It's not a good idea to nationalize our network infrastructure. Not now. Not ever. Let me explain: first, it is their network and therefore their property... that is unless the government is giving them our tax money. What needs to stop is the government needs to stop handing out tax revenues to massive corporations.
Second, P2P is the pike which private companies will try to bring in network monitoring; you don't think the government will do the exact same thing? They just passed a broad wiretapping law in Sweden; they promise not to monitor domestic activity, but in fact they don't have to. Gee, I wonder if the Swedes are going to get spied on? And America? I dream for the land of the free and home of the brave, but a lot of times I get land of the monitored and home of the arrested. England? I'm sure all those cameras are to respect the privacy of citizens and only catch criminals.
Third, you don't think the government has its own agenda? You don't think they'll develop their own vested interests, in the name of national security or whatever the latest nonsense happens to be? Why did we go into Iraq...? Or you know... maybe they'd just throttle bandwidth with whoever decides not to shake hands behind the door. I know politicians commit crimes that are never brought to light now, so do I really want those people to have control over the Internet?!
The solution is to have a balance between the two, increase private competition, and push for enforcement of laws that come companies are violating nowadays. Nationalization/socialization will just perpetuate the problems. And that's my 2c.
Sure, they can say, oh it's our network and that's what we are going to do with it, however, in the interests of the national GDP/economy we have to consider ISP infrastructure as vital to the economy now, both of the US and the world. Any shenanigans on how it is run are of vital business interest to business concerns other than the ISPs themselves.
P2P is simply being used as the pike that gets network monitoring in the door. No, I have no actual proof of that, but if it were the danger that it is said to be, there would be plenty of evidence. Some of that evidence would be people complaining on the Internet about how slow their ISP is.
Now, add to that the fact that these same ISPs have a vested financial interest in using more of your bandwidth than you want them to in order to provide the triple-play and quadruple-play service packages that stock holders are counting on for revenue.
It's not a failure of capitalism. I'm not even sure what you're talking about.
People often blame capitalism for problems that exist, but aren't capitalism's fault. Gentrification, for example... the government, whether at the city, State, or Federal level, comes in and steals other peoples' land for below market value and gives it to some development companies. If that sort of government intervention wasn't allowed, i.e. more capitalism, those development companies would be forced to pay the owners whatever the owners wanted. It would probably enrich the owners or some owners may choose not to sell; tough, capitalism says you want it then you have to setup a barter palpable to the owner. Remember, capitalism is basically barter with money thrown in.
Bill Gates and Britney Spears, or rather Bill's corporation and Spears' media conglomerate, do produce something useful in current society. You're right in that the first copy is what contains all the cost and subsequent copies are free or almost free. However, the music or software they sell is something productive ONLY because of government intervention saying so. Government intervention isn't capitalism at all.
In a free market, Bill would need to really innovate. Since code can just be given away after the initial copy, he'd have to offer services or some sort of additional value much like companies that sell Free or even open source software to do so right now. Even Ms. Spears could make money in a more capitalistic system-- she'll have to do music live, like other working artists do so right now. Indeed, capitalism rewards you for your active work; everything else is compliments of government intervention.
If capitalism would be allowed to actually do its thing a little, all of human society would benefit from low-cost reproduction with increased sharing of knowledge and enriching artwork (I don't know if Spears really counts...) at the expense of a few less millionaires and billionaires. After all, why should capitalism offer a solution to demand pay for past work when there's virtually no cost to reproduce said work? I have to actively work for my money. Doesn't a farmer need to farm over and over again? If the farmer could just reproduce their food for much cheaper after the first time, don't you think the markets would lower prices for food? What makes other people so special that they don't have to actively work? If people feel like trading their money for your music or software, even if they can get it for free, then they can go ahead. Most people probably won't though... unless the government sticks a gun to their head and says "No, no, making a copy at no real cost to anyone is stealing".
(Sidenote: If they're going to do annoying things with the discussion system, at least they could add an edit button that would be valid for some time and then the message becomes "archived," and unchangeable.)
As an edit, I wanted to mention that there is indeed a few academic research studies indicating that legal gun ownership is a direct and real threat to the average American citizen. What I should've said is that the majority of the research does not support that viewpoint
(Sidenote: On this I agree with you 100%. The discussion system tinkering is pretty annoying.)
At this point I assume we're going to conclude our discussion because it's quickly devolving to tit-for-tat. However, please don't feel as if I'm attempting to silence you; if you must speak, by all means feel free.
Nullification, in the way you're talking about (there's also jury nullification, which is what I was thinking about), has been tested several times in U.S. history. One recent example is several States approving the use of medical marijuana, despite an incredibly dumb federal prohibition. There have been other times in the past, too. For example, in 1828, there was the Nullification Crisis involving an unusually high tariff which South Carolina did not like, and so took the lead in not following it. Eventually, the Federal government and South Carolina compromised. The most recent example I can think of is several municipalities and other non-Federal governmental entities that have passed ordinances banning the local citizenry from assisting Federal agents in any way when it comes to the use of the USA PATRIOT Act (which I personally think is a heinous Act removing liberty with no actual results on catching terrorists). I'm sure just a wikipedia search will dig up more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification.
I'm unaware of any Act or solid legal concept that invalidates nullification, as it is still occurring. Sorry, but I still fail to understand what this has to do with guns. This is not to say your argument is invalid, but I'm simply not making a connection.
Ignoring the fighting of the Federal government, much more realistically I think it serves as a means of self-defense. The vast majority of the quantitative academic research indicates that guns and crime do not have a correlation, i.e. more guns or less guns has no statistically significant bearing on crime. A smaller amount of research indicates that guns and crime have a negative correlation, i.e. more guns, less crime. An even smaller amount of research indicates that more guns leads to more crime. I'm inclined to believe, due to the majority research, that guns and crime are not correlated in any meaningful way, but rather crime is influenced by other sociological, economic, and political reasons. So why steal my liberty to own a gun?
It is also a legitimate source of "entertainment" for adults and supervised minors, much as archery or axe throwing (yes, unusually, axe throwing is a "real" sport). This "entertainment" value is further legitimized based on the fact that people are allowed to own all sort of weapons with little or no controversy surrounding them. For example, what exactly is the purpose of owning a real katana or other Samurai swords? Do they intend on fighting ninjas? Probably not. They have next to no useful purpose. Yet, American society correctly assumes there is going to be no innate danger from just the ownership of swords. Unfortunately, many Americans, and most of the world, assume a cylindrical hunk of metal with additional metal and/or plastic attachments innately pose more danger. Like the sword, it is inanimate, and I refuse to assume the mere possession of an inanimate object is a threat to me.
Ignoring all that, well I'm Libertarian, so for me liberty matters above all, given I don't violate the rights of others. Guns do not innately violate the rights of others, and there is no academic research indicating that legal gun ownership is a threat to the average American citizenry. Certainly, guns in the black market do violate the rights of others very often and should be stopped. Given the legal possession of firearms, American legal principles (even if American media often undermines it) states that one is innocent until proven guilty. The sole possession of a legal firearm is not proof of guilt.
