No, they are more easily controlled by their gov't, because as long as you give them their precious little guns, they will vote for you and not complain about anything else (mentioning God doesn't hurt either). One good troll deserves another.
Can you tell me this party that you speak of? Cause I would like to vote for them! Both the Democrats and Republicans seem firmly commited to gun control.
It is true that the U.S.A. is the only country name to include "America"... But using that logic, could a Mexican claim to be from the U.S.? (after all, they are from Estados Unidos Mexicanos, and "Americans" are from Estados Unidos de América - So Mexicans can claim to be from the United States of Mexico).
Yeah, yeah, I know that without the "de" it is more like "United Mexican States"... But still, you get the picture.
Unlike the PS2 launch, there is competition from the 360. It isn't just that if the price is high, people will wait to purchase the PS3... it is that if the price is high, people will buy the cheaper 360 instead. And most people will only buy one console.
When little Jimmy is looking to get a next-gen system for X-mas, and his parents have a choice between bidding $1000 on ebay, or walking into Walmart and dropping $500 on the 360... easy choice! Especially when the cheaper console means Jimmy can get way more games.
Maybe Jimmy may be in the market for a PS3 the following X-mas, or maybe even for his birthday during the summer... but maybe he rather get 5 more games instead of a new console, especially when the PS3 aren't that much more advanced.
Basicly, the PS3 is being marketed under the assumption that every gamer is a rabid Sony fanboy, and won't even consider an Xbox 360. Maybe that is even true to some extent. But that is a pretty risky move to bet the farm on, know what I mean?
What happened with screaming children before Anti-Social Behavior Orders? What did people in the UK do before they could call in the SWAT team to shut-up the neighbors children? You do realize that going to court to threaten people with the police is a lot less social than talking to your neighbor, explaining the situation, and asking them to do something about it.
Did it ever occure to you that maybe the reason for all this anti-social behavior is that government is replacing consentual social interaction with regimatation? Or that the ASBO could be themselves used to commit anti-social behavior (by harrassing other people with the power of the state).
I live in an urban enviornment, and I deal with loud noises all the time. That is just the drawbacks of living in an urban area. If there needs to be some sort of regulation on sound, it should be a law based on some strictly objective criteria (such as the decible level of noise). That way you make sure that the guy listening to his hip-hop records while having a BBQ doesn't get in trouble (because he is young and black and listens to rap music), while the old lady watching television at full volume next door with the windows gets a free ride (because no-one is going to file a ASBO against that sweet old lady).
One of the reasons for having the legal system is that it is supposed to treat everyone equally under the law... When random people can undemocraticly create arbitrary laws that only certain people must follow, you MUST understand the potential for discrimination and abuse!
Sorry if some of my comments come off as hostile towards you. Some things are said in a tounge and cheek manner and some things just to be provocative (It tends to get more attention on Slashdot to take a more extreme and assertive position), and without vocal cues or facial expressions to understand someone's tone, certain things probably come off ruder than they would sound if people were having the discussion in person. So I apologize for any offense I caused.
The example you give is a perfect example of ASBOS abuse.
There is lots of graffiti in the park... do they put a camera in the park and get real evidence of vandalism? Increase partrols and catch someone in the act?
No! Instead, without a trial or any evidence, they deny law abiding citizens the right to use the public services that they pay for.
"But, you don't understand... these were DRUNKS!!! Well we didn't give them blood tests and charge them with public intoxication... we don't have too, we know they were scum! SCUM! They were wearing old clothes like they were poor or something, they were laughing and smiling, AND SOME WERE NOT EVEN WHITE!!! We sure showed those dirty scummy people not to come around our neighborhood!"
This is old fashion "run the gypsies out of town" style vigilante justice, wrapped in politically correct government-technocratic rhetoric.
Restraining orders aren't for arbitrary behavior... A restraining order is for only one specific thing: to keep a person away from another person. But even in that limited form restraining orders are given out frivilously and very much abused (for example, the woman who was stalking David Letterman got a restraining order that banned any communication from David Letterman, including TV broadcasts. Of course the order wasn't enforced, but David Letterman was technically breaking the wording of a legal restraining order by doing his television show. A lot of woman use restraining orders against men when they are ordered by courts to give joint custody to their husbands. Restraining orders are given out without a second thought, where as to actually win exclusive custody in a family court requires real evidence and legal procedure. A friend of mine was on a jury duty, where a woman got a restraining order against a man, then called him up telling him to call her back, and then when he called her back she had him arrested for violating the restraining order.). So even something as simple as a restraining order can be abused.
