" . ..the kind of government we had in the 18th century wouldn't serve our needs today."
That point needs some elaboration. The government obviously needs to adapt over time, but I see no reason why the size of government relative to the private sector has had to increase by such an incredible rate. I have no data for the 18th century, but at the start of the 20th century, government at ALL levels functioned with ~11% of GDP. By the end of the century, it was claiming ~38% and the Feds were the growth engine for most of that increase.
There is a clear legal process by which The Constitution can be amended. If there is enough popular support for expanding the scope of responsibilities of the Federal government, so be it. What we're seeing now is an illegal power grab and subversion of the law.
" . ..states don't have nearly as much [revenue] as the federal government does."
That's my whole point. We need to CUT the size of Federal government, cut Federal taxes and free up potential revenue sources for the state. My state government is doing a pretty good job of setting spending priorities and keeping the budget under control. I would be overjoyed if I could cut my Federal tax bill by about 2/3 and send that money to my state. Hell, I'd even be willing to pay MORE total taxes if the funds went to my state government.
"Medicare, for instance, has lower overhead than private health insurers."
I can believe that. I also know that our nation has made promises to a lot of people in regard to Medicare and SS that we need to keep. However, the blatant fiscal irresponsibility of the Federal government and their warped spending priorities create natural doubts as to the value of any Federal program. I still think my state could do an equal or better job.
" . ..instead of one country that's pretty damn competitive, we'd be 50 little countries that are struggling to get by."
Not true. We didn't rise to our position as the world's largest economy by having a monstrous Federal government running our lives. Federal government shouldn't be abolished, but it should definitely be scaled back. IMHO, they should be able to fulfill their mission with no more than 10% of GDP. If they were forced to live within that constraint, our REAL spending priorities would emerge, and I can guarantee that things like a trillion dollar war and massive espionage actvities would not be among them.
I don't know what Gore would have done post-9/11, but I doubt that Kerry would have UN-done anything that the Bush admin has done, especially when it comes to accumulation of power in the executive branch. Recall also that the Democrats overwhelmingly voted to approve The Patriot Act, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military tribunals legislation. Not to mention the fact that they recently voted in droves to approve the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Protection Act" and the only bone of contention with the "Protect America" Act is the telecom immunity provision. Then there's the whole gun control issue. The last time the Dems controlled Congress and the Presidency, they began to assault the Second Amendment.
They've also had control of Congress for more than a year, and they haven't done a damned thing but talk when it comes to the war and civil liberties. I also don't hear any of the Democratic Presidential candidates coming out with a strong agenda to restore civil liberties.
Don't pay any attention to the criticism that the Republicans and Democrats throw at one another and the confrontational rhetoric they spout in public. It's all a smoke and mirrors show. When it comes down to actually passing legislation, they tend to fall into lockstep with the big government and big corporation agenda.
The OP is right. The Republicans and Democrats are opposite sides of the same coin.
"Most voters in the US are just fine with government-operated schools and highways, Social Security, and those other "socialist" programs he opposes so strongly."
.
Ron Paul is running for President of The United States. He opposes massive FEDERAL government. Why is it so hard for so many people to understand that his principles are rooted in the U.S. Constitution which grants very limited powers to the Federal government and most of the power to the states? The Department of Education didn't even exist until the Carter Administration, it doesn't do a damned thing to improve education, and anyone who believes in The Constitution should be appalled with the fact that some Federal agency is imposing mandates on schools in cities and towns all over the nation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard him call for an end to the Interstate system, and it would be awesome if the Federal government could no longer blackmail the states into conformity by threatening to withhold funds for infrastructure projects.
You can pass all of the social programs you want in your home state, and they would be much more effective at dealing with an actual problem than any Federal program ever devised. The Feds take $1 of evenue, waste most of it on administrative costs and bureaucrat salaries, and then put the remainder into actually dealing with the problem their "social programs" are designed to address.
If we cut the size of the Federal government to something that was more in line with what's needed to exercise the powers granted to it by The Constitution, we wouldn't be dealing with all this spying crap, and we certainly wouldn't be engaged in pointless trillion dollar wars and militaristic foreign crusades./rant
"No one ever grilled Ron Paul on the support he gets from far right wing racist groups on air . .."