Finally, if it isn't already apparent, I honestly believe that fighting Federal po
I apologize if the bold text came off as "scary". My intention was to very quickly indicate that your statement was incorrect, as the vast majority of people tend to skim what they read online.
I think it is an incorrect assumption that I will be unable to do anything against an armed force. If history is any guide, most recently Iraq, local insurgents and guerrilla fighters are extremely difficult to root out as long as they have firearms. A guerrilla force, as Iraq, Vietnam, North Korea, and tons of others have shown, is extremely effective. There's no need for a WMD to defend myself against a tyrannical government. Even if a WMD was necessary, logically, a firearm will give the civilian populace under attack more time to create a WMD. I believe you misunderstand as to the shear number of American who have this rebellious nature in them. It is deeply rooted in American culture.
As for actually using violence -- it is an absolute last measure. Sorry; I had to bold it to indicate the extent to which I and the vast majority of Americans (yes, even those who own guns) fully intend on using all legal, peaceful means to attempt to resolve a situation. So far in the U.S., legal, peaceful means, whether that be political demonstrations or lawsuits, have worked out ok. I've participated in just a few public protests -- and some have worked out. It would be irrational to expect them all to work out, so some attempts have failed. Still, I'd much rather peacefully "fight" for my rights. However, I feel it is completely irrational to just assume your government will never, ever be tyrannical and therefore, purposefully, limit your options of defense. My guns and those of other law-abiding Americans is cheap insurance and, more importantly, a deterrence.
I'm going to conclude with a quote from "one of my peoples," as I'm an American immigrant:
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
-- Mahatma Ghandi, "Gandhi, An Autobiography", page 446. Yes, it's real; feel free to look it up. As Ghandi liberated the people of our subcontinent through extreme, but peaceful means, I would much rather carry out extreme, but peaceful means of liberation rather then resort to violence. But Ghandi knew, as I do, that it would be foolish to not have a means of real defense.
A new Civil War, which I hope never happens, will not be an attempt to secede from the Union. The legal argument in that case may be to remove control of the Union from traitors. Whatever the legal argument will be, it will not be a war of secession. I'm unclear as to what you mean when you say "nullification?". Of course, it's most probable that the victor in such a case will decide what is and is not legal, because in such scenarios the victor always does.
It's questionable whether the Second Amendment does not, legally, apply to individuals. There's indeed legal cases on both sides and some cases seem to support both. For example, one of the few cases about the Second Amendment to approach as high as the Supreme Court (until just recently) has been United States v. Miller (case citation 307, U.S. 174). The case effectively said the National Firearms Act, limiting automatic firearms and certain short barreled weapons from civilians, was Constitutional. However, it essentially implied that firearms not limited by the NFA were Constitutionally protected for the upkeep of a militia.
And what is a militia? Primarily civilians. I quote Justice Rehnquist (who delivered the opinion of the Court) from Adams v. Williams, 1972, "The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia - civilians primarily...". Regardless, until the Second Amendment is formally appealed, it is still, legally, the highest law of the land and clearly states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." If it was not necessary to formally appeal an Amendment to remove its legal power, then it would not have been necessary to have something like the 21st Amendment (which repealed the prohibition on alcohol through the 18th Amendment, i.e. removed all legal basis for the 18th Amendment).
The Supreme Court, only recently in District of Columbia v. Heller, will decide to a clear-cut, but limited, extent whether the Second Amendment is an individual right. A current estimate for the ruling is in mid-June. Until then, there is no clear-cut legal basis/evidence for saying that the Second Amendment is not an individual right. And the majority of the States currently support that viewpoint.
That's where you're wrong. Citizens are capable of possessing ANY semi-automatic firearms with the standard checks for buying any firearm. This includes.50 caliber sniper rifles (a rather large caliber), which by the way, weighing at 20+lbs (that's over 9kg) for just the gun is impractical for committing crimes but great for taking care of enemy at long ranges.
We're even capable of possessing automatic firearms given we apply for NFA "certification" and pay the special tax. The average citizenry is more than capable of posing a threat to our own government. This means we can, indeed, legally possess M-16s and M-4s. The very same ones our armed forces are often equipped with. Even better, we can own superior weapons the U.S. government will not buy because it doesn't consider the additional cost worth it. In other words, what you don't realize is in most States (except Illinois and some others, I'm sure) you can legally possess any firearm. And you can bet people do.
You know what? I'm really curious as to what the Vietnam war turn out would've been if the average Vietnamese was forbidden to possess weapons. Yes, they suffered huge losses, but they still won against what was then, clearly, the most powerful armed forces at the time. If they didn't have guns, you can bet the U.S. would've won.
And don't purport to know what Jefferson was thinking when you have no supporting evidence. Just because Jefferson didn't have nukes doesn't mean he would've believed in violent revolt, as an absolute last measure, any less. He partook in one. Freedom and liberty mattered the most.
It's a lot easier to take care of conflicts if they could just drop a nuke or two. The U.S. government is simply not as trigger happy with nukes as you like to believe; I mean why wasn't one dropped in Korea, Vietnam, or even North Korea now? Finally, the U.S. government won't nuke the U.S., because then they're effectively wiping themselves out.
I was wondering how long I'd have to scroll down for someone to say this. The People do not serve the government, the government serves the People. If history is any guide, a citizenry can defend itself against a greater army, even its own, if it is well armed. If the citizenry isn't armed, then the results are obvious -- the armed militia will slaughter the citizenry. Our right to bear arms, including those firearms that "look scary" to some, are necessary to assure that the citizens are the Masters. Jefferson certainly believed no less.
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.
"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent..., or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.
I'm just going to throw my two cents here. First, American freedoms in some cases do indeed outclass the rest of the world. For example, the right to own firearms (imagine, a government of the people trusting its people) and the U.S. enjoys a lot of freedom of speech protections. Indeed, a lot of hate speech legislation, less common and less strong in the U.S. than other parts of the world is counterproductive (Strossen, "Defending Freedom: Even for the Thoughts We Hate"). That's not to say other people don't have freedoms that easily outclass America, like the Netherlands somewhat looser standards of "illegal" drugs; people should be free to consume what they'd like so long as it voluntary and they know what they're getting. It would be difficult to ascertain just which country has more freedom, but America is certainly up there.
These freedoms enable freer transactions -- they're what literally contribute to a "free" economy. A freer economy will tend to be richer, i.e. have more money (says tons of econometric research). That greater money, as you said, will lead to greater research. That's exactly why China is growing in every direction, including becoming competitive in research. There's more money to invest or throw away; either way, more money to experiment.