However, an Anti-Social Behavior Order, being almost limitless, has vast more potential for abuse. For example, people have gotten Anti-Social Behavior Orders against neighbors from letting their children play in the yard. For a kid, not being able to play outside is practicly a form of torture. Kids everyone go outside, and they yell and scream and have fun, and you live in a sick society if kids playing in the back yard can be deemed "anti-social".
Or, playing loud music or making loud sounds can be deemed anti-social. Now, I have a feeling that "loud music" will not be the local Anglican church choir, or it's church bells... but it may include a punk rock band playing in their basement, or a muslim call to prayers. It is free reign for people to enforce their personal tast through the courts and criminal system.
I have even heard that a guy got an ASBO for "leering". Apparently he liked to sit on his porch and relax and watch people walk by. But I guess people don't like to be looked at, so the guy had to learn that his right to use his sense of sight ends where someone else's right not to feel even the remotest bit uncomfortable begins!
People go to jail for violating Anti-Social Behavior Orders. Anti-Social Behavior Orders aren't like throwing a person into jail without trial, they are like making a law without a democratic process that applies to only certain people.
I am in Canada, so I don't have access to all the info you have in the U.K., but I was under the impression that Antisocial Behavior Orders where seen as a "progressive" and "democratic" thing, and have broad support from all parties. The Right love it because it is "tough" on "criminals", and the Left love it because it provides the aparatus for social engineering, and the middle of the road people love it because it is populist.
I don't really think voting out the labour party will have any effect, as it seems to be part of a larger ideological shift towards more and more government control over people's lives (this shift seems to be a global thing, by the way). People in the UK, like many people elsewhere, are having a love affair with authority and government. As long as people see firm government action as the solution to all problems, then tools to allow government to take more firm action are going to be popular. Government can't save us all if it has it's hands tied, right?
Why do people always bring up Somalia as their symbol for an Anarchist society? Somalia was controled by Imperialist European governments (Italians, British) for hundreds of years. In 1960 when the British granted independence, the British formed the state encompassing several traditionally seperate ethic groups for the purpose of causing internal struggle and making the country easy to control (as the European powers liked to do when granting "independence"). There was a coup and military dictatorship, and the economy was destroyed by "scientific socialist" central-planning, and civil war funded by foriegn governments as Somalia was a pawn in the cold war and various other governments had their eye on natural resources there.
Somalia's government and foriegn governments spend years actively destroying the country, and eventually all central authority collapsed under it's own weight. The crises in Somalia was caused by governments. There was never, ever, ever any ideologic move to reduce centralized government in Somalia. To imply that the destruction of Somalia happened without direct government participation, or that there was some sort of Anarchist movement in Somalia, is pure fantasy.
You can't have governments doing everything in their power to destroy a country, and then other governments start occupying that country, and when governments finally annialate the economy and social structure, blame the chaos on Anarchy or lack of government. Without generations of enslavement, imperialism, foriegn domination, and bad state economic policies, I am sure the people of Somalia would have a much more peaceful and prosperous country anarchy or not.
IG Farben or British East India Company were agents acting on behalf of the state. They had the blessing of the political elite who ran the state. Nazi Germany operated under central planning by the Nazi regime... and British East India Company was granted a charter and monopoly by the government, so it was more like a state-owned railway or airline than a private company.
In terms of corporations hiring mercanaries, they is pretty much what a government is. Here is the dictionary definition of corporation:
1. A body that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members. 2. Such a body created for purposes of government. Also called body corporate. 3. A group of people combined into or acting as one body. 4. Informal. A protruding abdominal region; a potbelly.
A corporation that uses violence and gets a monopoly on a certain geographic area is called a government. Government vs. corporations is a contradiction.
1. It was common knowledge for educated people at the time of Columbus to know the world was not flat. 2. The Columbus expedition pretty much was the cause of wholesale genocide and 500 years of oppression.
So maybe Columbus isn't the best analogy to choose.
A little off topic: No doubt the Americas would be discovered by Europeans at some point - but I would think America being discovered by pacifist pilgrims escaping forced military service in Europe, or perhaps merchants looking to trade with foriegn people, or even just crazed pirates, instead of an envoy for a government looking to conquer new lands, would have been better.
Can someone tell me why this isn't as outragious as spending tax money to research "intelligent design"? I mean, there is no real scientific theory that describes how telepathy would work, and virtually all scientific evidence says that telepathy doesn't exist. Telepathy is pretty much to fortune telling what Intelligent Design is to creationism - turning superstition into pseudo-science to make it palatable to the modern audience. I realize that England doesn't have the same strict legal seperation between religion and state as other countries, but even if research into the mystical and supernatural isn't strictly illegal it is certainly a questionable use of taxpayer money, no?
Why are people outraged over Intelligent Design but not this kind of stuff?