No one ever gave Ron Paul much air time to begin with, and we all know it.
This whole "guilt by association" thing is one of the most ridiculously flawed arguments in political discourse, whether we're talking about specific issues, parties, or individuals. The frequency with which this propaganda technique is used however highlights the unfortunate fact that it must be an effective one.
1. Person/Group A is BAD 2. Person/Group A supports P 3. Therefor P must also be BAD
It's utterly and completely absurd.
1. Hitler was evil 2. Hitler was a vegetarian 3. Therefore vegetarianism(vegeterians) must be evil.
Right?:-)
It's an emotional BS argument that has no place in an intelligent debate. In fact, the Nazis and Hitler are used for this purpose so often that someone coined a term "Reductio ad Hitlerum" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum) to define the phenomenon.
We definitely need a new term in the lexicon of U.S. politics to represent the frequent attempts to associate people and organizations with racists/racism because of such ridiculously tenuous connections.
"First, ID is not necessarily God. Sure, it could be, but saying a superior alien race was visiting Earth and someone sneezed seeding the planet is also ID."
In the Dover Pennsylvania case a few years ago, the plaintiffs subpoena'd the draft copies of the leading ID textbook (Pandas something or other). The early draft versions clearly showed that the book in question was originally written in terms of "Creationism" and "Creator" and was later edited to replace the words with "Intelligent Design" and "Designer". Either way it assumes $deity (God or omnipotent alien) created the species that we see today, or have discovered in the fossil record completely intact.
I actually like the idea that some (rather ordinary) alien sneezed a few bacteria in an ancient mud-puddle and all species ultimately evolved from that seed. I don't think evolution or science in general disprove the existence of $deity, but there is certainly scientific evidence to undermine the biblical story of creation, ahem "Intelligent Design".
"If I told you Paul Bunyan's Ox stomped out the Great Lakes, how could you prove it wrong? From a theoretical perspective, there's no test that we can do today which would show definitively that an ox of mythical proportions couldn't create footprints of likewise proportions which would subsequently fill with water."
Perhaps there's no test, but there's certainly an abundance of scientific evidence to the contrary. For example, if your ox theory is correct, there should be some fossilized remains of creatures whose footprints covered thousands of square miles. We might also expect to see patterns that looked similar to the footprints of known species. We could also look for trace chemical evidence around the lake shores indicative of massive hoof impacts.
" . . . if you start teaching [children] something that might be false, they'll assume everything you teach is either potentially, or completely, false."
I welcome the day that happens. If kids had the critical thinking skills necessary to entertain the idea that all of what they're being told should be questioned, it would be the most monumental achievement in the history of public education.
"It always annoys me when people like you think that, if only we paid the fruit pickers more and threw out all the migrant workers, then our economy would somehow boom. The only thing that would boom is the cost of the fruit, and that makes everyone who buys it poorer, it makes fruit from other countries more competitive in the marketplace, and that drives domestic fruit producers out of business. .."
The cost of fruit would most definitely go up, but if there were suddenly 12 million jobs in the economy that had to pay competitive wages in order to attract employees, we could address the problem of "poverty" more successfully than any government handout program can. The government could extract itself from the welfare business because nobody would have any excuse but laziness or disability for needing a handout.
All else being equal, you make a good point about imports(not just food), but bringing in illegal aliens is not the way to address competitiveness of domestic industries. We need to re-establish a FAIR and logical system of tariffs and trade barriers so countries that use slave labor and pollute the environment don't have free and open access to our markets. We, as a nation have put a $ value on environmental, health and safety and minimum wage regulations, etc. and it's only reasonable that this value be reflected in the cost of domestic goods AND imported goods.
