" Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
This says you are free to speak. Strictly speaking it does not say you do not have to face consequences of what you say. (Shouting fire in a crowded theather example) It certainly does not say you have the right do speak anonymous. The amendment was clearly not written by lawyers. Not good ones anyway.
facing the consequences of what you say does not mean it is ok to impose whatever consequences the government dreams up, but rather you must face the BONA FIDE consequences of your words. Yelling fire imposes real danger on people. The risk of death or injury in a stampede, not to mention when the fire department responds to a false alarm a real emergency may get ignored.
The principles of justice which are supposed to underlie all law in a so called democracy are supposed to balance the punishment with the actual harm.
A DOS attack is not an annoyance it is mischief and already carries a seperate punishment. No one is free to tamper with of try to impair the function of someone elses property.
This crime punishes mere annoyance. Annoyance is something less than harm. Annoyance is a trifle.
A criminal record is a LOT MORE THAN AN ANNOYANCE! It is a permanent tarnish and stigma on your name. It is your fingerprints in a government database. It is the loss of your right to vote. Perhaps the loss of your other rights for 2 years.
This goes against all philosophical thought on the role of the state and the criminal justice system. The state, especially the courts, should not involve itself in mere trifles! This practically amounts to contempt of court by the legislative and execute branches.
oops.. I hope that statement didn't ANNOY anyone. (or this statement)
You imagine that your elected representatives even have the power to control the corporation. Thanks to various international trade agreements, governments are in modern times generally obligated to compensate corporations when they do anything that takes away their God given right to profit at the expense of others.
The solution to the problem of chinese censorhip is to impose harsh tariffs on all chinese imports.
When corporations are allowed to merge without end and grow to any size, democracy is swallowed whole.
I could not have said it better myself. All the talk about respecting people's rights, caring about the community, the environment or any morality at all is absolutely nothing more than PR when it comes from a corporate spokesperson.
I think you forgot to mention the addendum. The Quran.
Politicians will sell to anyone with the cash or influence, which includes a great many special interest groups that aren't associated with corporations or wealthy individuals.
Hypothetically assuming what you say is true, it doesnt negate the systemic vaccine against such a politician: a Politicians who "sells out" to groups who lack the wealth necessary to control the media and manipulate the frame of public debate are no threat. Such politicians will never get re-elected. The media (undeniably corporate controlled (considering that advertisers are the ones who finance the media and advertisers are corporate)) will not allow anyone to forget that this politician has "sold out".
Unless you want to tell me the mass media isn't funded by corporate advertising?
Without government power what's to keep the 'masses' from picking up their pitchforks and skewering the local lord?
At least you acknowledge my claim that the "tyranny of the majority" is a reference to tyranny against the wealthy and powerful.
However the real question is without a parliament and a constitution what was to keep the local lord from picking up a sword and skewering whatever commoner he pleased whenever he pleased for whatever reason he pleased?
Nobility have killed, murdered, tortered, raped far more commoners than ever in the other direction.
more: the masses tend to love their leaders. The only thing LORDS need fear, is that if their people are starving to death while he luxiariates in oppulence. That tends to piss people off. But if he shares the hardship, no one will touch him. (based on your rejection of history in your message, I'm not suprised you are ignorant of this).
people are quite happy to see their own leaders living to a certain degree of priviledge, so that they may better focus their minds on LEADING.
But certainly you are right. The masses would not tolerate anyone being stinking lazy rich. too bad.
The more powerful the government the LESS likely it is to listen to the people it supposedly represents. If government is weak - indeed, if it FEARS the people - it's far more likely to do what the hell it's told to do, rather than what individuals within the government WANT to do.
explain to me how a weak government can actually do what the people want?
The people want: law enforcement, national security, public education, social security, a justice system, a monetary system, healthcare, a clean environment, mass transit, consumer/labour protection, democracy, tax collection... we want all this and we want it to be relatively UNCORRUPTABLE.
1: how can something be uncorruptable if it is weak?
2: how can any government which provides this possibly be SMALL and weak in a nation with 300 million people?
So... what you are saying is this: the less power the government has to carry out the wishes of the people (expressed democratically), the less it will be able to succeed in accomplishing those directive, and the more government has to fear from those people (who naturally would be very upset that their government was not carrying out their wishes). This government, powerless to actually carry out peoples wishes would have only 1 option: fool them into believing that the government actually works.
this would require the people to believe the government has more power than it actually has...
wait.. WE HAVE THAT right now!
a fiscally bankrupt government incapable of carrying out the wishes of the people, so it resorts to service to the true power behind the throne: The wealthy elite.
The weaker the government, the easier it is to overthrow, the more vested it is in making sure it doesn't piss off the people enough to incite a revolution.
democratic governments do not suffer popular revolutions.
Our founding fathers were well aware of this, which is why they advocated a weak central goverment, tighly constrained by the Constitution.
This is what comes from excessive government force.
Actually this is what came of insufficient government force. That is, if you define government as being 'by the people for the people'. What we have now is that a government is so spineless and unwilling to oppose corporate and private power, that it is no government at all. Merely a system for transferring more and more wealth and power from the masses into opulence for the wealthy elite.
By trying to tear down government (rather than the elite who exploit the government), you are in fact tearing down the one thing which stands there to protect you from being turned into nothing more than a wage slave or serf. The government must be powerful and effective to encourage people to participate in it. It must be truly democratic (not rely on various systems specifically designed to block democracy and thus avoid the "crisis in democracy").
people are social creatures.. we depend on one another for survival.
Adam Smith (one of the founders of modern economics) noted in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it."
We're humans, we're out for our own interests, and that will never change. Why would I want to give certain elected greedy humans this power?
you are wrong. We are not out for only our own interests. human beings are vitaly dependant on the happiness of others as well. Don't tell me you can live in comfort while a homeless family sleeps on the street at your doorstep. The very fact that the wealthy isolate themselves from the poor is that the wealthy can't bare to be reminded that human suffering exists. Human beings deplore human suffering. We merely need to stop lying to ourselves and pretending everyone we meet is trying to screw us. 95% of the people you meet would rather help you than hurt you.
and government, properly democratically functioning as it ought to, would reflect that.
"No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. " - John Donne (1572-1631)
If people wont work together in some organized and egalitarian way (such as democratic government) then all that happens is that the greedy, unscrupulous element (the minority) will exploit the situtation and oraganize people in a totalitarian way (the corporation) and move to impoversh the public good for the benefit of the private few. This is what we see happening today. And of course, the elite will extoll us to blaim government. We are the ones who fooled ourselves into thinking that somehow it is more democratic that instead of the government doing things itself (such as feeding the troops in Iraq) that the government is morally obliged to hire a private firm to do it (Haliburtan). And then when Haliburtan turns out to be wasting tremendous amounts of money (at taxpayer expense) who do we blaim? GOVERNMENT.
It is a comedy of shakespearean proportions!
meanwhile Haliburtan (and indirectly its wealthy elite majority shareholders) continue making huge profits, confident in the knowledge that if Haliburtan ever got a bad enough reputation, they could simply change its name, and no one would be the wiser. No one that is except some "far left radical liberals". The rest of us have been conditioned (including you) to presume that unfettered competition (read: freedom for corporations, and no freedom for the labour force) will automatically translate into happiness for all, and the only thing standing in the way is the government, dumb l
Productivity Software has an inflated price, perhaps in part to its historic immunity from property taxes. If a truck or a powertool attracts property tax, then it seems fair that software should.
Property tax is payable on most(all?) rental property. I know I pay it on my apartment. Ownership has no bearing on property taxes, except on who is liable for the tax.
