So a foil hat will block this out, right guys? Guys? Why are you all advancing on me with weapons? And what's with the glazed look in your eyes? Guys? Really, this isn't funny anymore, get back, I swear to god I'll... *long, terrified scream*...
I couldn't agree more. In a market economy (which we don't have, but they like to tell us we do), all valid exchanges must be mutually voluntary. That means both the seller and buyer must agree to the terms of sale. In this situation, that translates to mean that the seller is perfectly within their rights to refuse to offer laptops with no OS or Linux installed. If you agree to buy the laptop, knowing it has Windows installed, then that is a valid exchange. If, however, you then decide you don't want Windows, but you have no prior agreement with the merchant that they will give you a refund for that component of your system alone, then you have no legitimate claim to a refund. Do you go to a restaurant, order veggie soup, pick out all the peas, and then insist that you shouldn't have to pay for the peas? Of course not.
The only issue here, as another poster pointed out, is the EULA, which advises you to return the product to the vendor for a refund if you don't agree to the terms. Are you then entitled to a refund for your copy of Windows? Absolutely not. In this instance, Windows was bundled, i.e. it is a part of another product. If you want a return and refund, you have to return the entire product, not just a portion of it (unless the vendor has provisions for this in their return policy, but I can't imagine you'll find a company that does).
I'm as upset as anyone about the lack of availability of non-Windows laptops, but that doesn't give me the right to dictate the terms of sale to an unwilling third party.
Microsoft today acquired a patent on time travel. Commenting on this development, Steve Balmer had this to say: "We don't know how to do it, but I'll be damned if I let someone else get credit when they figure it out. We had the idea first." Also, a patent for the flying car has been issued to General Motors. Company officials obtained the patent amid concerns that someone else might be able to develop the technology first, and then how would GM make money on it?
Seriously, this is just another example of why the patent office should be eliminated in favor of private licensing agreements, contracts, and NDAs. Let the company worry about enforcing their IP rights, which has the added benefit of preventing them from "protecting" IP they don't have.
Unfortunately, that doesn't always quite work out. I've been with my current employer for nearly a year now. I was originally hired as a sales rep, but was repeatedly promised, from my first interview right up to today, that I would be moved into a more technical, better paying position. To that end, I took every opportunity to demonstrate my technical prowess and customer relations skills. I'd keep our customers up to date on all the up and coming technology, I'd help them with technical issues when our tech wasn't available, I even drove halfway across the state to do onsite hardware support on a massive HPC cluster for our sister company. I didn't complain or gripe, I smiled and did the work, and said it was my pleasure. Hell, they once sent me halfway across the state with the wrong parts, and I still smiled and moved on. I was saving them thousands in wages and airfair, as without me, they would have had to fly a (much better paid) technician halfway across the country to do the same work.
Then my review came up. I thought, surely they can't help but appreciate all the hard work and dedication I have displayed. And considering my low wages, I was expecting a hefty raise and a promotion to a technician position. Instead, I got a $0.25 raise and was promised a performance bonus based on my sales. No tech position, and with a raise like that, they might as well have spit in my face. Now, six months later, I still haven't seen this bonus, not because my sales have been low, but because they simply haven't bothered to calculate my bonus. The guy that invoices orders and handles RMAs (who has been there only a month longer than me) makes 15% more than I do! So I talked to my boss about my low pay, told him about all the promises made and broken, about how my current wages could barely support my living expenses, let alone my tuition (I pay out-of-state), and their response was to offer me the same commission again. That was a month ago. I still haven't seen a dime, and I doubt I will get any bonus on my check tomorrow.
Long story short, you can do great work with a big smile, and still get walked all over. I'm currently seeking new employment opportunities (if anyone has an opening for a technician in the Denver area, please email me!).
folks who approved the money should be brought up on criminal neglegance charges!
Apparently you are under the assumption that the government takes responsibility for its screwups. LordPhantom, I'd like to introduce you to my good friend Reality. Reality, Lord Phantom. It appears that you two are going to have a bumpy relationship...