As for centralization -- it also leads to the question of freedom. Heavy centralization will lead to a loss of freedom as the majority will have greater power, power to override the freedom of the minority population. This is what America's Founding Fathers tried to balance in the Constitution and Bill of Rights: the States' rights and the rights of a "central" Federal government. The idea was to enable the States to experiment with different policies, and people would gravitate towards those States that had better policies, as well as preventing mob rule by means of having States that may be minority dominated giving those minorities greater "voice". Hawaii is an example, but there are plenty of other States, too. In regards to education, the idea is that local people know how to take care of those same local people. It may also be a reason why "centralized" legislation like No Child Left Behind has been unsuccessful (and I'm the sure the lack of funding helps).
What would help the U.S. lower educational system is a good public-private mixture. Look at American universities -- they're literally the very top of the heap throughout the world. Why not duplicate a similar framework in our lower educational system? Instead, what we have is a primarily public educational system with private options only for the super -rich. This happens when you push a public system too hard; everyone gets a craptastic "fair" distribution of X Good, while only the super-rich get Super Quality X Good. You have to allow the free market to participate and regulate and aid when it has failures, not regulate and aid overwhelmingly and hope the free market can maybe peek through. This has happened in countries where there is "Universal" health care; sure everyone gets care, but private (free market) care ends up being reserved for the super-rich. And that private, free market care is top-notch and has no waiting lines.
Quick side note: while the U.S. has higher infant mortality rates and lower life expectancy, they rank near the top for treating and curing most diseases/ailments, as well the development of new medical innovations. Infant mortality rates are at best, an indicator of issues with our obstetrics while life expectancy in the U.S. is affected by lifestyle factors that have little to do with our actual health care system. Living in Michigan, it's common to hear Canadians hop the border because of higher quality care and/or smaller lines (say 30 minutes to hours, as opposed to months). And just like in our primarily public educational system, it's the rich that can afford the better stuff.
My point being: our educational system needs to be less public. A more private educational system will inherently engender greater competition, which will impro
No, seriously. He's worth investigating. I will probably vote for him, because I basically look for two issues to help me decide: a women's right to abortion and the right to own firearms. It's that odd mix of conservative but social policies I like in a candidate. He seems more of a likely contender than a 3rd party and Ron Paul has much less of a chance than this guy. You can check out his main site. The only thing going against him is that he's not that pretty or charming and I feel the average American needs a somewhat pretty or charming president (Obama, Edwards). And no, I do not work for Richardson's campaign.
It's because you have some semblance of control when it comes to a nuke, whereas with an asteroid it's a natural event completely out of your control. You can't worry about natural, unpredictable events. If you lived in California, you might as well wonder everyday if an earthquake was going to hit. We can't predict either event with much real accuracy.
And we certainly don't have the resources to track billions of rocks floating around in space, even if we did dedicate more resources to asteroid tracking then we currently do.
As for heroes, I think the majority of the times a random sample person would give the hero status to a soldier when given the option of a soldier or a football player. There's still plenty of people who would give it to the football player, because at least he is not taking lives. I wouldn't but that's my opinion. If you have the impression that in the general populace the football player is the hero, it's entirely due to the media coverage. Football players get far more TV coverage and are certainly idolized, but I'm willing to bet it's by a lot of the same people who would declare the soldier a hero.
Just like increasng financial aid is directly responsible for increasing university tuition costs (hey! more money, so why not charge more? otherwise, we the university will lose it!), a plan of subsidizing math, science and engineering tuition will raise the costs of every other majors. Suddenly, those majors are paid for by the government, i.e. your taxes, so now there's all this money to charge for the other majors. End result: maybe you have more engineers/scientists, but at a significant cost to everything else.
Not to mention this is going to cost a crap load of money. Where is that going to come from? Sure, you might think that money invested will return itself in societal benefits, but truth be told, it will be a very poor return. A private investment would not only keep costs low, but would better adjust to the job market (less people will invest in degrees that have less job possiblity and vice versa).
I should also add that having 10 different trash companies will not lead to 10 times as much garbage truck traffic. You're basically saying that if we double the amount of local grocery stores, we'll double our local food supply. Maybe, but probably not.
Nonsense. People get shit shipped everywhere, even when they don't need to, because of that "competition." People have stuff shipped across the globe just to save a few bucks on eBay. There's no way that has no environmental impact.
Yes, peoeple do get shit shipped everywhere and they do it all the time. There's definitely a consequence to increased shipping to the environment. That hit to the environment will happen so long as there is an increased demand for said shipping services. And define "need"; how often do people get items shipped when it's actually unnecessary? Have you reduced your online shopping due to the increase in your carbon footprint? Remember, you're reducing your carbon footprint by not driving or waiting in traffic; that delivery truck with 50 packages is certainly more efficient (enviromentally and economically) then if 50 people went out to a store and got their stuff. If someone really wants a particular good, then they'll get it; without our competitive global shipping services, a store would pay a higher price for that good to be delivered to the store and then you would drive to the store to go pick it up. Yeah, that sounds efficient and more enivornmentally friendly... And I can't imagine you can actually save some real money by taking a completely inefficient shipping route; very often, you do not have the choice of a shipping route. But you do for time, so route efficiency would not also be a cost reduction but *is* a marketed feature.
Yes, there are exceptions to what I said, especially when you consider the airline industry. It is heavily regulated. In some instances I think this is absolutely necessary (i.e. safety reasons). Some regulations are just completely stupid, however, and do increase costs. In the airline industry, for people (and not cargo), an inefficient route is often taken because the ticket prices are cheaper for an individual. For a shipping company, they're going to take whatever route is cheapest and that's usually the shortest route.
You are also making the mistake of comparing vastly different services. Global delivery is far more distributed in both time and place. Garbage trucks are intensely local, and they don't have as many options in distributing their times of operation. Either you have garbage trucks annoying the neighborhood every single day, or you have ten garbage trucks trying to serve a single area on the same day. Either way it's pretty dumb.
Do you know *why* garbage trucks are intensely local? Because many local governments hand one company a monopoly. Of course, why would you decentralize garbage trucks? Literally because what's trash in one area may be useable in another area. Not to mention the efficiency in processing trash in a larger centralized location rather then having a central area for every single location. Oh and there's the fact that monopolizing trash services leads to companies like Waste Management, Inc. who can pretend to be environmentally friendly when they aren't anymore then any other trash company. A freer market would at least give you the option of choosing a legitmately environmentally friendly trash company.
And why do garbage trucks have to come at a certain time of the day? In a freer market you could choose time. It's not as if 6am on Friday (or whatever) is some awesome time to collect trash. And just how do you expect to be severly annoyed by garbage trucks? I mentioned delivery trucks, because they DO go in an out of local areas. It does not lead to chaos. They come and go as they please. Global delivery may be far more distributed in time and place, but that doesn't mean I don't see at least three different delivery trucks in my local area every other day. Maybe you don't live in an area as urbanized as mine, but I can assure you that nothing dramatic has happened yet.
You're using arguments similar to those that people use in order to keep phone and cable company monopolies. How do you not see that monopolies are rarely a good thing?
