Seriously, this is hysterically funny BECAUSE it is so spot on.
And I just realized government is really just another species of butt leech except not quite so harmless!:-)
I want to point out one other thing: The business users who would jump to Linux BECAUSE OF a good Quickbooks alternative would be high quality, influential new users. They would bring money and, commonly, would convert their entire office over to Linux. So bringing GnuCash ALONE out of the interface/usability stoneage, or replacing it entirely if necessary, with a real Quickbooks competitor would likely add millions or tens of millions of new, and unusually high quality end-users to Linux.
Strategically it would be brilliant.
If only the GnuCash management wasn't effectively keeping the doorway to the Linux elevator signposted "Out of Order".
The one app which has kept me -- and virtually all small to middle-sized businesses -- locked to Windows for the past twenty years is Quickbooks. It used to be Microsoft Office, but not so much any more. GnuCash could be a contender, I believe, but for some reason I can't comprehend, its interface and flexibility, particularly in setup, remains stubbornly ugly and clunky. It's like the GnuCash programming leadership has never seen Quicken/Quickbooks, remains oblivious that Quicken/Quickbooks runs circles around them in terms of usability, or just doesn't care. But if they really don't care, why do they keep rolling out updates? But if they care, why don't they seem unable to learn from history... pretending that Quicken/Quickbooks didn't change the game more than 20 years ago?
Just as LibreOffice has, finally, and quickly become a contender to Microsoft Office by focusing on usability and interface, GnuCash could do the same. GnuCash should strive to COPY Quickbooks as much as possible. Make it trivial to jump from Quickbooks to GnuCash by copying the interface. In particular Quicken/Quickbooks uses a dynamic "outline" interface for setting up and changing accounts and subaccounts. In Quickbooks you can change nearly anything with a simple drag and drop. You can make an account a subaccount or a subaccount a top level account. You can even drag and drop to move an account (with subaccounts) from, say, an asset to an equity account. You see the change and all the accounting is taken care of behind the scenes.
I really want to be constructive. And I really want to flee Microsoft and Intuit (look at Amazon reviews and you'll notice that a huge percentage of Quickbooks users really are upset with Intuits' predation and really want to find an alternative..but feel trapped. GnuCash isn't that alternative. And it will NEVER be that alternative until they "get it" that Quickbooks changed the game on accounting software at least two decades ago. And, again, they COULD become that alternative in, perhaps, one version upgrade if they would get their heads in gear and pay attention to their competition. And you you know what? If GnuCash would undertake that self examination and change their development focus, they could change the whole Linux dynamic almost overnight.
And if the GnuCash crew is too ossified or arrogant to undertake that self-examination and change, it would be nice if someone would fork GunCash. Maybe the Libre people could undertake that?
Red is a complete rewrite and upgrade of REBOL. REBOL?
REBOL was rated as THE most expressive general purpose language (by a long shot) according to the famous http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2.... But, curiously, it got no recognition. Rebol is sort of a the swiss army knife of languages (with networking, graphics, and pretty much you-name-it)
All in less than ONE megabyte! No "libraries" -- the libraries are pretty nearly all built in. That seems near impossible in today's bloated world, but it happens to be true.
And Red is a major reimplementation and upgrade likely to be released in 1.0 form within months. Actually red is aiming to be the world's first "full stack language" -- for everything from system's programming to DSLs and above.
Download version 0.6 and read more here: red-lang.org. If you are intrigued, you can learn more, and assess for yourself the importance of rebol/ red by talking direct to the community and developers here: https://gitter.im/red/red.
Commonsense would tell you than that the level of responsibility, risk, work-load and obsession assumed by a real entrepreneur would incline them to exhaustion, likely insomnia, and depression. But that's in retrospect. Initially there is the excitement and, when things seem to be accelerating, there can be a real buzz factor. But it sort of makes sense that the downside of the upside can be - and likely usually IS - as extreme as the buzz when things go well.
In general, I think the average employee has approximately zero comprehension of the scope and sheer load and risk being borne by a typical entrepreneur under money and other pressures. And, of course, as "the leader" you can't exactly talk openly about the doubts, fears, and personal problems - many which can scarcely be articulated - going through your mind as you contemplate what happens if things don't turn out or if YOU, personally, don't find an answer to a particular challenge...while the clock ticks, the legal and presumed ethical responsibility goes higher, and the bank balance goes lower.