Whatever... you realize that plenty of people have been trying to get an island or piece of land to start peaceful anarchist societies for a very long time. The problem is every inch of land on the planet is claimed by a government. Even absolutely remote and deserted islands in the middle of the ocean have been claimed. And governments have shown that they are willing to go to war for the rights to even the most worthless rocks.
Despite that, the very rare cases when people have been able to form at least some sort of anarchist society, they are quite successful. For example, Freetown Chirstiania was pretty successful (until the government started attacking it) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania... Also, Burning Man is a temporary Anarchist Society, and they seem to do extremly well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Man...
And, plenty of societies with extremly smaller governments compared to the U.S. (such as Switzerland, Iceland, Hong Kong) that seem to be doing quite well... although they are not anarchist, they are perfect examples that 95% of what the U.S. government spends our money on does absolutly nothing for it's citizens.
So, um, yeah, prove those foolish anarchists wrong by giving them a place where they can live peacefuly.
The government is there to protect us from the excesses of capitalism. That is because corporations in the past worked us 7 days a week and 12 hours a day, including children. That is because corporations used to dictate that you live in the corporate housing and buy from the corporate stores and made sure that your pay never exceeded your rent nor your grocery bills, all in an attempt to make you their virtual slaves. That is because corporations used to hire armed thugs to intimidate or kill anyone who even thought about improving conditions for corporate workers. The people eventually forced the government to step in and change all that. And our businesses have become the best in the world despite all these "hostile" regulations regarding workers.
That is pro-government mythology that you learned in your government provided education. Virtually all the improvements in working conditions, limiting working hours to 40 hours a week, and eliminating child labor, happened before government legislated on those issues. They came as a result of technological improvements, the demand for skilled labor, and as a result of organized labor and collective bargaining. That is why Socialist countries like India, who have worker protection laws that far exceed our own (I believe they have them written right into their constitution), still have brutal sweatshops and child labor. Societies that are rich and prosperous enough not to need child labor won't use child labor regardless of what the law says (only desperately poor people would send their children to work in sweat shops), and countries that have a desperate need for labor in order to survive aren't going to commit economic suicide just to comply with child labor laws. Even Karl Marx, who can hardly be accused of being a capitalist, recognized this when he said "social conditions follow the material forces of production". (Karl Marx didn't advocate Socialism because he thought it was more "just" or "fair", he advocated it because he thought it was a more productive economic system and economic productivity inevitably leads to social justice) The government only limited the work week and passed child labor laws after those practices were already ubiquitous. The government could claim credit for social change that was the inevitable result of technological improvement and activism by private citizens, in the same way G. W. Bush claims credit for the low crime rate that is really part of a 30 year trend.
But, let's see how the situation actually is today... The President is a former corporate businessman with an MBA. The Vice-President is the former CEO of Halliburton. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is a former corporate lawyer. The congressional leaders of both political parties are owned by corporations. In fact, corporations are known to write the bills that Congress passes into law. If the "U.S. is so hostile to business", then I certainly do NOT see it.
Wait a second... a minute ago you were telling us that it was the government protecting us from corporations by passing regulations, and now you are saying the government is owned by the corporations. If our government is owned by corporations, then where did the 100,000 (low estimate) pages of federal regulations come from? And why do regulations, and the cost of compliance, keep increasing in the United States? Either the corporations are not really in charge, or destroying jobs and economic growth by regulation is in the self-interest of those corporations that "own" the government.
When corporations lobby the government, they lobby for MORE REGULATION!!! Virtually all regulation is lobbied for by a handful of corporate interests. For example, Enron funded most of the lobbying FOR the Kyoto Protocol in the U.S., hoping that energy rationing would increase the value of already existing power production. Regulation that makes doing business in the U.S. prohibitively expensive for those without large amounts of capital is desirable to the handful of corporations that already ha
Large businesses do the same thing. The difference is that the government has to at least pretend to be acting in the interest of the voters.
First of all, buisnesses CAN'T do the same things as governments. Buisnesses don't throw people in jail! Buisnesses don't bomb countries! Buisnesses don't put people in prison camps to be tortured. Buisnesses don't take parents children away from them for practicing a minority religion. It has no armies, no police force, and no way to charge taxes.
Compare the "crimes" of McDonalds, or Microsoft, or General Motors, to even a relatively "benevolent" and democratic country like the U.S. (Let alone Communist states, Facist states, etc.), and there is absolutly nothing that any of these companies did that could compare with napalming villages in Vietnam, or throwing 2 million U.S. citizens in prison for non-violent crimes, etc. And when you start bring Mao, or Stalin, or Hitler, or Pol Pot, or any other socialist dictator, buisness and government are obviously in totally different universes.