I don't think you'd be so thrilled when there are massive traffic jams, because there are 10 times as many garbage trucks on the road, competing for space.
Seems like a huge waste to me, the exact opposite of efficient allocation of resources. Large environmental impact, too, all that extra fuel being consumed. Lots of money being wasted employing more garbage collectors than are needed. Why do you assume it would be cheaper?
I know it seems counter-intuitive, but repeated studies have shown that increased competition and choice is a good thing for consumers, even after considering all factors. And yes, we can estimate models that take into account environmental costs. After looking at the data, it's hard to believe what I used to.
How about this... In my area, we have four different delivery organizations that I can think of right now. We have DHL, UPS, FedEx, and the U.S. government's own offering: USPS. Those aren't the only ones either: Aramex is another that mostly deals with large scale shipping operations. All these choices, competitors, have grown and arisen over the years. Has it let to congestion? Significant environmental issues? No, because everyone wants to reduce costs; burning up unncessary fuel and sending out trucks unnecessarily costs money -- lots of it. What we see, quite obviously, is that shipping costs are nowadays (in the U.S., anyway) extraordinarily low.
Imagine all the industry that competition has created; all the jobs it has lead to. Not least of all online shopping.
The private sector is not always better at allocating resources. If it works better as a monopoly then the government can do a better job. You're right; a lot of private ventures in building paved roads have gone so spectacularily, for example. I don't think telecommunications/Internet/data services are better provided by the government. Examples abound. Sure, it may be better if government owns the infrastructure, but the actual bandwidth and/or leasing of pipes will be much better with private enterprise. The U.S. has great examples of what happens when government tries to hand down monopolies for such services (i.e. shitty local cable and phone service), but surprisingly it also has great examples of what happens when government owns only the infrastructure and/or chooses not to allow a local monopoly (i.e. certain communities in California and Utah that I know of).
How would things work if there were 10 companies with garbage trucks driving past your house and you had to choose one? That would be fantastic; I would choose one of the 10 companies to pick up my trash. The one that does the best job keeps getting my money. Imagine how much cheaper trash collection would be. Though, don't think for a moment that I would be okay with 10 garbage trucks just showing up at my private residence; I would authorize (and more importantly, pay) only one to come to my premises.
How can it be a direct abuse of power, when its an election promise? Surely they have a mandate to fullfill their election promises? Oh yeah, because politicians have such an awesome track record of fulfilling election promises.
How do you think the private sector's going to recoup their investment? Go on, have a think about it. Do you think it will come from corporate altruism, or perhaps from our pockets? Of course, it will come out of Australians' pockets, either way. Except the private sector is a LOT more efficient at allocating resources and then using them. And oh yeah, it might spur industry leading to a bigger economy and more jobs. But we all know only politicians can magically "make jobs".
If good ol' greedy American companies were not there to expose the Tiananmen sqaure massacre, then who exactly is will? It's far, far better that the Chinese are exposed to newer ideas then simply be cut off for some ridiculous "higher morals". Because really, it's far more moral to introduce at least some new ideas then none at all.
This is off-topic, but... why would we even want self-sustaning nations? That just gives countries way more leeway to perform greater acts of jackassery. If your economies are tied you think twice about blowing someone up, because hurting them will hurt you. Besides, some groups of people are better at some things then other people, and you'll never (at least for not long enough to matter) get the best people for everything under one nation. It's better to leave those who are better at one task and concentrate on the the task who specialize in, because you'll both be better off for it.
Alrite I'll bit for what's basically a troll. Lefty having a bad day? The First Nations want to exert governmental control, of their own and not the surrounding governments -- that's definitely not capitalism. They're also using the court system to try get what they have dubious claims on, and as far as I know unbridled capitalism doesn't say take it to the courts (take it to the market, instead!). Lastly, trying to establish property rights or ownership in regards to radio spectrum is a bit absurd. How do you own energy emissions? Note that the U.S. government, on the other hand, does not try this, but licenses it -- i.e. taxes it as if its a publicly owned good, which makes the most sense.
I've always wondered why we look only for Carbon based life forms; thanks for the explaination. I never thought of the obvious fact that we haven't seen any other type of life form, thus looking for other life forms isn't even possible.
OT: I never know how effective shouting to mod up parent and grandparent posts, but these two posts are at the very end of the thre and will probably never get modded up -- despite both comments being very insightful/interesting.
This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever read about in a long time, and I hope, sincerely that it does not get passed. Certainly, the U.S. government should pressure the Chinese government to allow public dissent and individual freedoms. But FUCK, maybe the U.S. government should do that itself. Granted, the U.S. government's recent curtailing of individual freedoms is a far, far cry from the Chinese government's restrictions on its citizens.
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So why is this bad? Because it's short sighted and not at well thought out. The Global Online Freedom Act of 2007 places a lot of pressure on American companies to NOT comply with local Chinese laws. Fine, China is simply going to kick them out and ask companies from Europe, Asia, Australia, or *wherever* else to come in and do what the American companies were doing. This will limit the freedom of American businesses to do as they would like, but *nothing* will get accomplished because there will be businesses outside of the United States who will NOT comply. So what does this mean? American companies lose out on termendous revenues and profits, and China stays exactly the way it is. That means, you Joe worker, is even MORE likely to lose a job in the name of slashing costs.
Fine, you say -- the American companies and we should not be earning "blood" money, anyway. Yet, now the American companies cannot act as agents of change -- they simply can't act at all. Right now, they're facing pressure to act differently and try to change the rules as much as possible, but not leave the market. If you're not even in the market, do you think China is going to care more or less? WAY LESS. Who cares if you refuse to block certain sites for us, China, when you don't even provide service for us. Right now, at least there is an ability to negotiate, if not nag and/or delay requests to block and provide information. There are loopholes in the The Great Chinese Firewall right now. Should we let the Chinese have complete control and seal up all these holes?
Also, if you read the bill, you can see how things get murky real fast. What if a certain foreign government has legitimate, legal purposes to ask for user information? How will it get at that? Only if the United States Department of Justice says its ok. Fantastic. I, a soveriegn nation, need permission from another country on whether I can follow up a legitimate, legal claim. What exactly is legitimate and legal to claim? The bill is quite sparse on those details.
Keep reading the bill -- it gets much worse. Not only is the Department of Justice spreading its long arm (or trying) over every nation on earth, but IF companies filter they must provide the filtering terms to U.S. authorities. No country is going to tolerate this.
Lastly, there is a clause at the end of the bill that allows the President, of all people, to excuse companies from the terms of this bill. HOLY FUCKING CRAP! Do you think Halliburton Internet Service (no idea if it exists) would get a Violate-Human-Rights pass? You bet your ass they would. There are just too many conflicts of interest and way too much possibility of political favoritism.
Freedom in what sense? Freedom to look athe source code as OSS insists? Freedom to add/request features? Freedom to be clearly heard of complaints? All of the above?