Nothing reasonable about BMI. The license fee from them starts around $1,000 a year for a small sized restaurant and does NOT include any live music. It can go WAY higher from there. They charge by the foot and have all manner of legal crapola in their contract for collecting other fees from you if you miscalculate your situation. And, note, BMI only licenses SOME music. It is NOT ASCAP, and I don't believe paying BMI will cover you if you don't happen to know which agency licenses what. And there are other license holders as well. So it's really a legal minefield playing ANY sort of music in your for-profit business. Live band? Beware, beware, beware! You maybe *thought* you were licensed for that particular song? Wanna play Russian roulette? Most restaurants are very marginal in profits so a $20K judgement will probably put a high percentage of them out of business pretty quick. But the saddest thing is there really isn't any solid way to protect your business. An employee plays something even one time or against your policy from normal Pandora or Apple or Spotify? You can be screwed seven ways from Sunday.
Probably the best deal out there right now for commercial businesses which want to play popular music is Pandora THROUGH DMX. http://www.dmx.com/pandora/. It was about $25/month last I checked. But you DO need a hardware piece and that hardware requires a fixed IP address if you have other things on your network. So the $25/month becomes $50/month. That is $600/year. So you are approaching BMI prices again. And you STILL have risk from other license holders. And you still can't play live. Nor anything which isn't being MEASURED and tracked by the DMX hardware.
Jamendo offers another path if you can play "unknown" artists doing unknown songs. They are from europe and license independent music and have a provision for businesses at something like $60/year.
And I understand (but what do I know?) that you are okay if you play music copyrighted before 1921 or something. But note that an old piece of music will still have a copyright if someone performed it and copyrighted their "interpretation"/ performance. So....landmine there as well.
What is the answer? Maybe revoke the fourteenth amendment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution). Or give up hope. It's an ugly future as the corporations now have vastly more rights than mere humans.
"If you would not give your body to any passer-by to do with as he wills, why do you give your mind?"
And privacy. And integrity. And - ultimately - freedom. (History is pretty clear about this).
Epictetus asked a good question 2,000 years ago. It is still a good question. Does "internet user" == prostitute? Is resistance to being prostituted == immoral? Google seems to think so.
Can we all agree that wouldn't be really smart? I want to point out what should be obvious: using robots to do menial, repetitive work is the continuation of what's been going for hundreds of years. There is no difference between replacing human laborers with robots and replacing human labors with tractors and other equipment.
This is related to the broken glass fallacy. Think of how many jobs can be added to the economy if we only break all the glass in a major city and replace it! Some dullards, and politicians, have been invoked variations on this logic in recent years, viz the "cash for clunkers" farce. Yes, you can create menial jobs which actually shrink the economy by revoking technology or enlarging government. The USSR and Mao's China were poster children.
I was sympathetic to Lessig's stated goal but I was MUCH more interested in strategically crippling the standing Criminal in Chief -- who just so happens to be, and should have been, public enemy #1 on Lessig's posterboard...not JUST for his "big and corrupt money is welcome" approach to politics but also to his utter disdain for Rule of Law in pretty much all regards.
The past election achieved that.
I am currently aware of only ONE VIABLE candidate for the Presidency next year who happens to advocate Constitutional government, ESPECIALLY privacy rights but also Constitutionally mandated war and adherence to the Bill of Rights in general. Yeah: Rand Paul.
Only if Rand Paul wins the Republican nomination for President am I likely to support a Republican candidate for President next year -- even IF the Republican candidate takes Lessig's pledge. Stopping unconstitutional government is really the goal - and I think Lessig would agree with that. Trying to gradually tilt the US toward politically LAWFUL health while the patient it dying on the operating table and clearly is going zombie is admirable but not wise. We needed a tactical strike and, thankfully, we got one. ALL Americans who oppose tyranny and "big money in poltics" should appreciate the outcome we got. Our Criminal in Chief has been effectively quarantined for the duration of his lawful term.