You gotta be insane, absolutly out of touch with any sort of reality, to for any reason believe that a buisness is anywhere near as sinister as even the most democratic governments.
And people here call me nuts when I suggest slashdot is crawling with Austrian-School anarchist whackjobs..../me rolls eyes. Take all these "anarcho-capitalists" and put them on a desert island for a week... the one left alive after that week probably wont be an anarcho-capitalist anymore.../me is center-seeking and dislikes all extreemes.
So you suggest rounding up those you disagree with, and sending them to a camp to slowly die. When Stalinist bullshit like this is your model of "center-seeking" and "moderation", is it any wonder there are so many people looking for an ideology that is less bloodthirsty and psychopathic than your own.
The question is why companies choose to outsource rather than automate...
I would say that the U.S. government and political system is creating a situation where the U.S. is so hostile to buisness and industrial production that it creates every incentive for outsourcing. If you see buisness as inherently bad, if you see factories as scourges on the earth, and create a whole slew of legislation, laws, restrictions, inspections, designed to restrict, punish, and discourage industrial production and productivity, well then how can you be suprised when people aren't in a big hurry to get the hell out?
You can't have your cake, and eat it too. You can't be ideologically commited to harming buisness, making it more expensive, making it more difficult, and be actively creating disincentives for doing buisness in your country - and then complain when the buisnesses leave!
Now you may argue that all those laws, rules, regulations, taxes, and disincentives create some sort of "social good". This is dubious, very few regulations have the effect that is intended. But assuming for the sake of arguement that all the things that we do to restrict buisness provide some sort of social good, well then you have to accept outsourcing as the cost of enjoying those social goods.
Americans have accepted that the social benifits provided by being able to sue your employer into bankrupcy for telling a joke you find offensive, or having family buisnesses confiscated when their bathroom stalls are 3 millimetres too small for handicap access regulations, or closing down a factory because it doesn't dispose of tap water from a garden hose in proper toxic chemical containers, are worth any price. The price you pay for those awesome social benifits is that the only buisnesses that will be left in America are Walmart and Taco Bell. That Taco Bell job may suck, but at least you have the security of knowing that no-one will say anything even remotely offensive to anyone, and that a guy in a wheelchair won't have the slightest problem taking a shit.
Hopefully most buisness don't have a disaster recovery plan. The likelyhood of any buisness being a victim of some major disaster is quite low, and the costs of being prepared are quite high. While certain industries, such as health care, transportation, investment and financial services, essential foods, are critical to society and I am willing to pay a premium to make sure those services are prepared for a disaster - I am not willing to pay a premium on a bottle of cola or a pair of underwear in order to make sure they are disaster prepared. If the cost I must bear for paying less for non-essential consumer items is that my supply of cola or undergarments might be disrupted for a few months, then I am willing to make that trade off.
Corollary: Business puts a low value on human existence.
Which is why we should be against buisness, and for giving more power to the state. Because if there is anything that Mao, Stalin, Chowchesku, Pol Pot, Hitler, Castro (and insert any other socialist dictator of your choice) have tought us, is that when you eliminate private buisness then you have a blossoming of human rights and value of human life it truly appreciated.
Yeah, and never mind that Iceland and New Zealand are amoung the most unrestricted free-market economies in the world! And that free-markets are a relatively new and still limited in India and China, which were pretty much hardcore Socialist until the last few years. Yeah, it couldn't possibly be that the people are easily exploited in India and China because of the desperate poverty created by years of mismanaged central planning, forced labour, or rigid caste system - it is all those evil evil evil buisnessmen!
If only we were valued as much as the people in buisness-free North Korea! We can only dream!
No no no... They are not worried there might be an IT outage from a terrorist attack, they are giddy and happy that if there are lots of terrorist attacks in India, that maybe "them indians will stop stealing our jobs"! The article is your typical Slashdot FUD: "See, move your IT to India and it will get blowed up!"
Hopefully after they ban gambling to save all the gambling "addicts", they will do something to save the poor sex addicts! I know you might like to have sex responsibly, but hey, you got to be forced to make that sacrifice for the sake of these victimized "addicts"!:)
But seriously, there is easy access to gambling 24-7 anywhere in the United States. The only question is if it is easy access to LEGAL gambling, or easy access to ILLEGAL gambling. If your friends are too weak to not gamble, they are going to get screwed no-matter what. At least with legal gambling your weak minded friends don't have to worry about getting their throat cut when they can't pay their debts.
Slashdot Mirror
No, they are more easily controlled by their gov't, because as long as you give them their precious little guns, they will vote for you and not complain about anything else (mentioning God doesn't hurt either). One good troll deserves another.