Perhaps I should state my point more succinctly: government forces you to participate in whatever programs it creates, whether you believe it to be beneficial or harmful, moral or immoral, whereas the market is a purely voluntary system, where indivudals are responsible for securing their interrests. A remote bureaucracy cannot judge needs, wants, and goals for an entire nation with anything resembling efficiency, individuals must do that.
As to the government supplying funds to schools, the government doesn't supply money, victims of government theft do. And incidentally, as BitGeek pointed out, the government performed all its functions with no income tax prior to the ratification of the 16th ammendment (which was actually in 1913 I believe). In fact, the government tried three times prior to the 16th ammendment to pass an income tax, and each time it was struck down by the Supreme Court.
I'd respond further, but I have to run. Perhaps later...
I might argue that government will always exist in one form or another.
Under a system of political anarchy, services once provided by the government are instead provided by private companies. There is no single "service" that the government provides that cannot be provided better and/or cheaper by a private entity. Take, to use your example, roads. Most people will contend that we would have no road system without the government. Who, they ask, would have built the interstate highway system? And, they argue, if road were private, we'd have to pay for them!
Many would then proceed to argue that this arangement places total control in the hands of the road company, and they will inevitably seek to screw their customers. Well, that's another place where good ol' fashioned free market competition shines. Anarchy is not, as many believe, a system of chaos and brutality where none organize for common goals. Communities (towns, cities, etc) naturally form when those whos interrests intersect decide to live and work in proximity to one another to more readily achieve their common goals. Suppose a group of people started buying land and building homes, and decided they needed a system of road in their community, but no one had the necessary facilities to maintain such a system. Well, they could get together and draft a contract proposal for a road maintainence company, and draft a covenant agreement for landowners in the community. Such a system could take many forms. The one I like goes something like this: Each person owns the section of road in front of their property; it is just a part of their property, and they paid for it, so they maintain rights over it. When the members of this community get together to draft a contract and covenant agreement, they determine the rules of the road, appropriate penalties, etc. The covenant would stipulate that the landowners that sign it are bound to follow the stated rules of the road and also stipulates that if they sell their property, they agree to have the buyer sign the same covenant as a part of the sale, thereby ensuring someone won't simply move into the neighborhood and switch up the rules for their section of road. They then hammer out the details of the contract with the road company, and everyone who accepts it signs on and is then bound. Of course, any good contract will specify terms allowing the participants to cancel the contract (i.e. poor performance on the part of the maintainence company, etc). And the really, really wonderful thing about this is, it's ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY! No one is forced to participate in the community road maintainence program, and is free to take their services to another company. And this won't result in disjointed traffic laws that change from block to block. Remember, a community forms out of common interests, so the initial members of this community will more easily work out a system that is mutually acceptable. And suppose that a neighboring community forms with different laws and a different company. Competition works again here. People will be more likely to join a community that best serves their self-interest, so the community with preferable laws will succeed. And again, this is but one system under which a community could form its road system. There are many others, and each sovereign individual would be free to choose how they will fill their own needs.
There are too many people who aren't interesting in just getting along, they have to win. They want to control others, or to liver better than others, or to work less, or just cause pain.
That's correct, such people do exists. They're so common, in fact, that they've been given a name: politicians. People who desire to rule are the first to get into government. Anarchy gives you a fighting chance against such people. Free market competition ensures that you can go elsewhere if you feel mistreated by a company. The right to keep and bear arms ensures your ability to defend yourself against the mor
Except that "doing what's best for society" isn't what most would have you believe. Welfare, most contend, is a great program, imperative to a successfully functioning society. Not so. Welfare accomplishes one thing: putting more people on welfare (those who were living check-to-check are then taxed to pay for welfare, and can therefore no longer afford their own expenses, forcing them onto welfare, which means more people are taxed and can't afford their expenses, forcing them onto welfare, etc.). Whether you are an individualist free marketeer or a bleeding heart do-gooder, what's best for society doesn't change. More people experience a higher standard of living under a free market system than they ever could under socialism, because socialism reduces everyone to the lowest common economic denominator (except the political elite) and inhibits productive activities that could improve the economic lot of the nation as a whole. It does this first by eliminating the profit motive (essential to production and technological advancement), and second by eliminating the benefits of long-range planning (why spend you time and money creating a product/service if you can't be sure that the government will allow you to sell it as you wanted). Socialism only sounds like it's best for society until you understand economics. It just happens to be a nice benefit that sound moral arguments support free markets as well as the utilitarian arguments do.