In general I hate the Republican party as much as I hate the Democratic Party. But GAME THEORY and keeping ones' eye on the REAL prize - the Constitution - dictated that tactics trump strategy at this time. Just to be clear, in the days of George Bush - our previous Criminal in Chief - I opposed HIM and I supported gridlock. I supported Obama in that pivotal election ONLY because I thought he meant what he said and, in particular, because I thought he would bring the banksters and other felons involved with government to trial. In retrospect, Obama had, obviously, had been purchased beforehand. So I made a mistake. As I recall Lessig made the same mistake. We are united in long term goal, I think, Lessig and I. But Lessig's strategy needed to be preempted by a tactical strike in this case. He should have known that, and perhaps he did, but he may have been afraid that would put off a lot of his donor base. BTW, Lessig USED to consider himself "libertarian"...we appear to have both moved on from that label. Me, I only seek lawful government: a government UTTERLY BOUND by its own law...which happens to be the Constitution together with legal Amendments. And Article 10 is especially important... which is why it is the Amendment neither Party ossified Democrats nor Republicans like to mention, much less uphold. Amendment 10 is the last of Bill of Rights but it is first in terms of keeping government legal and decent.
Amendment 10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
One has to wonder if you gave an "academic" a really stupid question -- such as whether it would be good for a nation and a people, in the long run, to create a system of debt money with a secret cabal of banksters overseeing it and profiting from it -- what the answer might be? On the other hand, maybe maybe one doesn't have to wonder too much... unless one is too "academic" or otherwise in thrall to the status quo.
I'm frankly astonished at the lack of intelligence and discernment shown by most people regarding the real threat from google. In particular, I'm nonplussed at the stupidity -- probably more like naivete combined with fundamental inability to extrapolate from trends -- evidenced by most on slashdot. Most of you guys are probably in the top 5% in terms of raw intelligence; it is past time you started demonstrating some of that. Or is it that case that many of the Google apologists on this board actually work for Google or are otherwise compromised??
NDAA was joyfully signed into law on Dec 31, 2011 by Obama. US citizens can now be "disappeared" without legal recourse for vaguely worded reasons which, given the history of how government works, will naturally morph into no reason at all. Other laws, such as SOPA, etc. are on the way, just as fast and successively as our Masters in Washington can sneak or cram them down our throats or up our butts. If you aren't following those developments, you should be -- it is not often you get an inside track to the building of the most dangerous police state the world has ever seen... by several orders of magnitude or more. Last year, Obama demonstrated that he can assassinate US citizens who have never even been charged with a crime. So much for that "Nobel Peace Prize". Most of the 4th Amendment was nullified with the propagandistically named PATRIOT Act some years ago and with more roars of approval than whimpers from the population. We are NOW living in a police state far more than in a Republic. We are already here. And the power of the police state is growing at an accelerating rate. Resistance is minimal and under pervasive and systematic subversion. Too much profit opportunity, I guess. I heard IBM and other American companies similarly facilitated the building of the Third Reich and its concentration camps.
Google is compelled to comply with government mandates to turn over pretty much any information it has about anyone at any time. A simple government request is enough -- no judge-issued search warrant is required. Once again, this is a trend which is well underway; if your google information isn't routinely shared with the government yet, just wait another year or two.
But Google has almost unimaginable power in America. And let's be clear, GOOGLE **IS** THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR GOOGLE AS THE THIRD REICH WAS THE PEOPLE WHO WORKED FOR THE THIRD REICH. So, the people work for google are building the infrastructure for a totalitarian police state of nightmare scope. Oh, sure, they are going to say something lame like "guns don't kill people, only people kill people." But you don't supply a gun to an obvious psychopath and you don't aim it at a child. Oh, but Google does! Knowingly. Systematically. Ruthlessly.
Google started off providing search with no ads. Harmless! Since then, they have systematically and cunningly grown like a cancer across the social world... or is it more apt to compare them to VD, since the spread is so joyful and voluntary on the part of most of the carriers?? Everyone thinks about search and mail, but most miss the bigger picture. Google has infected your phone. They fly over your house regularly and PHOTOGRAPH you. They drive down your street so they can be sure to have frontal shots. The were caught systematically recording specifics of your internet connection to specifically tie your computer to your home address and LIED about these "drive by shootings" being an "accident" (like they "accidentally" outfitted their vehicles with this snooping capability and "accidentally" set up their databases to retain this information). Now they have gotten a foothold in social media with Google+ and are in the trusted payment business (I recently signed up for a seminar only to find that the host had turned me over to Google). It doesn't even matter if you don't use any Google services (although that is hard bordering on impossible to avoid) since if any of your friends use gmail or have an
Although few have the thoughtfulness or courage to really examine the premise at the heart of government, this is the whole of it. Government starts with three people and one gun in a room. If one controls the gun, it is a dictatorship. If two control the gun, via some sort of private deal, it is an oligarchy. If two people control the gun by popular vote, it is a democracy. The idea that the three people can somehow share the gun is a fallacy - there is always a point of disagreement on some issue where the gun comes in to play; if there were not, there would be no need of a gun at all.