Can you tell me this party that you speak of? Cause I would like to vote for them! Both the Democrats and Republicans seem firmly commited to gun control.
The only Mario game I liked was SMB2. Now I know why!
It is true that the U.S.A. is the only country name to include "America"... But using that logic, could a Mexican claim to be from the U.S.? (after all, they are from Estados Unidos Mexicanos, and "Americans" are from Estados Unidos de América - So Mexicans can claim to be from the United States of Mexico).
Yeah, yeah, I know that without the "de" it is more like "United Mexican States"... But still, you get the picture.
This of it as a toy instead of a game. Like a programmable robot, or an ant farm, or something like that.
Unlike the PS2 launch, there is competition from the 360. It isn't just that if the price is high, people will wait to purchase the PS3... it is that if the price is high, people will buy the cheaper 360 instead. And most people will only buy one console.
When little Jimmy is looking to get a next-gen system for X-mas, and his parents have a choice between bidding $1000 on ebay, or walking into Walmart and dropping $500 on the 360... easy choice! Especially when the cheaper console means Jimmy can get way more games.
Maybe Jimmy may be in the market for a PS3 the following X-mas, or maybe even for his birthday during the summer... but maybe he rather get 5 more games instead of a new console, especially when the PS3 aren't that much more advanced.
Basicly, the PS3 is being marketed under the assumption that every gamer is a rabid Sony fanboy, and won't even consider an Xbox 360. Maybe that is even true to some extent. But that is a pretty risky move to bet the farm on, know what I mean?
What happened with screaming children before Anti-Social Behavior Orders? What did people in the UK do before they could call in the SWAT team to shut-up the neighbors children? You do realize that going to court to threaten people with the police is a lot less social than talking to your neighbor, explaining the situation, and asking them to do something about it.
Did it ever occure to you that maybe the reason for all this anti-social behavior is that government is replacing consentual social interaction with regimatation? Or that the ASBO could be themselves used to commit anti-social behavior (by harrassing other people with the power of the state).
I live in an urban enviornment, and I deal with loud noises all the time. That is just the drawbacks of living in an urban area. If there needs to be some sort of regulation on sound, it should be a law based on some strictly objective criteria (such as the decible level of noise). That way you make sure that the guy listening to his hip-hop records while having a BBQ doesn't get in trouble (because he is young and black and listens to rap music), while the old lady watching television at full volume next door with the windows gets a free ride (because no-one is going to file a ASBO against that sweet old lady).
One of the reasons for having the legal system is that it is supposed to treat everyone equally under the law... When random people can undemocraticly create arbitrary laws that only certain people must follow, you MUST understand the potential for discrimination and abuse!
Hey Vicissidude,
Sorry if some of my comments come off as hostile towards you. Some things are said in a tounge and cheek manner and some things just to be provocative (It tends to get more attention on Slashdot to take a more extreme and assertive position), and without vocal cues or facial expressions to understand someone's tone, certain things probably come off ruder than they would sound if people were having the discussion in person. So I apologize for any offense I caused.
The example you give is a perfect example of ASBOS abuse.
There is lots of graffiti in the park... do they put a camera in the park and get real evidence of vandalism? Increase partrols and catch someone in the act?
No! Instead, without a trial or any evidence, they deny law abiding citizens the right to use the public services that they pay for.
"But, you don't understand... these were DRUNKS!!! Well we didn't give them blood tests and charge them with public intoxication... we don't have too, we know they were scum! SCUM! They were wearing old clothes like they were poor or something, they were laughing and smiling, AND SOME WERE NOT EVEN WHITE!!! We sure showed those dirty scummy people not to come around our neighborhood!"
This is old fashion "run the gypsies out of town" style vigilante justice, wrapped in politically correct government-technocratic rhetoric.
Restraining orders aren't for arbitrary behavior... A restraining order is for only one specific thing: to keep a person away from another person. But even in that limited form restraining orders are given out frivilously and very much abused (for example, the woman who was stalking David Letterman got a restraining order that banned any communication from David Letterman, including TV broadcasts. Of course the order wasn't enforced, but David Letterman was technically breaking the wording of a legal restraining order by doing his television show. A lot of woman use restraining orders against men when they are ordered by courts to give joint custody to their husbands. Restraining orders are given out without a second thought, where as to actually win exclusive custody in a family court requires real evidence and legal procedure. A friend of mine was on a jury duty, where a woman got a restraining order against a man, then called him up telling him to call her back, and then when he called her back she had him arrested for violating the restraining order.). So even something as simple as a restraining order can be abused.