Is Microsoft defrauding its customers? I would say, yes.:-) Others may highly disagree. Although, I don't know that the GF does invest in companies... maybe they do, I just don't know (the few companies I looked at can be or could also not be, depending on the consumer).
Government granted monopolies? Yeah, that's usually a bad idea. But there are a few considerations... for example how many telephone lines do you have going into your house? One. What if there was no monopoly and you had a phone socket, going to a phone line, for each company that provides service. It could definitely get very, very messy. Of course, I agree, in general -- monopolies are "evil".
As for libertarians, yeah they are a bit "Corportarian" and that's why I wouldn't call myself a true libertarian.
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It's not a good idea to nationalize our network infrastructure. Not now. Not ever. Let me explain: first, it is their network and therefore their property... that is unless the government is giving them our tax money. What needs to stop is the government needs to stop handing out tax revenues to massive corporations.
Second, P2P is the pike which private companies will try to bring in network monitoring; you don't think the government will do the exact same thing? They just passed a broad wiretapping law in Sweden; they promise not to monitor domestic activity, but in fact they don't have to. Gee, I wonder if the Swedes are going to get spied on? And America? I dream for the land of the free and home of the brave, but a lot of times I get land of the monitored and home of the arrested. England? I'm sure all those cameras are to respect the privacy of citizens and only catch criminals.
Third, you don't think the government has its own agenda? You don't think they'll develop their own vested interests, in the name of national security or whatever the latest nonsense happens to be? Why did we go into Iraq...? Or you know... maybe they'd just throttle bandwidth with whoever decides not to shake hands behind the door. I know politicians commit crimes that are never brought to light now, so do I really want those people to have control over the Internet?!
The solution is to have a balance between the two, increase private competition, and push for enforcement of laws that come companies are violating nowadays. Nationalization/socialization will just perpetuate the problems. And that's my 2c.
Sure, they can say, oh it's our network and that's what we are going to do with it, however, in the interests of the national GDP/economy we have to consider ISP infrastructure as vital to the economy now, both of the US and the world. Any shenanigans on how it is run are of vital business interest to business concerns other than the ISPs themselves. P2P is simply being used as the pike that gets network monitoring in the door. No, I have no actual proof of that, but if it were the danger that it is said to be, there would be plenty of evidence. Some of that evidence would be people complaining on the Internet about how slow their ISP is. Now, add to that the fact that these same ISPs have a vested financial interest in using more of your bandwidth than you want them to in order to provide the triple-play and quadruple-play service packages that stock holders are counting on for revenue.It's not a failure of capitalism. I'm not even sure what you're talking about.
People often blame capitalism for problems that exist, but aren't capitalism's fault. Gentrification, for example... the government, whether at the city, State, or Federal level, comes in and steals other peoples' land for below market value and gives it to some development companies. If that sort of government intervention wasn't allowed, i.e. more capitalism, those development companies would be forced to pay the owners whatever the owners wanted. It would probably enrich the owners or some owners may choose not to sell; tough, capitalism says you want it then you have to setup a barter palpable to the owner. Remember, capitalism is basically barter with money thrown in.
Bill Gates and Britney Spears, or rather Bill's corporation and Spears' media conglomerate, do produce something useful in current society. You're right in that the first copy is what contains all the cost and subsequent copies are free or almost free. However, the music or software they sell is something productive ONLY because of government intervention saying so. Government intervention isn't capitalism at all.
In a free market, Bill would need to really innovate. Since code can just be given away after the initial copy, he'd have to offer services or some sort of additional value much like companies that sell Free or even open source software to do so right now. Even Ms. Spears could make money in a more capitalistic system-- she'll have to do music live, like other working artists do so right now. Indeed, capitalism rewards you for your active work; everything else is compliments of government intervention.
If capitalism would be allowed to actually do its thing a little, all of human society would benefit from low-cost reproduction with increased sharing of knowledge and enriching artwork (I don't know if Spears really counts...) at the expense of a few less millionaires and billionaires. After all, why should capitalism offer a solution to demand pay for past work when there's virtually no cost to reproduce said work? I have to actively work for my money. Doesn't a farmer need to farm over and over again? If the farmer could just reproduce their food for much cheaper after the first time, don't you think the markets would lower prices for food? What makes other people so special that they don't have to actively work? If people feel like trading their money for your music or software, even if they can get it for free, then they can go ahead. Most people probably won't though... unless the government sticks a gun to their head and says "No, no, making a copy at no real cost to anyone is stealing".
(Sidenote: If they're going to do annoying things with the discussion system, at least they could add an edit button that would be valid for some time and then the message becomes "archived," and unchangeable.)
As an edit, I wanted to mention that there is indeed a few academic research studies indicating that legal gun ownership is a direct and real threat to the average American citizen. What I should've said is that the majority of the research does not support that viewpoint
(Sidenote: On this I agree with you 100%. The discussion system tinkering is pretty annoying.)
At this point I assume we're going to conclude our discussion because it's quickly devolving to tit-for-tat. However, please don't feel as if I'm attempting to silence you; if you must speak, by all means feel free.
Nullification, in the way you're talking about (there's also jury nullification, which is what I was thinking about), has been tested several times in U.S. history. One recent example is several States approving the use of medical marijuana, despite an incredibly dumb federal prohibition. There have been other times in the past, too. For example, in 1828, there was the Nullification Crisis involving an unusually high tariff which South Carolina did not like, and so took the lead in not following it. Eventually, the Federal government and South Carolina compromised. The most recent example I can think of is several municipalities and other non-Federal governmental entities that have passed ordinances banning the local citizenry from assisting Federal agents in any way when it comes to the use of the USA PATRIOT Act (which I personally think is a heinous Act removing liberty with no actual results on catching terrorists). I'm sure just a wikipedia search will dig up more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification.
I'm unaware of any Act or solid legal concept that invalidates nullification, as it is still occurring. Sorry, but I still fail to understand what this has to do with guns. This is not to say your argument is invalid, but I'm simply not making a connection.
Ignoring the fighting of the Federal government, much more realistically I think it serves as a means of self-defense. The vast majority of the quantitative academic research indicates that guns and crime do not have a correlation, i.e. more guns or less guns has no statistically significant bearing on crime. A smaller amount of research indicates that guns and crime have a negative correlation, i.e. more guns, less crime. An even smaller amount of research indicates that more guns leads to more crime. I'm inclined to believe, due to the majority research, that guns and crime are not correlated in any meaningful way, but rather crime is influenced by other sociological, economic, and political reasons. So why steal my liberty to own a gun?
