION!!! NET NEUTRALITY GOOD, FIRE BAD!!!! NET NEUTRALITY!!!".
I mean, you support the "Patriot Act", correct? WHAT? You don't support it "Patriot Act"? Why, anyone who would oppose "Patriotism" must be an evil anti-American terrorist! Why are you siding with the evil terrorists? See how easy it is to abuse vauge meaningless non-technical terms like "Net Neutrality" or "Patriot"?
Right now, "Net Neutrality" is a word game. It means nothing until actual legislation is drafted, and then that legislation can be judged on its own merits instead of some empty slogan that may or may not really be what it promises!
You find health food in richer states. Poor areas won't have much health food available, rich areas will have health food available. Part of the reason is because of the restrictions placed on healthy food (and the government subsidies on unhealthy stuff, like corn syrup).