You also forget that illegal aliens use the same public infrastructure and public services that citizens do, so although you're saving $0.89/lb on your strawberries, you're paying more in taxes to maintain the roads, schools, prisons and government services for an increased population paying zero or artificially low taxes. The market prices of goods and services need to reflect their real costs. Allowing producers to sidestep the rules we've put in place results in distortions in the market and misallocation of resources. I don't care if my grocery bill quadruples. Just don't tax me in order to enable producers to make profits by shifting their costs onto society./rant
"I've studied Ron's views. I can't stand them. He wants to restore people's freedom to die cold and hungry under a bridge. He wants to make sure you aren't 'forced' to care that people are dying cold and hungry under bridges. That's the 'freedom' he offers."
You may have done some studies of Dr. Paul's views, but you've made a knee-jerk emotional reaction in interpreting them. As I pointed out, Ron Paul is running for Federal government office, so the policies he is advocating will be limited to implementation at that level. Your conclusion is that opposing some Federal government program is equivalent to opposing the NEED that it was meant to address. Since many(most?) Federal programs fail miserably in achieving their stated goals, you can't equate the program with the need.
For example, the fact that I want to see the U.S. Department of Education eradicated does NOT mean that I am opposed to education. Quite the contrary. What I AM opposed to is a massive and expensive Federal bureaucracy eating up education dollars in administrative expenses and forcing unfunded BS mandates like NCLB down the throats of our local schools. Who do you think CARES more about the quality of education in my local school, and who is in the best position to set policies and allocate resources to address our education needs? The parents, teachers and concerned citizens in the local community, OR a bunch of Federal employees sitting in air conditioned offices in Washington D.C.?
If you're worried about people dying cold and hungry under a bridge, you should be outraged by the idea that your Federal government is spending hundreds of billions of tax dollars on illegal wars, and is maintaining a network of several hundred permanent U.S. military bases all over the world. We also have the Federal government to thank for our current system of trade policies and monetary policies that have eroded the real wealth and real income of the working class. If they're supposed to be taking care of the hungry and the homeless, they're doing a piss-poor job of it. The smart thing to do is to take the wealth and power out of the hands of a Federal government that has systematically wasted and abused it, and return it to the people and the states. I think that's what Ron Paul is advocating, and that's why I support him.
I won't mod you down, but when you talk about "accountability", "track records" and "balance", you're making an implicit comparison to alternative information sources. I think that you could also make those same arguments with respect to any of the mainstream media outlets.
Think of that media paragon "The New York Times". Their reporters have defied court orders. They seem to publish whatever they want. Their track record is one of misinformation, contradiction and bias, and they are never held accountable for any of it.
Thank $deity for web sites that actually put out real information that hasn't gone through the mainstream media filters. If publishing information is "deliberately courting controversy", more power to them.
Despite what George Bush would have you think, the President isn't supposed to be Supreme Dictator of the nation. Ron Paul is running for President of these United States. If you would spend 15 minutes and exercise a bit of open-minded patience and intelligence in studying his viewpoints, you would realize that he is dedicated to policies that are firmly rooted in The Constitution. Civil liberties, non-interventionist foreign policy, and limited government. The only thing he wants to do to the proverbial "pie" you speak of is to make sure that the FEDERAL government gets a smaller piece. If the states want to raise taxes on those mean, selfish, middle-class White guys (I hope that no states would pursue such racist policies) President Paul wouldn't stop them. What he would stop is illegal and un-Constitutional war, warrantless wiretapping, Real ID, illegal immigration, the Patriot Act, inflationary monetary policy and obscene levels of Federal spending. Supporting massively bureaucratic government health, welfare and education programs may give you a warm fuzzy, but it isn't being "civic minded". Working to restore your freedom IS.
"how do you determine the value of the IP to assess it for taxation"?
Let C = projected annual revenue from said copyright
t = the time period of the copyright (years)
r = some appropriate "interest" rate to account for opportunity cost & inflation
V = C/r - C/((r(1+r)^t)
V = the value of the copyright.
The tax would be a fixed fee plus some percentage of V
The article states that they want to filter pornography AND . . .
"OTHER INTERNET CONTENT DEEMED INAPPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN"
It's never really about pornography, it's always about that "other bad stuff", like dissident political opinions.
