It depends what you mean by "Capitalism"... if by "Capitalism", you mean that a few people with control over the means of production wield enormous state power, then I guess "Capitalism" is a problem... but if that is your definition of "Capitalism", you could called Mao or Castro a "Capitalist", so what you are saying is meaningless because nearly any form of totalitarianism meets the definition.
If you define "Capitalism" as a Laisse Faire free-market system, then "Capitalism" is not a problem. Militarism, National Police, etc., are collectivist government policies. They are the diametric opposites of a Laisse Faire free market. You can compare this definition of "Capitalism" with "Anarchy", but it has nothing to do with militarism or the police state, in fact it underminds it. Which is why, G. W. Bush for example, is essentially a European style socialist in his politics and economic policy (By any objective analysis of his policies, he is the most extreme socialist in the Western world in at least the last 30 years)... he gives a bit of lip service to "free markets" or "free trade", but all his policies have been to undermine both in favor of a European style welfare-state and American activism abroad. This is why G. W. Bush is called a "neo-con" and not a traditional "conservative" (the neo-cons favoring European style government-activism, centralization, and economic control, with some token "traditional values"... where as traditional Conservatives supported token "traditional values", but were quite free market and anti-central-government). Socialists don't want to admit that G. W. Bush is a socialist, because it is a bit embarrassing to admit that they are only superficially different but by any objective measurment (actually looking at budget numbers, new regulation, etc.), it is clear he is a socialist.
Trust me, religious institutions have been making retarded demands of it's followers since the beginning of organized religion. Surely not posting blogs is less a restriction that, say, celibacy until marriage, or wearing a burhka, or animal sacrifice. Aren't arbitrary restrictions based on "faith in doctrine" and hierarchical decision making part of the defining qualities of religion? If it was "everyone do your own thing, we are open minded", it wouldn't be a proper religion, now wouldn't it?
And stupidity wasn't invented and patented by G. W. Bush. Many institutions that are run by people who claim to be opposed to G. W. Bush have policies against blogging, in order to "protect women", "protect people from hate speech", or _insert_random_politically_correct_jingoism_here_. If you think a Catholic school is a close minded hive of intolerant and monolithic thinking, try going to a public university!
Sorry, the bill of rights and the constitution are limitations on the powers of government. They have absolutely nothing to do with private voluntary organizations, neither legally, or morally.
And as for religious organizations receiving federal money, that is not a problem with religion, that is a problem with a political scheme that redistributes property from the politically weak to the politically powerful. I am an atheist, and I can tell you that many "non-religious" groups have quasi-religious or faith-based doctrine (Marxist "dialectical materialism", or Ayn Rand's "Objectivism", or any material by Andrea Dworkin, for example... nearly anything you learn in public education that isn't hard math/science/language is pretty much faith-based). Why is it bad when a religious charity screens people based on religious views and recieves federal money, but good when a public university screens people based on their political views?
Imagine that, a private religious institution actually making rules for it's memebers! The next thing you know, Jews won't be eating shelfish and Muslims won't be able to drink and eat a big hearty breakfeast during Ramadan.
We are one step away from a nightmare scenario where there might even be clubs were men meet to wear aprons and learn secret handshakes. Clearly this is a case were the government needs to step in! The government always brings freedom!
Geez, I don't know what this church is thinking! Normally religions have few restrictions, and they are all quite reasonable!
Black & White was one of the most original and creative games ever made. It introduced a whole slew of gameplay elements not seen before, and was truly brilliant.
Unfortunatly, it just didn't PLAY that well. I wanted to love it! I wanted to tell people how great of a game it was. It SHOULD have been one of the greatest games ever because of the creativity, and quality of production. I have no problem saying a game isn't good when it is clearly a low-budget ripoff, or another lame first person shooter. But it is another thing to say a game isn't good when it is clear that the creaters didn't sell out, and truly tried to push the boundries and create something new and great.
Hopefully Black & White 2 corrects these things, but from the reviews it sounds like it still has some problems.
A lot of this is also a bias in the machine hardware... if computers were designed for a microkernal OS, that would solve a lot of the problems with using a microkernal OS.