What I'd like to know is this.. Would software with $0.00 cost, have $0.00 taxes payable? How much is a freely distributable linux distribution worth for assessment purposes?
why so merciful? Wouldn't death be a more effective deterrant against such crime?
In fact.. why not also confiscate all their worldly possessions and condemn them and 10 generations of their ancestors to eternal slavery, so this kind of atrocity never happens again.
Well, be careful not to overstate the problem. While the language of the DMCA makes it clear that it is illegal to even do this type of investigation with your own computer, it's not reasonable to assume that they would prosecute you unless you published the information you obtained (indeed, how would they know?).
The anticipated inability to enforce an unreasonable law can not be raised as a justification for the creation of the law. It must be presumed that society on the whole desires 100% compliance with the law except in very few circumstances set out in common law or statutory legal defences. Society does not desire law enforcement which is impotent. It must also be presumed that a law CAN be enforced.
A law should prohibit only such behavior which is so harmful to the wellbeing and rights of others that it can justify the violation of your freedom as being a fair trade.
If the harmful behavior is publication of the results of such research then only publication should be prohibited.
Society owes nothing to copyright holders. But society hopes innovation will flourish. The only justification for any of these copyright laws is the innovation is bolstered by them. However.. if innovation happens in spite of unfettered copying and distribution then there is absolutely no justification on the blatant violation of peoples fundamental rights to liberty and freedom to do what they please.
copyright is not a fundamental human right. It is purely constructed in the hopes to promote innovation. When a copyright is infringed it is only harm because the law calls it harm. The harm is artificial.
likewise when someone cracks copyprotection they are exercising their right to self protection. We should not be legally required to trust on faith that no trojans exist in a computer system we buy. Since there is no requirement to disclose the mechanism to defeat copyprotection, it is manifestly unfair to expect society to not only enforce your copyright, but also to enforce your copyprotection.
This has gone too far. (and its only going to get worse).
Do you really think - really - that the only thing we're worried about here is direct death or injury of individuals, personally, by some weapon that is flown, blown up, or shot at them?
yes. in fact.. that is for the most part the only thing people are afraid of in the terrorist department. Stop trying to tell us we are afraid of MORE than that. Perhaps the transnational corporations are afraid that terrorists might put a dint in their record profits... but on the other hand.. the terrorists are partially responsible for their record profits. Never in the history of the world has there been such an enourmous shift of public money into private hands.
but they're even more frustrated at how willingly people paint them as some sort of bad X-Files villains as they do their jobs.
uhh.. perhaps it is because SOME OF YOU ARE "X-FILES VILLIANS".
We mostly paint you as some kind of George Orwellian Big Brother Party Memeber villians however. Have you read that book? I feel you haven't. But perhaps you saw the movie. Well.. go and read the actual book now. They are not the same.
Part of the problem is the near impossibility of retaining quality (real quality) people on a government paycheck
no.. the problem is in the requirement to keep the masses perpetually afraid of 1 "threat" after another "threat" so that we don't notice our standards of living and our freedoms literally being swept out from under us.
The fear of incompetent civil servants is just another example of FUD. If you have worked in the private sector you would know that incompetence abounds.
I don't sense the police state that you do, perhaps mostly because I'm life-long friends with people who are now in law enforcement and intel, and know that most of the black-helicopter hand wringing is so wildly misplaced as to be just plain funny.
probably also because you have never lived in a free country either. This is normal for you.
BTW, to put the word "threat" in quotes implies that there simply isn't one.
no.. it implies that the word "threat" is being used in a special context. And the context is: the context that the Bush administration uses when they use the word "threat". As in... "Saddam Hussein is an imminent threat". There are real threats.. want an example?
1. The threat of being fired and not being able to send your kids to collegs. 2. The threat of being injured or becomming ill and not being able to pay your medical expenses. 3. The threat of being falsely imprisoned and no having access to a lawyer or a fair trial. 4. The threat that the government is being taken over by BUSINESS INTERESTS and it is no longer for the people by the people. 5. The threat that someone might publically claim you of being either a) unpatriotic b) unamerican c) a communist d) a pedophile or e) any combination of a,b,c combined with d. (i.e. a communist pedophile).
For those threats, we dont need the quotes.. because no one ever talks about those threats, because the solutions would require empowering democracy. I wont put democracy in quotes either, because I mean REAL democracy. Not the nonsense that passes for democracy in the 21st century.
As to your personal fear of the economic damage of terrorism. A fear which is not shared by the vast majority of people I might add. How much money has been spent trying to COMBAT terrorism? Far more than any direct economic damage caused by it. The difference is, that when terrorists cause economic damage, the damage is directed mostly towards large multinational corporations. When the state spends a disproportionate amount combating terrorists... all that money converts into PROFITS for large multinational corporations. In turn, leading to the ever greater and greater concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few elite. The majority of economic problems the average person faces are caused by centralization of wealth. Or shall we call it the "liberalization of cap
As a regulatory body, the UN is a proven failure. It works as a venue for mediation and it works as a coordinator for disaster relief. That's about it.
You can thank the veto power that all permanent members of the security enjoy and insist on their right to possess for the fact that the UN doesn't work. And the United States has been the leader in using Veto power in since 1973. (prior to that it was the USSR).
The UN fails in every case where the solution supported by the majority of the worlds nations happens to go against one of the countries with veto power or its client states.
However.. be that as it is.. It is STILL the only international governmental body with a shred of legitimacy.
It ought to be fixed and can easily be fixed if the United States, China, Russia a other permanent security council members chose to allow it.
A countries weight in voting ought only be dependant on its POPULATION. Are we supposed to believe in democracy. Or not?
Look at the history of countries exercising veto power, and see a record of opposing world opinion.
And by "WORLD" I am referring to the planet called Earth.
Look at the voting record of the UN general assembly and see what the UN *could* accomplish if no veto power existed.
Another problem with it is that, as humans, we always seem to standardize on whatever most people are already doing. If 5 people herding reindeer in Lapland have the best accounting methods, then the whole union should switch, not force them to change, damnit.
Yes, it's called "democracy", and like all other forms of government invented so far it has its drawbacks. Really, though, I think that governments go wrong more often as a result of trying to govern too many people and not from the system they follow (with a few exceptions like small countries that are seized by corrupt dictators).
Democracy does not mean mandatory standardization. There is nothing which prevents democratic societies from introducing different standards for different areas. Most effectively by empowering local governments with greater powers (especially the ability to negate laws from higher levels of government).
So if a town wants to negate the DMCA and become a free copy zone, it could have the power to do so. It only falls upon lawmakers to make this legal.
Constant dollars? Sounds like a nice term someone made up to make the statistic sound objective. So if on average $1.00 in 1995 is worth $1.50 in 2005, and the price of food doubled while the cost of everything else increased 20%. How much food would does this mythical "constant" $1/day buy you in $2005?
answer: 75% of the amount of food it would buy in 1995.
So while the critically poor may need to get buy on a diet only 3/4 as nutritious as they used to eat 10 years earlier, the good news is that when the critically poor want to go for that new computer it will seem 20% more affordable. (i.e. it will go from being utterly impossible to afford to being utterly impossible to afford) (these inflation rates are made up for the purpose of demonstrating that constant dollars are essentially meaningless when they include total market inflation rates rather than focusing on food costs, rather than being accurate).
Constant dollars is a myth for those at the poorest range of incomes. The only thing which they spend money on is food. Everything else is beyond their means. The important measure (for the critically poor) is FOOD DOLLARS. How many people today are forced to make do with the amount of FOOD that $1/day would have got in 1985?