However, an Anti-Social Behavior Order, being almost limitless, has vast more potential for abuse. For example, people have gotten Anti-Social Behavior Orders against neighbors from letting their children play in the yard. For a kid, not being able to play outside is practicly a form of torture. Kids everyone go outside, and they yell and scream and have fun, and you live in a sick society if kids playing in the back yard can be deemed "anti-social".
Or, playing loud music or making loud sounds can be deemed anti-social. Now, I have a feeling that "loud music" will not be the local Anglican church choir, or it's church bells... but it may include a punk rock band playing in their basement, or a muslim call to prayers. It is free reign for people to enforce their personal tast through the courts and criminal system.
I have even heard that a guy got an ASBO for "leering". Apparently he liked to sit on his porch and relax and watch people walk by. But I guess people don't like to be looked at, so the guy had to learn that his right to use his sense of sight ends where someone else's right not to feel even the remotest bit uncomfortable begins!
Don't try to blame ASBOs on Mr. Bush. He may be a facist, but the left are just as in love with these kinds of social engineering bullshit.
People go to jail for violating Anti-Social Behavior Orders. Anti-Social Behavior Orders aren't like throwing a person into jail without trial, they are like making a law without a democratic process that applies to only certain people.
I am in Canada, so I don't have access to all the info you have in the U.K., but I was under the impression that Antisocial Behavior Orders where seen as a "progressive" and "democratic" thing, and have broad support from all parties. The Right love it because it is "tough" on "criminals", and the Left love it because it provides the aparatus for social engineering, and the middle of the road people love it because it is populist.
I don't really think voting out the labour party will have any effect, as it seems to be part of a larger ideological shift towards more and more government control over people's lives (this shift seems to be a global thing, by the way). People in the UK, like many people elsewhere, are having a love affair with authority and government. As long as people see firm government action as the solution to all problems, then tools to allow government to take more firm action are going to be popular. Government can't save us all if it has it's hands tied, right?
Why do people always bring up Somalia as their symbol for an Anarchist society? Somalia was controled by Imperialist European governments (Italians, British) for hundreds of years. In 1960 when the British granted independence, the British formed the state encompassing several traditionally seperate ethic groups for the purpose of causing internal struggle and making the country easy to control (as the European powers liked to do when granting "independence"). There was a coup and military dictatorship, and the economy was destroyed by "scientific socialist" central-planning, and civil war funded by foriegn governments as Somalia was a pawn in the cold war and various other governments had their eye on natural resources there.
Somalia's government and foriegn governments spend years actively destroying the country, and eventually all central authority collapsed under it's own weight. The crises in Somalia was caused by governments. There was never, ever, ever any ideologic move to reduce centralized government in Somalia. To imply that the destruction of Somalia happened without direct government participation, or that there was some sort of Anarchist movement in Somalia, is pure fantasy.
You can't have governments doing everything in their power to destroy a country, and then other governments start occupying that country, and when governments finally annialate the economy and social structure, blame the chaos on Anarchy or lack of government. Without generations of enslavement, imperialism, foriegn domination, and bad state economic policies, I am sure the people of Somalia would have a much more peaceful and prosperous country anarchy or not.
IG Farben or British East India Company were agents acting on behalf of the state. They had the blessing of the political elite who ran the state. Nazi Germany operated under central planning by the Nazi regime... and British East India Company was granted a charter and monopoly by the government, so it was more like a state-owned railway or airline than a private company.
In terms of corporations hiring mercanaries, they is pretty much what a government is. Here is the dictionary definition of corporation:
1. A body that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members.
2. Such a body created for purposes of government. Also called body corporate.
3. A group of people combined into or acting as one body.
4. Informal. A protruding abdominal region; a potbelly.
A corporation that uses violence and gets a monopoly on a certain geographic area is called a government. Government vs. corporations is a contradiction.
1. It was common knowledge for educated people at the time of Columbus to know the world was not flat.
2. The Columbus expedition pretty much was the cause of wholesale genocide and 500 years of oppression.
So maybe Columbus isn't the best analogy to choose.
A little off topic: No doubt the Americas would be discovered by Europeans at some point - but I would think America being discovered by pacifist pilgrims escaping forced military service in Europe, or perhaps merchants looking to trade with foriegn people, or even just crazed pirates, instead of an envoy for a government looking to conquer new lands, would have been better.
Can someone tell me why this isn't as outragious as spending tax money to research "intelligent design"? I mean, there is no real scientific theory that describes how telepathy would work, and virtually all scientific evidence says that telepathy doesn't exist. Telepathy is pretty much to fortune telling what Intelligent Design is to creationism - turning superstition into pseudo-science to make it palatable to the modern audience. I realize that England doesn't have the same strict legal seperation between religion and state as other countries, but even if research into the mystical and supernatural isn't strictly illegal it is certainly a questionable use of taxpayer money, no?