Nuclear waste is so small, as to be almost insignificant. Imagine if those nuclear reactors took their waste, and incinerated the nuclear waste, sending the fumes into the atmosphere. That is coal and oil power! Coal and oil contains trace amounts of uranium, plutonium, and all kinds of nasty stuff. Even though it is extremly tiny amounts, due to the sheer amount of fossil fuels we burn, it is far more than, like I said, we incinerated our nuclear waste and pumped it into the atmosphere.
Also, nuclear waste if we recycle it, is less radioactive than when it is taken out of the ground. We have nuclear "waste" right now, all over the place... put there by mother nature. We are actually reducing the potentially dangerous nuclear waste in the ground.
We should still look for alternatives and improvements on principle... but worrying about nuclear waste from nuclear power is like worrying about nuclear waste from fossil fuels. If you aren't worried about one, you shouldn't be worried about the other!
These insane patents are actually the best thing that could have ever happened. The way things are going now, there is going to have to be a major overhaul of the patent system. The instane patents have made it dramaticly clear that there is something wrong with the system (these are the tech equivelents of suing McDonalds because your kids are fat).
Had companies been less aggressive in patenting and litigating nearly anything possible, the system might go on how it is now for decades. These people are making the patent system collapse in a way that those against software patents don't have the power to do.
PHP is the good ol' beat up pickup truck... Java is one of those natural gas delivery trucks that delivery companies in the city use.
With PHP, you can throw junk in the back, tie it down with bungie cords, and get the thing rolling to wherever you want. Java runs a lot smoother, the trucks are a bit more reliable, but because of the whole natural gas thing there is a bigger investment in getting it up and running... you can't really throw an old refridgerator in the back and take off.
And neither one is an 18 wheeler big rig, or a sports car!
Can someone explain to me how the U.S. "controls" the internet? Clearly the U.S. only controls the actual infrastructure in it's own country. ICANN has no real enforcement powers, not even in the United States, it relies completly on voluntary compliance to it's technical standards and protocals, and those are regularly ignored not only in the rest of the world, but in the U.S.. The "root DNS" servers that it uses have no power to push anything onto any other servers, they are completly passive... other countries are not required in any way shape or form to use the root DNS servers that the United States provides (in fact, the root DNS servers are in the U.S. more because of historical reasons of when the U.S. was the only country on the internet than any big decision by ICANN). Countries, ISPs, even ISPs and networks in the United States often have DNS server information that differs from the root DNS servers.
Right now, NO ONE really controls the Internet. The U.S. has a big influence on the Internet, but you don't think the U.S. would have a big influence on the Internet if it was controled by the U.N.? You do know that the U.N. is based in the U.S., is funded mostly by the U.S. (despite what you may hear about the U.S. "not paying it's dues"), and on most issues tends to support the U.S. position (remember, you only hear about it in the news in the rare occasions that there is a disagreement with the U.S. and the U.N.). So shouldn't the arguement not be that "The U.N. wants to take control of the Internet from the U.S.", and instead be "The U.N. wants to take control of the Internet". And the word "control" should give you an idea of what this is really about. Right now the Internet isn't really under control, and that is what the U.N. wants to change. It wants to make the Internet like TV, radio, and telephones: centralized and easily controllable!
Actually, countries like China and Syria have mad it quite clear that their goals are to restructure the internet such that it is easier to track users, servers can be licenced and tracked, internet services can be taxed, it is easier to block sites, etc.
The whole "They just want to control a critical part of their infrastructure" arguement doesn't come from China, Syria, North Korea, or Cuba, it comes from apologists in the West in order to justify what is clearly an attemt to destroy the free internet as it operates now.
It would be extremly easy to implement a system where no one entity controls the internet (have each country be responsible for there own.uk.us. country extension, and with IP6 to give each country a huge block of IPs it controls). It would solve the problem of the U.S. "control" of the internet, and wouldn't require giving massive power to the U.N., and technologically wouldn't be that different than what exists now.
This has nothing to do with countries worried about U.S. control of critical parts of their infrastructure (because all those countries have 100% control of their own infrastructure right now!), this is about wanting to end the era of the free, wild, and completly unregulated internet. It is about making the internet an easily controlable medium, like television, radio, and telephone. It is embarrasing for Western politicians to admit that their views on censorship, taxation, and internal survalence of their population is virtually identical to that of China, North Korea, Cuba, etc. So you spread some FUD about the U.S. being in control of their critical infrastructure (which it isn't, and even if it was the problem could be solved without the U.N.), and hope that knee jerk anti-Americanism will blind people to the real authoritarian goal.
