Nice. You compare something like repealing a tax, which is inherently anti-authoritarian, to something like camera monitoring, which is inherently authoritarian.
Stop trying to promote your own, albeit slightly different, totalitarian agenda by mixing it up with our anti-totalitarian agenda.
Without the massive taxation powers that the government now has, it couldn't afford to build a police state because police states are very very expensive. Every cent less we give the government is a cent less that they have to pursue a police state, a cent less that have to spend on invading other countries, and a cent less they have for locking up millions of people. Every cent more that we give the government, is a cent that will be used directly or indirectly to expand their power.
So if you have a legal copy of a current song, you can sell it to someone else. If you have a legal copy of a current song, you can sell that specific copy... you can't sell as many copies as you want. The supply of legal copies is controlled by the copyright holder, therefore the copyright holder has a monopoly.
As an analogy, Ford has a monopoly on the Ford Mustang. Sure, you can buy a Ford Mustang, and then resell it used, but Ford has absolute control of the supply of new Ford Mustangs manufactured. The used market doesn't count, because you can only resell the supply that Ford originally produced.
The difference, of course, is that it would be cost prohibitive for someone to produce an exact copy of a Ford Mustang (an exact copy would cost far more than the original because you wouldn't have Ford's economies of scale) so that even in the absence of any legal protection on the Mustang, Ford would still likely have a monopoly. With music, just about every home computer can make an exact copy of a song, so the monopoly on music is an artificial one. The monopoly on music only exists because of copyright law.
I'm not sure what monopoly you're referring to here If you own the copyright on a record (say, Micheal Jackson's Thriller album), you have a monopoly on that record. No one else can sell Micheal Jackson's Thriller except you or someone you give permission to.
A copyright on a specific piece of music gives you a monopoly on that music.
Hillary's Socialized Health Care. I find that among many libertarians, their fear of large government is only overshadowed by their fear of government controlled industries. Republicans support socialized medicine as much as the Democrats. The biggest lobbyists pushing for socialized medicine are big corporations like Walmart, as well as Ford and General Motors. Large employers stand to save billions of dollars in insurance costs by having taxpaying citizens pay for their own health care through taxation.
I know as a Marxist, you believe in some grand battle between Capitalism and Socialism - But the battle between left and right is the battle between National Socialism (such as under Nazi Germany) and International Socialism (such as in the Soviet Union). Both believe in economic central planning in order to accomplish state goals (large scale warfare is impossible without state central planning of the economy), and in implementation both end up very similiar (ideological purges vs. ethnic cleansing)... they just differ on some of the esthetics.
From a Libertarian perspective, it makes no difference. The Republicans want to turn CEOs into government officials, the Democrats want to turn government officials into CEOs.
In the U.S. it is totally legal for minors to purchase those movies. The MPAA rating system is voluntarily enforced (at least in theory) by the movie theaters and retailers.
Selling your vote is illegal. Trading == selling. It depends... Nowadays, most politics is some politician offering you some benifit or another in exchange for your vote. Essentialy, politicians are trying to buy your vote - the only difference is they are doing it with your money!
Approval voting has a greater tendency to exclude extremists. Except that the people who feel that the FBI shouldn't be able to wiretap people without warrants, or that people should have the right to free speech even if it is "offensive", or that the government shouldn't ignore the Bill of Rights whenever it wants, or that believe Mexicans and Indians aren't "stealin' our jobs", are the "extremists" in America.
I used to be one of those people who said you have to vote for your candidate in order to eventually force a third party. The idea is a good one. We need a third party. Today when people profess to me the same ideology I simply say to them...... Bush! And all those Democrats who hated Kerry but voted for him anyway, just to stop Bush, what did they get? Bush!
You sold out like a bitch to win an election, and you didn't even win! Hahahaha! Suckers!
Youngster. You don't remember Ronald Reagan, who basically ran on civil rights and limitations on federal government power, and who actually popularized "The scariest words in the English Language: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Yes, but I *AM* old enough to remember Ronald Reagan... to remember his position on abortion, his position on drugs... not to mention running up the national debt to record levels.