It is also a legitimate source of "entertainment" for adults and supervised minors, much as archery or axe throwing (yes, unusually, axe throwing is a "real" sport). This "entertainment" value is further legitimized based on the fact that people are allowed to own all sort of weapons with little or no controversy surrounding them. For example, what exactly is the purpose of owning a real katana or other Samurai swords? Do they intend on fighting ninjas? Probably not. They have next to no useful purpose. Yet, American society correctly assumes there is going to be no innate danger from just the ownership of swords. Unfortunately, many Americans, and most of the world, assume a cylindrical hunk of metal with additional metal and/or plastic attachments innately pose more danger. Like the sword, it is inanimate, and I refuse to assume the mere possession of an inanimate object is a threat to me.
Ignoring all that, well I'm Libertarian, so for me liberty matters above all, given I don't violate the rights of others. Guns do not innately violate the rights of others, and there is no academic research indicating that legal gun ownership is a threat to the average American citizenry. Certainly, guns in the black market do violate the rights of others very often and should be stopped. Given the legal possession of firearms, American legal principles (even if American media often undermines it) states that one is innocent until proven guilty. The sole possession of a legal firearm is not proof of guilt.
Finally, if it isn't already apparent, I honestly believe that fighting Federal po
I apologize if the bold text came off as "scary". My intention was to very quickly indicate that your statement was incorrect, as the vast majority of people tend to skim what they read online.
I think it is an incorrect assumption that I will be unable to do anything against an armed force. If history is any guide, most recently Iraq, local insurgents and guerrilla fighters are extremely difficult to root out as long as they have firearms. A guerrilla force, as Iraq, Vietnam, North Korea, and tons of others have shown, is extremely effective. There's no need for a WMD to defend myself against a tyrannical government. Even if a WMD was necessary, logically, a firearm will give the civilian populace under attack more time to create a WMD. I believe you misunderstand as to the shear number of American who have this rebellious nature in them. It is deeply rooted in American culture.
As for actually using violence -- it is an absolute last measure. Sorry; I had to bold it to indicate the extent to which I and the vast majority of Americans (yes, even those who own guns) fully intend on using all legal, peaceful means to attempt to resolve a situation. So far in the U.S., legal, peaceful means, whether that be political demonstrations or lawsuits, have worked out ok. I've participated in just a few public protests -- and some have worked out. It would be irrational to expect them all to work out, so some attempts have failed. Still, I'd much rather peacefully "fight" for my rights. However, I feel it is completely irrational to just assume your government will never, ever be tyrannical and therefore, purposefully, limit your options of defense. My guns and those of other law-abiding Americans is cheap insurance and, more importantly, a deterrence.
I'm going to conclude with a quote from "one of my peoples," as I'm an American immigrant: "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." -- Mahatma Ghandi, "Gandhi, An Autobiography", page 446. Yes, it's real; feel free to look it up. As Ghandi liberated the people of our subcontinent through extreme, but peaceful means, I would much rather carry out extreme, but peaceful means of liberation rather then resort to violence. But Ghandi knew, as I do, that it would be foolish to not have a means of real defense.
A new Civil War, which I hope never happens, will not be an attempt to secede from the Union. The legal argument in that case may be to remove control of the Union from traitors. Whatever the legal argument will be, it will not be a war of secession. I'm unclear as to what you mean when you say "nullification?". Of course, it's most probable that the victor in such a case will decide what is and is not legal, because in such scenarios the victor always does.
It's questionable whether the Second Amendment does not, legally, apply to individuals. There's indeed legal cases on both sides and some cases seem to support both. For example, one of the few cases about the Second Amendment to approach as high as the Supreme Court (until just recently) has been United States v. Miller (case citation 307, U.S. 174). The case effectively said the National Firearms Act, limiting automatic firearms and certain short barreled weapons from civilians, was Constitutional. However, it essentially implied that firearms not limited by the NFA were Constitutionally protected for the upkeep of a militia.
And what is a militia? Primarily civilians. I quote Justice Rehnquist (who delivered the opinion of the Court) from Adams v. Williams, 1972, "The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia - civilians primarily...". Regardless, until the Second Amendment is formally appealed, it is still, legally, the highest law of the land and clearly states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." If it was not necessary to formally appeal an Amendment to remove its legal power, then it would not have been necessary to have something like the 21st Amendment (which repealed the prohibition on alcohol through the 18th Amendment, i.e. removed all legal basis for the 18th Amendment).
The Supreme Court, only recently in District of Columbia v. Heller, will decide to a clear-cut, but limited, extent whether the Second Amendment is an individual right. A current estimate for the ruling is in mid-June. Until then, there is no clear-cut legal basis/evidence for saying that the Second Amendment is not an individual right. And the majority of the States currently support that viewpoint.
We're even capable of possessing automatic firearms given we apply for NFA "certification" and pay the special tax. The average citizenry is more than capable of posing a threat to our own government. This means we can, indeed, legally possess M-16s and M-4s. The very same ones our armed forces are often equipped with. Even better, we can own superior weapons the U.S. government will not buy because it doesn't consider the additional cost worth it. In other words, what you don't realize is in most States (except Illinois and some others, I'm sure) you can legally possess any firearm. And you can bet people do.
You know what? I'm really curious as to what the Vietnam war turn out would've been if the average Vietnamese was forbidden to possess weapons. Yes, they suffered huge losses, but they still won against what was then, clearly, the most powerful armed forces at the time. If they didn't have guns, you can bet the U.S. would've won.
And don't purport to know what Jefferson was thinking when you have no supporting evidence. Just because Jefferson didn't have nukes doesn't mean he would've believed in violent revolt, as an absolute last measure, any less. He partook in one. Freedom and liberty mattered the most.
It's a lot easier to take care of conflicts if they could just drop a nuke or two. The U.S. government is simply not as trigger happy with nukes as you like to believe; I mean why wasn't one dropped in Korea, Vietnam, or even North Korea now? Finally, the U.S. government won't nuke the U.S., because then they're effectively wiping themselves out.
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.
"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent..., or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.
Sources:
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeffsite.htm
I fucking hate it that when I'm making nice little paragraphs in the text box, only to have it show up as a garbled mess if I forgot the HTML.