So, who's in charge of deciding what is and is not appropriate for children? Think of ALL the content that certain people and organizations have wanted to ban at various times and you'll get the idea of why censorship is fundamentally incompatible with freedom. Think of Christians wanting to protect the children from Charles Darwin and "political correctness" extremists wanting to ban Mark Twain.
"People are taught what to think, not how to think."
Exactly. That's the single greatest failure in public education today, and not only in science. Kids should be taught to QUESTION everything from scientific theories to political beliefs to religious teachings. A generation of young adults determined to seek out information on their own as opposed to accepting what they're told at face value could have a significant positive effect on the world.
For science in particular, my limited experience leads me to believe that "experiment design" is something that's seriously lacking. The hands-on experiments in science classes are typically just "canned" procedures. "Do these 3 things and write down what you observe.". That's a recipe for producing people who just "go through the motions" without having to expend much thought. I think the first assignments should be "Design an experiment to . .." or "What observations do you need . .." only then followed by a process from which conclusions can be drawn.
I think it's a bit of both. I wouldn't say that "most" private citizens share this love of freedom, but the number is far from negligible.
I believe that one thing that differentiates the/. crowd is that we use the Internet for news instead of relying on the MSM. This telecom story got some coverage, but how many of the YRO stories we see here on a daily basis (spy satellites, real ID, confiscating electronics at the Border, etc. etc.) actually get coverage in the mainstream news?
I heard Mike McConnell (Director of National Intelligence) on NPR this morning stating that the Senate had determined that the telecom companies hadn't done anything wrong . . .
Unfortunately the reporter didn't ask the obvious follow up question . . .
"If they've done nothing wrong, why do they need a law granting them immunity?"
"Iraq had tanks, rocket launchers, fighter planes, SAM installations, a proper disciplined armed forces each armed and trained with using automatic weapons, etc, etc, etc. And they couldn't hold off the US at all."
Do you actually think the United States has "won" in Iraq? How many U.S. soldiers have been killed and maimed since the Iraqi army was defeated and the whole "Mission Accomplished" thing? How much is the U.S. spending day after day to maintain a troop presence and conduct operations in the country? The thing that history has taught us is that an insurgency will eventually break the will of the invader.
I keep seeing this ludicrous "The military has tanks, jet fighters and nuclear weapons so any insurgency is doomed to fail." argument. It demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of guerilla warfare and the history of armed insurrection in the post WW2 era. I highly recommend "The War of the Flea" by Robert Taber.
This was written in the 1960s, but it's just as relevant today. During the Vietnam war, the United States had tanks, jet fighters, nuclear weapons, heavy artillery, etc. etc. and got their asses handed to them by a rag-tag army with some AK-47s, RPGs and high tech weapons like sharpened sticks and spent 50 caliber shell casings. Since then, we've seen the Russians in Afghanistan, Israelis in Lebanon, and I dare say the United States in Iraq. The evidence is rather overwhelming.
Basically, the only way for the occupying invader to win a guerilla war is to completely decimate the civilian population. In the United States, killing the people that you're trying to subjugate would be absolutely pointless (you actually think the U.S. government would use a nuclear weapon on its own populace?), and would be like dumping gasoline on the fire of rebellion.
Never underestimate a determined combatant fighting on his home soil.
HOWEVER, we have a mountain of evidence based on direct observation of the past behavior of our government, and other governments around the world, indicating that the "slippery slope" is very real. We also have an increasing amount of evidence to suggest that anything coming out of the DHS is a BAD idea. If they come out with 10 bad ideas in a row, am I to assume that it's a coin toss as to whether their next policy proposal will be good or bad?
It's called inductive reasoning. Is that a fallacy as well?
We're not writing code or playing around with probability theory and the philosophy of logic. Welcome to the reality of Big Government (Brother?)
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It's going to be fun watching this proliferate.
Thanks for a thoughtful response.
.the kind of government we had in the 18th century wouldn't serve our needs today."
.states don't have nearly as much [revenue] as the federal government does."
.instead of one country that's pretty damn competitive, we'd be 50 little countries that are struggling to get by."
" . .