Why are people outraged over Intelligent Design but not this kind of stuff?
Whatever... you realize that plenty of people have been trying to get an island or piece of land to start peaceful anarchist societies for a very long time. The problem is every inch of land on the planet is claimed by a government. Even absolutely remote and deserted islands in the middle of the ocean have been claimed. And governments have shown that they are willing to go to war for the rights to even the most worthless rocks.
... Also, Burning Man is a temporary Anarchist Society, and they seem to do extremly well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Man ...
Despite that, the very rare cases when people have been able to form at least some sort of anarchist society, they are quite successful. For example, Freetown Chirstiania was pretty successful (until the government started attacking it) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania
And, plenty of societies with extremly smaller governments compared to the U.S. (such as Switzerland, Iceland, Hong Kong) that seem to be doing quite well... although they are not anarchist, they are perfect examples that 95% of what the U.S. government spends our money on does absolutly nothing for it's citizens.
So, um, yeah, prove those foolish anarchists wrong by giving them a place where they can live peacefuly.
The government is there to protect us from the excesses of capitalism. That is because corporations in the past worked us 7 days a week and 12 hours a day, including children. That is because corporations used to dictate that you live in the corporate housing and buy from the corporate stores and made sure that your pay never exceeded your rent nor your grocery bills, all in an attempt to make you their virtual slaves. That is because corporations used to hire armed thugs to intimidate or kill anyone who even thought about improving conditions for corporate workers. The people eventually forced the government to step in and change all that. And our businesses have become the best in the world despite all these "hostile" regulations regarding workers.
That is pro-government mythology that you learned in your government provided education. Virtually all the improvements in working conditions, limiting working hours to 40 hours a week, and eliminating child labor, happened before government legislated on those issues. They came as a result of technological improvements, the demand for skilled labor, and as a result of organized labor and collective bargaining. That is why Socialist countries like India, who have worker protection laws that far exceed our own (I believe they have them written right into their constitution), still have brutal sweatshops and child labor. Societies that are rich and prosperous enough not to need child labor won't use child labor regardless of what the law says (only desperately poor people would send their children to work in sweat shops), and countries that have a desperate need for labor in order to survive aren't going to commit economic suicide just to comply with child labor laws. Even Karl Marx, who can hardly be accused of being a capitalist, recognized this when he said "social conditions follow the material forces of production". (Karl Marx didn't advocate Socialism because he thought it was more "just" or "fair", he advocated it because he thought it was a more productive economic system and economic productivity inevitably leads to social justice) The government only limited the work week and passed child labor laws after those practices were already ubiquitous. The government could claim credit for social change that was the inevitable result of technological improvement and activism by private citizens, in the same way G. W. Bush claims credit for the low crime rate that is really part of a 30 year trend.
But, let's see how the situation actually is today... The President is a former corporate businessman with an MBA. The Vice-President is the former CEO of Halliburton. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is a former corporate lawyer. The congressional leaders of both political parties are owned by corporations. In fact, corporations are known to write the bills that Congress passes into law. If the "U.S. is so hostile to business", then I certainly do NOT see it.
Wait a second... a minute ago you were telling us that it was the government protecting us from corporations by passing regulations, and now you are saying the government is owned by the corporations. If our government is owned by corporations, then where did the 100,000 (low estimate) pages of federal regulations come from? And why do regulations, and the cost of compliance, keep increasing in the United States? Either the corporations are not really in charge, or destroying jobs and economic growth by regulation is in the self-interest of those corporations that "own" the government.
When corporations lobby the government, they lobby for MORE REGULATION!!! Virtually all regulation is lobbied for by a handful of corporate interests. For example, Enron funded most of the lobbying FOR the Kyoto Protocol in the U.S., hoping that energy rationing would increase the value of already existing power production. Regulation that makes doing business in the U.S. prohibitively expensive for those without large amounts of capital is desirable to the handful of corporations that already ha
Large businesses do the same thing. The difference is that the government has to at least pretend to be acting in the interest of the voters.
First of all, buisnesses CAN'T do the same things as governments. Buisnesses don't throw people in jail! Buisnesses don't bomb countries! Buisnesses don't put people in prison camps to be tortured. Buisnesses don't take parents children away from them for practicing a minority religion. It has no armies, no police force, and no way to charge taxes.
Compare the "crimes" of McDonalds, or Microsoft, or General Motors, to even a relatively "benevolent" and democratic country like the U.S. (Let alone Communist states, Facist states, etc.), and there is absolutly nothing that any of these companies did that could compare with napalming villages in Vietnam, or throwing 2 million U.S. citizens in prison for non-violent crimes, etc. And when you start bring Mao, or Stalin, or Hitler, or Pol Pot, or any other socialist dictator, buisness and government are obviously in totally different universes.