You won't be finding any viruses. Viruses tend to die rather quickly when not in a viable host. Bacteria, on the other hand, could have potentially survived. We've seen evidence of viable bacteria sealed in Egyptian tombs, and while we're talking about much longer spans of time, it is feasible that some kind of bacteria could have survived.
What's really good is that we're not just borrowing from other countries, the government is borrowing from itself. See, while foreign governments are the largest holders of US T-Bills, and private entities are second, the US government is third. Think about that for a second. An entity that can issue itself loans. If you fail to see the problem with that, may I refer you to Human Action by Ludwig von Mises.
The big problem with the government giving itself loans is that they must eventually be repaid. And where are all the government-issued, government-owned T-Bills? Why, in the social security trust fund! So, what happens when this horrible socialist program is required to dip into the trust fund? Well, the government then has to find a way to convert those T-Bills to actual US currency (dollars). The government has two ways to do this: taxation and inflation. Taxation is simple. After 2018, there will be more retired persons collecting benefits than there will be workers paying in. Social security, you see, is a pay-as-you-go system, wherein the taxes we pay today go to pay retired people's benefits today. There is no savings. While money supposedly goes into the trust fund, in reality the government spends it and issues T-Bills to put in the trust fund, similar to an IOU. So, in 2018 when we have to start tapping into the fund, the government will have to come up with all these trillions of dollars, and, as I said, either tax or inflate. With the taxation method, they'd have to put the social security tax rate at between 20-30%, and that's for low tax brackets. Obviously, this would never work. Taxes that high would force more people onto government "benefits", which would require higher taxation to support, so more people go on welfare, and the spiral continues downward. The other option is the back-door tax, inflation. Far too many people think inflation is a natural phenomenon in a market environment, and the Federal Reserve valiantly saves us from it by playing with interest rates. Well, this is in fact false. In a pure market environment, inflation simply cannot occur. However, with the implementation of central banking, that all changes. If the government can arbitrarily start printing more money, then inflation begins. Basically, when we were on a gold standard, each dollar printed had to be backed by a dollar's worth of gold. When we detached the two, the government was freed to print as much money as it wanted. Problem is, each dollar printed reduces the value of all other dollars already in circulation. This is the process known as inflation, and it is the other way the government will try to solve the social security problem. Basically, since they can't raise taxes to a level sufficient to continue this unsustainable program, they will start printing more money. More specifically, they'll print $15 trillion in 10 years. To put that in perspective, our current national debt is a "mere" $7.5 trillion, and it took us more than a century to accumulate that. This will destroy America's credit rating, and foreign nations will begin dumping our T-Bills like they were poison, which will lead to total economic chaos.
Just a bad idea to have a government gathering debt to begin with.
When the government talks about cutting spending, what they're really talking about is reductions in their expected spending increases. Check the budget proposal. On the net, it actually increases total government expenditures. They call it a spending cut because they had initially estimated that government expenditures would increase by more than they actually will. Just a handy bit of doublespeak.
Uh, taxes aren't a phenomenon of a free market economy. Rather, they come into being with state control, which is socialism. Capitalists don't want to pay taxes.
How the fuck did two comments, posted minutes apart, with identical text, apparently written by the same AC, end up with one modded 5 funny, and the other 5 insightful? Redundant anyone?