Ronnie talked the Libertarian talk on economic issues, but even his fiscal policies where not much different than Clintons. And he was 180 degrees from Libertarians on social issues.
I don't give a shit about politics, about Al Gore, about Green Peace or a pack of greasy university kids marching to save the planet. What I do care about is that the vast majority of climatologists, while rejecting some of the doomsday notions of the activists, state very clearly that the evidence for climate change being caused by human activities is compelling and growing. To call these scientists "political" is nothing more than an invokation of a conspiracy theory.
The trouble is, you assume that because global warming is real and actually happening, that we must agree to any political policy that vaugly claims to address global warming.
Do you believe the 9/11 attacks where fake? Then you most certainly agree with the Bush administration policiy! Virtually every reputable source agrees that the 9/11 atacks occured, and while the doomsday scenarios of terrorism might not be true, we must do something now about terrorism before it is too late! Those who don't support Bush support terrorism!
There is good evidence to believe policies like the Kyoto protocal will *INCREASE* CO2 emmissions and accellerate global warming. And it is undeniable that some people with a socialist agenda are latching on to the global warming issue as a pretense for increased government central planning, despite the fact there is no evidence that government central planning will have any positive effect on CO2 emmissions.
You are assuming that because scientists are convinced that global warming is real and man-made, that the neo-Marxist policies proposed as "solutions" have anything to do with actually reducing CO2 emissions or global warming.
So, by the same token, murder is no worse than someone falling off a ladder.
Assuming that the fall from a ladder is fatal, then yes! Murder is no worse than someone falling off a ladder. The end effect is the same.
Should we let the murderer go free, then?
No, but before we execute someone for murder, we should be absolutly sure:
1. That a murder has been commited. 2. That the suspect was, in fact, the one commiting the murder. 3. That there wasn't some mitigating circumstance for the murder. 4. That executing the murderer will in fact prevent more murders.
That's why it's stupid to just take it out of the cooler and go "hey y'all, watch this."
But if you RTFA, you would see that nature takes it out of the cooler and goes "Hey y'all, watch this" by itself, all the time. It has been constantly doing this for millions of years.
The only difference here is that someone has actually done it in a very small scale in a laboratory where it can be studied.
Our energy crisis is an undeniably real problem right now that obviously will be getting excruciatingly worse over time.
We don't have an energy crisis at all. There is plenty of energy.
There *IS* a problem with the most popular source of energy (fossil fuels) producing atmospheric CO2, and thus effecting the climate.
But humanity is in no danger of running out of energy any time soon! Fossil fuels will continue to last for a while, and after that there is enough fissionable material to last until the next millenia. That is ignoring solar, wind, geothermal, and in the far far future off-planet mining.
So if someone puts an item out there that you are willing to pay $100 for, and they put a reserve at $10, you won't buy the item on principle? That's pretty lame. They are not going to put a $10 reserve on it. That would defeat the point of having a reserve. They are going to put a reserve near the market price.
However, while you might believe the government could simply refuse to restrict and regulate speech, in practice this simply isn't true. Filing false tax returns? Freedom of speech! Inciting riots? Freedom of speech! Passing classified data to the enemy? Freedom of speech! Extortion? Freedom of speech! Actually, I think the first amendment SHOULD apply to all these things.
Filing false tax returns? The tax laws are so complicated, that anyone could accidently and innocently file a false tax return. It shouldn't be a crime. Inciting riots? There were many people who tried to ban Malcolm X, The Black Panthers, and crazily enough even Martin Luther King from speaking arguing they would incite a riot. Yet all these people had important things to say, and America is better off that they said it. Passing classified data to the enemy? If you don't sign a security agreement with the government beforehand explicitly stating you will keep the information secret, then you SHOULD be allowed to pass classified data to anyone you want! If the U.S. government accidentaly mailed me its secret plans to invade Canada next week, I sure as hell would tell the media (and, by extension, the "enemy"). I am not a government employee, so I have no obligation to respect the government's secrets.