That point needs some elaboration. The government obviously needs to adapt over time, but I see no reason why the size of government relative to the private sector has had to increase by such an incredible rate. I have no data for the 18th century, but at the start of the 20th century, government at ALL levels functioned with ~11% of GDP. By the end of the century, it was claiming ~38% and the Feds were the growth engine for most of that increase.
There is a clear legal process by which The Constitution can be amended. If there is enough popular support for expanding the scope of responsibilities of the Federal government, so be it. What we're seeing now is an illegal power grab and subversion of the law.
" . .
That's my whole point. We need to CUT the size of Federal government, cut Federal taxes and free up potential revenue sources for the state. My state government is doing a pretty good job of setting spending priorities and keeping the budget under control. I would be overjoyed if I could cut my Federal tax bill by about 2/3 and send that money to my state. Hell, I'd even be willing to pay MORE total taxes if the funds went to my state government.
"Medicare, for instance, has lower overhead than private health insurers."
I can believe that. I also know that our nation has made promises to a lot of people in regard to Medicare and SS that we need to keep. However, the blatant fiscal irresponsibility of the Federal government and their warped spending priorities create natural doubts as to the value of any Federal program. I still think my state could do an equal or better job.
" . .
Not true. We didn't rise to our position as the world's largest economy by having a monstrous Federal government running our lives. Federal government shouldn't be abolished, but it should definitely be scaled back. IMHO, they should be able to fulfill their mission with no more than 10% of GDP. If they were forced to live within that constraint, our REAL spending priorities would emerge, and I can guarantee that things like a trillion dollar war and massive espionage actvities would not be among them.
" . . . the Supreme Court has upheld State laws that deny their citizens rights under the Constitution . . ."
That's the current reality, but even The Supreme Court can be wrong in interpreting the law.
I don't know what Gore would have done post-9/11, but I doubt that Kerry would have UN-done anything that the Bush admin has done, especially when it comes to accumulation of power in the executive branch. Recall also that the Democrats overwhelmingly voted to approve The Patriot Act, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military tribunals legislation. Not to mention the fact that they recently voted in droves to approve the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Protection Act" and the only bone of contention with the "Protect America" Act is the telecom immunity provision. Then there's the whole gun control issue. The last time the Dems controlled Congress and the Presidency, they began to assault the Second Amendment.
They've also had control of Congress for more than a year, and they haven't done a damned thing but talk when it comes to the war and civil liberties. I also don't hear any of the Democratic Presidential candidates coming out with a strong agenda to restore civil liberties.
Don't pay any attention to the criticism that the Republicans and Democrats throw at one another and the confrontational rhetoric they spout in public. It's all a smoke and mirrors show. When it comes down to actually passing legislation, they tend to fall into lockstep with the big government and big corporation agenda.
The OP is right. The Republicans and Democrats are opposite sides of the same coin.
"Most voters in the US are just fine with government-operated schools and highways, Social Security, and those other "socialist" programs he opposes so strongly."
/rant
.
Ron Paul is running for President of The United States. He opposes massive FEDERAL government. Why is it so hard for so many people to understand that his principles are rooted in the U.S. Constitution which grants very limited powers to the Federal government and most of the power to the states? The Department of Education didn't even exist until the Carter Administration, it doesn't do a damned thing to improve education, and anyone who believes in The Constitution should be appalled with the fact that some Federal agency is imposing mandates on schools in cities and towns all over the nation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard him call for an end to the Interstate system, and it would be awesome if the Federal government could no longer blackmail the states into conformity by threatening to withhold funds for infrastructure projects.
You can pass all of the social programs you want in your home state, and they would be much more effective at dealing with an actual problem than any Federal program ever devised. The Feds take $1 of evenue, waste most of it on administrative costs and bureaucrat salaries, and then put the remainder into actually dealing with the problem their "social programs" are designed to address.
If we cut the size of the Federal government to something that was more in line with what's needed to exercise the powers granted to it by The Constitution, we wouldn't be dealing with all this spying crap, and we certainly wouldn't be engaged in pointless trillion dollar wars and militaristic foreign crusades.
"No one ever grilled Ron Paul on the support he gets from far right wing racist groups on air . . ."
:-)
No one ever gave Ron Paul much air time to begin with, and we all know it.