I'm not disputing the possibility that world wide poverty has decreased. I am only saying the $1/day statistic doesn't show us whether or not this is true because it doesn't show anything connected to any persons actual real life experience (that is to say: only having $1 and still have about 65 cents to spend on clothes, shelter, home electronics, hair cuts etc).
Probably. That was only 1905. The industrial revolution was in full swing as was the some of the most brutal colonialism. Lets' not forget racism and bigotry of the time. I suggest a good look at some history books.
damn I forgot! racism, bigotry colonialism.. What about imperialism, greed and a desire to rule the world? Have those virtues also been washed away from the minds of the world military industrial complex?
As for history books: The key is read ones which haven't been revised.
"Look at the proportion of the world's population living on less than a dollar a day, or the local equivalent thereof. It's lower now than it has been at any point in history. Ever. "
By "any point in history ever" I assume you mean "since 1985" when this meaningless statistic was invented by the World Bank to justify neoliberal economic policies.
The relative price of the cheapest commodity foodstuffs increases at a different rate than average inflation. This $1/day statistic assumes that the poor spend their $1 on the same ratio of items as is common to the economy as a whole. So as the price of airplane tickets, cofee, long distance telephone calls, television screens, automobiles and consumer electronics imported from China, become cheaper, we deduce that fewer and fewer people live on less than $1 a day. Of course none of these poor actually got $1 in cash today or ever (but it is based on relative purchasing power of income compared to $1.08 USD 1993). However, the poor living in the poorest countries in the world do not benefit from the importation of cheap manufactured goods from China (compared to expensive american made goods), because they can barely afford to eat (in fact they can not afford it) let alone buy manufactured goods made anywhere whatsoever.
So is a person living in a third world country today with access to the equivalent of $1 USD (or $1.08 1993 USD to be precise, as this is the currently used standard) actually able to eat the same amount of food as he would have been able to in 1993? well... if he took his food in the form of coffee, tobacco, clothing manufactured in a sweat shop or some other locally produced product he probably would be able to. But since he is more likely today to need to import his food from a richer country in 2005 than he would in 1993 (let alone 1905) I am a bit skeptical.
In the meantime the export of manufactured goods produced by the inhuman exploitation of labour has helped push US prices down, increased the apparent value of $1.00 american, while the simultaneous virtual cessation of local food production in third world countries (in favour of cash crops as mandated by the IMF/WTO in exchange for assistance to corrupt local governments who strangely have a tendency to be propped up by the CIA before being accused of human rights violations and deposed as soon as they disobey their american patrons) has increased the local cost of foods, giving that $1.00 much less food purchasing power than in the past relative to purchasing power for goods in general.
And this says absolutely nothing whatsoever about the relative wellbeing of countries as a whole (only the critically poor), and also says nothing whatsoever about the wealth of those third world nations 100 or 200 years ago.
I am tempted to ignore this comment since it practically gushes of youthful ignorance, however it may contribute to further dumb ideas in the minds of others if I leave it unchallenged, so I shall reply:
Copyright law grants a monopoly until 50 to 70 years AFTER an author's DEATH. The question is, that if an author lives for 50 years after he publishes a book, why should that book garner 120 years of monopoly protection? whereas an author who only lives for 1 week after a book is pubished only gets 70 years + 1 week of protection? (in canada deduct 20 years from those numbers).
In both cases the author is DEAD and NEEDS NOTHING.
MOREOEVER: The purpose of copyright law is NOT to fulfill any needs of the author. It is to encourage the creative process itself and speed the rate of creative works entry into the public domain. Since you don't know in advance that you are going to live to 70 or 40, then a fixed term of compenstation (say 50 years) would be as much incentive for authors destined to live to 100, as those who are destined to live until tommorow.
So the question remains.. why do long lived authors warrant MORE monopoly INCENTIVE than short lived authors? ( Why not used fixed terms for everyone?)
"However, we have reached an unfortunate point with copyright and fair use where we'd rather halt innovation than admit that copyright holders' expectations have reached a point of making it cost- and time-prohibitive to meet their demands and are to the point of stagnating not only the public domain but technologies and services that deliver or even touch upon copyrighted content. In this sense, creating a scenario that is not unlike the movie industry's dire predictions about the VCR in the early 80s."
I agree with your sentiment, however your angst is misdirected. Copyright holders want to keep things private and out of the public domain. By that logic then we have reached the FORTUNATE point (fortunate by their perspective) where all other innovation is halted and they have a monopoly hold on intellectual creativity.
By definition, copyright gives the copyright holder the EXCLUSIVE right to decide how to distribute or disseminate his work for the duration of the copyright.
The problem is not that copyright exists, but problem is that they last far too long. 50 years after the authors death? Why do long lived authors deserve more compensation than short lived ones? It should be a fixed period and it should be a few decades at most.
If searchability is such a great thing for the AUTHORS then they will find a way to implement it. The fact that it is great for the consumers is absolutely irrelevant to the issue at hand. Copyright is by definition an infringement on consumers. The ability to copy whatever you want whenever you want for any reason would also be convenient for consumers. That is NOT an issue here. The consumers dont matter from the ethics of copyright. Only whether or not copyright law encourages authors to create more IP in the short term so that in the long term more work enters the public domain (eventually).
Flags have been steadily vanishing in the public square compared to their post-9/11 prominence. They are also largely without power.
Do other countries refer to their leader as "Leader of the free WORLD"?
Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
The US Constitution provides expressly for many human rights. Our legal positivism is not dismissal of the value of human rights, only the acknowledgment that in the real world rights exist because governments grant them, not because of their value.
umm... watch Nancy Grace on CNN and see her complain about how there are too many civil rights getting in the way of law enforcement and prosecutions.
Identification of Enemies
Name me one world power in history that had no enemies. We don't scapegoat everything on terrorists, only what they do. And we make a distinction between Muslims and Islamists.
right.. but you do have THE AXIS OF EVIL (tm).
(as to the second point... what is the difference between a muslim and an islamist?)
Supremacy of the Military
Ours is a civilian government. Military service does not grant significant advantage in elections. Many people do not like the military. Military recruitment has fallen. A large budget means that we are in an intractable war, not that we are a military state.
So... the Department of Homeland Security doesn't basically run EVERYTHING now?
Rampant Sexism
First, opposition to abortion is not sexism. It really isn't. You can be pro-Life and a feminists. Secondly, opposition to abortion isn't that high. A majority think it should be legal, they just don't think it should be legal at all points and in all circumstances. As for homophobia, it goes both ways. Some states have civil unions, others have marriage bans. Many have some special protections in the form of hate crime laws.
Homophobia goes both ways? You mean between 'homosexuality is an abomination and gays should be shot' to 'homosexuality is an abomination but gays will get their just punishment when they burn in hell'. The president of WHAT country wants to ammend the constitution to BAN gays settling down?
The population of WHAT country never elect a female president?
Controlled Mass Media
The closest thing we have to state-run media is PBS and NPR. Tell me with a straight face that those are fascist propaganda machines. And before someone shouts Fox News, having one news source tailored to viewers of a particular political persuasion sympathetic to the current administration does not fascism make.
Right... and it was only how many days ago that an artical about a new bill requiring preauthorization from the state prior to sale of a video game to kids?
How many millions of dollars in fines where handed out for a wardrobe malfunction?
Religion and Government are Intertwined
American secularism, enshrined in the Constitution, specifically disentangles government and religion. Yes, members of the governing party use religious rhetoric, but they are not the majority of the government, and they represent people who genuinely care about it, not people who have been manipulated.