Extortion is a vauge one, since extortion can involve real physical violence (If someone walks into your house, and demands money at gunpoint, they should be punished... not for what they say, but for the fact that they pointed a firearm at you, which is a physical act beyond speech). But if the police can't find evidence of some PHYSICAL ACT, such as planting bombs, pointing weapons, attacking people, etc., I don't think extortion is a crime.
I think the U.S. government IS violating the First Amendment by banning all such things.
For one thing, it assumes that Free Speech is something that one would want all the time and under every condition, when that's not even remotely true I *DO* think that free speech is something that we want all the time and under every condition.
If a leader feels that there is some situation that is so dire, so aweful, so dangerous that free speech must be curtailed in THAT specific instance, then that leader should restrict that speech, and then step down from office and turn themselves into the authorities for a criminal act. The same way I would steal a car, something I consider to be an immoral and criminal act, if I had to take a critically injured friend to the hospital in an emergency and it was the only way to do so. But I would expect to suffer some punishment for making that decision, I would only steal the car if the consequences for not doing so (having a friend die) where worse than going to jail for auto theft. Under no circumstances should I casually be allowed to steal a car.
Given that, then, how do you define 'worse' when it comes to censorship? How is Europe 'worse'? In the UK, you can go to jail for insulting a religion, for example. As an athiest, this is a very chilling law, because I believe that all religions are fair game for ridicule. Especially when people bring their religious beliefs into politics. I believe it was John Cleese who said it (but it was one of the Monty Python guys), that many of the Monty Python works would be considered 'hate speech' today because of their attacks on religion. It is kind of 'grandfathered' in, because it is already such a part of popular culture, but something like Monty Python would most certainly be banned from public airwaves today.
So you're saying a guarantee of rights that sounds perfect but is never, and can never, be enforced is any better? At least the Europeans are honest with themselves. First of all, the First Amendment is not "enforced" per say. The First Amendment is supposed to be "respected", in that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting speech. The First Amendments is perfectly functional: If the government simply refuses to regulate speech and expression, it is simple as that. It isn't something like "stopping crime" that might not be possible, even if the government chooses to pursue that goal. Any violation of the First Amendment by the U.S. government is both willfull and deliberate.
The First Amendment, even when it is being violated by the U.S. government, is better than the EU "garantee", because it established a legal principle by which we can fight any and all censorship. We might lose the fight some times, we might win the fight other times... there are some very powerful people who want to restrict freedom of speech... But we have an extremly powerful weapon to use in the fight. Virtually any regulation of speech by the U.S. government can be attacked as being unconstitutional. And if the First Amendment fails to protect freedom of speech, if people are dedicated enough they can fall back on the Second Amendment.
In general, the United States has far more freedom of speech than Europe... and when the U.S. government does restrict speech, European censorship is the model and inspiration for U.S. censorship. We would do poorly to imitate the EU on freedom of speech, when the enemies of freedom of speech in America hold up European style censorship as the goal of what they are trying to accomplish. When politicians in the U.S. want to restrict freedom of speech, they usually argue how the UK, or Sweden, or Germany have similiar laws so "they can't be all that bad".
If you want to argue that the U.S. government violates its constitution, well I agree with you 100%. There is way too much censorship in the U.S. as it is. It is an outrage. But immitating Europe would be the worst possible way to reverse that trend in the United States, because Europe is far far worse when it comes to censorship.
Wow... #2 pretty much eliminates any garantee of freedom of speech at all!
So they can ban speech "in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."... Talk about catch-all.
So basicly the poster is right. There is no garantee of freedom of speech in England. Virtually anything can be argued to fall under one of those categories.
In Australia, stores are bound by law to give the customer the lowest price. If they print it wrong on in a magazine or on the net then its the stores fault and the customer gets the cheaper price. Which is why the Canadian economy is doing better than Australia, and Canada is a better place to do buisness.
Seriously, you would rather have people lose their jobs when a company goes bankrupt giving $2000 TVs away for $20, than to have a bunch of people who knew damn well you can't get a flat screen TV for $20 be told "Sorry, it is a misprint"?
