We as a society need to remember that corporations exist at the pleasure of society, and must not be allowed to destroy society to make a buck.
No they don't, at least no more than you exist for the "pleasure of society". Corporations exist because it's a convenient way to organize a group of people. Society has nothing to do with it.
With the invisible hand of the big agribusiness...
Oh please. GTFO with the anti-free market bullshit, trying to confuse government regulation with capitalism. A huge corporation buying legislation is anything but free market economics.
I would dispute that, but why not ask the common man himself?
Ask the common man what? If it's okay with him to trample some stranger's rights for his personal benefit? It's precisely because most people wouldn't care that socialism and communism are so dangerous.
There's no "if" - it IS a violation of a person's rights. It's taking something that belongs to someone by force. If you or I were to try that we'd go to jail.
One way to fix it would be to make taxes voluntary.
If you pay the tax for $SERVICE, you get to use $SERVICE. Make every tax a little higher than necessary, with the extra money going for things like the military, police service and fire protection, which absolutely have to be provided to everybody for safety reasons.
Make it so that you can't file a lawsuit for contract violations unless you voluntarily pay a 0.1% "contract tax" when you signed the contract. Make every road a toll road....
The details would need to be flushed out more than that, but I think it could work.
I disagree with everything except your last paragraph.
This isn't a problem with "techies". It's a problem with the government interfering with something they shouldn't be. The citizens of a country shouldn't need to learn communication and business acumen in order to not be hassled by their government. That's like saying an innocent bystander who gets shot should have been wearing a bullet proof vest.
This is yet another example of why it's important to keep the government as small as possible. Every industry the government has ever decided to interfere with, the people inside that industry have complained about how ridiculous the regulations are because the government doesn't understand what it's doing.
And how can the government know what it's doing? As you pointed out, very few politicians have any experience with anything except being politicians. And as if that isn't bad enough, the people they're responsible to have very little knowledge about the things being regulated either.
Unfortunately, as long as the majority of people want a baby sitter instead of a police officer the problem is only going to get worse.
I think your jumping to conclusions - the article doesn't give enough information to say whether it should be embarrassing or not. Clearly if he setup the system himself using Asterisk or something, and setting up PBX systems is a service he sells, it's pretty embarrassing. The article doesn't say that, though.
He could have bought the PBX system from a third party, and had them set it up. But the article doesn't say he did that, either. In that case he should probably sue that company for not securing their product.
All the article says is that he wasn't renting the equipment from the phone company.
Normally the fastest, easiest, cheapest route is the direct route through the Mediterranean. If somebody wanted to get the traffic flowing through the US (insert your favorite nefarious three letter agency here), one way to do it would be to "accidentally" cut those cables. Then when everybody in the middle east and Europe starts routing their data through the US, you intercept it, without the bother and expense of doing it overseas.
Not that I buy into that theory, but I think that's what he meant.
Understanding the constitution is every American's job.
Okay, you got me there;-)
What I mean is, when the NSA, CIA, or FBI says "Here's this official government order telling you to wiretap.", the telco doesn't know how it was obtained, they just know it's an official government order to wiretap. They shouldn't have to investigate how and why it was obtained before they comply. Not like they could even do that if they wanted to.
It's the government agency's responsibility to make sure the order is done legally and constitutionally, not the company that gets served the order.
Maybe that's because understanding the constitution isn't the telcos job? Get pissed at the government. Defending the constitution is their fucking job, and they were the ones who telling the telcos what to do.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy that the telcos went along with it, but you have to place the blame where it belongs - on the government people who initiated the action in the first place.
that said... It would never work. People don't care to organize to protect their rights. They're quite happy with the current state of affairs.
There's nothing stopping you from starting a group like that. If you're not concerned enough to put in the required effort to start things off, then it shouldn't be too surprising that nobody else is either. If you honestly think it'd be worthwhile, stop whining and get to work.
I don't mean to be harsh, but your complaining that nobody else cares, yet you don't seem to really care either.
If you could hunt you wouldn't starve. Humans tend to hunt in groups though. Also, totally alone, you wouldn't have the benefit of modern medicine, you wouldn't have cars or guns, you'd have a life expectancy somewhere about 30....