No manner of allocation changes the fact that it is naked force which the tool of power and all methods of government rest on the presumption that some have the right to use that power against others who do not comply with arbitrary rules as dictated, and interpreted, by them. Unless you believe that "might makes right" - in which case Hitler was right - all government rests on an evil premise. The argument that there is some sort of "social compact" which somehow can rescue government from its premise is transparently ridiculous. Nobody gave me an opportunity to opt out of the system and, as Rothbard pointed out, if you accept the idea of a social compact overruling individual rights you need to accept the idea that the Jews, under the democratically empowered Nazi government, weren't murdered... they committed suicide.
Once you understand that government is inherently evil - because its premise is evil - most issues concerning form, and scope, and control of government become remarkably simple. Specifically, the Statist sophistry about how the innocent have nothing to fear from The Man with the gun, that "government is your friend", completely unravels. But don't expect The Man to agree with you.
As I final comment, for those you encounter who are too dim witted to follow the logic of government's premise being evil, or who can't see how that is relevant to the issue of privacy, you might try pointing out that history has proven, over and over again, that bureaucracy gravitates naturally toward incompetence as government self-selects for incompetence and those who can work the system. Pretty much everyone has direct experience with nonsensical government bumbling of things which should be common sense. Why should anyone be okay with giving a known incompetent, any more than a known gossip, complete access to their private information?
P.S. Support Ron Paul and the US Constitution. Neither is perfect, but at least they aren't arbitrary and they aren't evil.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, this is hysterically funny BECAUSE it is so spot on. And I just realized government is really just another species of butt leech except not quite so harmless! :-)
I want to point out one other thing: The business users who would jump to Linux BECAUSE OF a good Quickbooks alternative would be high quality, influential new users. They would bring money and, commonly, would convert their entire office over to Linux. So bringing GnuCash ALONE out of the interface/usability stoneage, or replacing it entirely if necessary, with a real Quickbooks competitor would likely add millions or tens of millions of new, and unusually high quality end-users to Linux. Strategically it would be brilliant. If only the GnuCash management wasn't effectively keeping the doorway to the Linux elevator signposted "Out of Order".
The one app which has kept me -- and virtually all small to middle-sized businesses -- locked to Windows for the past twenty years is Quickbooks. It used to be Microsoft Office, but not so much any more. GnuCash could be a contender, I believe, but for some reason I can't comprehend, its interface and flexibility, particularly in setup, remains stubbornly ugly and clunky. It's like the GnuCash programming leadership has never seen Quicken/Quickbooks, remains oblivious that Quicken/Quickbooks runs circles around them in terms of usability, or just doesn't care. But if they really don't care, why do they keep rolling out updates? But if they care, why don't they seem unable to learn from history... pretending that Quicken/Quickbooks didn't change the game more than 20 years ago? Just as LibreOffice has, finally, and quickly become a contender to Microsoft Office by focusing on usability and interface, GnuCash could do the same. GnuCash should strive to COPY Quickbooks as much as possible. Make it trivial to jump from Quickbooks to GnuCash by copying the interface. In particular Quicken/Quickbooks uses a dynamic "outline" interface for setting up and changing accounts and subaccounts. In Quickbooks you can change nearly anything with a simple drag and drop. You can make an account a subaccount or a subaccount a top level account. You can even drag and drop to move an account (with subaccounts) from, say, an asset to an equity account. You see the change and all the accounting is taken care of behind the scenes. I really want to be constructive. And I really want to flee Microsoft and Intuit (look at Amazon reviews and you'll notice that a huge percentage of Quickbooks users really are upset with Intuits' predation and really want to find an alternative..but feel trapped. GnuCash isn't that alternative. And it will NEVER be that alternative until they "get it" that Quickbooks changed the game on accounting software at least two decades ago. And, again, they COULD become that alternative in, perhaps, one version upgrade if they would get their heads in gear and pay attention to their competition. And you you know what? If GnuCash would undertake that self examination and change their development focus, they could change the whole Linux dynamic almost overnight. And if the GnuCash crew is too ossified or arrogant to undertake that self-examination and change, it would be nice if someone would fork GunCash. Maybe the Libre people could undertake that?