Lets put it this way... if Dell found a bug that was overcharging customers do you honestly think they'd pay back all the money to the customers they rightfully owed? Probably not. I don't know about Dell, but I have had Sprint, Amazon.com, and Ford, all catch the fact that they overcharged me, and each one contacted me and let me know and credited me in full for the mistake. I have also worked for a smaller ecommerce company, and if we discovered a mistake we would credit the customer, and most likely send them a little something extra for their troubles. Reputable companies don't intentionally and overtly scam their customers.
So yes, I am fairly confident that Dell would honestly pay back customers they rightfully owed.
It makes total sense that low IQ teens wouldn't have sex. Assuming that people's taste when it comes to mating behavior has something to do with natural selection, it makes sense that 'stupid' people would be less likely to survive and thrive, therefore they make a less attractive mate.
But does this suggest that high IQ is also bad from an evolutionary standpoint? Perhaps high IQ people are less likely to take care of their offspring because they are too busy with other activities? Perhaps high IQ people tend to have personality disorders that make them a less stable partner? We tend to think of people with high IQs as 'superior', and those with low IQs as 'inferior'... but perhaps there are significant problems with being too smart that make it better, from a natural selection standpoint, to be of average intelligence?
You and I agree that a government solution is not the best possible solution but fail to offer an alternate scenario based on anything but the futile hope that people will take responsibility for their actions.
Two questions:
1. Why is it futile to expect people to take responsible actions for themselves? At some point, for civil society to function, it depends on most people doing the right thing on their own most of the time. Most people would voluntarily take their electronics down to the free-market electronic recycler if they understand the issue, something that the growing private electronics recycling industry proves. Most people throw out their monitor at the curb because they haven't been educated to the fact that they should do anything else.
2. How is the new system based on anything other than the futile hope that people will take responsiblity for their actions? How does charging someone an extra $20 when they purchase electronics make them any more likely to choose to properly dispose of their electronics?
However it also removes the incentive for illegal disposal so depending on the situation in the country it may be worth the tradeoff. Except that there is no real difference between the legal and illegal disposal. It is not like they are running a proper recycling program. They are just incinerating the old computers. Not much difference between that and just throwing the PC in a dumpster with the rest of the trash.
If they are going to be charging for "proper disposal", maybe they should actually properly dispose of the things.
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Nice. You compare something like repealing a tax, which is inherently anti-authoritarian, to something like camera monitoring, which is inherently authoritarian.
Stop trying to promote your own, albeit slightly different, totalitarian agenda by mixing it up with our anti-totalitarian agenda.
Without the massive taxation powers that the government now has, it couldn't afford to build a police state because police states are very very expensive. Every cent less we give the government is a cent less that they have to pursue a police state, a cent less that have to spend on invading other countries, and a cent less they have for locking up millions of people. Every cent more that we give the government, is a cent that will be used directly or indirectly to expand their power.
Silly, misguided fool! There really *WAS* a documentary about said super criminal:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062861/
As an analogy, Ford has a monopoly on the Ford Mustang. Sure, you can buy a Ford Mustang, and then resell it used, but Ford has absolute control of the supply of new Ford Mustangs manufactured. The used market doesn't count, because you can only resell the supply that Ford originally produced.
The difference, of course, is that it would be cost prohibitive for someone to produce an exact copy of a Ford Mustang (an exact copy would cost far more than the original because you wouldn't have Ford's economies of scale) so that even in the absence of any legal protection on the Mustang, Ford would still likely have a monopoly. With music, just about every home computer can make an exact copy of a song, so the monopoly on music is an artificial one. The monopoly on music only exists because of copyright law.
A copyright on a specific piece of music gives you a monopoly on that music.
I know as a Marxist, you believe in some grand battle between Capitalism and Socialism - But the battle between left and right is the battle between National Socialism (such as under Nazi Germany) and International Socialism (such as in the Soviet Union). Both believe in economic central planning in order to accomplish state goals (large scale warfare is impossible without state central planning of the economy), and in implementation both end up very similiar (ideological purges vs. ethnic cleansing)... they just differ on some of the esthetics.