You gotta be insane, absolutly out of touch with any sort of reality, to for any reason believe that a buisness is anywhere near as sinister as even the most democratic governments.
And people here call me nuts when I suggest slashdot is crawling with Austrian-School anarchist whackjobs.... /me rolls eyes. Take all these "anarcho-capitalists" and put them on a desert island for a week ... the one left alive after that week probably wont be an anarcho-capitalist anymore... /me is center-seeking and dislikes all extreemes.
So you suggest rounding up those you disagree with, and sending them to a camp to slowly die. When Stalinist bullshit like this is your model of "center-seeking" and "moderation", is it any wonder there are so many people looking for an ideology that is less bloodthirsty and psychopathic than your own.
The question is why companies choose to outsource rather than automate...
I would say that the U.S. government and political system is creating a situation where the U.S. is so hostile to buisness and industrial production that it creates every incentive for outsourcing. If you see buisness as inherently bad, if you see factories as scourges on the earth, and create a whole slew of legislation, laws, restrictions, inspections, designed to restrict, punish, and discourage industrial production and productivity, well then how can you be suprised when people aren't in a big hurry to get the hell out?
You can't have your cake, and eat it too. You can't be ideologically commited to harming buisness, making it more expensive, making it more difficult, and be actively creating disincentives for doing buisness in your country - and then complain when the buisnesses leave!
Now you may argue that all those laws, rules, regulations, taxes, and disincentives create some sort of "social good". This is dubious, very few regulations have the effect that is intended. But assuming for the sake of arguement that all the things that we do to restrict buisness provide some sort of social good, well then you have to accept outsourcing as the cost of enjoying those social goods.
Americans have accepted that the social benifits provided by being able to sue your employer into bankrupcy for telling a joke you find offensive, or having family buisnesses confiscated when their bathroom stalls are 3 millimetres too small for handicap access regulations, or closing down a factory because it doesn't dispose of tap water from a garden hose in proper toxic chemical containers, are worth any price. The price you pay for those awesome social benifits is that the only buisnesses that will be left in America are Walmart and Taco Bell. That Taco Bell job may suck, but at least you have the security of knowing that no-one will say anything even remotely offensive to anyone, and that a guy in a wheelchair won't have the slightest problem taking a shit.
Hopefully most buisness don't have a disaster recovery plan. The likelyhood of any buisness being a victim of some major disaster is quite low, and the costs of being prepared are quite high. While certain industries, such as health care, transportation, investment and financial services, essential foods, are critical to society and I am willing to pay a premium to make sure those services are prepared for a disaster - I am not willing to pay a premium on a bottle of cola or a pair of underwear in order to make sure they are disaster prepared. If the cost I must bear for paying less for non-essential consumer items is that my supply of cola or undergarments might be disrupted for a few months, then I am willing to make that trade off.
Corollary: Business puts a low value on human existence.
Which is why we should be against buisness, and for giving more power to the state. Because if there is anything that Mao, Stalin, Chowchesku, Pol Pot, Hitler, Castro (and insert any other socialist dictator of your choice) have tought us, is that when you eliminate private buisness then you have a blossoming of human rights and value of human life it truly appreciated.
Yeah, and never mind that Iceland and New Zealand are amoung the most unrestricted free-market economies in the world! And that free-markets are a relatively new and still limited in India and China, which were pretty much hardcore Socialist until the last few years. Yeah, it couldn't possibly be that the people are easily exploited in India and China because of the desperate poverty created by years of mismanaged central planning, forced labour, or rigid caste system - it is all those evil evil evil buisnessmen!
If only we were valued as much as the people in buisness-free North Korea! We can only dream!
No no no... They are not worried there might be an IT outage from a terrorist attack, they are giddy and happy that if there are lots of terrorist attacks in India, that maybe "them indians will stop stealing our jobs"! The article is your typical Slashdot FUD: "See, move your IT to India and it will get blowed up!"
Hopefully after they ban gambling to save all the gambling "addicts", they will do something to save the poor sex addicts! I know you might like to have sex responsibly, but hey, you got to be forced to make that sacrifice for the sake of these victimized "addicts"! :)
But seriously, there is easy access to gambling 24-7 anywhere in the United States. The only question is if it is easy access to LEGAL gambling, or easy access to ILLEGAL gambling. If your friends are too weak to not gamble, they are going to get screwed no-matter what. At least with legal gambling your weak minded friends don't have to worry about getting their throat cut when they can't pay their debts.