Red is a complete rewrite and upgrade of REBOL. REBOL? REBOL was rated as THE most expressive general purpose language (by a long shot) according to the famous http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2.... But, curiously, it got no recognition. Rebol is sort of a the swiss army knife of languages (with networking, graphics, and pretty much you-name-it) All in less than ONE megabyte! No "libraries" -- the libraries are pretty nearly all built in. That seems near impossible in today's bloated world, but it happens to be true. And Red is a major reimplementation and upgrade likely to be released in 1.0 form within months. Actually red is aiming to be the world's first "full stack language" -- for everything from system's programming to DSLs and above. Download version 0.6 and read more here: red-lang.org. If you are intrigued, you can learn more, and assess for yourself the importance of rebol/ red by talking direct to the community and developers here: https://gitter.im/red/red.
Commonsense would tell you than that the level of responsibility, risk, work-load and obsession assumed by a real entrepreneur would incline them to exhaustion, likely insomnia, and depression. But that's in retrospect. Initially there is the excitement and, when things seem to be accelerating, there can be a real buzz factor. But it sort of makes sense that the downside of the upside can be - and likely usually IS - as extreme as the buzz when things go well. In general, I think the average employee has approximately zero comprehension of the scope and sheer load and risk being borne by a typical entrepreneur under money and other pressures. And, of course, as "the leader" you can't exactly talk openly about the doubts, fears, and personal problems - many which can scarcely be articulated - going through your mind as you contemplate what happens if things don't turn out or if YOU, personally, don't find an answer to a particular challenge...while the clock ticks, the legal and presumed ethical responsibility goes higher, and the bank balance goes lower.
Nothing reasonable about BMI. The license fee from them starts around $1,000 a year for a small sized restaurant and does NOT include any live music. It can go WAY higher from there. They charge by the foot and have all manner of legal crapola in their contract for collecting other fees from you if you miscalculate your situation. And, note, BMI only licenses SOME music. It is NOT ASCAP, and I don't believe paying BMI will cover you if you don't happen to know which agency licenses what. And there are other license holders as well. So it's really a legal minefield playing ANY sort of music in your for-profit business. Live band? Beware, beware, beware! You maybe *thought* you were licensed for that particular song? Wanna play Russian roulette? Most restaurants are very marginal in profits so a $20K judgement will probably put a high percentage of them out of business pretty quick. But the saddest thing is there really isn't any solid way to protect your business. An employee plays something even one time or against your policy from normal Pandora or Apple or Spotify? You can be screwed seven ways from Sunday. Probably the best deal out there right now for commercial businesses which want to play popular music is Pandora THROUGH DMX. http://www.dmx.com/pandora/. It was about $25/month last I checked. But you DO need a hardware piece and that hardware requires a fixed IP address if you have other things on your network. So the $25/month becomes $50/month. That is $600/year. So you are approaching BMI prices again. And you STILL have risk from other license holders. And you still can't play live. Nor anything which isn't being MEASURED and tracked by the DMX hardware. Jamendo offers another path if you can play "unknown" artists doing unknown songs. They are from europe and license independent music and have a provision for businesses at something like $60/year. And I understand (but what do I know?) that you are okay if you play music copyrighted before 1921 or something. But note that an old piece of music will still have a copyright if someone performed it and copyrighted their "interpretation"/ performance. So....landmine there as well. What is the answer? Maybe revoke the fourteenth amendment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution). Or give up hope. It's an ugly future as the corporations now have vastly more rights than mere humans.
"If you would not give your body to any passer-by to do with as he wills, why do you give your mind?" And privacy. And integrity. And - ultimately - freedom. (History is pretty clear about this). Epictetus asked a good question 2,000 years ago. It is still a good question. Does "internet user" == prostitute? Is resistance to being prostituted == immoral? Google seems to think so.