People who need handouts need them because they don't help provide any of that stuff. If they started providing medicine or building cars or guns or something else, they'd be paid for the value they're providing, and they wouldn't need handouts anymore.
To use your hunting example: nobody in the group needs a handout because they're all there hunting in the first place - they all get their food from hunting. But you're saying we should give food to the people who aren't in the group, and haven't been helping us hunt. I understand why the people helping out get a share of the food. I don't understand why you think the people who aren't helping out should get a share also.
A corporation is a distinct entity in which people or other entities can own shares. Taxing a corporation is not the same as taxing the people who own it, and there is in fact a whole industry of accountants whose livelihood depends on this difference.
Just because you're not taking the money from them directly doesn't mean you're not taking it from them. It would have been paid out as salary, distributed to shareholders, or otherwise used to benefit the people involved with the corporation. Instead, you want to redistribute it to some unrelated group of people, for no good reason other than that they exist.
You still haven't explained why you think that's justified.
Well, if it's so fucking obvious maybe you'd care to explain instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks and name calling?
No, I have been saying that you must contribute back to the society without which you would not be making that money, and that it is our, collective, choice what to do with it.
It's my contribution to society that allowed me to get the money in the first place. And I didn't even have to force my will on people to get it. What a concept.
They are not ganging together in great numbers to overthrow you, steal your stuff and kill your family.
And I'm returning the favor. Doesn't that make us about even?
That's you paying your fee for operating in our society. Not "taking your possessions". There is a difference. Grow up.
I'm not seeing the difference.
Do I think everything government does is good? Hell no. But your "what's mine is mine and nobody can take it from me!" attitude is immature and doesn't take into account that if you were alone in an undeveloped land you'd probably have starved by now. You have benefited greatly from our collective actions (government) and are required to give some back.
But that's not what you've been arguing. You've been claiming all along that we should be giving handouts to people who haven't been providing a benefit to society. Remember? What benefit are the poor providing that we should be paying them for?
Also, I don't think it's a given that I would have starved by now. I suppose it's possible, but you haven't really provided any evidence as to why you're so certain of it.
No, it's not, it has a lot of rights people don't have and in general manages not to have many of the responsibilities.
What extra rights rights would those be? And it still doesn't change the fact that it's just a group of people working together.
Taxing profit is not taking possessions from people.
WTF? That's very nearly the stupidest thing I've ever read on Slashdot. Let's pretend I build a website and charge $1000. I have in my hand 10 hundred dollar bills. Then April 15th rolls around and I have to send 4 of those hundred dollar bills in for taxes. Now I only have 6 hundred dollar bills. How in the world do you not consider that taking my possessions?
Please explain how a tax on business profits to feed the poor is "prejudicial"?
Because a corporation is basically nothing but a group of people working together. You're saying it's okay to deny their property rights simply because they've formed a group.
If it's okay to deny one group of people their property rights and force them to give their stuff to other people, then it's equally okay to deny that second group's rights and take the stuff back.
Taking possessions from people against their will is morally wrong no matter how you try to justify it.
So if I find a bunch of poor people, we go downtown, pay the fee, fill out the paperwork and form "Poor People, Incorporated", it's your opinion those people no longer deserve government handouts because they've formed a corporation? Not only would they no longer deserve handouts, but you're saying they should start being taxed heavily to pay handouts to other people?
I'm having a hard time believing you even understand what a corporation is, much less that you have a valid point. How did you switch topics to voting?
There's no difference. You're robbing one group of people for the benefit of some unrelated group of people. Whether you want to call the unrelated group "poor people" or a "corporation" is irrelevant.
Public servants CAN have all's best interest at heart. There are many. I would argue that most state politicians and most civil servants do in fact have just that. Feds are a different matter. They tend towards corruption.
That's so naive I almost feel sorry for you.
Oh, and get a clue. There's a difference between doing what's in your best interest and being corrupt.
The only reason I have to rip a DVD is the terrible quality of a cheap DVD drive. It does not slow down while playing a DVD movie like more expensive DVD drives do. I have two options: crack the DVD protection and rip it, or write a limited rights executable (or a service) C program for windows to slow down the drive temporarily. Guess which option most people select.
