But we're also classical Liberals -- you're blowing my mind!
Yeah. We're liberal about the people's rights and responsibilities, we're conservative about giving those rights to anyone else including government. I wish the media would help settle this duality. Just pick a side and let's start from there.
Authoritarian Right-wingers (Fascists) want to redistribute the wealth to themselves
Yes and that will happen in every implementation of organized authority. It's the fate of mankind to be susceptible to greed. So before we go pointing the finger and say "fascist", we need to think how that really is different from communists or socialists. There's no doubt that communism and socialism are grand ideas spawned by great benevolent men (well, maybe) but the reality is that, in implementation, those who are willing to sacrifice morals and values and benevolence to stab thier constituents in the back (for their own profit) will be the ones ruthless enough to rise to the top. That's the way life goes.
Authoritarian Left-wingers (Marxists) want to redistribute the wealth to everyone.
Yep. Marxist/communist.
I can't call the U.S. government Marxist with a straight face, no one could
Strip away the layers and layers of propaganda of what you think to be true about your rights and what really is true.
I see it less in terms of what governments were supposed to be doing (economic equivalence, social equivalence, whatever) because everyone has a good PR pitch. If they didn't then they wouldn't be in business. You can't get the support of the masses by pitching to them that you're going to turn them all into indentured servants and then hand pick the ones who make it to positions of wealth and authority. Most people don't like that pitch unless you've guaranteed their ascension. So the truth is that the very first assumption you make when dealing with government is that, at some point, someone's lying about something to cover up their own personal profit motive.
After that you start looking at governments not by definitions you read but by analyzing what they do and how they get it done.
Unless of course you're google, then ad revenue is okay.
There's a tolerable tradeoff point in services vs. revenue. Look to the derision of Yahoo! from its once mighty alter. There's a reason why Google got everyone's attention.
If someone registers $my_favorite_hobby\.com and fills it with completely unrelated junk, perhaps even some fringe group religious bunk, just for the purpose of ad revenue then I would hope they would be less hypocritical enough to cede $my_favorite_hobby\.com when I turn $my_favorite_hobby into a legitimate business which benefits all of society.
If not then they're hypocrites and shouldn't be supported by international organizations which are (supposedly) working for the betterment of the planetary network society.
perhaps they just want a static name to hit when they telnet into a machine, that is just as legitimate a use as your company.
In that case I'd ask,"What does the client care what's in the address? Give them a static IP. It won't matter." Someone else mentioned a MUD, and that could be attached to a name pretty easily. But if it's just an ftpd/sshd/gopherd/wais/whatever with no real attachment to the name, it'd be nice to see people cooperate in building a better net presence than a set of banner ads.
You seem to have a legit use. I'd view it differently if you just had a few banner ads on it and no other services which were even remotely specific to "patch.com".
If you were running an ftp server, what do the clients care what they're connecting to? That can be moved.
Running web sites with cool names to get advertising revenue is a real business and is a valid use of a domain name
I hope we agree that, if the sole only purpose is to generate ad revenue, they should have a willingness to pass on the name to someone who has a more purposeful use.
That's like using a bowl of clean water to wash your hands, then dumping it down the drain, when the guy next to you is dehydrating to death. Ad revenue.
Bottom line is that he has nothing to prove. He doesn't want to sell. It's his domain. He's doing nothing wrong. He registered the domain before the submitter. End of story.
What of the other side of the story? Some corporate overlord company goes out and registers all open available domain names, using a different employee name on each one, which match anything remotely in the dictionary and then holds on to them just to piss people off? The employees are told, if anyone asks about the domain name, just give a null response.
Take "chemistry" for example. "chemistry.org" is currently owned by ACS, which is A Good Thing. But say if, back in '92, some high school dropout decided that getting "chemistry.org" would be like, so cool, man. Then comes in someone with a legitimate interest in "chemistry.org", but the dropout invested well in MS, and now won't sell the domain?
There are legitimate cases where some knob bought the domain name just because they wanted to feel better about themselves, and aren't really doing anything with it.
GPL3 doesn't mandate that sites distributing GPL3 licencsed code distribute the source to the website. It mandates that, if the code running the site is GPL3, that the code is accessible.