I've got a great idea: how about the parents of these budding psychos try, oh, I don't know, maybe PARENTING. If your child has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, then you need to take responsibility for more closely monitoring their consumption not only of video games, but also TV, movies, etc. That's called parenting. If you do allow your child access to violent media, it is your responsibility as parents to ensure the kid understands that what he is doing is NOT REAL and explain why it would be wrong in RL. No one knows kids better than their parents (at least if they're doing their job), and no one else knows how that kid is going to react to graphic depictions of violence. That's why you can't legislate it, you have to leave it up to the parents.
Has it ever occured to anyone that perhaps people more prome to violent outbursts will be more likely to enjoy blowing people's head off in GTA? That perhaps people whose personalities are already tending towards violence are more likely to play violent games? Seems like a pretty obvious suggestion to me. Even ignoring that, these studys are essentially claiming to show that we have no free will, and are mere puppets with strings connected to the playstation.
How did we let the entertainment industry get away with this?
You make it sound as if the government didn't WANT this. Every time the prodcedures for a civil matter are usurped and turned into a federal matter, the power of the State is expanded. While we may see it as an unwanted annoyance, we're looking at it as people who want things done efficiently, preferably in a free-market style. Politicos look at it from the standpoint of the power-hungry. More issues to control means more issues to legislate, and the only long-term winner is the State.
That's not the point. To take your example, suppose Congress passes a law that impacts farmers, and I live in a city. You don't think that I should be able to sue to address the unconstitutionality of the law because it does not, at present, directly affect me. Well, part of being free is having all options available to you. Part of being free would be the knowledge that, should I choose to change occupation to farming, I wouldn't have to sacrifice my natural liberties to do so. The probability of my doing so is irrelevant. Perhaps I simply want to ensure that my children would be able to enter agriculture at some point in the future without being subject to unconstitutional regulations. And then there's simply general principle. Just because it doesn't directly impact me at the time, I live in this country, and any laws the government creates are there, looming over my head, should I ever choose to violate them, so having unconstitutional laws in place limits my liberty by unconstitutionally and imorally limiting my options for how I will run my own life. So I should have the right to challenge any law, because whether it has an immediate impact on my day-to-day life, or if it simply limits the potential of my freedom, it is my business.
Ah, if only you (or myself) had been at the constitutional convention to work that one in. Would've saved us a lot of problems. Not too many people would promise to lower taxes and fund more programs if they knew they could be jailed for bullshiting people out of billions (not that they should have the power to tax anyway, but that's another post...).
What we need is simply a system whereby one can challenge the constitutional validity of a law without breaking it. Not to ask if a particular act would be illegal, but to actually say "This law is illegal". There would be no need for a separate court system, and there would be no reason that the usual appeals process couldn't be implemented, all the way up to the Supreme Court, whose ruling would be binding. Otherwise, lower court rulings would be used to set precedent. Seems pretty straightforward to me. Sure, there's the issue of people challenging every law in sight, but you think a judge would do anything with a court challenge to a law prohibiting murder? Of course not, it'd be thrown out of court like a frivolous lawsuit. There's also the issue of there being so many laws to challenge. If Congress wasn't busy legislating everything in sight, we wouldn't have such a convoluted legal system. If the legal code was computer code, some programmer would be fired for writing it.
I got a substitute teacher banned from the high school for the same thing:). I hadn't stood for the pledge for years, mostly on religious grounds (atheists don't pledge to god), but also out of respect for the dead dream that was America's potential. My regular teachers had come to accept it. This was a sub. She made the mistake of first ordering me to stand for the pledge, then kicking me out of class when I refused. I walked straight to the office, raised holy bloody hell, threatened lawsuits, and that teacher has never been (to my knowledge) allowed to return to that high school.
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Jesus I wish I had some mod points right now! I can't believe I didn't think of that argument myself! Good thinking.