I agree... it was an error of ommission on my part.
The point is, the FCC regulating the bandwidth so it is free for everyone to use is one thing, the FCC giving people a legal monopoly on bandwidth is another thing.
No one cares that the FCC says "this is the citizens band", or "this band is for cell phones". But the regulation of the FM and AM bands how they do now is simply corporate welfare.
You need the FCC to assign certain bandwidths to certain types and standards of communication, but you no longer need the FCC to assign a specific bandwidth to a specific station, thereby limiting stations.
It would be totally possible to have some sort of digital packet broadcast system where stations need a specific frequency band, that would allow tens of thousands of radio stations in an area instead of 5 or 10. The primary purpose of the FCC regulation of radio nowadays is to maintain a limited amount of radio stations, thereby sustaining the profit model of radio. (After all, price is set by supply and demand. If you increase the supply of radio broadcasts, but the demand for radio broadcasts stays the same, the cost of advertising on radio will go down!)
What does your fearmongering have to do with Jack Thompson's fearmongering?
Seriously, don't worry about Jack having a gun, the same people wanting to ban video games are typically the same who want to ban guns and self defence... and the same laywers who sue video game companies for street violence are the same ones who sue gun companies for street violence. Both are based on the ideology of "People must give up their constitutional rights and personal freedoms in order to protect society and children".
Stop trying to promote your own authoritarian agenda by tying it to some other unrelated position. The constitution give Americans BOTH the right to free speech and the right to bear arms.
How did FDR give us workplace protection? He is part of the executive branch, and so he should not have any constitutional power to make laws?
But even if I assume your assumption is true, and labor unions and direct action by working people had nothing to do with it, and the work week for most people wasn't already 40 hours a week at the time the "fair labor standards act" was made a law, and instead the 40 hour work week was a glorious gift dropped into our lap by a member of the millioniare ruling class, what does that have to do with FDRs disasterous effect on the government, including things that effect the patent laws?
FDR did so many horrible things: he approved rounding up people and putting them into concentration camps because of their race, and turned the U.S., who was comitted to being neutral and staying out of wars, into the worlds most vast and powerful war machine which has continued to this day. He installed government censorship and control of the media that we couldn't even imagine even in these days of G. W. Bush (some may say "it was only because of the war", but his own records show he wanted all waretime controls to be permanent)... and he forced millions into the military service without their concent.
And, as it relates to this topic, his supreme court justices who he stacked into the court, so broadly defined "interstate commerce" and the governments regulation that there isn't anything that the government can't do in the name of "interstate commerce". So, if a corporation wants to patent a buisness model, or human DNA, or things like that that are clearly an absolute abuse of the patent system, the government is free to enforce those rediculous laws because any restrictions on the government were abandoned with FDR.
FDR was a facist monster, probably the closest thing the U.S. ever had to a dictator. He was a racist, totalitarian thug, not much different than the facisism in Europe that he was against.
While I disagree with Orson Scott Card's politics, it is very unfair to call him "an insane rightwing religious fanatic" (although I suppose that nowadays in our big brother world anyone who doesn't have absolute unquestioning faith in what is "politically correct" is some sort of "dangerous extremist").
The Taliban are religious fanatics. Pat Roberson is a religious fanatic. Orson Scott Card is not a religious fanatic, he is someone who simply has views that differ with yours.
At one time in the Western world it was considered enlightened to have free an open discussion amoung people with differing views. You respected those you disagreed with, if they respected you, even if you had political disagreements. Even if there was NO ONE who would argue a certain point of view, someone would be the "devil's advocate", and argue that point of view - because to not expose yourself to a certain point was considered the height of ignorance!
How low we have sunk, to where one questions the sanity of anyone who disagrees with them, and will not have anything to do with them... and now, increasingly they want to throw people who disagree with them in prison, or at least make it illegal for them to speak in public.
Of course, don't give a single example so I can decide for myself, just throw out wild acussations.
After all, there is no need for one to make personal judgements. Anyone who doesn't take your word for things is obviously a hate criminal who needs to be sent to the gulags!