So you can distribute proprietary code over a web interface which is GPL3. You can distribute GPL3 code over a proprietary website. But, if your website uses GPL3 code in the HTTP arena (eg. custom GPL3 webserver, GPL3 applets), then you must distribute the source for those applets.
I don't see any problem with this. If someone is using a PHP or Java front/backend which is GPL3'd, they should be providing a way to get to the source.
I don't mind consumption taxes, or property taxes, or even sales taxes, as for the most part they are voluntary.
I look at it overall. I don't mind ONE TAX. Just give me ONE TAX. Can't they figure out ONE TAX? We've all heard the saying "nickle and diming yourself to death" and that's exactly what our legislators are doing to us. They hide 0.5% here, and 0.1% there, and 15%, and 12% there... and none of us really knows how much we really pay because it's all tucked away here there and everywhere. Someone needs to tell them to get their budget under control and just get ONE TAX so that we can all see, plain and simple, what we're paying and what we're paying it for.
Another dream, though. It makes perfect sense, if you're at the top of the pyramid scheme, to obfuscate the avenues.
when Mussolini systematically oppressed the left-wingers
Just as today's US systematically oppresses any true right wingers/conservatives. If you even hint that you support the complete minimalization of government and strict adherence to the Constitution (with 9th and 10th amendments intact), you can find yourself labelled wacko, conspiracy theorist, and ridiculed in other less savory ways.
Right-wing carries the baggage of Aristocracy/classism, statism/elitism, and socialist-antipathy besides just the liberal economics
I've preferred to simplify things. I don't mind elitists. If they are elitist, but they're elitist without government help, they're still conservative and right wing. If, however, they have ever sought to use government authority to preserve their claim to elitism, then they are no longer conservative or right wing. If they only seek to use government authority when it suits them (most common), they are still using government authority, and therefore can no longer be conservative no matter what words come out of their mouths.
<i>There's no implication of state-ownership (like in communism)
In reality, though, is it any different? If the state owns your business directly, or you are beholden to them through taxes and regulations? At the end of the day there isn't any difference.
The US differs from the (former) USSR only in a few extra levels of investors and banks between the regulators and the owners. If you think about the money pools, though, it's all about the same.
Conservatives like to believe they are classical liberals (they usually aren't these days, or they would all be big-L Libertarians)
Big L Libertarians are classical Conservatives, in that they believe to a minimalist government which does not exceed the powers as strictly outlined in the charter documents. We don't really have a truly conservative or right wing side in the US right now. Republicans are happy to use government when it suits them which makes them Liberal.
Democrats feel that they can use government authority to help everyone equally. That's "liberal" about the rights and powers of government. Republicans make no attempt (well, recently they have for PR purposes) to use government to help everyone but they are still happy to use government when it suits to protect their business investments. In this fashion, they are still "liberal" about the rights and powers of government. One could say that Democrats are Stupid and Republicans are Evil in the Stupid and Evil show. To be less abrasive I'd say that one is foolish and the other is greedy.
The DMCA allows the RIAA to pay one lawyer to file 500-1000 John Doe lawsuits at once to learn the identities associated with IP addresses.
HOLY CATS! The RIAA is a front for the religious right in its pursuit to track down all the dangerous pr0n surfers! They don't care if the RIAA loses, so long as they get the goods on the IP addresses.
If judges were required on the other hand to impose upon a losing plaintiff the defendant's legal fees, the number of frivolous suits on both sides would fall dramatically -- perhaps to 5% of today's levels.
Then it becomes poker. Big companies can bluff out smaller player all day every day 24/7/365. There is a solution... but this isn't it.
I think there is a possibility that if you could get Science together that its components might agree that current copyright laws are hampering progress, voiding the condition upon which the laws are founded
Most true scientific researchers that I collaborated with in the pharmaceutical industry agree that current IP laws hinder progress. We're not in charge those. The MBAs sitting on the director's boards see things from a completely different viewpoint. Since they make enormous amounts of money they have a much larger influence on the way laws are written. I think the framers recognized that this was an issue, heck, they had seen it in painstaking detail in Britain. They tried to minimize the issue by minimizing the scope of the Federal Government in the 9th and 10th Amendments. One of the very first things that the very first Congress did (thanks to Slashdot's Cpt. Kangarooski for leaking this during a heated debate) was to decide that the 9th and 10th Amendments didn't really apply to them. I've heard this was also the point of contention in the Whiskey Rebellion, and it was certainly the point of contention for the Civil War (which wasn't so much about slavery as the definition of slavery and who has a right to set that definition). Nowadays, you can be employed for a ridiculous slave wage (or even slave salary) but not be protected at all.