Secularism may be enshrined in the constitution but the majority of american politicians including the PRESIDENT make routine appeals to God including declaring national days of prayer.
I can't turn on the TV and see an american politician give a speech for more than a few minutes about anything without him referring to God.
Labor Power is Suppressed
Unions are perfectly legal, and even given some protections. That unions are in trouble in America is due to the decisions made by the particular Unions (AFL-CIO, several of whose member unions left recently) and the pressures of globalization.
some protections? don't make it sound so grand. What about minimum wages? How about limits on the length of the wor
Now, if you were a nation that was laballed as a supporter of terrorism, what's there to guarantee that you won't be nuked the day after such a draft becomes a law? I think this is a very deliberate message -- we have a big red button, and we have one person, the president, who can push it if he is in a bad mood, and he's pushed similar buttons before. Live in PHEAR!:)
1: PHEAR? sounds like a tactic that only a terrorist would use.
2: This completely ignores the logic of religious fundamentalism. The fundamentalist wants to die in service of God and recieve his reward in the afterlife. In particular when talking about islam which specifically states that no man can delay or advance the chosen time of their death. That is in Allah's control (to paraphrase the Quran). Thus you can not actually kill anyone any sooner than he would have died anyway. By definition the fantatics who we are at war with will NOT fear.
It is a lot easier to be a fanatic than it is to face the cold hard reality that all the suffering in the world is actually FOR NO GOOD REASON.
The only thing a fundamentalist fears is God. And as long as we continue citing GOD we will continue to breed fundamentalists and extremists.
It's time to put our mythologies back in the past where they belong. Neither the Vatican, the Mullah's the Rabi's nor your favorite TV evangelist has a fucking clue what happens after we die.
This is a war of ideologies. The only problem is that the fundamentalists hiding in Al Qaeda cells and the fundamentalists from Washington who spend 4 months of the year on vacation both espouse the same basic one:. "God is on OUR side. Sacrifice the present earth all for eternal paradise in kingdom come."
The side of REASON has not even woken up to the reality that it is faith which is the root cause of terror.
As to the deterrent effect a preemptive strike policy would have: such a thing presupposes that the US will in fact only nuke those who have WMD based on incontrovertable proof. however since nukes will destroy all the evidence we will never have any and we know the policy will simply be a means to put fear into others to make economic concessions (same old game). Consequently it will create a new nuclear arms race to insure MAD is still functional. (and as I said before it wont scare fundamentalists anyway).
As for the terrorists, they will simply need to operate INSIDE the united states. (which 911 shows they have been already). Is the United States going to pre-emptively nuke itself?
Patent law should be amended more generally so that the patent office has a duty to cancel any patent (which is after all a privilege granted by the state on behalf of the public) used against the public (or ecological) good.
An interesting idea, except the patent office is in no position to decide what is in the public good (I consider ecological good to merely be a special case of the public good). Only the courts can properly decide that on hearing evidence of harm or good, which would differ in a case by case basis.
In common law, public good is a defence to virtually any crime, and it is probably a means to avoid punitive damages for any civil liability as well in any event.
I think that a stricter law which specifically deals with the case of 'SINGLE USE' or 'restricted resuse' of property could be made. A law which said, that in any case where a license or contract grants physical ownership of an object to a licensee, a term which limits how often or how many times that physical item may be used is of no force or effect, and regardless of how many times that item is used or how long it is used, the licensee is considered to comply with such restriction.
I'm not a lawyer but that is the jist of it I think. This would not affect patent law per se, it would be a limitation on contract law.
It seems to me that in general there should be no difference between legal possession of a good for single use, and legal possession of a good for multiple use. The flexibility to construct contracts for 1 or 3 uses, may be beneficial to the 2 parties, but it simply encourages too much waste to be produced and should not be allowed.
The idea that there is property out there which exists which is perfectly SAFE and legal to otherwise use, but must be thrown in the garbage because it has already been used X number of times, is utterly outragous and deplorable.
I made the distinction for safety on purpose. Clearly certain things become unsafe after being used, and if it would be dangerous to the public to use them then I can understand such a limitation. But in those cases not even the patent holder would be permitted to reuse those items, and such restrictions would not be for the patent holder to decide anyway, but for whatever safety regulations exist in that destrict.
There is a difference when it comes to copywritted software which exists in electronic form only. re-activating such software does not entail any physical contamination of the environment, so the justification of public good doesn't really argue in favour of restricting limited use clauses in contracts or patents regarding software.
(but the old way of requiring someone to possess 36 printed copies of the manual.. is an example of what should also not be legally binding)
"I KNOW they are both greedy corporations. I mentioned that in the first sentence. And they are RUN by people. They are not entities of themselves. They are run by GREEDY IMMORAL and bastard humans."
they are mostly run by scared and powerless human beings who are worried if they do anything which appears to threaten the bottom line they will lose their jobs and their kids will not go to college and be doomed to live destitute and unrewarding lives.
Corporations function on mass psychology and we know mass psychology produces extreme behavior which does not reflect the morals of the individuals.
Some corporations are run by greedy bastards. But unless a corporation is wholely owned by a single person, it succumbs to mass psychology.
"Since we have no power to change the laws anymore, the only recourse is to boycott. Stop buying all of it. Since that won't happen... I guess we'll be in threads like this complaining about abusive corporations until we all die."
We DO have power to change the laws. The notion we have no power is just another lie spread by corporations to make us neglect to exercise our power.
Advertisers and marketers are the ones who sing most loudly that we actually LACK the power to effect change.
read lots of books and argue with people you disagree with and call bullshit when you see it.
a more effective boycott is your investment dollars. Dont invest in companies which act unethically.
I recommend reading a book "The Soul of Capitalism" by William Greider
It makes an argument for investors insuring their investments conduct themselves according to their ethical beliefs, and also explains how and why corporations tend to behave so unethically.
licenses which restrict re-use of physical items should be made explicitly illegal by statute. The reason is that such licenses encourage destruction of the environment and waste of natural resources such as OIL.
Patent holders can make a profit by pricing their inventions at a level which presumes re-use. They have a PATENT so they already have a monopoly. The only reason lexmark is trying this is because they dont wish to compete in the INK market. And they want their cartridges to appear cheaper than they actually are. (i.e. it looks the same price as another brand with a reusable license)
Unfortunately the courts hands are tied. Contract law is pretty clear on the issue, and in so far as the case at hand involves printing license restrictions ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE BOX, then there can be informed consent. (unlike licenses hidden inside the box and unrevealed until after you buy).
You need license from a patent holder even to USE a patented item. (inlike copyright which does not give the copyright exclusive right to READ).
The proper level of government to fix this problem however is legislatures and congress. single use patent licenses encourage pointless waste. They should either be illegal or should entail a heavy TAX in order to collect the necessary funds to pay for the cleanup of all the needless waste.
Soon automakers will make it illegal to repair or resell their automobiles (forcing people to buy new ones). All sorts of other scenarios are possible. But this is legal in contract and patent law. Courts can not stop this.
The law itself needs to be changed or else we are facing a society that nothing can be recycled or reused because patent owners would rather force consumers to consume more. And this will only encourage needless waste which ultimately will come back to harm the public good.