Or you can spend $25 and buy a drive that doesn't suck. I'm guessing most people choose that.
The answer is forthcoming and will be based on how willing the American people are to dedicate their own time to enriching their country.
What does that even mean? Are you trying to imply that Bush was somehow preventing people from "enriching their country"? Like people were saying "Hey, I'm going to enrich my country!", and then some Republican thug would stop them? I don't get what you're trying to say.
No, the problem is that the government is incompetent. Your argument fails because if the government people were competent they would stop using incompetent contractors.
But I don't think the competence of the contractors even matters. The GAO specifically said the project was failing because the different government agencies weren't cooperating with each other and were duplicating effort. How can you possibly blame that on the contractor(s)?
Slashdot Mirror
No they don't, at least no more than you exist for the "pleasure of society". Corporations exist because it's a convenient way to organize a group of people. Society has nothing to do with it.
Oh please. GTFO with the anti-free market bullshit, trying to confuse government regulation with capitalism. A huge corporation buying legislation is anything but free market economics.
Ask the common man what? If it's okay with him to trample some stranger's rights for his personal benefit? It's precisely because most people wouldn't care that socialism and communism are so dangerous.
There's no "if" - it IS a violation of a person's rights. It's taking something that belongs to someone by force. If you or I were to try that we'd go to jail.
One way to fix it would be to make taxes voluntary.
If you pay the tax for $SERVICE, you get to use $SERVICE. Make every tax a little higher than necessary, with the extra money going for things like the military, police service and fire protection, which absolutely have to be provided to everybody for safety reasons.
Make it so that you can't file a lawsuit for contract violations unless you voluntarily pay a 0.1% "contract tax" when you signed the contract. Make every road a toll road. ...
The details would need to be flushed out more than that, but I think it could work.
These are the books I most often find myself using as references:
These ones are also good, but not as references:
I think other people have listed most of those already, but oh well.
A person shouldn't have to complain to the government to keep their rights and be left alone.
The question isn't why you should care about me - it's why you should have anything to do with me at all.
I disagree with everything except your last paragraph.
This isn't a problem with "techies". It's a problem with the government interfering with something they shouldn't be. The citizens of a country shouldn't need to learn communication and business acumen in order to not be hassled by their government. That's like saying an innocent bystander who gets shot should have been wearing a bullet proof vest.
This is yet another example of why it's important to keep the government as small as possible. Every industry the government has ever decided to interfere with, the people inside that industry have complained about how ridiculous the regulations are because the government doesn't understand what it's doing.
And how can the government know what it's doing? As you pointed out, very few politicians have any experience with anything except being politicians. And as if that isn't bad enough, the people they're responsible to have very little knowledge about the things being regulated either.
Unfortunately, as long as the majority of people want a baby sitter instead of a police officer the problem is only going to get worse.
I think your jumping to conclusions - the article doesn't give enough information to say whether it should be embarrassing or not. Clearly if he setup the system himself using Asterisk or something, and setting up PBX systems is a service he sells, it's pretty embarrassing. The article doesn't say that, though.
He could have bought the PBX system from a third party, and had them set it up. But the article doesn't say he did that, either. In that case he should probably sue that company for not securing their product.
All the article says is that he wasn't renting the equipment from the phone company.
Whoosh!
Normally the fastest, easiest, cheapest route is the direct route through the Mediterranean. If somebody wanted to get the traffic flowing through the US (insert your favorite nefarious three letter agency here), one way to do it would be to "accidentally" cut those cables. Then when everybody in the middle east and Europe starts routing their data through the US, you intercept it, without the bother and expense of doing it overseas.
Not that I buy into that theory, but I think that's what he meant.
Okay, you got me there ;-)
What I mean is, when the NSA, CIA, or FBI says "Here's this official government order telling you to wiretap.", the telco doesn't know how it was obtained, they just know it's an official government order to wiretap. They shouldn't have to investigate how and why it was obtained before they comply. Not like they could even do that if they wanted to.