If we weren't agreeing to them they would change
The system's rigged. That's why things don't change. It's the same old case of distracting the farmer to steal the chickens. We spend so much of our time paying taxes to feed the unConstitutional pork that we have no time or money to spend working for reform. I keep a small spreadsheet of the taxes which I can find in my expenditures and it's currently 67%. Granted I'm estimating for the tax cost which is passed to me by the shipping companies which bring groceries to my grocery store. They don't pay those taxes. At the end of the day, when I buy a bag of Tostitos, the price I pay covers their profit margin for those taxes so I'm the one paying it. Even if I remove that column, though, I'm still at 57%. Tax on wages, tax on every dollar I spend, tax on utility bills, tax on gas, tax on beer (that's really the last straw), tax on everything.
There's any number of archived "Ask Slashdot" stories about taking your agreement to a lawyer, red-inking and initialing all the parts you hate, bringing it back signed and still getting the job
And honestly, I don't believe a single one of them is any more credible than an urban legend. Either that or we'll find out that anyone who has won the employee agreement dispute is at an economic level where they can afford to walk away and keep looking for two more months. With unemployment and average current wages being what they are, most of us are happy as all heck just to get a job offer.
Sorry for the jab from the other thread
I figured it would take a post or two before the handshake could synchronize.
As I know it, right wing means conservative, and a traditional conservative is in favor of smaller government at every turn. So how can we have authoritarian state-run business with minimalist government?
Okay. Most of us call that communism but I'm not arguing. I agree with this one.
You've really hit on the important point, though. Marxism/communism is about authoritarian states with respect to economies. Left wing politics are about using other people's money to help a (supposedly) subset of disadvantaged individuals. This is economic because it involves money. This is the sole defining characteristic of communism: economic redistribution. Most people never differentiate it from Socialism. Socialism can be differentiated from Communism through intent of the implementation. Communism intends to make everyone economically equal. Socialism intends to make everyone behave in a (supposedly) commonly acceptable manner. While socialism may use economic reinforcement (monetary penalties for misbehavior), socialism's intent is not to equalize everyone economically. Many communist governments will also employ socialist pursuits but communism doesn't necessarily mean that the government at all cares how the citizens behave, though, within acceptable limits (eg. murder).
Communism and socialism are two often-overlapping circles, but there are implementations of both which could exlude the other entirely.
So what of fascism? What _IS_ fascism? From what I've seen, every government labelled fascist has really been communist or socialist (or both). The only difference is that fascist governments tend to tell their people that the implementation is for the good of the people, whereas true socialist or communist states make no mistake that this is for the good of The State. In my opinion, fascist governments are any governments which lie to the people.
Funny. The US federal government exercises most of the powers and behaviors of communist, socialist, and fascist governments. I agree that there's a minimal level which is common to any organized authority but, JEEBUS, we've reached intolerable extremes here.
I like your post, for the most part, but try the following change in your thought pattern.
So when banks went bust and stock holdings became worthless, everyone started off on a much more equal foot when the economy got going again.
The Great Depression was a larger edition of 1999-2001 in that there were people who knew it was going to happen and many of them were working to make it happen because it was profitable for them. The Federal Reserve had been created about 15 years earlier and the economy was growing accustomed to having a centralized authority which could shuffle the values of billions of dollars by moving a quarter point one way or another. After WW-I there were many changes which began in worker compensation and tax reporting. Since the Federal Government was also suddenly in debt to a consolidated group of bankers there were also many politicians who were working with ideas to pay off that debt and keep the bankers accountable to the government.
But what good feudal lord would ever allow his tenants to escape their debt? There was an enormous balloon in the stock market in the years prior to 1929. I've heard that it was in the aeronautics industry and was a 1920s version of short-selling stock taken to astronomically (aeronautically?) ridiculous levels. I think that the government was hoping that using the tax money from these profits it could win the race condition against the bankers, pay the debt off, and put the government at least (if not the taxpayers themselves) in control. The bankers would have none of it.