Slashdot Mirror
" Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
This says you are free to speak. Strictly speaking it does not say you do not have to face consequences of what you say. (Shouting fire in a crowded theather example) It certainly does not say you have the right do speak anonymous. The amendment was clearly not written by lawyers. Not good ones anyway.
facing the consequences of what you say does not mean it is ok to impose whatever consequences the government dreams up, but rather you must face the BONA FIDE consequences of your words. Yelling fire imposes real danger on people. The risk of death or injury in a stampede, not to mention when the fire department responds to a false alarm a real emergency may get ignored.
The principles of justice which are supposed to underlie all law in a so called democracy are supposed to balance the punishment with the actual harm.
A DOS attack is not an annoyance it is mischief and already carries a seperate punishment. No one is free to tamper with of try to impair the function of someone elses property.
This crime punishes mere annoyance. Annoyance is something less than harm. Annoyance is a trifle.
A criminal record is a LOT MORE THAN AN ANNOYANCE! It is a permanent tarnish and stigma on your name. It is your fingerprints in a government database. It is the loss of your right to vote. Perhaps the loss of your other rights for 2 years.
This goes against all philosophical thought on the role of the state and the criminal justice system. The state, especially the courts, should not involve itself in mere trifles! This practically amounts to contempt of court by the legislative and execute branches.
oops.. I hope that statement didn't ANNOY anyone. (or this statement)
mostly non-democratic decision-making process
non-democratic compared to what?
You imagine that your elected representatives even have the power to control the corporation. Thanks to various international trade agreements, governments are in modern times generally obligated to compensate corporations when they do anything that takes away their God given right to profit at the expense of others.
The solution to the problem of chinese censorhip is to impose harsh tariffs on all chinese imports.
When corporations are allowed to merge without end and grow to any size, democracy is swallowed whole.
I could not have said it better myself. All the talk about respecting people's rights, caring about the community, the environment or any morality at all is absolutely nothing more than PR when it comes from a corporate spokesperson.
I think you forgot to mention the addendum. The Quran.
Politicians will sell to anyone with the cash or influence, which includes a great many special interest groups that aren't associated with corporations or wealthy individuals.
... we want all this and we want it to be relatively UNCORRUPTABLE.
Hypothetically assuming what you say is true, it doesnt negate the systemic vaccine against such a politician: a Politicians who "sells out" to groups who lack the wealth necessary to control the media and manipulate the frame of public debate are no threat. Such politicians will never get re-elected.
The media (undeniably corporate controlled (considering that advertisers are the ones who finance the media and advertisers are corporate)) will not allow anyone to forget that this politician has "sold out".
Unless you want to tell me the mass media isn't funded by corporate advertising?
Without government power what's to keep the 'masses' from picking up their pitchforks and skewering the local lord?
At least you acknowledge my claim that the "tyranny of the majority" is a reference to tyranny against the wealthy and powerful.
However the real question is without a parliament and a constitution what was to keep the local lord from picking up a sword and skewering whatever commoner he pleased whenever he pleased for whatever reason he pleased?
Nobility have killed, murdered, tortered, raped far more commoners than ever in the other direction.
more: the masses tend to love their leaders. The only thing LORDS need fear, is that if their people are starving to death while he luxiariates in oppulence. That tends to piss people off. But if he shares the hardship, no one will touch him. (based on your rejection of history in your message, I'm not suprised you are ignorant of this).
people are quite happy to see their own leaders living to a certain degree of priviledge, so that they may better focus their minds on LEADING.
But certainly you are right. The masses would not tolerate anyone being stinking lazy rich. too bad.
The more powerful the government the LESS likely it is to listen to the people it supposedly represents. If government is weak - indeed, if it FEARS the people - it's far more likely to do what the hell it's told to do, rather than what individuals within the government WANT to do.
explain to me how a weak government can actually do what the people want?
The people want: law enforcement, national security, public education, social security, a justice system, a monetary system, healthcare, a clean environment, mass transit, consumer/labour protection, democracy, tax collection
1: how can something be uncorruptable if it is weak?
2: how can any government which provides this possibly be SMALL and weak in a nation with 300 million people?
So... what you are saying is this: the less power the government has to carry out the wishes of the people (expressed democratically), the less it will be able to succeed in accomplishing those directive, and the more government has to fear from those people (who naturally would be very upset that their government was not carrying out their wishes). This government, powerless to actually carry out peoples wishes would have only 1 option: fool them into believing that the government actually works.
this would require the people to believe the government has more power than it actually has...
wait.. WE HAVE THAT right now!
a fiscally bankrupt government incapable of carrying out the wishes of the people, so it resorts to service to the true power behind the throne: The wealthy elite.
The weaker the government, the easier it is to overthrow, the more vested it is in making sure it doesn't piss off the people enough to incite a revolution.
democratic governments do not suffer popular revolutions.
Our founding fathers were well aware of this, which is why they advocated a weak central goverment, tighly constrained by the Constitution.
This is what comes from excessive government force.
Actually this is what came of insufficient government force. That is, if you define government as being 'by the people for the people'. What we have now is that a government is so spineless and unwilling to oppose corporate and private power, that it is no government at all. Merely a system for transferring more and more wealth and power from the masses into opulence for the wealthy elite.
By trying to tear down government (rather than the elite who exploit the government), you are in fact tearing down the one thing which stands there to protect you from being turned into nothing more than a wage slave or serf. The government must be powerful and effective to encourage people to participate in it. It must be truly democratic (not rely on various systems specifically designed to block democracy and thus avoid the "crisis in democracy").
people are social creatures.. we depend on one another for survival.
Adam Smith (one of the founders of modern economics) noted in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it."
We're humans, we're out for our own interests, and that will never change. Why would I want to give certain elected greedy humans this power?
you are wrong. We are not out for only our own interests. human beings are vitaly dependant on the happiness of others as well. Don't tell me you can live in comfort while a homeless family sleeps on the street at your doorstep. The very fact that the wealthy isolate themselves from the poor is that the wealthy can't bare to be reminded that human suffering exists. Human beings deplore human suffering. We merely need to stop lying to ourselves and pretending everyone we meet is trying to screw us.
95% of the people you meet would rather help you than hurt you.
and government, properly democratically functioning as it ought to, would reflect that.
"No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. " - John Donne (1572-1631)
If people wont work together in some organized and egalitarian way (such as democratic government) then all that happens is that the greedy, unscrupulous element (the minority) will exploit the situtation and oraganize people in a totalitarian way (the corporation) and move to impoversh the public good for the benefit of the private few. This is what we see happening today. And of course, the elite will extoll us to blaim government. We are the ones who fooled ourselves into thinking that somehow it is more democratic that instead of the government doing things itself (such as feeding the troops in Iraq) that the government is morally obliged to hire a private firm to do it (Haliburtan). And then when Haliburtan turns out to be wasting tremendous amounts of money (at taxpayer expense) who do we blaim? GOVERNMENT.
It is a comedy of shakespearean proportions!
meanwhile Haliburtan (and indirectly its wealthy elite majority shareholders) continue making huge profits, confident in the knowledge that if Haliburtan ever got a bad enough reputation, they could simply change its name, and no one would be the wiser. No one that is except some "far left radical liberals". The rest of us have been conditioned (including you) to presume that unfettered competition (read: freedom for corporations, and no freedom for the labour force) will automatically translate into happiness for all, and the only thing standing in the way is the government, dumb l
Productivity Software has an inflated price, perhaps in part to its historic immunity from property taxes. If a truck or a powertool attracts property tax, then it seems fair that software should.
Property tax is payable on most(all?) rental property. I know I pay it on my apartment. Ownership has no bearing on property taxes, except on who is liable for the tax.
What I'd like to know is this.. Would software with $0.00 cost, have $0.00 taxes payable? How much is a freely distributable linux distribution worth for assessment purposes?