I'm just going to throw my two cents here. First, American freedoms in some cases do indeed outclass the rest of the world. For example, the right to own firearms (imagine, a government of the people trusting its people) and the U.S. enjoys a lot of freedom of speech protections. Indeed, a lot of hate speech legislation, less common and less strong in the U.S. than other parts of the world is counterproductive (Strossen, "Defending Freedom: Even for the Thoughts We Hate"). That's not to say other people don't have freedoms that easily outclass America, like the Netherlands somewhat looser standards of "illegal" drugs; people should be free to consume what they'd like so long as it voluntary and they know what they're getting. It would be difficult to ascertain just which country has more freedom, but America is certainly up there. These freedoms enable freer transactions -- they're what literally contribute to a "free" economy. A freer economy will tend to be richer, i.e. have more money (says tons of econometric research). That greater money, as you said, will lead to greater research. That's exactly why China is growing in every direction, including becoming competitive in research. There's more money to invest or throw away; either way, more money to experiment. As for centralization -- it also leads to the question of freedom. Heavy centralization will lead to a loss of freedom as the majority will have greater power, power to override the freedom of the minority population. This is what America's Founding Fathers tried to balance in the Constitution and Bill of Rights: the States' rights and the rights of a "central" Federal government. The idea was to enable the States to experiment with different policies, and people would gravitate towards those States that had better policies, as well as preventing mob rule by means of having States that may be minority dominated giving those minorities greater "voice". Hawaii is an example, but there are plenty of other States, too. In regards to education, the idea is that local people know how to take care of those same local people. It may also be a reason why "centralized" legislation like No Child Left Behind has been unsuccessful (and I'm the sure the lack of funding helps). What would help the U.S. lower educational system is a good public-private mixture. Look at American universities -- they're literally the very top of the heap throughout the world. Why not duplicate a similar framework in our lower educational system? Instead, what we have is a primarily public educational system with private options only for the super -rich. This happens when you push a public system too hard; everyone gets a craptastic "fair" distribution of X Good, while only the super-rich get Super Quality X Good. You have to allow the free market to participate and regulate and aid when it has failures, not regulate and aid overwhelmingly and hope the free market can maybe peek through. This has happened in countries where there is "Universal" health care; sure everyone gets care, but private (free market) care ends up being reserved for the super-rich. And that private, free market care is top-notch and has no waiting lines. Quick side note: while the U.S. has higher infant mortality rates and lower life expectancy, they rank near the top for treating and curing most diseases/ailments, as well the development of new medical innovations. Infant mortality rates are at best, an indicator of issues with our obstetrics while life expectancy in the U.S. is affected by lifestyle factors that have little to do with our actual health care system. Living in Michigan, it's common to hear Canadians hop the border because of higher quality care and/or smaller lines (say 30 minutes to hours, as opposed to months). And just like in our primarily public educational system, it's the rich that can afford the better stuff. My point being: our educational system needs to be less public. A more private educational system will inherently engender greater competition, which will impro
No, seriously. He's worth investigating. I will probably vote for him, because I basically look for two issues to help me decide: a women's right to abortion and the right to own firearms. It's that odd mix of conservative but social policies I like in a candidate. He seems more of a likely contender than a 3rd party and Ron Paul has much less of a chance than this guy. You can check out his main site. The only thing going against him is that he's not that pretty or charming and I feel the average American needs a somewhat pretty or charming president (Obama, Edwards). And no, I do not work for Richardson's campaign.
And we certainly don't have the resources to track billions of rocks floating around in space, even if we did dedicate more resources to asteroid tracking then we currently do.
As for heroes, I think the majority of the times a random sample person would give the hero status to a soldier when given the option of a soldier or a football player. There's still plenty of people who would give it to the football player, because at least he is not taking lives. I wouldn't but that's my opinion. If you have the impression that in the general populace the football player is the hero, it's entirely due to the media coverage. Football players get far more TV coverage and are certainly idolized, but I'm willing to bet it's by a lot of the same people who would declare the soldier a hero.
Just like increasng financial aid is directly responsible for increasing university tuition costs (hey! more money, so why not charge more? otherwise, we the university will lose it!), a plan of subsidizing math, science and engineering tuition will raise the costs of every other majors. Suddenly, those majors are paid for by the government, i.e. your taxes, so now there's all this money to charge for the other majors. End result: maybe you have more engineers/scientists, but at a significant cost to everything else.
Not to mention this is going to cost a crap load of money. Where is that going to come from? Sure, you might think that money invested will return itself in societal benefits, but truth be told, it will be a very poor return. A private investment would not only keep costs low, but would better adjust to the job market (less people will invest in degrees that have less job possiblity and vice versa).
I should also add that having 10 different trash companies will not lead to 10 times as much garbage truck traffic. You're basically saying that if we double the amount of local grocery stores, we'll double our local food supply. Maybe, but probably not.
Nonsense. People get shit shipped everywhere, even when they don't need to, because of that "competition." People have stuff shipped across the globe just to save a few bucks on eBay. There's no way that has no environmental impact.
Yes, peoeple do get shit shipped everywhere and they do it all the time. There's definitely a consequence to increased shipping to the environment. That hit to the environment will happen so long as there is an increased demand for said shipping services. And define "need"; how often do people get items shipped when it's actually unnecessary? Have you reduced your online shopping due to the increase in your carbon footprint? Remember, you're reducing your carbon footprint by not driving or waiting in traffic; that delivery truck with 50 packages is certainly more efficient (enviromentally and economically) then if 50 people went out to a store and got their stuff. If someone really wants a particular good, then they'll get it; without our competitive global shipping services, a store would pay a higher price for that good to be delivered to the store and then you would drive to the store to go pick it up. Yeah, that sounds efficient and more enivornmentally friendly... And I can't imagine you can actually save some real money by taking a completely inefficient shipping route; very often, you do not have the choice of a shipping route. But you do for time, so route efficiency would not also be a cost reduction but *is* a marketed feature.
Yes, there are exceptions to what I said, especially when you consider the airline industry. It is heavily regulated. In some instances I think this is absolutely necessary (i.e. safety reasons). Some regulations are just completely stupid, however, and do increase costs. In the airline industry, for people (and not cargo), an inefficient route is often taken because the ticket prices are cheaper for an individual. For a shipping company, they're going to take whatever route is cheapest and that's usually the shortest route.
You are also making the mistake of comparing vastly different services. Global delivery is far more distributed in both time and place. Garbage trucks are intensely local, and they don't have as many options in distributing their times of operation. Either you have garbage trucks annoying the neighborhood every single day, or you have ten garbage trucks trying to serve a single area on the same day. Either way it's pretty dumb.
Do you know *why* garbage trucks are intensely local? Because many local governments hand one company a monopoly. Of course, why would you decentralize garbage trucks? Literally because what's trash in one area may be useable in another area. Not to mention the efficiency in processing trash in a larger centralized location rather then having a central area for every single location. Oh and there's the fact that monopolizing trash services leads to companies like Waste Management, Inc. who can pretend to be environmentally friendly when they aren't anymore then any other trash company. A freer market would at least give you the option of choosing a legitmately environmentally friendly trash company.
And why do garbage trucks have to come at a certain time of the day? In a freer market you could choose time. It's not as if 6am on Friday (or whatever) is some awesome time to collect trash. And just how do you expect to be severly annoyed by garbage trucks? I mentioned delivery trucks, because they DO go in an out of local areas. It does not lead to chaos. They come and go as they please. Global delivery may be far more distributed in time and place, but that doesn't mean I don't see at least three different delivery trucks in my local area every other day. Maybe you don't live in an area as urbanized as mine, but I can assure you that nothing dramatic has happened yet.
You're using arguments similar to those that people use in order to keep phone and cable company monopolies. How do you not see that monopolies are rarely a good thing?
I don't think you'd be so thrilled when there are massive traffic jams, because there are 10 times as many garbage trucks on the road, competing for space.