Just like in 1999-2001, there were some people who made themselves enormously wealthy in 1929. Just as in 1999-2001, the majority of us ended up losing enormous amounts of money, as a population, further indenturing us to the system which provides the currency. In 1929 people lost a greater percentage of their monetary assets since bank currency and account balances weren't the same part of their life as they are to us today. However, if they lost everything in their bank accounts, more of them still had land to eke it out on. In 1999, we lost a smaller percentage of our total bank account balances but a much larger percentage of us is hopelessly indentured to the established banking and currency system. So, just like with the debt for two wars and two hurricanes, we'll all shoulder the load to try to pay it off (hahaha. like that will ever happen). And, just as in 1929, those who write the rules will seek to alleviate their portion by passing the savings onto those of us who have no choice but go to work for less than $100k/year.
The way it looks to me, somewhere around $100k/year is the current magic number. Once you reach $100k/year, the normal costs of daily living get to be a small enough percentage where you can reasonably save, in six months, enough money to be able to seriously negotiate with your employer. Under $50k/year and you're stuck working hopelessly paycheck to paycheck and even a $500 car repair may drain your residual savings. For someone making over $100k/year, a $500 car repair is an inconvenience, but they'll still be saving extra money that month and not cutting back on pizza.
I did agree with your overall sentiment in the original post. I was only surprised that you didn't devote more space to the inequity of the implementation of the laws since you were so close to it. Cheers.
If I sign a contract, that is my business. If I sign a contract to give up my monopoly to someone else, that is also my business (it may be bad business to do so)
In no fair situation would you ever want to sign your rights away to someone else unless they were compensating you quite richly for it. Using employee agreements as an example I have never seen an employee agreement which compensates me richly for the pages and pages of "The Company shall retain all rights to.........". Realistically this means that, in some fashion, the company holds a supreme advantage in negotiating the agreement. Even as early as ancient England there were laws which nullified legal contracts which amounted to little more than legal strongarming. I know that, in the current US, their are laws against forming a contract under duress. There's no question that the courts have whittled "under duress" to be nothing less than a gun muzzle to the forehead. Realistically, though, I think we can all agree that employed vs. unemployed is enough duress to keep the vast majority of us in complacency. From another post, there's the L-curve. I'm pretty much convinced that, as long as you're under the $100k/year income mark, you're at a permanent disadvantage in terms of economic dealings especially in terms of employment.
I've always said that the whole economic system is rigged.
In short, I see no reason that entering a contract is unconstitutional
I agree. But should a dispute over that contract ever make its way to a federal court, the least the Feds can do is say,"Sorry. That's just not in our jurisdiction" and send it back to the state. At best the Feds would say to the companies,"Well, in points 3, 4, and 5 of your contract, you're not really working to secure any rights to the author/inventor. In fact, you're seeking to secure them by default to the company. This isn't in line with the Constitution so we'll have to find in favor of the employee."
If the courts ever remove their heads from their butts and pass a decision like that, setting a precedent to support the taxpayer over the corporate overlord, I'll probably have a heart attack in surprise.
What would really interest me would be a case before the court that challenged a copyright law on the grounds that it didn't promote science and the useful arts
That's a rather ambiguous pursuit. While it might make for interesting court debate to see what attorneys can pull out of their behinds it'll do nothing to get to the actual issue. Just whose interests are we protecting here? The author or inventor, or the corporation to whom the government has given an economic upper hand?
As long as limited-time expression-monopolies are fulfilling their mission -- promoting science and the useful arts
It's really too bad that you've missed the second part of the Constitutional statement concerning the mode of implementation: "by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries".
Funny. I don't see anything in our laws securing anything to authors and inventors. Last I checked, the laws did little more than make it easier and easier to strongarm the authors and inventors into signing rights away. "You want to keep your job? Give up the IP. Sign the line." Shouldn't that be unConstitutional? Isn't the stated goal to secure the right to the author or inventor? Last I checked securing something to someone involved making it more difficult to take away.
You can quote from an encyclopedia all you like, but let's take the reality test, shall we? Point one:
First and most important is the glorification of the state and the total subordination of the individual to it.