They deserve to be prosecuted and to go to jail,
why so merciful? Wouldn't death be a more effective deterrant against such crime?
In fact.. why not also confiscate all their worldly possessions and condemn them and 10 generations of their ancestors to eternal slavery, so this kind of atrocity never happens again.
Remember that the corporate income is taxed, and then taxed again when distrubted to shareholders.
a more blatantly misleading simplification I have seldom heard.
And since when is corporate tax at 50%?
Well, be careful not to overstate the problem. While the language of the DMCA makes it clear that it is illegal to even do this type of investigation with your own computer, it's not reasonable to assume that they would prosecute you unless you published the information you obtained (indeed, how would they know?).
The anticipated inability to enforce an unreasonable law can not be raised as a justification for the
creation of the law. It must be presumed that society on the whole desires 100% compliance
with the law except in very few circumstances set out in common law or statutory legal defences. Society does
not desire law enforcement which is impotent. It must also be presumed that a law CAN be enforced.
A law should prohibit only such behavior which is so harmful to the wellbeing and rights of others that it can justify the violation of your freedom as being a fair trade.
If the harmful behavior is publication of the results of such research then only publication should be prohibited.
Society owes nothing to copyright holders. But society hopes innovation will flourish. The only justification for any of these copyright laws is the innovation is bolstered by them. However.. if innovation happens in spite of unfettered copying and distribution then there is absolutely no justification on the blatant violation of peoples fundamental rights to liberty and freedom to do what they please.
copyright is not a fundamental human right. It is purely constructed in the hopes to promote innovation. When a copyright is infringed it is only harm because the law calls it harm. The harm is artificial.
likewise when someone cracks copyprotection they are exercising their right to self protection.
We should not be legally required to trust on faith that no trojans exist in a computer system we buy.
Since there is no requirement to disclose the mechanism to defeat copyprotection, it is manifestly unfair to expect
society to not only enforce your copyright, but also to enforce your copyprotection.
This has gone too far. (and its only going to get worse).
Do you really think - really - that the only thing we're worried about here is direct death or injury of individuals, personally, by some weapon that is flown, blown up, or shot at them?
yes. in fact.. that is for the most part the only thing people are afraid of in the terrorist department. Stop trying to tell us we are afraid of MORE than that. Perhaps the transnational corporations are afraid that terrorists might put a dint in their record profits... but on the other hand.. the terrorists are partially responsible for their record profits. Never in the history of the world has there been such an enourmous shift of public money into private hands.
but they're even more frustrated at how willingly people paint them as some sort of bad X-Files villains as they do their jobs.
uhh.. perhaps it is because SOME OF YOU ARE "X-FILES VILLIANS".
We mostly paint you as some kind of George Orwellian Big Brother Party Memeber villians however. Have you read that book?
I feel you haven't. But perhaps you saw the movie. Well.. go and read the actual book now. They are not the same.
Part of the problem is the near impossibility of retaining quality (real quality) people on a government paycheck
no.. the problem is in the requirement to keep the masses perpetually afraid of 1 "threat" after another "threat" so that we
don't notice our standards of living and our freedoms literally being swept out from under us.
The fear of incompetent civil servants is just another example of FUD. If you have worked in the private sector you would know that incompetence abounds.
I don't sense the police state that you do, perhaps mostly because I'm life-long friends with people who are now in law enforcement and intel, and know that most of the black-helicopter hand wringing is so wildly misplaced as to be just plain funny.
probably also because you have never lived in a free country either. This is normal for you.
BTW, to put the word "threat" in quotes implies that there simply isn't one.
no.. it implies that the word "threat" is being used in a special context. And the context is: the context that the Bush administration uses when they use the word "threat". As in... "Saddam Hussein is an imminent threat". There are real threats.. want an example?
1. The threat of being fired and not being able to send your kids to collegs.
2. The threat of being injured or becomming ill and not being able to pay your medical expenses.
3. The threat of being falsely imprisoned and no having access to a lawyer or a fair trial.
4. The threat that the government is being taken over by BUSINESS INTERESTS and it is no longer for the people by the people.
5. The threat that someone might publically claim you of being either a) unpatriotic b) unamerican c) a communist d) a pedophile or e) any combination of a,b,c combined with d. (i.e. a communist pedophile).
For those threats, we dont need the quotes.. because no one ever talks about those threats, because the solutions would require empowering democracy. I wont put democracy in quotes either, because I mean REAL democracy. Not the nonsense that passes for democracy in the 21st century.
As to your personal fear of the economic damage of terrorism. A fear which is not shared by the vast majority of people I might add. How much money has been spent trying to COMBAT terrorism? Far more than any direct economic damage caused by it. The difference is, that when terrorists cause economic damage, the damage is directed mostly towards large multinational corporations. When the state spends a disproportionate amount combating terrorists... all that money converts into PROFITS for large multinational corporations. In turn, leading to the ever greater and greater concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few elite. The majority of economic problems the average person faces are caused by centralization of wealth. Or shall we call it the "liberalization of cap
As a regulatory body, the UN is a proven failure. It works as a venue for mediation and it works as a coordinator for disaster relief. That's about it.
You can thank the veto power that all permanent members of the security enjoy and insist on their right to possess for the fact that the UN doesn't work. And the United States has been the leader in using Veto power in since 1973. (prior to that it was the USSR).
The UN fails in every case where the solution supported by the majority of the worlds nations happens to go against one of the countries with veto power or its client states.
However.. be that as it is.. It is STILL the only international governmental body with a shred of legitimacy.
It ought to be fixed and can easily be fixed if the United States, China, Russia a other permanent security council members chose to allow it.
A countries weight in voting ought only be dependant on its POPULATION.
Are we supposed to believe in democracy. Or not?
Look at the history of countries exercising veto power, and see a record of opposing world opinion.
And by "WORLD" I am referring to the planet called Earth.
Look at the voting record of the UN general assembly and see what the UN *could* accomplish if no veto power existed.
Another problem with it is that, as humans, we always seem to standardize on whatever most people are already doing. If 5 people herding reindeer in Lapland have the best accounting methods, then the whole union should switch, not force them to change, damnit.
Yes, it's called "democracy", and like all other forms of government invented so far it has its drawbacks. Really, though, I think that governments go wrong more often as a result of trying to govern too many people and not from the system they follow (with a few exceptions like small countries that are seized by corrupt dictators).
Democracy does not mean mandatory standardization. There is nothing which prevents democratic societies from introducing different standards for different areas. Most effectively by empowering local governments with greater powers (especially the ability to negate laws from higher levels of government).
So if a town wants to negate the DMCA and become a free copy zone, it could have the power to do so. It only falls upon lawmakers to make this legal.
Ha, ha. No, it's not in constant dollars.
Constant dollars? Sounds like a nice term someone made up to make the statistic sound objective. So if on average $1.00 in 1995 is worth $1.50 in 2005, and the price of food doubled while the cost of everything else increased 20%. How much food would does this mythical "constant" $1/day buy you in $2005?
answer: 75% of the amount of food it would buy in 1995.
So while the critically poor may need to get buy on a diet only 3/4 as nutritious as they used to eat 10 years earlier, the good news is that when the critically poor want to go for that new computer it will seem 20% more affordable. (i.e. it will go from being utterly impossible to afford to being utterly impossible to afford) (these inflation rates are made up for the purpose of demonstrating that constant dollars are essentially meaningless when they include total market inflation rates rather than focusing on food costs, rather than being accurate).