Most western European countries will not meet their Kyoto requirements without some creative bookkeeping... so of course it isn't going to destroy their economies.
Every day I walk the streets, I have to be on my guard, not knowing when a komono dragon is going to bite off my leg, or an enraged ape is going to storm out of an alley and attack me, or an electric eel is going to zap me the next time I step in a puddle. I live in fear! FEAR I TELL YOU!! What is that buzzing sound? I hear it is too cold in Canada for Africanized honey bees, but YOU CAN NEVER BE TOO CAREFUL, DAMN IT!
It restores my faith in government that there is no threat too obscure, too irrelevant, or too laughable not to legislate and spend gobs of money on!
Seeing as the number of people killed by non-indigenous species every year has got to be, what, like 8 people?
Or rather, in a "democracy" the "people that matter" are the ones who sell bar code equipment, RFID tags, and all the expensive equipment who get off their asses and lobby government for this "public protection"... and make billions of dollars off the contracts with the government and those stores.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am sure that RFID suppliers can get some fearmongering from politicians, maybe get 20/20 or Ralf Nadar or some other corporate whore to do an "expose" on why we need the equipment, and get people all riled up like they got for West Nile Virus or violent video games or nukes in Iraq. But that will clearly be after the deal is all working out with the politicians.
And of course it won't do a thing, because people are getting sick from eating Big Macs and potato chips, not from eating tainted food.
And look, there is someone on my porch. They are carrying a knife, and have a wicked grin on their face. I think that they are trying to break in and kill me and my family. I don't have 100% proof, but someone coming in to kill my family is such a terrible thing to happen, I can't wait around until it is too late waiting to know for sure. I MUST take action now! BAMMM!!! I shot them dead! Oh wait, it turns out it was just my neighbor comming to return the knife he borrowed. Se la vie, better safe than sorry.
It is good to know enviornmentalists have taken the G. W. Bush approach to enviornmentalism!
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It depends what you mean by "Capitalism"... if by "Capitalism", you mean that a few people with control over the means of production wield enormous state power, then I guess "Capitalism" is a problem... but if that is your definition of "Capitalism", you could called Mao or Castro a "Capitalist", so what you are saying is meaningless because nearly any form of totalitarianism meets the definition.
If you define "Capitalism" as a Laisse Faire free-market system, then "Capitalism" is not a problem. Militarism, National Police, etc., are collectivist government policies. They are the diametric opposites of a Laisse Faire free market. You can compare this definition of "Capitalism" with "Anarchy", but it has nothing to do with militarism or the police state, in fact it underminds it. Which is why, G. W. Bush for example, is essentially a European style socialist in his politics and economic policy (By any objective analysis of his policies, he is the most extreme socialist in the Western world in at least the last 30 years)... he gives a bit of lip service to "free markets" or "free trade", but all his policies have been to undermine both in favor of a European style welfare-state and American activism abroad. This is why G. W. Bush is called a "neo-con" and not a traditional "conservative" (the neo-cons favoring European style government-activism, centralization, and economic control, with some token "traditional values"... where as traditional Conservatives supported token "traditional values", but were quite free market and anti-central-government). Socialists don't want to admit that G. W. Bush is a socialist, because it is a bit embarrassing to admit that they are only superficially different but by any objective measurment (actually looking at budget numbers, new regulation, etc.), it is clear he is a socialist.
So THAT is why schools aren't teaching kids how to read!
Trust me, religious institutions have been making retarded demands of it's followers since the beginning of organized religion. Surely not posting blogs is less a restriction that, say, celibacy until marriage, or wearing a burhka, or animal sacrifice. Aren't arbitrary restrictions based on "faith in doctrine" and hierarchical decision making part of the defining qualities of religion? If it was "everyone do your own thing, we are open minded", it wouldn't be a proper religion, now wouldn't it?
. If you think a Catholic school is a close minded hive of intolerant and monolithic thinking, try going to a public university!
And stupidity wasn't invented and patented by G. W. Bush. Many institutions that are run by people who claim to be opposed to G. W. Bush have policies against blogging, in order to "protect women", "protect people from hate speech", or _insert_random_politically_correct_jingoism_here_
Sorry, the bill of rights and the constitution are limitations on the powers of government. They have absolutely nothing to do with private voluntary organizations, neither legally, or morally.