How are China, the US, the former USSR, and Cuba any different in this respect? Answer: they aren't. Clearly this definition of fascism cannot distinguish between four supposedly different governments. Arguably, the four I've mentioned are really the same, but that consideration would probably be a little too much for most people. Point two:
A second ruling concept of fascism is embodied in the theory of social Darwinism
How is this different for rich kids taunting poor kids in any of the four previously mentioned nations? Again, this definition fails to distinguish between the four. Again, one can reconcile this by asserting that the four are really the same. Again, this is probably too much for most people indoctrinated in US schools to handle. Point three:
Another element of fascism is its elitism.
And again I'll have to ask how this is any different in any of the four aforementioned nations? Again, this definition fails. Again, this can be ameliorated by noting that the four really are the same in functionality. Again, this is probably too much for most people to handle.
How about we quit using the word fascism as name-calling against things we don't like and just agree that, no matter what they say on TV, politicians under ANY system of government in ANY nation of the world are intent on creating a pyramid scheme with which they can fleece the middle and lower classes for their own personal benefit. Once you accept the truth it becomes quite easy to demystify why Congress pulls the crap it does.
All things being equal, a capitalist system with a truly laissez-faire government eventually gives way to monopolies
Complete and utter conjecture. For example, the only reason why the coal mining operations were able to keep the coal minors at near subsistence wages was because the Federal Government supplied them with troops for union busting exercises. We have never had truly laissez-faire capitalism in the US. The Federal Government has always been there to support the corporations in some form or another and it keeps getting worse every year.
Where do you people learn this crap and why can't you see through it?
Capitalism, when unregulated, leads to consolidation of money into fewer and fewer hands
Complete and utter conjecture.
Capitalism allowed for wealth to gather into relatively few hands in the U.S., starting from a much more level playing field than ever before
Only through government contracts and government protection were the wealthy able to continually swindle the poor.
There is no capitalism in a system of massive government regulation. Some day maybe you'll realize that. I'm sick and tired of listening to you ignorants preach against capitalism when we haven't had a system even close to capitalism since the early 1800s.
The problem is that at the moment the technology to defend a Windows system from this things is really poor.
While it's less common on our beloved Linux platform it's pretty tough to defend against here, too. If someone can make use of a Firefox hole, couple it with a root exploit, and put a kmod in/lib/modules, it's all over. With the 2.6 kernel seeing an explosion in `lsmod`, I can no longer verify each and every module Debian loads so easily as I could in the 2.4 series.
does Windows source code unavailability prevent us to actively defend our systems?
This would be a resounding YES.
And Butler and Hoglund's recent book on rootkits was pretty nice.:)
Since the system is so easily figured out at least you know which companies to invest your money in. If you get paid enough to do any investing after they rape your paycheck for the taxes to pay for the pork...
Many of my friends took the free ride to the local state school, and found that their professors didn't teach, the TAs didn't care, and they walked away knowing very little
But, if they put up with the boredom properly, they found themselves easily situated to take the appropriate engineering tests and the GRE and move on to another 4 years of the same dull mindless grind. Then then could graduate with an advanced degree and shoe themselves right in to a cozy salary.
Like you, I went to a really great school, and then found myself in a working world that didn't care. Unless you have extraordinary social contracts the salary will be based 90% on the degree. Had I known then what I know now, I would've saved my money, slacked my way through state school, and slacked my way into a cushy PhD position.
Read a few example employeeagreements and find one or several which seem to address the issues you have in front of you. Then, as most employee agreements will reserve all rights and property to the company, change the appropriate sections to reserve those rights and property to you, the employee.
I don't agree with employee agreements. I only sign them because my butt would be homeless if I didn't. At the very core most employee agreements are unethical. Upper HR management knows that employees interviewing for positions $100k/year need the paycheck far more than they need to argue about the finer points of the employee agreement.
The only question I have is: "Why is the hair on the back of my neck standing up?"
Many people feel that same thing. This is what Microsoft is up against. Everyone knows Microsoft's track record in the methods they use to take apart competition and most everyone knows that not all of those methods are truly above board. There's a logical consideration which follows,"Does Microsoft know that we knew that they know and will use every underhanded trick in the book and, if so, are they trying to fix it or are they trying to become even more devious at it?"