Constant dollars is a myth for those at the poorest range of incomes. The only thing which they spend money on is food. Everything else is beyond their means. The important measure (for the critically poor) is FOOD DOLLARS. How many people today are forced to make do with the amount of FOOD that $1/day would have got in 1985?
I'm not disputing the possibility that world wide poverty has decreased. I am only saying the $1/day statistic doesn't show us whether or not this is true because it doesn't show anything connected to any persons actual real life experience (that is to say: only having $1 and still have about 65 cents to spend on clothes, shelter, home electronics, hair cuts etc).
Probably. That was only 1905. The industrial revolution was in full swing as was the some of the most brutal colonialism. Lets' not forget racism and bigotry of the time. I suggest a good look at some history books.
damn I forgot! racism, bigotry colonialism.. What about imperialism, greed and a desire to rule the world? Have those virtues also been washed away from the minds of the world military industrial complex?
As for history books: The key is read ones which haven't been revised.
"Look at the proportion of the world's population living on less than a dollar a day, or the local equivalent thereof. It's lower now than it has been at any point in history. Ever. "
By "any point in history ever" I assume you mean "since 1985" when this meaningless statistic was invented by the World Bank to justify neoliberal economic policies.
The relative price of the cheapest commodity foodstuffs increases at a different rate than average inflation. This $1/day statistic assumes that the poor spend their $1 on the same ratio of items as is common to the economy as a whole. So as the price of airplane tickets, cofee, long distance telephone calls, television screens, automobiles and consumer electronics imported from China, become cheaper, we deduce that fewer and fewer people live on less than $1 a day. Of course none of these poor actually got $1 in cash today or ever (but it is based on relative purchasing power of income compared to $1.08 USD 1993). However, the poor living in the poorest countries in the world do not benefit from the importation of cheap manufactured goods from China (compared to expensive american made goods), because they can barely afford to eat (in fact they can not afford it) let alone buy manufactured goods made anywhere whatsoever.
So is a person living in a third world country today with access to the equivalent of $1 USD (or $1.08 1993 USD to be precise, as this is the currently used standard) actually able to eat the same amount of food as he would have been able to in 1993? well... if he took his food in the form of coffee, tobacco, clothing manufactured in a sweat shop or some other locally produced product he probably would be able to. But since he is more likely today to need to import his food from a richer country in 2005 than he would in 1993 (let alone 1905) I am a bit skeptical.
In the meantime the export of manufactured goods produced by the inhuman exploitation of labour has helped push US prices down, increased the apparent value of $1.00 american, while the simultaneous virtual cessation of local food production in third world countries (in favour of cash crops as mandated by the IMF/WTO in exchange for assistance to corrupt local governments who strangely have a tendency to be propped up by the CIA before being accused of human rights violations and deposed as soon as they disobey their american patrons) has increased the local cost of foods, giving that $1.00 much less food purchasing power than in the past relative to purchasing power for goods in general.
And this says absolutely nothing whatsoever about the relative wellbeing of countries as a whole (only the critically poor), and also says nothing whatsoever about the wealth of those third world nations 100 or 200 years ago.
"It is even a lot better than it was 50 years ago in the developing countries."
Are they better off than they were 100 years ago?
Dead people don't need money.
I am tempted to ignore this comment since it practically gushes of youthful ignorance, however it may contribute to further dumb ideas in the minds of others if I leave it unchallenged, so I shall reply:
Copyright law grants a monopoly until 50 to 70 years AFTER an author's DEATH. The question is, that if an author lives for 50 years after he publishes a book, why should that book garner 120 years of monopoly protection? whereas an author who only lives for 1 week after a book is pubished only gets 70 years + 1 week of protection? (in canada deduct 20 years from those numbers).
In both cases the author is DEAD and NEEDS NOTHING.
MOREOEVER: The purpose of copyright law is NOT to fulfill any needs of the author. It is to encourage the creative process itself and speed the rate of creative works entry into the public domain. Since you don't know in advance that you are going to
live to 70 or 40, then a fixed term of compenstation (say 50 years) would be as much incentive for authors destined to
live to 100, as those who are destined to live until tommorow.
So the question remains.. why do long lived authors warrant MORE monopoly INCENTIVE than short lived authors? ( Why not used fixed terms for everyone?)
"However, we have reached an unfortunate point with copyright and fair use where we'd rather halt innovation than admit that copyright holders' expectations have reached a point of making it cost- and time-prohibitive to meet their demands and are to the point of stagnating not only the public domain but technologies and services that deliver or even touch upon copyrighted content. In this sense, creating a scenario that is not unlike the movie industry's dire predictions about the VCR in the early 80s."
I agree with your sentiment, however your angst is misdirected. Copyright holders want to keep things private and out of the public domain. By that logic then we have reached the FORTUNATE point (fortunate by their perspective) where all other innovation is halted and they have a monopoly hold on intellectual creativity.
By definition, copyright gives the copyright holder the EXCLUSIVE right to decide how to distribute or disseminate his work for the duration of the copyright.
The problem is not that copyright exists, but problem is that they last far too long. 50 years after the authors death? Why do long lived authors deserve more compensation than short lived ones? It should be a fixed period and it should be a few decades at most.
If searchability is such a great thing for the AUTHORS then they will find a way to implement it. The fact that it is great for the consumers is absolutely irrelevant to the issue at hand. Copyright is by definition an infringement on consumers. The ability to copy whatever you want whenever you want for any reason would also be convenient for consumers. That is NOT an issue here. The consumers dont matter from the ethics of copyright. Only whether or not copyright law encourages authors to create more IP in the short term so that in the long term more work enters the public domain (eventually).
Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Flags have been steadily vanishing in the public square compared to their post-9/11 prominence. They are also largely without power.
Do other countries refer to their leader as "Leader of the free WORLD"?
Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
The US Constitution provides expressly for many human rights. Our legal positivism is not dismissal of the value of human rights, only the acknowledgment that in the real world rights exist because governments grant them, not because of their value.
umm... watch Nancy Grace on CNN and see her complain about how there are too many civil rights getting in the way of law enforcement and prosecutions.
Identification of Enemies
Name me one world power in history that had no enemies. We don't scapegoat everything on terrorists, only what they do. And we make a distinction between Muslims and Islamists.
right.. but you do have THE AXIS OF EVIL (tm).
(as to the second point... what is the difference between a muslim and an islamist?)
Supremacy of the Military
Ours is a civilian government. Military service does not grant significant advantage in elections. Many people do not like the military. Military recruitment has fallen. A large budget means that we are in an intractable war, not that we are a military state.
So... the Department of Homeland Security doesn't basically run EVERYTHING now?
Rampant Sexism
First, opposition to abortion is not sexism. It really isn't. You can be pro-Life and a feminists. Secondly, opposition to abortion isn't that high. A majority think it should be legal, they just don't think it should be legal at all points and in all circumstances. As for homophobia, it goes both ways. Some states have civil unions, others have marriage bans. Many have some special protections in the form of hate crime laws.
Homophobia goes both ways? You mean between 'homosexuality is an abomination and gays should be shot' to 'homosexuality is an abomination but gays will get their just punishment when they burn in hell'. The president of WHAT country wants to ammend the constitution to BAN gays settling down?
The population of WHAT country never elect a female president?
Controlled Mass Media
The closest thing we have to state-run media is PBS and NPR. Tell me with a straight face that those are fascist propaganda machines. And before someone shouts Fox News, having one news source tailored to viewers of a particular political persuasion sympathetic to the current administration does not fascism make.
Right... and it was only how many days ago that an artical about a new bill requiring preauthorization from the state prior to sale of a video game to kids?