From a Libertarian perspective, it makes no difference. The Republicans want to turn CEOs into government officials, the Democrats want to turn government officials into CEOs.
In the U.S. it is totally legal for minors to purchase those movies. The MPAA rating system is voluntarily enforced (at least in theory) by the movie theaters and retailers.
You sold out like a bitch to win an election, and you didn't even win! Hahahaha! Suckers!
Ronnie talked the Libertarian talk on economic issues, but even his fiscal policies where not much different than Clintons. And he was 180 degrees from Libertarians on social issues.
The CA Congress didn't stop the law. The CA congress *PASSED* the law. The courts found the law unconstitutional.
The trouble is, you assume that because global warming is real and actually happening, that we must agree to any political policy that vaugly claims to address global warming.
Do you believe the 9/11 attacks where fake? Then you most certainly agree with the Bush administration policiy! Virtually every reputable source agrees that the 9/11 atacks occured, and while the doomsday scenarios of terrorism might not be true, we must do something now about terrorism before it is too late! Those who don't support Bush support terrorism!
There is good evidence to believe policies like the Kyoto protocal will *INCREASE* CO2 emmissions and accellerate global warming. And it is undeniable that some people with a socialist agenda are latching on to the global warming issue as a pretense for increased government central planning, despite the fact there is no evidence that government central planning will have any positive effect on CO2 emmissions.
You are assuming that because scientists are convinced that global warming is real and man-made, that the neo-Marxist policies proposed as "solutions" have anything to do with actually reducing CO2 emissions or global warming.
Assuming that the fall from a ladder is fatal, then yes! Murder is no worse than someone falling off a ladder. The end effect is the same.
No, but before we execute someone for murder, we should be absolutly sure:
1. That a murder has been commited.
2. That the suspect was, in fact, the one commiting the murder.
3. That there wasn't some mitigating circumstance for the murder.
4. That executing the murderer will in fact prevent more murders.
But if you RTFA, you would see that nature takes it out of the cooler and goes "Hey y'all, watch this" by itself, all the time. It has been constantly doing this for millions of years.
The only difference here is that someone has actually done it in a very small scale in a laboratory where it can be studied.
We don't have an energy crisis at all. There is plenty of energy.
There *IS* a problem with the most popular source of energy (fossil fuels) producing atmospheric CO2, and thus effecting the climate.
But humanity is in no danger of running out of energy any time soon! Fossil fuels will continue to last for a while, and after that there is enough fissionable material to last until the next millenia. That is ignoring solar, wind, geothermal, and in the far far future off-planet mining.
Filing false tax returns? The tax laws are so complicated, that anyone could accidently and innocently file a false tax return. It shouldn't be a crime. Inciting riots? There were many people who tried to ban Malcolm X, The Black Panthers, and crazily enough even Martin Luther King from speaking arguing they would incite a riot. Yet all these people had important things to say, and America is better off that they said it. Passing classified data to the enemy? If you don't sign a security agreement with the government beforehand explicitly stating you will keep the information secret, then you SHOULD be allowed to pass classified data to anyone you want! If the U.S. government accidentaly mailed me its secret plans to invade Canada next week, I sure as hell would tell the media (and, by extension, the "enemy"). I am not a government employee, so I have no obligation to respect the government's secrets.
Extortion is a vauge one, since extortion can involve real physical violence (If someone walks into your house, and demands money at gunpoint, they should be punished... not for what they say, but for the fact that they pointed a firearm at you, which is a physical act beyond speech). But if the police can't find evidence of some PHYSICAL ACT, such as planting bombs, pointing weapons, attacking people, etc., I don't think extortion is a crime.
I think the U.S. government IS violating the First Amendment by banning all such things. For one thing, it assumes that Free Speech is something that one would want all the time and under every condition, when that's not even remotely true I *DO* think that free speech is something that we want all the time and under every condition.