Slashdot Mirror
Yes and that will happen in every implementation of organized authority. It's the fate of mankind to be susceptible to greed. So before we go pointing the finger and say "fascist", we need to think how that really is different from communists or socialists. There's no doubt that communism and socialism are grand ideas spawned by great benevolent men (well, maybe) but the reality is that, in implementation, those who are willing to sacrifice morals and values and benevolence to stab thier constituents in the back (for their own profit) will be the ones ruthless enough to rise to the top. That's the way life goes.
Yep. Marxist/communist.
Strip away the layers and layers of propaganda of what you think to be true about your rights and what really is true.
I see it less in terms of what governments were supposed to be doing (economic equivalence, social equivalence, whatever) because everyone has a good PR pitch. If they didn't then they wouldn't be in business. You can't get the support of the masses by pitching to them that you're going to turn them all into indentured servants and then hand pick the ones who make it to positions of wealth and authority. Most people don't like that pitch unless you've guaranteed their ascension. So the truth is that the very first assumption you make when dealing with government is that, at some point, someone's lying about something to cover up their own personal profit motive.
After that you start looking at governments not by definitions you read but by analyzing what they do and how they get it done.
If someone registers $my_favorite_hobby\.com and fills it with completely unrelated junk, perhaps even some fringe group religious bunk, just for the purpose of ad revenue then I would hope they would be less hypocritical enough to cede $my_favorite_hobby\.com when I turn $my_favorite_hobby into a legitimate business which benefits all of society.
If not then they're hypocrites and shouldn't be supported by international organizations which are (supposedly) working for the betterment of the planetary network society.
You seem to have a legit use. I'd view it differently if you just had a few banner ads on it and no other services which were even remotely specific to "patch.com".
If you were running an ftp server, what do the clients care what they're connecting to? That can be moved.
That's like using a bowl of clean water to wash your hands, then dumping it down the drain, when the guy next to you is dehydrating to death. Ad revenue.
Take "chemistry" for example. "chemistry.org" is currently owned by ACS, which is A Good Thing. But say if, back in '92, some high school dropout decided that getting "chemistry.org" would be like, so cool, man. Then comes in someone with a legitimate interest in "chemistry.org", but the dropout invested well in MS, and now won't sell the domain?
There are legitimate cases where some knob bought the domain name just because they wanted to feel better about themselves, and aren't really doing anything with it.
GPL3 doesn't mandate that sites distributing GPL3 licencsed code distribute the source to the website. It mandates that, if the code running the site is GPL3, that the code is accessible.
So you can distribute proprietary code over a web interface which is GPL3. You can distribute GPL3 code over a proprietary website. But, if your website uses GPL3 code in the HTTP arena (eg. custom GPL3 webserver, GPL3 applets), then you must distribute the source for those applets.
I don't see any problem with this. If someone is using a PHP or Java front/backend which is GPL3'd, they should be providing a way to get to the source.
Another dream, though. It makes perfect sense, if you're at the top of the pyramid scheme, to obfuscate the avenues.
I've preferred to simplify things. I don't mind elitists. If they are elitist, but they're elitist without government help, they're still conservative and right wing. If, however, they have ever sought to use government authority to preserve their claim to elitism, then they are no longer conservative or right wing. If they only seek to use government authority when it suits them (most common), they are still using government authority, and therefore can no longer be conservative no matter what words come out of their mouths. In reality, though, is it any different? If the state owns your business directly, or you are beholden to them through taxes and regulations? At the end of the day there isn't any difference.
The US differs from the (former) USSR only in a few extra levels of investors and banks between the regulators and the owners. If you think about the money pools, though, it's all about the same.
Big L Libertarians are classical Conservatives, in that they believe to a minimalist government which does not exceed the powers as strictly outlined in the charter documents. We don't really have a truly conservative or right wing side in the US right now. Republicans are happy to use government when it suits them which makes them Liberal.
Democrats feel that they can use government authority to help everyone equally. That's "liberal" about the rights and powers of government. Republicans make no attempt (well, recently they have for PR purposes) to use government to help everyone but they are still happy to use government when it suits to protect their business investments. In this fashion, they are still "liberal" about the rights and powers of government. One could say that Democrats are Stupid and Republicans are Evil in the Stupid and Evil show. To be less abrasive I'd say that one is foolish and the other is greedy.