How many millions of dollars in fines where handed out for a wardrobe malfunction?
Religion and Government are Intertwined
American secularism, enshrined in the Constitution, specifically disentangles government and religion. Yes, members of the governing party use religious rhetoric, but they are not the majority of the government, and they represent people who genuinely care about it, not people who have been manipulated.
Secularism may be enshrined in the constitution but the majority of american politicians including the PRESIDENT make routine appeals to God including declaring national days of prayer.
I can't turn on the TV and see an american politician give a speech for more than a few minutes about anything without him referring to God.
Labor Power is Suppressed
Unions are perfectly legal, and even given some protections. That unions are in trouble in America is due to the decisions made by the particular Unions (AFL-CIO, several of whose member unions left recently) and the pressures of globalization.
some protections? don't make it sound so grand. What about minimum wages? How about limits on the length of the wor
Now, if you were a nation that was laballed as a supporter of terrorism, what's there to guarantee that you won't be nuked the day after such a draft becomes a law? I think this is a very deliberate message -- we have a big red button, and we have one person, the president, who can push it if he is in a bad mood, and he's pushed similar buttons before. Live in PHEAR! :)
1: PHEAR? sounds like a tactic that only a terrorist would use.
2: This completely ignores the logic of religious fundamentalism. The fundamentalist wants to die in service of God and recieve his reward in the afterlife. In particular when talking about islam which specifically states that no man can delay or advance the chosen time of their death. That is in Allah's control (to paraphrase the Quran). Thus you can not actually kill anyone any sooner than he would have died anyway.
By definition the fantatics who we are at war with will NOT fear.
It is a lot easier to be a fanatic than it is to face the cold hard reality that all the suffering in the world is actually FOR NO GOOD REASON.
The only thing a fundamentalist fears is God.
And as long as we continue citing GOD we will continue to breed fundamentalists and extremists.
It's time to put our mythologies back in the past where they belong. Neither the Vatican, the Mullah's the Rabi's nor your favorite TV evangelist has a fucking clue what happens after we die.
This is a war of ideologies. The only problem is that the fundamentalists hiding in Al Qaeda cells and the fundamentalists from Washington who spend 4 months of the year on vacation both espouse the same basic one:. "God is on OUR side. Sacrifice the present earth all for eternal paradise in kingdom come."
The side of REASON has not even woken up to the reality that it is faith which is the root cause of terror.
As to the deterrent effect a preemptive strike policy would have: such a thing presupposes that the US will in fact only nuke those who have WMD based on incontrovertable proof. however since nukes will destroy all the evidence we will never have any and we know the policy will simply be a means to put fear into others to make economic concessions (same old game). Consequently it will create a new nuclear arms race to insure MAD is still functional. (and as I said before it wont scare fundamentalists anyway).
As for the terrorists, they will simply need to operate INSIDE the united states. (which 911 shows they have been already). Is the United States going to pre-emptively nuke itself?
Patent law should be amended more generally so that the patent office has a duty to cancel any patent (which is after all a privilege granted by the state on behalf of the public) used against the public (or ecological) good.
An interesting idea, except the patent office
is in no position to decide what is in the public good (I consider ecological good to merely be a special case of the public good). Only the courts can properly decide that on hearing evidence of harm or good, which would differ in a case by case basis.
In common law, public good is a defence to virtually any crime, and it is probably a means to avoid punitive damages for any civil liability as well in any event.
I think that a stricter law which specifically deals with the case of 'SINGLE USE' or 'restricted resuse' of property could be made. A law which said, that in any case where a license or contract grants physical ownership of an object to a licensee, a term which limits how often or how many times that physical item may be used is of no force or effect, and regardless of
how many times that item is used or how long it is used, the licensee is considered to comply with such restriction.
I'm not a lawyer but that is the jist of it I think. This would not affect patent law per se, it would be a limitation on contract law.
It seems to me that in general there should be no difference between legal possession of a good for single use, and legal possession of a good for multiple use. The flexibility to construct contracts for 1 or 3 uses, may be beneficial to the 2 parties, but it simply encourages too much waste to be produced and should not be allowed.
The idea that there is property out there which
exists which is perfectly SAFE and legal to otherwise use, but must be thrown in the garbage because it has already been used X number of times, is utterly outragous and deplorable.
I made the distinction for safety on purpose.
Clearly certain things become unsafe after being used, and if it would be dangerous to the public to
use them then I can understand such a limitation. But in those cases not even the patent holder would be permitted to reuse those items, and such restrictions would not be for the patent holder to decide anyway, but for whatever safety regulations exist in that destrict.
There is a difference when it comes to copywritted software which exists in electronic form only. re-activating such software does not entail any physical contamination of the environment, so the justification of public good doesn't really argue in favour of restricting limited use clauses in contracts or patents regarding software.
(but the old way of requiring someone to possess 36 printed copies of the manual.. is an example of what should also not be legally binding)
"I KNOW they are both greedy corporations. I mentioned that in the first sentence. And they are RUN by people. They are not entities of themselves. They are run by GREEDY IMMORAL and bastard humans."
they are mostly run by scared and powerless human beings who are worried if they do anything which appears to threaten the bottom line they will lose their jobs and their kids will not go to college and be doomed to live destitute and unrewarding lives.
Corporations function on mass psychology and we know mass psychology produces extreme behavior which does not reflect the morals of the individuals.
Some corporations are run by greedy bastards. But unless a corporation is wholely owned by a single person, it succumbs to mass psychology.
"Since we have no power to change the laws anymore, the only recourse is to boycott. Stop buying all of it. Since that won't happen... I guess we'll be in threads like this complaining about abusive corporations until we all die."
We DO have power to change the laws. The notion we have no power is just another lie spread by corporations to make us neglect to exercise our power.
Advertisers and marketers are the ones who sing most loudly that we actually LACK the power to effect change.
read lots of books and argue with people you disagree with and call bullshit when you see it.
a more effective boycott is your investment dollars. Dont invest in companies which act unethically.
I recommend reading a book "The Soul of Capitalism" by William Greider
It makes an argument for investors insuring their investments conduct themselves according to their ethical beliefs, and also explains how and why corporations tend to behave so unethically.
Cheers!
licenses which restrict re-use of physical items should be made explicitly illegal by statute. The reason is that such licenses encourage destruction of the environment and waste of natural resources such as OIL.
Patent holders can make a profit by pricing their inventions at a level which presumes re-use. They have a PATENT so they already have a monopoly. The only reason lexmark is trying this is because they dont wish to compete in the INK market. And they want their cartridges to appear cheaper than they actually are. (i.e. it looks the same price as another brand with a reusable license)
Unfortunately the courts hands are tied. Contract law is pretty clear on the issue, and in so far as the case at hand involves printing license restrictions ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE BOX, then there can be informed consent. (unlike licenses hidden inside the box and unrevealed until after you buy).
You need license from a patent holder even to USE a patented item. (inlike copyright which does not give the copyright exclusive right to READ).
The proper level of government to fix this problem however is legislatures and congress. single use patent licenses encourage pointless waste. They should either be illegal or should entail a heavy TAX in order to collect the necessary funds to pay for the cleanup of all the needless waste.
Soon automakers will make it illegal to repair or resell their automobiles (forcing people to buy new ones). All sorts of other scenarios are possible. But this is legal in contract and patent law. Courts can not stop this.
The law itself needs to be changed or else we are facing a society that nothing can be recycled or reused because patent owners would rather force consumers to consume more. And this will only encourage needless waste which ultimately will come back to harm the public good.