Seems like a huge waste to me, the exact opposite of efficient allocation of resources. Large environmental impact, too, all that extra fuel being consumed. Lots of money being wasted employing more garbage collectors than are needed. Why do you assume it would be cheaper?
I know it seems counter-intuitive, but repeated studies have shown that increased competition and choice is a good thing for consumers, even after considering all factors. And yes, we can estimate models that take into account environmental costs. After looking at the data, it's hard to believe what I used to.
How about this... In my area, we have four different delivery organizations that I can think of right now. We have DHL, UPS, FedEx, and the U.S. government's own offering: USPS. Those aren't the only ones either: Aramex is another that mostly deals with large scale shipping operations. All these choices, competitors, have grown and arisen over the years. Has it let to congestion? Significant environmental issues? No, because everyone wants to reduce costs; burning up unncessary fuel and sending out trucks unnecessarily costs money -- lots of it. What we see, quite obviously, is that shipping costs are nowadays (in the U.S., anyway) extraordinarily low.
Imagine all the industry that competition has created; all the jobs it has lead to. Not least of all online shopping.
The private sector is not always better at allocating resources. If it works better as a monopoly then the government can do a better job.
You're right; a lot of private ventures in building paved roads have gone so spectacularily, for example. I don't think telecommunications/Internet/data services are better provided by the government. Examples abound. Sure, it may be better if government owns the infrastructure, but the actual bandwidth and/or leasing of pipes will be much better with private enterprise. The U.S. has great examples of what happens when government tries to hand down monopolies for such services (i.e. shitty local cable and phone service), but surprisingly it also has great examples of what happens when government owns only the infrastructure and/or chooses not to allow a local monopoly (i.e. certain communities in California and Utah that I know of).
How would things work if there were 10 companies with garbage trucks driving past your house and you had to choose one?
That would be fantastic; I would choose one of the 10 companies to pick up my trash. The one that does the best job keeps getting my money. Imagine how much cheaper trash collection would be. Though, don't think for a moment that I would be okay with 10 garbage trucks just showing up at my private residence; I would authorize (and more importantly, pay) only one to come to my premises.
How can it be a direct abuse of power, when its an election promise? Surely they have a mandate to fullfill their election promises?
Oh yeah, because politicians have such an awesome track record of fulfilling election promises.
How do you think the private sector's going to recoup their investment? Go on, have a think about it. Do you think it will come from corporate altruism, or perhaps from our pockets?
Of course, it will come out of Australians' pockets, either way. Except the private sector is a LOT more efficient at allocating resources and then using them. And oh yeah, it might spur industry leading to a bigger economy and more jobs. But we all know only politicians can magically "make jobs".
If good ol' greedy American companies were not there to expose the Tiananmen sqaure massacre, then who exactly is will? It's far, far better that the Chinese are exposed to newer ideas then simply be cut off for some ridiculous "higher morals". Because really, it's far more moral to introduce at least some new ideas then none at all.
This is off-topic, but... why would we even want self-sustaning nations? That just gives countries way more leeway to perform greater acts of jackassery. If your economies are tied you think twice about blowing someone up, because hurting them will hurt you. Besides, some groups of people are better at some things then other people, and you'll never (at least for not long enough to matter) get the best people for everything under one nation. It's better to leave those who are better at one task and concentrate on the the task who specialize in, because you'll both be better off for it.
Alrite I'll bit for what's basically a troll. Lefty having a bad day? The First Nations want to exert governmental control, of their own and not the surrounding governments -- that's definitely not capitalism. They're also using the court system to try get what they have dubious claims on, and as far as I know unbridled capitalism doesn't say take it to the courts (take it to the market, instead!). Lastly, trying to establish property rights or ownership in regards to radio spectrum is a bit absurd. How do you own energy emissions? Note that the U.S. government, on the other hand, does not try this, but licenses it -- i.e. taxes it as if its a publicly owned good, which makes the most sense.
I've always wondered why we look only for Carbon based life forms; thanks for the explaination. I never thought of the obvious fact that we haven't seen any other type of life form, thus looking for other life forms isn't even possible.
OT: I never know how effective shouting to mod up parent and grandparent posts, but these two posts are at the very end of the thre and will probably never get modded up -- despite both comments being very insightful/interesting.
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So why is this bad? Because it's short sighted and not at well thought out. The Global Online Freedom Act of 2007 places a lot of pressure on American companies to NOT comply with local Chinese laws. Fine, China is simply going to kick them out and ask companies from Europe, Asia, Australia, or *wherever* else to come in and do what the American companies were doing. This will limit the freedom of American businesses to do as they would like, but *nothing* will get accomplished because there will be businesses outside of the United States who will NOT comply. So what does this mean? American companies lose out on termendous revenues and profits, and China stays exactly the way it is. That means, you Joe worker, is even MORE likely to lose a job in the name of slashing costs.
Fine, you say -- the American companies and we should not be earning "blood" money, anyway. Yet, now the American companies cannot act as agents of change -- they simply can't act at all. Right now, they're facing pressure to act differently and try to change the rules as much as possible, but not leave the market. If you're not even in the market, do you think China is going to care more or less? WAY LESS. Who cares if you refuse to block certain sites for us, China, when you don't even provide service for us. Right now, at least there is an ability to negotiate, if not nag and/or delay requests to block and provide information. There are loopholes in the The Great Chinese Firewall right now. Should we let the Chinese have complete control and seal up all these holes?
Also, if you read the bill, you can see how things get murky real fast. What if a certain foreign government has legitimate, legal purposes to ask for user information? How will it get at that? Only if the United States Department of Justice says its ok. Fantastic. I, a soveriegn nation, need permission from another country on whether I can follow up a legitimate, legal claim. What exactly is legitimate and legal to claim? The bill is quite sparse on those details.
Keep reading the bill -- it gets much worse. Not only is the Department of Justice spreading its long arm (or trying) over every nation on earth, but IF companies filter they must provide the filtering terms to U.S. authorities. No country is going to tolerate this.
Lastly, there is a clause at the end of the bill that allows the President, of all people, to excuse companies from the terms of this bill. HOLY FUCKING CRAP! Do you think Halliburton Internet Service (no idea if it exists) would get a Violate-Human-Rights pass? You bet your ass they would. There are just too many conflicts of interest and way too much possibility of political favoritism.
Is Microsoft defrauding its customers? I would say, yes. :-) Others may highly disagree. Although, I don't know that the GF does invest in companies... maybe they do, I just don't know (the few companies I looked at can be or could also not be, depending on the consumer).
Government granted monopolies? Yeah, that's usually a bad idea. But there are a few considerations... for example how many telephone lines do you have going into your house? One. What if there was no monopoly and you had a phone socket, going to a phone line, for each company that provides service. It could definitely get very, very messy. Of course, I agree, in general -- monopolies are "evil".
As for libertarians, yeah they are a bit "Corportarian" and that's why I wouldn't call myself a true libertarian.