Can we all agree that wouldn't be really smart? I want to point out what should be obvious: using robots to do menial, repetitive work is the continuation of what's been going for hundreds of years. There is no difference between replacing human laborers with robots and replacing human labors with tractors and other equipment. This is related to the broken glass fallacy. Think of how many jobs can be added to the economy if we only break all the glass in a major city and replace it! Some dullards, and politicians, have been invoked variations on this logic in recent years, viz the "cash for clunkers" farce. Yes, you can create menial jobs which actually shrink the economy by revoking technology or enlarging government. The USSR and Mao's China were poster children.
I was sympathetic to Lessig's stated goal but I was MUCH more interested in strategically crippling the standing Criminal in Chief -- who just so happens to be, and should have been, public enemy #1 on Lessig's posterboard...not JUST for his "big and corrupt money is welcome" approach to politics but also to his utter disdain for Rule of Law in pretty much all regards. The past election achieved that. I am currently aware of only ONE VIABLE candidate for the Presidency next year who happens to advocate Constitutional government, ESPECIALLY privacy rights but also Constitutionally mandated war and adherence to the Bill of Rights in general. Yeah: Rand Paul. Only if Rand Paul wins the Republican nomination for President am I likely to support a Republican candidate for President next year -- even IF the Republican candidate takes Lessig's pledge. Stopping unconstitutional government is really the goal - and I think Lessig would agree with that. Trying to gradually tilt the US toward politically LAWFUL health while the patient it dying on the operating table and clearly is going zombie is admirable but not wise. We needed a tactical strike and, thankfully, we got one. ALL Americans who oppose tyranny and "big money in poltics" should appreciate the outcome we got. Our Criminal in Chief has been effectively quarantined for the duration of his lawful term. In general I hate the Republican party as much as I hate the Democratic Party. But GAME THEORY and keeping ones' eye on the REAL prize - the Constitution - dictated that tactics trump strategy at this time. Just to be clear, in the days of George Bush - our previous Criminal in Chief - I opposed HIM and I supported gridlock. I supported Obama in that pivotal election ONLY because I thought he meant what he said and, in particular, because I thought he would bring the banksters and other felons involved with government to trial. In retrospect, Obama had, obviously, had been purchased beforehand. So I made a mistake. As I recall Lessig made the same mistake. We are united in long term goal, I think, Lessig and I. But Lessig's strategy needed to be preempted by a tactical strike in this case. He should have known that, and perhaps he did, but he may have been afraid that would put off a lot of his donor base. BTW, Lessig USED to consider himself "libertarian"...we appear to have both moved on from that label. Me, I only seek lawful government: a government UTTERLY BOUND by its own law...which happens to be the Constitution together with legal Amendments. And Article 10 is especially important ... which is why it is the Amendment neither Party ossified Democrats nor Republicans like to mention, much less uphold. Amendment 10 is the last of Bill of Rights but it is first in terms of keeping government legal and decent.
Amendment 10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Selective enforcement of laws is essential for our Masters to retain power. They need to have something to barter for compliance with tyranny.
One has to wonder if you gave an "academic" a really stupid question -- such as whether it would be good for a nation and a people, in the long run, to create a system of debt money with a secret cabal of banksters overseeing it and profiting from it -- what the answer might be? On the other hand, maybe maybe one doesn't have to wonder too much ... unless one is too "academic" or otherwise in thrall to the status quo.
I'm frankly astonished at the lack of intelligence and discernment shown by most people regarding the real threat from google. In particular, I'm nonplussed at the stupidity -- probably more like naivete combined with fundamental inability to extrapolate from trends -- evidenced by most on slashdot. Most of you guys are probably in the top 5% in terms of raw intelligence; it is past time you started demonstrating some of that. Or is it that case that many of the Google apologists on this board actually work for Google or are otherwise compromised?? NDAA was joyfully signed into law on Dec 31, 2011 by Obama. US citizens can now be "disappeared" without legal recourse for vaguely worded reasons which, given the history of how government works, will naturally morph into no reason at all. Other laws, such as SOPA, etc. are on the way, just as fast and successively as our Masters in Washington can sneak or cram them down our throats or up our butts. If you aren't following those developments, you should be -- it is not often you get an inside track to the building of the most dangerous police state the world has ever seen ... by several orders of magnitude or more. Last year, Obama demonstrated that he can assassinate US citizens who have never even been charged with a crime. So much for that "Nobel Peace Prize". Most of the 4th Amendment was nullified with the propagandistically named PATRIOT Act some years ago and with more roars of approval than whimpers from the population. We are NOW living in a police state far more than in a Republic. We are already here. And the power of the police state is growing at an accelerating rate. Resistance is minimal and under pervasive and systematic subversion. Too much profit opportunity, I guess. I heard IBM and other American companies similarly facilitated the building of the Third Reich and its concentration camps.