This whole "guilt by association" thing is one of the most ridiculously flawed arguments in political discourse, whether we're talking about specific issues, parties, or individuals. The frequency with which this propaganda technique is used however highlights the unfortunate fact that it must be an effective one.
1. Person/Group A is BAD
2. Person/Group A supports P
3. Therefor P must also be BAD
It's utterly and completely absurd.
1. Hitler was evil
2. Hitler was a vegetarian
3. Therefore vegetarianism(vegeterians) must be evil.
Right?
It's an emotional BS argument that has no place in an intelligent debate. In fact, the Nazis and Hitler are used for this purpose so often that someone coined a term "Reductio ad Hitlerum" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum) to define the phenomenon.
We definitely need a new term in the lexicon of U.S. politics to represent the frequent attempts to associate people and organizations with racists/racism because of such ridiculously tenuous connections.
"First, ID is not necessarily God. Sure, it could be, but saying a superior alien race was visiting Earth and someone sneezed seeding the planet is also ID."
In the Dover Pennsylvania case a few years ago, the plaintiffs subpoena'd the draft copies of the leading ID textbook (Pandas something or other). The early draft versions clearly showed that the book in question was originally written in terms of "Creationism" and "Creator" and was later edited to replace the words with "Intelligent Design" and "Designer". Either way it assumes $deity (God or omnipotent alien) created the species that we see today, or have discovered in the fossil record completely intact.
I actually like the idea that some (rather ordinary) alien sneezed a few bacteria in an ancient mud-puddle and all species ultimately evolved from that seed. I don't think evolution or science in general disprove the existence of $deity, but there is certainly scientific evidence to undermine the biblical story of creation, ahem "Intelligent Design".
"If I told you Paul Bunyan's Ox stomped out the Great Lakes, how could you prove it wrong? From a theoretical perspective, there's no test that we can do today which would show definitively that an ox of mythical proportions couldn't create footprints of likewise proportions which would subsequently fill with water."
Perhaps there's no test, but there's certainly an abundance of scientific evidence to the contrary. For example, if your ox theory is correct, there should be some fossilized remains of creatures whose footprints covered thousands of square miles. We might also expect to see patterns that looked similar to the footprints of known species. We could also look for trace chemical evidence around the lake shores indicative of massive hoof impacts.
" . . . if you start teaching [children] something that might be false, they'll assume everything you teach is either potentially, or completely, false."
I welcome the day that happens. If kids had the critical thinking skills necessary to entertain the idea that all of what they're being told should be questioned, it would be the most monumental achievement in the history of public education.
"If a human foot print is found next to a fossilized dinosaur bone, would that not prove that Evolution is wrong?"
No. I'm sure that the paleontologists who excavate fossilized dinosaur bones leave their footprints in close proximity.
"It always annoys me when people like you think that, if only we paid the fruit pickers more and threw out all the migrant workers, then our economy would somehow boom. The only thing that would boom is the cost of the fruit, and that makes everyone who buys it poorer, it makes fruit from other countries more competitive in the marketplace, and that drives domestic fruit producers out of business. . ."
/rant
The cost of fruit would most definitely go up, but if there were suddenly 12 million jobs in the economy that had to pay competitive wages in order to attract employees, we could address the problem of "poverty" more successfully than any government handout program can. The government could extract itself from the welfare business because nobody would have any excuse but laziness or disability for needing a handout.
All else being equal, you make a good point about imports(not just food), but bringing in illegal aliens is not the way to address competitiveness of domestic industries. We need to re-establish a FAIR and logical system of tariffs and trade barriers so countries that use slave labor and pollute the environment don't have free and open access to our markets. We, as a nation have put a $ value on environmental, health and safety and minimum wage regulations, etc. and it's only reasonable that this value be reflected in the cost of domestic goods AND imported goods.
You also forget that illegal aliens use the same public infrastructure and public services that citizens do, so although you're saving $0.89/lb on your strawberries, you're paying more in taxes to maintain the roads, schools, prisons and government services for an increased population paying zero or artificially low taxes. The market prices of goods and services need to reflect their real costs. Allowing producers to sidestep the rules we've put in place results in distortions in the market and misallocation of resources. I don't care if my grocery bill quadruples. Just don't tax me in order to enable producers to make profits by shifting their costs onto society.