We're all screwed.
The system's rigged. That's why things don't change. It's the same old case of distracting the farmer to steal the chickens. We spend so much of our time paying taxes to feed the unConstitutional pork that we have no time or money to spend working for reform. I keep a small spreadsheet of the taxes which I can find in my expenditures and it's currently 67%. Granted I'm estimating for the tax cost which is passed to me by the shipping companies which bring groceries to my grocery store. They don't pay those taxes. At the end of the day, when I buy a bag of Tostitos, the price I pay covers their profit margin for those taxes so I'm the one paying it. Even if I remove that column, though, I'm still at 57%. Tax on wages, tax on every dollar I spend, tax on utility bills, tax on gas, tax on beer (that's really the last straw), tax on everything.
And honestly, I don't believe a single one of them is any more credible than an urban legend. Either that or we'll find out that anyone who has won the employee agreement dispute is at an economic level where they can afford to walk away and keep looking for two more months. With unemployment and average current wages being what they are, most of us are happy as all heck just to get a job offer.
I figured it would take a post or two before the handshake could synchronize.
Okay. Most of us call that communism but I'm not arguing. I agree with this one.
You've really hit on the important point, though. Marxism/communism is about authoritarian states with respect to economies. Left wing politics are about using other people's money to help a (supposedly) subset of disadvantaged individuals. This is economic because it involves money. This is the sole defining characteristic of communism: economic redistribution. Most people never differentiate it from Socialism. Socialism can be differentiated from Communism through intent of the implementation. Communism intends to make everyone economically equal. Socialism intends to make everyone behave in a (supposedly) commonly acceptable manner. While socialism may use economic reinforcement (monetary penalties for misbehavior), socialism's intent is not to equalize everyone economically. Many communist governments will also employ socialist pursuits but communism doesn't necessarily mean that the government at all cares how the citizens behave, though, within acceptable limits (eg. murder).
Communism and socialism are two often-overlapping circles, but there are implementations of both which could exlude the other entirely.
So what of fascism? What _IS_ fascism? From what I've seen, every government labelled fascist has really been communist or socialist (or both). The only difference is that fascist governments tend to tell their people that the implementation is for the good of the people, whereas true socialist or communist states make no mistake that this is for the good of The State. In my opinion, fascist governments are any governments which lie to the people.
Funny. The US federal government exercises most of the powers and behaviors of communist, socialist, and fascist governments. I agree that there's a minimal level which is common to any organized authority but, JEEBUS, we've reached intolerable extremes here.
The Great Depression was a larger edition of 1999-2001 in that there were people who knew it was going to happen and many of them were working to make it happen because it was profitable for them. The Federal Reserve had been created about 15 years earlier and the economy was growing accustomed to having a centralized authority which could shuffle the values of billions of dollars by moving a quarter point one way or another. After WW-I there were many changes which began in worker compensation and tax reporting. Since the Federal Government was also suddenly in debt to a consolidated group of bankers there were also many politicians who were working with ideas to pay off that debt and keep the bankers accountable to the government.
But what good feudal lord would ever allow his tenants to escape their debt? There was an enormous balloon in the stock market in the years prior to 1929. I've heard that it was in the aeronautics industry and was a 1920s version of short-selling stock taken to astronomically (aeronautically?) ridiculous levels. I think that the government was hoping that using the tax money from these profits it could win the race condition against the bankers, pay the debt off, and put the government at least (if not the taxpayers themselves) in control. The bankers would have none of it.
Just like in 1999-2001, there were some people who made themselves enormously wealthy in 1929. Just as in 1999-2001, the majority of us ended up losing enormous amounts of money, as a population, further indenturing us to the system which provides the currency. In 1929 people lost a greater percentage of their monetary assets since bank currency and account balances weren't the same part of their life as they are to us today. However, if they lost everything in their bank accounts, more of them still had land to eke it out on. In 1999, we lost a smaller percentage of our total bank account balances but a much larger percentage of us is hopelessly indentured to the established banking and currency system. So, just like with the debt for two wars and two hurricanes, we'll all shoulder the load to try to pay it off (hahaha. like that will ever happen). And, just as in 1929, those who write the rules will seek to alleviate their portion by passing the savings onto those of us who have no choice but go to work for less than $100k/year.