And as for religious organizations receiving federal money, that is not a problem with religion, that is a problem with a political scheme that redistributes property from the politically weak to the politically powerful. I am an atheist, and I can tell you that many "non-religious" groups have quasi-religious or faith-based doctrine (Marxist "dialectical materialism", or Ayn Rand's "Objectivism", or any material by Andrea Dworkin, for example... nearly anything you learn in public education that isn't hard math/science/language is pretty much faith-based). Why is it bad when a religious charity screens people based on religious views and recieves federal money, but good when a public university screens people based on their political views?
Imagine that, a private religious institution actually making rules for it's memebers! The next thing you know, Jews won't be eating shelfish and Muslims won't be able to drink and eat a big hearty breakfeast during Ramadan.
We are one step away from a nightmare scenario where there might even be clubs were men meet to wear aprons and learn secret handshakes. Clearly this is a case were the government needs to step in! The government always brings freedom!
Geez, I don't know what this church is thinking! Normally religions have few restrictions, and they are all quite reasonable!
Black & White was one of the most original and creative games ever made. It introduced a whole slew of gameplay elements not seen before, and was truly brilliant.
Unfortunatly, it just didn't PLAY that well. I wanted to love it! I wanted to tell people how great of a game it was. It SHOULD have been one of the greatest games ever because of the creativity, and quality of production. I have no problem saying a game isn't good when it is clearly a low-budget ripoff, or another lame first person shooter. But it is another thing to say a game isn't good when it is clear that the creaters didn't sell out, and truly tried to push the boundries and create something new and great.
Hopefully Black & White 2 corrects these things, but from the reviews it sounds like it still has some problems.
A lot of this is also a bias in the machine hardware... if computers were designed for a microkernal OS, that would solve a lot of the problems with using a microkernal OS.
Nuclear waste is so small, as to be almost insignificant. Imagine if those nuclear reactors took their waste, and incinerated the nuclear waste, sending the fumes into the atmosphere. That is coal and oil power! Coal and oil contains trace amounts of uranium, plutonium, and all kinds of nasty stuff. Even though it is extremly tiny amounts, due to the sheer amount of fossil fuels we burn, it is far more than, like I said, we incinerated our nuclear waste and pumped it into the atmosphere.
Also, nuclear waste if we recycle it, is less radioactive than when it is taken out of the ground. We have nuclear "waste" right now, all over the place... put there by mother nature. We are actually reducing the potentially dangerous nuclear waste in the ground.
We should still look for alternatives and improvements on principle... but worrying about nuclear waste from nuclear power is like worrying about nuclear waste from fossil fuels. If you aren't worried about one, you shouldn't be worried about the other!
Yes!
Now all you need is two years and $5,000,000 for the legal fees to prove it in court!
These insane patents are actually the best thing that could have ever happened. The way things are going now, there is going to have to be a major overhaul of the patent system. The instane patents have made it dramaticly clear that there is something wrong with the system (these are the tech equivelents of suing McDonalds because your kids are fat).
Had companies been less aggressive in patenting and litigating nearly anything possible, the system might go on how it is now for decades. These people are making the patent system collapse in a way that those against software patents don't have the power to do.
PHP is the good ol' beat up pickup truck... Java is one of those natural gas delivery trucks that delivery companies in the city use.
With PHP, you can throw junk in the back, tie it down with bungie cords, and get the thing rolling to wherever you want. Java runs a lot smoother, the trucks are a bit more reliable, but because of the whole natural gas thing there is a bigger investment in getting it up and running... you can't really throw an old refridgerator in the back and take off.
And neither one is an 18 wheeler big rig, or a sports car!
Can someone explain to me how the U.S. "controls" the internet? Clearly the U.S. only controls the actual infrastructure in it's own country. ICANN has no real enforcement powers, not even in the United States, it relies completly on voluntary compliance to it's technical standards and protocals, and those are regularly ignored not only in the rest of the world, but in the U.S.. The "root DNS" servers that it uses have no power to push anything onto any other servers, they are completly passive... other countries are not required in any way shape or form to use the root DNS servers that the United States provides (in fact, the root DNS servers are in the U.S. more because of historical reasons of when the U.S. was the only country on the internet than any big decision by ICANN). Countries, ISPs, even ISPs and networks in the United States often have DNS server information that differs from the root DNS servers.