So a foil hat will block this out, right guys? Guys? Why are you all advancing on me with weapons? And what's with the glazed look in your eyes? Guys? Really, this isn't funny anymore, get back, I swear to god I'll... *long, terrified scream*...
I couldn't agree more. In a market economy (which we don't have, but they like to tell us we do), all valid exchanges must be mutually voluntary. That means both the seller and buyer must agree to the terms of sale. In this situation, that translates to mean that the seller is perfectly within their rights to refuse to offer laptops with no OS or Linux installed. If you agree to buy the laptop, knowing it has Windows installed, then that is a valid exchange. If, however, you then decide you don't want Windows, but you have no prior agreement with the merchant that they will give you a refund for that component of your system alone, then you have no legitimate claim to a refund. Do you go to a restaurant, order veggie soup, pick out all the peas, and then insist that you shouldn't have to pay for the peas? Of course not.
The only issue here, as another poster pointed out, is the EULA, which advises you to return the product to the vendor for a refund if you don't agree to the terms. Are you then entitled to a refund for your copy of Windows? Absolutely not. In this instance, Windows was bundled, i.e. it is a part of another product. If you want a return and refund, you have to return the entire product, not just a portion of it (unless the vendor has provisions for this in their return policy, but I can't imagine you'll find a company that does).
I'm as upset as anyone about the lack of availability of non-Windows laptops, but that doesn't give me the right to dictate the terms of sale to an unwilling third party.
Microsoft today acquired a patent on time travel. Commenting on this development, Steve Balmer had this to say: "We don't know how to do it, but I'll be damned if I let someone else get credit when they figure it out. We had the idea first." Also, a patent for the flying car has been issued to General Motors. Company officials obtained the patent amid concerns that someone else might be able to develop the technology first, and then how would GM make money on it?
Seriously, this is just another example of why the patent office should be eliminated in favor of private licensing agreements, contracts, and NDAs. Let the company worry about enforcing their IP rights, which has the added benefit of preventing them from "protecting" IP they don't have.
Unfortunately, that doesn't always quite work out. I've been with my current employer for nearly a year now. I was originally hired as a sales rep, but was repeatedly promised, from my first interview right up to today, that I would be moved into a more technical, better paying position. To that end, I took every opportunity to demonstrate my technical prowess and customer relations skills. I'd keep our customers up to date on all the up and coming technology, I'd help them with technical issues when our tech wasn't available, I even drove halfway across the state to do onsite hardware support on a massive HPC cluster for our sister company. I didn't complain or gripe, I smiled and did the work, and said it was my pleasure. Hell, they once sent me halfway across the state with the wrong parts, and I still smiled and moved on. I was saving them thousands in wages and airfair, as without me, they would have had to fly a (much better paid) technician halfway across the country to do the same work.
Then my review came up. I thought, surely they can't help but appreciate all the hard work and dedication I have displayed. And considering my low wages, I was expecting a hefty raise and a promotion to a technician position. Instead, I got a $0.25 raise and was promised a performance bonus based on my sales. No tech position, and with a raise like that, they might as well have spit in my face. Now, six months later, I still haven't seen this bonus, not because my sales have been low, but because they simply haven't bothered to calculate my bonus. The guy that invoices orders and handles RMAs (who has been there only a month longer than me) makes 15% more than I do! So I talked to my boss about my low pay, told him about all the promises made and broken, about how my current wages could barely support my living expenses, let alone my tuition (I pay out-of-state), and their response was to offer me the same commission again. That was a month ago. I still haven't seen a dime, and I doubt I will get any bonus on my check tomorrow.
Long story short, you can do great work with a big smile, and still get walked all over. I'm currently seeking new employment opportunities (if anyone has an opening for a technician in the Denver area, please email me!).
folks who approved the money should be brought up on criminal neglegance charges!
Apparently you are under the assumption that the government takes responsibility for its screwups. LordPhantom, I'd like to introduce you to my good friend Reality. Reality, Lord Phantom. It appears that you two are going to have a bumpy relationship...