The way it looks to me, somewhere around $100k/year is the current magic number. Once you reach $100k/year, the normal costs of daily living get to be a small enough percentage where you can reasonably save, in six months, enough money to be able to seriously negotiate with your employer. Under $50k/year and you're stuck working hopelessly paycheck to paycheck and even a $500 car repair may drain your residual savings. For someone making over $100k/year, a $500 car repair is an inconvenience, but they'll still be saving extra money that month and not cutting back on pizza.
In no fair situation would you ever want to sign your rights away to someone else unless they were compensating you quite richly for it. Using employee agreements as an example I have never seen an employee agreement which compensates me richly for the pages and pages of "The Company shall retain all rights to...
I've always said that the whole economic system is rigged.
I agree. But should a dispute over that contract ever make its way to a federal court, the least the Feds can do is say,"Sorry. That's just not in our jurisdiction" and send it back to the state. At best the Feds would say to the companies,"Well, in points 3, 4, and 5 of your contract, you're not really working to secure any rights to the author/inventor. In fact, you're seeking to secure them by default to the company. This isn't in line with the Constitution so we'll have to find in favor of the employee."
If the courts ever remove their heads from their butts and pass a decision like that, setting a precedent to support the taxpayer over the corporate overlord, I'll probably have a heart attack in surprise.
That's a rather ambiguous pursuit. While it might make for interesting court debate to see what attorneys can pull out of their behinds it'll do nothing to get to the actual issue. Just whose interests are we protecting here? The author or inventor, or the corporation to whom the government has given an economic upper hand?
Funny. I don't see anything in our laws securing anything to authors and inventors. Last I checked, the laws did little more than make it easier and easier to strongarm the authors and inventors into signing rights away. "You want to keep your job? Give up the IP. Sign the line." Shouldn't that be unConstitutional? Isn't the stated goal to secure the right to the author or inventor? Last I checked securing something to someone involved making it more difficult to take away.
How are China, the US, the former USSR, and Cuba any different in this respect? Answer: they aren't. Clearly this definition of fascism cannot distinguish between four supposedly different governments. Arguably, the four I've mentioned are really the same, but that consideration would probably be a little too much for most people. Point two:
How is this different for rich kids taunting poor kids in any of the four previously mentioned nations? Again, this definition fails to distinguish between the four. Again, one can reconcile this by asserting that the four are really the same. Again, this is probably too much for most people indoctrinated in US schools to handle. Point three:
And again I'll have to ask how this is any different in any of the four aforementioned nations? Again, this definition fails. Again, this can be ameliorated by noting that the four really are the same in functionality. Again, this is probably too much for most people to handle.
How about we quit using the word fascism as name-calling against things we don't like and just agree that, no matter what they say on TV, politicians under ANY system of government in ANY nation of the world are intent on creating a pyramid scheme with which they can fleece the middle and lower classes for their own personal benefit. Once you accept the truth it becomes quite easy to demystify why Congress pulls the crap it does.
Where do you people learn this crap and why can't you see through it?
Only through government contracts and government protection were the wealthy able to continually swindle the poor.
There is no capitalism in a system of massive government regulation. Some day maybe you'll realize that. I'm sick and tired of listening to you ignorants preach against capitalism when we haven't had a system even close to capitalism since the early 1800s.
This would be a resounding YES.
And Butler and Hoglund's recent book on rootkits was pretty nice.
Since the system is so easily figured out at least you know which companies to invest your money in. If you get paid enough to do any investing after they rape your paycheck for the taxes to pay for the pork...
Like you, I went to a really great school, and then found myself in a working world that didn't care. Unless you have extraordinary social contracts the salary will be based 90% on the degree. Had I known then what I know now, I would've saved my money, slacked my way through state school, and slacked my way into a cushy PhD position.
Read a few example employee agreements and find one or several which seem to address the issues you have in front of you. Then, as most employee agreements will reserve all rights and property to the company, change the appropriate sections to reserve those rights and property to you, the employee.
I don't agree with employee agreements. I only sign them because my butt would be homeless if I didn't. At the very core most employee agreements are unethical. Upper HR management knows that employees interviewing for positions $100k/year need the paycheck far more than they need to argue about the finer points of the employee agreement.