If a leader feels that there is some situation that is so dire, so aweful, so dangerous that free speech must be curtailed in THAT specific instance, then that leader should restrict that speech, and then step down from office and turn themselves into the authorities for a criminal act. The same way I would steal a car, something I consider to be an immoral and criminal act, if I had to take a critically injured friend to the hospital in an emergency and it was the only way to do so. But I would expect to suffer some punishment for making that decision, I would only steal the car if the consequences for not doing so (having a friend die) where worse than going to jail for auto theft. Under no circumstances should I casually be allowed to steal a car. Given that, then, how do you define 'worse' when it comes to censorship? How is Europe 'worse'? In the UK, you can go to jail for insulting a religion, for example. As an athiest, this is a very chilling law, because I believe that all religions are fair game for ridicule. Especially when people bring their religious beliefs into politics. I believe it was John Cleese who said it (but it was one of the Monty Python guys), that many of the Monty Python works would be considered 'hate speech' today because of their attacks on religion. It is kind of 'grandfathered' in, because it is already such a part of popular culture, but something like Monty Python would most certainly be banned from public airwaves today.
The First Amendment, even when it is being violated by the U.S. government, is better than the EU "garantee", because it established a legal principle by which we can fight any and all censorship. We might lose the fight some times, we might win the fight other times... there are some very powerful people who want to restrict freedom of speech... But we have an extremly powerful weapon to use in the fight. Virtually any regulation of speech by the U.S. government can be attacked as being unconstitutional. And if the First Amendment fails to protect freedom of speech, if people are dedicated enough they can fall back on the Second Amendment.
In general, the United States has far more freedom of speech than Europe... and when the U.S. government does restrict speech, European censorship is the model and inspiration for U.S. censorship. We would do poorly to imitate the EU on freedom of speech, when the enemies of freedom of speech in America hold up European style censorship as the goal of what they are trying to accomplish. When politicians in the U.S. want to restrict freedom of speech, they usually argue how the UK, or Sweden, or Germany have similiar laws so "they can't be all that bad".
If you want to argue that the U.S. government violates its constitution, well I agree with you 100%. There is way too much censorship in the U.S. as it is. It is an outrage. But immitating Europe would be the worst possible way to reverse that trend in the United States, because Europe is far far worse when it comes to censorship.
Wow... #2 pretty much eliminates any garantee of freedom of speech at all!
So they can ban speech "in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."... Talk about catch-all.
So basicly the poster is right. There is no garantee of freedom of speech in England. Virtually anything can be argued to fall under one of those categories.
If they print it wrong on in a magazine or on the net then its the stores fault and the customer gets the cheaper price. Which is why the Canadian economy is doing better than Australia, and Canada is a better place to do buisness.
Seriously, you would rather have people lose their jobs when a company goes bankrupt giving $2000 TVs away for $20, than to have a bunch of people who knew damn well you can't get a flat screen TV for $20 be told "Sorry, it is a misprint"?
So yes, I am fairly confident that Dell would honestly pay back customers they rightfully owed.
It makes total sense that low IQ teens wouldn't have sex. Assuming that people's taste when it comes to mating behavior has something to do with natural selection, it makes sense that 'stupid' people would be less likely to survive and thrive, therefore they make a less attractive mate.
But does this suggest that high IQ is also bad from an evolutionary standpoint? Perhaps high IQ people are less likely to take care of their offspring because they are too busy with other activities? Perhaps high IQ people tend to have personality disorders that make them a less stable partner? We tend to think of people with high IQs as 'superior', and those with low IQs as 'inferior'... but perhaps there are significant problems with being too smart that make it better, from a natural selection standpoint, to be of average intelligence?
Two questions:
1. Why is it futile to expect people to take responsible actions for themselves? At some point, for civil society to function, it depends on most people doing the right thing on their own most of the time. Most people would voluntarily take their electronics down to the free-market electronic recycler if they understand the issue, something that the growing private electronics recycling industry proves. Most people throw out their monitor at the curb because they haven't been educated to the fact that they should do anything else.
2. How is the new system based on anything other than the futile hope that people will take responsiblity for their actions? How does charging someone an extra $20 when they purchase electronics make them any more likely to choose to properly dispose of their electronics?
If they are going to be charging for "proper disposal", maybe they should actually properly dispose of the things.