Perhaps I should state my point more succinctly: government forces you to participate in whatever programs it creates, whether you believe it to be beneficial or harmful, moral or immoral, whereas the market is a purely voluntary system, where indivudals are responsible for securing their interrests. A remote bureaucracy cannot judge needs, wants, and goals for an entire nation with anything resembling efficiency, individuals must do that.
As to the government supplying funds to schools, the government doesn't supply money, victims of government theft do. And incidentally, as BitGeek pointed out, the government performed all its functions with no income tax prior to the ratification of the 16th ammendment (which was actually in 1913 I believe). In fact, the government tried three times prior to the 16th ammendment to pass an income tax, and each time it was struck down by the Supreme Court.
I'd respond further, but I have to run. Perhaps later...
I might argue that government will always exist in one form or another.
Under a system of political anarchy, services once provided by the government are instead provided by private companies. There is no single "service" that the government provides that cannot be provided better and/or cheaper by a private entity. Take, to use your example, roads. Most people will contend that we would have no road system without the government. Who, they ask, would have built the interstate highway system? And, they argue, if road were private, we'd have to pay for them!
Many would then proceed to argue that this arangement places total control in the hands of the road company, and they will inevitably seek to screw their customers. Well, that's another place where good ol' fashioned free market competition shines. Anarchy is not, as many believe, a system of chaos and brutality where none organize for common goals. Communities (towns, cities, etc) naturally form when those whos interrests intersect decide to live and work in proximity to one another to more readily achieve their common goals. Suppose a group of people started buying land and building homes, and decided they needed a system of road in their community, but no one had the necessary facilities to maintain such a system. Well, they could get together and draft a contract proposal for a road maintainence company, and draft a covenant agreement for landowners in the community. Such a system could take many forms. The one I like goes something like this: Each person owns the section of road in front of their property; it is just a part of their property, and they paid for it, so they maintain rights over it. When the members of this community get together to draft a contract and covenant agreement, they determine the rules of the road, appropriate penalties, etc. The covenant would stipulate that the landowners that sign it are bound to follow the stated rules of the road and also stipulates that if they sell their property, they agree to have the buyer sign the same covenant as a part of the sale, thereby ensuring someone won't simply move into the neighborhood and switch up the rules for their section of road. They then hammer out the details of the contract with the road company, and everyone who accepts it signs on and is then bound. Of course, any good contract will specify terms allowing the participants to cancel the contract (i.e. poor performance on the part of the maintainence company, etc). And the really, really wonderful thing about this is, it's ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY! No one is forced to participate in the community road maintainence program, and is free to take their services to another company. And this won't result in disjointed traffic laws that change from block to block. Remember, a community forms out of common interests, so the initial members of this community will more easily work out a system that is mutually acceptable. And suppose that a neighboring community forms with different laws and a different company. Competition works again here. People will be more likely to join a community that best serves their self-interest, so the community with preferable laws will succeed. And again, this is but one system under which a community could form its road system. There are many others, and each sovereign individual would be free to choose how they will fill their own needs.
There are too many people who aren't interesting in just getting along, they have to win. They want to control others, or to liver better than others, or to work less, or just cause pain.
That's correct, such people do exists. They're so common, in fact, that they've been given a name: politicians. People who desire to rule are the first to get into government. Anarchy gives you a fighting chance against such people. Free market competition ensures that you can go elsewhere if you feel mistreated by a company. The right to keep and bear arms ensures your ability to defend yourself against the mor
Except that "doing what's best for society" isn't what most would have you believe. Welfare, most contend, is a great program, imperative to a successfully functioning society. Not so. Welfare accomplishes one thing: putting more people on welfare (those who were living check-to-check are then taxed to pay for welfare, and can therefore no longer afford their own expenses, forcing them onto welfare, which means more people are taxed and can't afford their expenses, forcing them onto welfare, etc.). Whether you are an individualist free marketeer or a bleeding heart do-gooder, what's best for society doesn't change. More people experience a higher standard of living under a free market system than they ever could under socialism, because socialism reduces everyone to the lowest common economic denominator (except the political elite) and inhibits productive activities that could improve the economic lot of the nation as a whole. It does this first by eliminating the profit motive (essential to production and technological advancement), and second by eliminating the benefits of long-range planning (why spend you time and money creating a product/service if you can't be sure that the government will allow you to sell it as you wanted). Socialism only sounds like it's best for society until you understand economics. It just happens to be a nice benefit that sound moral arguments support free markets as well as the utilitarian arguments do.