Google is compelled to comply with government mandates to turn over pretty much any information it has about anyone at any time. A simple government request is enough -- no judge-issued search warrant is required. Once again, this is a trend which is well underway; if your google information isn't routinely shared with the government yet, just wait another year or two.
But Google has almost unimaginable power in America. And let's be clear, GOOGLE **IS** THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR GOOGLE AS THE THIRD REICH WAS THE PEOPLE WHO WORKED FOR THE THIRD REICH. So, the people work for google are building the infrastructure for a totalitarian police state of nightmare scope. Oh, sure, they are going to say something lame like "guns don't kill people, only people kill people." But you don't supply a gun to an obvious psychopath and you don't aim it at a child. Oh, but Google does! Knowingly. Systematically. Ruthlessly.
Google started off providing search with no ads. Harmless! Since then, they have systematically and cunningly grown like a cancer across the social world ... or is it more apt to compare them to VD, since the spread is so joyful and voluntary on the part of most of the carriers?? Everyone thinks about search and mail, but most miss the bigger picture. Google has infected your phone. They fly over your house regularly and PHOTOGRAPH you. They drive down your street so they can be sure to have frontal shots. The were caught systematically recording specifics of your internet connection to specifically tie your computer to your home address and LIED about these "drive by shootings" being an "accident" (like they "accidentally" outfitted their vehicles with this snooping capability and "accidentally" set up their databases to retain this information). Now they have gotten a foothold in social media with Google+ and are in the trusted payment business (I recently signed up for a seminar only to find that the host had turned me over to Google). It doesn't even matter if you don't use any Google services (although that is hard bordering on impossible to avoid) since if any of your friends use gmail or have an
Although few have the thoughtfulness or courage to really examine the premise at the heart of government, this is the whole of it. Government starts with three people and one gun in a room. If one controls the gun, it is a dictatorship. If two control the gun, via some sort of private deal, it is an oligarchy. If two people control the gun by popular vote, it is a democracy. The idea that the three people can somehow share the gun is a fallacy - there is always a point of disagreement on some issue where the gun comes in to play; if there were not, there would be no need of a gun at all. No manner of allocation changes the fact that it is naked force which the tool of power and all methods of government rest on the presumption that some have the right to use that power against others who do not comply with arbitrary rules as dictated, and interpreted, by them. Unless you believe that "might makes right" - in which case Hitler was right - all government rests on an evil premise. The argument that there is some sort of "social compact" which somehow can rescue government from its premise is transparently ridiculous. Nobody gave me an opportunity to opt out of the system and, as Rothbard pointed out, if you accept the idea of a social compact overruling individual rights you need to accept the idea that the Jews, under the democratically empowered Nazi government, weren't murdered ... they committed suicide.
Once you understand that government is inherently evil - because its premise is evil - most issues concerning form, and scope, and control of government become remarkably simple. Specifically, the Statist sophistry about how the innocent have nothing to fear from The Man with the gun, that "government is your friend", completely unravels. But don't expect The Man to agree with you.
As I final comment, for those you encounter who are too dim witted to follow the logic of government's premise being evil, or who can't see how that is relevant to the issue of privacy, you might try pointing out that history has proven, over and over again, that bureaucracy gravitates naturally toward incompetence as government self-selects for incompetence and those who can work the system. Pretty much everyone has direct experience with nonsensical government bumbling of things which should be common sense. Why should anyone be okay with giving a known incompetent, any more than a known gossip, complete access to their private information?
P.S. Support Ron Paul and the US Constitution. Neither is perfect, but at least they aren't arbitrary and they aren't evil.