Right now, NO ONE really controls the Internet. The U.S. has a big influence on the Internet, but you don't think the U.S. would have a big influence on the Internet if it was controled by the U.N.? You do know that the U.N. is based in the U.S., is funded mostly by the U.S. (despite what you may hear about the U.S. "not paying it's dues"), and on most issues tends to support the U.S. position (remember, you only hear about it in the news in the rare occasions that there is a disagreement with the U.S. and the U.N.). So shouldn't the arguement not be that "The U.N. wants to take control of the Internet from the U.S.", and instead be "The U.N. wants to take control of the Internet". And the word "control" should give you an idea of what this is really about. Right now the Internet isn't really under control, and that is what the U.N. wants to change. It wants to make the Internet like TV, radio, and telephones: centralized and easily controllable!
Actually, countries like China and Syria have mad it quite clear that their goals are to restructure the internet such that it is easier to track users, servers can be licenced and tracked, internet services can be taxed, it is easier to block sites, etc.
.uk .us. country extension, and with IP6 to give each country a huge block of IPs it controls). It would solve the problem of the U.S. "control" of the internet, and wouldn't require giving massive power to the U.N., and technologically wouldn't be that different than what exists now.
The whole "They just want to control a critical part of their infrastructure" arguement doesn't come from China, Syria, North Korea, or Cuba, it comes from apologists in the West in order to justify what is clearly an attemt to destroy the free internet as it operates now.
It would be extremly easy to implement a system where no one entity controls the internet (have each country be responsible for there own
This has nothing to do with countries worried about U.S. control of critical parts of their infrastructure (because all those countries have 100% control of their own infrastructure right now!), this is about wanting to end the era of the free, wild, and completly unregulated internet. It is about making the internet an easily controlable medium, like television, radio, and telephone. It is embarrasing for Western politicians to admit that their views on censorship, taxation, and internal survalence of their population is virtually identical to that of China, North Korea, Cuba, etc. So you spread some FUD about the U.S. being in control of their critical infrastructure (which it isn't, and even if it was the problem could be solved without the U.N.), and hope that knee jerk anti-Americanism will blind people to the real authoritarian goal.
I agree... it was an error of ommission on my part.
The point is, the FCC regulating the bandwidth so it is free for everyone to use is one thing, the FCC giving people a legal monopoly on bandwidth is another thing.
No one cares that the FCC says "this is the citizens band", or "this band is for cell phones". But the regulation of the FM and AM bands how they do now is simply corporate welfare.
You need the FCC to assign certain bandwidths to certain types and standards of communication, but you no longer need the FCC to assign a specific bandwidth to a specific station, thereby limiting stations.
It would be totally possible to have some sort of digital packet broadcast system where stations need a specific frequency band, that would allow tens of thousands of radio stations in an area instead of 5 or 10. The primary purpose of the FCC regulation of radio nowadays is to maintain a limited amount of radio stations, thereby sustaining the profit model of radio. (After all, price is set by supply and demand. If you increase the supply of radio broadcasts, but the demand for radio broadcasts stays the same, the cost of advertising on radio will go down!)
What does your fearmongering have to do with Jack Thompson's fearmongering?
Seriously, don't worry about Jack having a gun, the same people wanting to ban video games are typically the same who want to ban guns and self defence... and the same laywers who sue video game companies for street violence are the same ones who sue gun companies for street violence. Both are based on the ideology of "People must give up their constitutional rights and personal freedoms in order to protect society and children".
Stop trying to promote your own authoritarian agenda by tying it to some other unrelated position. The constitution give Americans BOTH the right to free speech and the right to bear arms.
How did FDR give us workplace protection? He is part of the executive branch, and so he should not have any constitutional power to make laws?
But even if I assume your assumption is true, and labor unions and direct action by working people had nothing to do with it, and the work week for most people wasn't already 40 hours a week at the time the "fair labor standards act" was made a law, and instead the 40 hour work week was a glorious gift dropped into our lap by a member of the millioniare ruling class, what does that have to do with FDRs disasterous effect on the government, including things that effect the patent laws?