You won't be finding any viruses. Viruses tend to die rather quickly when not in a viable host. Bacteria, on the other hand, could have potentially survived. We've seen evidence of viable bacteria sealed in Egyptian tombs, and while we're talking about much longer spans of time, it is feasible that some kind of bacteria could have survived.
What's really good is that we're not just borrowing from other countries, the government is borrowing from itself. See, while foreign governments are the largest holders of US T-Bills, and private entities are second, the US government is third. Think about that for a second. An entity that can issue itself loans. If you fail to see the problem with that, may I refer you to Human Action by Ludwig von Mises.
The big problem with the government giving itself loans is that they must eventually be repaid. And where are all the government-issued, government-owned T-Bills? Why, in the social security trust fund! So, what happens when this horrible socialist program is required to dip into the trust fund? Well, the government then has to find a way to convert those T-Bills to actual US currency (dollars). The government has two ways to do this: taxation and inflation. Taxation is simple. After 2018, there will be more retired persons collecting benefits than there will be workers paying in. Social security, you see, is a pay-as-you-go system, wherein the taxes we pay today go to pay retired people's benefits today. There is no savings. While money supposedly goes into the trust fund, in reality the government spends it and issues T-Bills to put in the trust fund, similar to an IOU. So, in 2018 when we have to start tapping into the fund, the government will have to come up with all these trillions of dollars, and, as I said, either tax or inflate. With the taxation method, they'd have to put the social security tax rate at between 20-30%, and that's for low tax brackets. Obviously, this would never work. Taxes that high would force more people onto government "benefits", which would require higher taxation to support, so more people go on welfare, and the spiral continues downward. The other option is the back-door tax, inflation. Far too many people think inflation is a natural phenomenon in a market environment, and the Federal Reserve valiantly saves us from it by playing with interest rates. Well, this is in fact false. In a pure market environment, inflation simply cannot occur. However, with the implementation of central banking, that all changes. If the government can arbitrarily start printing more money, then inflation begins. Basically, when we were on a gold standard, each dollar printed had to be backed by a dollar's worth of gold. When we detached the two, the government was freed to print as much money as it wanted. Problem is, each dollar printed reduces the value of all other dollars already in circulation. This is the process known as inflation, and it is the other way the government will try to solve the social security problem. Basically, since they can't raise taxes to a level sufficient to continue this unsustainable program, they will start printing more money. More specifically, they'll print $15 trillion in 10 years. To put that in perspective, our current national debt is a "mere" $7.5 trillion, and it took us more than a century to accumulate that. This will destroy America's credit rating, and foreign nations will begin dumping our T-Bills like they were poison, which will lead to total economic chaos.
Just a bad idea to have a government gathering debt to begin with.
When the government talks about cutting spending, what they're really talking about is reductions in their expected spending increases. Check the budget proposal. On the net, it actually increases total government expenditures. They call it a spending cut because they had initially estimated that government expenditures would increase by more than they actually will. Just a handy bit of doublespeak.
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
- P. J. O'Rourke
Uh, taxes aren't a phenomenon of a free market economy. Rather, they come into being with state control, which is socialism. Capitalists don't want to pay taxes.
I missed the one different line. Now it's funny, but you made me feel bad, so it negates the humor. Thanks a lot...:)
You kidding? If they filtered out plain incoherence, there'd be nothing left to post!