It's the government agency's responsibility to make sure the order is done legally and constitutionally, not the company that gets served the order.
Maybe that's because understanding the constitution isn't the telcos job? Get pissed at the government. Defending the constitution is their fucking job, and they were the ones who telling the telcos what to do.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy that the telcos went along with it, but you have to place the blame where it belongs - on the government people who initiated the action in the first place.
There's nothing stopping you from starting a group like that. If you're not concerned enough to put in the required effort to start things off, then it shouldn't be too surprising that nobody else is either. If you honestly think it'd be worthwhile, stop whining and get to work.
I don't mean to be harsh, but your complaining that nobody else cares, yet you don't seem to really care either.
People who need handouts need them because they don't help provide any of that stuff. If they started providing medicine or building cars or guns or something else, they'd be paid for the value they're providing, and they wouldn't need handouts anymore.
To use your hunting example: nobody in the group needs a handout because they're all there hunting in the first place - they all get their food from hunting. But you're saying we should give food to the people who aren't in the group, and haven't been helping us hunt. I understand why the people helping out get a share of the food. I don't understand why you think the people who aren't helping out should get a share also.
Just because you're not taking the money from them directly doesn't mean you're not taking it from them. It would have been paid out as salary, distributed to shareholders, or otherwise used to benefit the people involved with the corporation. Instead, you want to redistribute it to some unrelated group of people, for no good reason other than that they exist.
You still haven't explained why you think that's justified.
Well, if it's so fucking obvious maybe you'd care to explain instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks and name calling?
It's my contribution to society that allowed me to get the money in the first place. And I didn't even have to force my will on people to get it. What a concept.
And I'm returning the favor. Doesn't that make us about even?
I'm not seeing the difference.
But that's not what you've been arguing. You've been claiming all along that we should be giving handouts to people who haven't been providing a benefit to society. Remember? What benefit are the poor providing that we should be paying them for?
Also, I don't think it's a given that I would have starved by now. I suppose it's possible, but you haven't really provided any evidence as to why you're so certain of it.
What extra rights rights would those be? And it still doesn't change the fact that it's just a group of people working together.
WTF? That's very nearly the stupidest thing I've ever read on Slashdot. Let's pretend I build a website and charge $1000. I have in my hand 10 hundred dollar bills. Then April 15th rolls around and I have to send 4 of those hundred dollar bills in for taxes. Now I only have 6 hundred dollar bills. How in the world do you not consider that taking my possessions?
Because a corporation is basically nothing but a group of people working together. You're saying it's okay to deny their property rights simply because they've formed a group.
If it's okay to deny one group of people their property rights and force them to give their stuff to other people, then it's equally okay to deny that second group's rights and take the stuff back.
Taking possessions from people against their will is morally wrong no matter how you try to justify it.
So if I find a bunch of poor people, we go downtown, pay the fee, fill out the paperwork and form "Poor People, Incorporated", it's your opinion those people no longer deserve government handouts because they've formed a corporation? Not only would they no longer deserve handouts, but you're saying they should start being taxed heavily to pay handouts to other people?
I'm having a hard time believing you even understand what a corporation is, much less that you have a valid point. How did you switch topics to voting?
There's no difference. You're robbing one group of people for the benefit of some unrelated group of people. Whether you want to call the unrelated group "poor people" or a "corporation" is irrelevant.
It's not justified in any case.
That's so naive I almost feel sorry for you.
Oh, and get a clue. There's a difference between doing what's in your best interest and being corrupt.
This just in: People look out for their best interests - always. In other news the sky is blue...
Or you can spend $25 and buy a drive that doesn't suck. I'm guessing most people choose that.
What does that even mean? Are you trying to imply that Bush was somehow preventing people from "enriching their country"? Like people were saying "Hey, I'm going to enrich my country!", and then some Republican thug would stop them? I don't get what you're trying to say.
No, the problem is that the government is incompetent. Your argument fails because if the government people were competent they would stop using incompetent contractors.
But I don't think the competence of the contractors even matters. The GAO specifically said the project was failing because the different government agencies weren't cooperating with each other and were duplicating effort. How can you possibly blame that on the contractor(s)?