FDR did so many horrible things: he approved rounding up people and putting them into concentration camps because of their race, and turned the U.S., who was comitted to being neutral and staying out of wars, into the worlds most vast and powerful war machine which has continued to this day. He installed government censorship and control of the media that we couldn't even imagine even in these days of G. W. Bush (some may say "it was only because of the war", but his own records show he wanted all waretime controls to be permanent)... and he forced millions into the military service without their concent.
And, as it relates to this topic, his supreme court justices who he stacked into the court, so broadly defined "interstate commerce" and the governments regulation that there isn't anything that the government can't do in the name of "interstate commerce". So, if a corporation wants to patent a buisness model, or human DNA, or things like that that are clearly an absolute abuse of the patent system, the government is free to enforce those rediculous laws because any restrictions on the government were abandoned with FDR.
FDR was a facist monster, probably the closest thing the U.S. ever had to a dictator. He was a racist, totalitarian thug, not much different than the facisism in Europe that he was against.
While I disagree with Orson Scott Card's politics, it is very unfair to call him "an insane rightwing religious fanatic" (although I suppose that nowadays in our big brother world anyone who doesn't have absolute unquestioning faith in what is "politically correct" is some sort of "dangerous extremist").
The Taliban are religious fanatics. Pat Roberson is a religious fanatic. Orson Scott Card is not a religious fanatic, he is someone who simply has views that differ with yours.
At one time in the Western world it was considered enlightened to have free an open discussion amoung people with differing views. You respected those you disagreed with, if they respected you, even if you had political disagreements. Even if there was NO ONE who would argue a certain point of view, someone would be the "devil's advocate", and argue that point of view - because to not expose yourself to a certain point was considered the height of ignorance!
How low we have sunk, to where one questions the sanity of anyone who disagrees with them, and will not have anything to do with them... and now, increasingly they want to throw people who disagree with them in prison, or at least make it illegal for them to speak in public.
Of course, don't give a single example so I can decide for myself, just throw out wild acussations.
After all, there is no need for one to make personal judgements. Anyone who doesn't take your word for things is obviously a hate criminal who needs to be sent to the gulags!
Most western European countries will not meet their Kyoto requirements without some creative bookkeeping... so of course it isn't going to destroy their economies.
So you are an optometrist AND a neo-Nazi then?
Every day I walk the streets, I have to be on my guard, not knowing when a komono dragon is going to bite off my leg, or an enraged ape is going to storm out of an alley and attack me, or an electric eel is going to zap me the next time I step in a puddle. I live in fear! FEAR I TELL YOU!! What is that buzzing sound? I hear it is too cold in Canada for Africanized honey bees, but YOU CAN NEVER BE TOO CAREFUL, DAMN IT!
It restores my faith in government that there is no threat too obscure, too irrelevant, or too laughable not to legislate and spend gobs of money on!
Seeing as the number of people killed by non-indigenous species every year has got to be, what, like 8 people?
Horse is probably leaner and better for you than beef. It definitly won't have all the hormones in it. If only it wasn't so expensive.
Or rather, in a "democracy" the "people that matter" are the ones who sell bar code equipment, RFID tags, and all the expensive equipment who get off their asses and lobby government for this "public protection"... and make billions of dollars off the contracts with the government and those stores.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am sure that RFID suppliers can get some fearmongering from politicians, maybe get 20/20 or Ralf Nadar or some other corporate whore to do an "expose" on why we need the equipment, and get people all riled up like they got for West Nile Virus or violent video games or nukes in Iraq. But that will clearly be after the deal is all working out with the politicians.
And of course it won't do a thing, because people are getting sick from eating Big Macs and potato chips, not from eating tainted food.
And look, there is someone on my porch. They are carrying a knife, and have a wicked grin on their face. I think that they are trying to break in and kill me and my family. I don't have 100% proof, but someone coming in to kill my family is such a terrible thing to happen, I can't wait around until it is too late waiting to know for sure. I MUST take action now! BAMMM!!! I shot them dead! Oh wait, it turns out it was just my neighbor comming to return the knife he borrowed. Se la vie, better safe than sorry.
It is good to know enviornmentalists have taken the G. W. Bush approach to enviornmentalism!