How the fuck did two comments, posted minutes apart, with identical text, apparently written by the same AC, end up with one modded 5 funny, and the other 5 insightful? Redundant anyone?
I've got a great idea: how about the parents of these budding psychos try, oh, I don't know, maybe PARENTING. If your child has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, then you need to take responsibility for more closely monitoring their consumption not only of video games, but also TV, movies, etc. That's called parenting. If you do allow your child access to violent media, it is your responsibility as parents to ensure the kid understands that what he is doing is NOT REAL and explain why it would be wrong in RL. No one knows kids better than their parents (at least if they're doing their job), and no one else knows how that kid is going to react to graphic depictions of violence. That's why you can't legislate it, you have to leave it up to the parents.
Has it ever occured to anyone that perhaps people more prome to violent outbursts will be more likely to enjoy blowing people's head off in GTA? That perhaps people whose personalities are already tending towards violence are more likely to play violent games? Seems like a pretty obvious suggestion to me. Even ignoring that, these studys are essentially claiming to show that we have no free will, and are mere puppets with strings connected to the playstation.
How did we let the entertainment industry get away with this?
You make it sound as if the government didn't WANT this. Every time the prodcedures for a civil matter are usurped and turned into a federal matter, the power of the State is expanded. While we may see it as an unwanted annoyance, we're looking at it as people who want things done efficiently, preferably in a free-market style. Politicos look at it from the standpoint of the power-hungry. More issues to control means more issues to legislate, and the only long-term winner is the State.
Well, that minimum number must be less than three. Ever heard the NBC theme music?
That's not the point. To take your example, suppose Congress passes a law that impacts farmers, and I live in a city. You don't think that I should be able to sue to address the unconstitutionality of the law because it does not, at present, directly affect me. Well, part of being free is having all options available to you. Part of being free would be the knowledge that, should I choose to change occupation to farming, I wouldn't have to sacrifice my natural liberties to do so. The probability of my doing so is irrelevant. Perhaps I simply want to ensure that my children would be able to enter agriculture at some point in the future without being subject to unconstitutional regulations. And then there's simply general principle. Just because it doesn't directly impact me at the time, I live in this country, and any laws the government creates are there, looming over my head, should I ever choose to violate them, so having unconstitutional laws in place limits my liberty by unconstitutionally and imorally limiting my options for how I will run my own life. So I should have the right to challenge any law, because whether it has an immediate impact on my day-to-day life, or if it simply limits the potential of my freedom, it is my business.
Ah, if only you (or myself) had been at the constitutional convention to work that one in. Would've saved us a lot of problems. Not too many people would promise to lower taxes and fund more programs if they knew they could be jailed for bullshiting people out of billions (not that they should have the power to tax anyway, but that's another post...).
What we need is simply a system whereby one can challenge the constitutional validity of a law without breaking it. Not to ask if a particular act would be illegal, but to actually say "This law is illegal". There would be no need for a separate court system, and there would be no reason that the usual appeals process couldn't be implemented, all the way up to the Supreme Court, whose ruling would be binding. Otherwise, lower court rulings would be used to set precedent. Seems pretty straightforward to me. Sure, there's the issue of people challenging every law in sight, but you think a judge would do anything with a court challenge to a law prohibiting murder? Of course not, it'd be thrown out of court like a frivolous lawsuit. There's also the issue of there being so many laws to challenge. If Congress wasn't busy legislating everything in sight, we wouldn't have such a convoluted legal system. If the legal code was computer code, some programmer would be fired for writing it.
I got a substitute teacher banned from the high school for the same thing:). I hadn't stood for the pledge for years, mostly on religious grounds (atheists don't pledge to god), but also out of respect for the dead dream that was America's potential. My regular teachers had come to accept it. This was a sub. She made the mistake of first ordering me to stand for the pledge, then kicking me out of class when I refused. I walked straight to the office, raised holy bloody hell, threatened lawsuits, and that teacher has never been (to my knowledge) allowed to return to that high school.