"I've studied Ron's views. I can't stand them. He wants to restore people's freedom to die cold and hungry under a bridge. He wants to make sure you aren't 'forced' to care that people are dying cold and hungry under bridges. That's the 'freedom' he offers."
You may have done some studies of Dr. Paul's views, but you've made a knee-jerk emotional reaction in interpreting them. As I pointed out, Ron Paul is running for Federal government office, so the policies he is advocating will be limited to implementation at that level. Your conclusion is that opposing some Federal government program is equivalent to opposing the NEED that it was meant to address. Since many(most?) Federal programs fail miserably in achieving their stated goals, you can't equate the program with the need.
For example, the fact that I want to see the U.S. Department of Education eradicated does NOT mean that I am opposed to education. Quite the contrary. What I AM opposed to is a massive and expensive Federal bureaucracy eating up education dollars in administrative expenses and forcing unfunded BS mandates like NCLB down the throats of our local schools. Who do you think CARES more about the quality of education in my local school, and who is in the best position to set policies and allocate resources to address our education needs? The parents, teachers and concerned citizens in the local community, OR a bunch of Federal employees sitting in air conditioned offices in Washington D.C.?
If you're worried about people dying cold and hungry under a bridge, you should be outraged by the idea that your Federal government is spending hundreds of billions of tax dollars on illegal wars, and is maintaining a network of several hundred permanent U.S. military bases all over the world. We also have the Federal government to thank for our current system of trade policies and monetary policies that have eroded the real wealth and real income of the working class. If they're supposed to be taking care of the hungry and the homeless, they're doing a piss-poor job of it. The smart thing to do is to take the wealth and power out of the hands of a Federal government that has systematically wasted and abused it, and return it to the people and the states. I think that's what Ron Paul is advocating, and that's why I support him.
I won't mod you down, but when you talk about "accountability", "track records" and "balance", you're making an implicit comparison to alternative information sources. I think that you could also make those same arguments with respect to any of the mainstream media outlets.
Think of that media paragon "The New York Times". Their reporters have defied court orders. They seem to publish whatever they want. Their track record is one of misinformation, contradiction and bias, and they are never held accountable for any of it.
Thank $deity for web sites that actually put out real information that hasn't gone through the mainstream media filters. If publishing information is "deliberately courting controversy", more power to them.
Despite what George Bush would have you think, the President isn't supposed to be Supreme Dictator of the nation. Ron Paul is running for President of these United States. If you would spend 15 minutes and exercise a bit of open-minded patience and intelligence in studying his viewpoints, you would realize that he is dedicated to policies that are firmly rooted in The Constitution. Civil liberties, non-interventionist foreign policy, and limited government. The only thing he wants to do to the proverbial "pie" you speak of is to make sure that the FEDERAL government gets a smaller piece. If the states want to raise taxes on those mean, selfish, middle-class White guys (I hope that no states would pursue such racist policies) President Paul wouldn't stop them. What he would stop is illegal and un-Constitutional war, warrantless wiretapping, Real ID, illegal immigration, the Patriot Act, inflationary monetary policy and obscene levels of Federal spending. Supporting massively bureaucratic government health, welfare and education programs may give you a warm fuzzy, but it isn't being "civic minded". Working to restore your freedom IS.
"how do you determine the value of the IP to assess it for taxation"?
Let C = projected annual revenue from said copyright
t = the time period of the copyright (years)
r = some appropriate "interest" rate to account for opportunity cost & inflation
V = C/r - C/((r(1+r)^t)
V = the value of the copyright.
The tax would be a fixed fee plus some percentage of V
The article states that they want to filter pornography AND . . .
"OTHER INTERNET CONTENT DEEMED INAPPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN"
It's never really about pornography, it's always about that "other bad stuff", like dissident political opinions.
So, who's in charge of deciding what is and is not appropriate for children? Think of ALL the content that certain people and organizations have wanted to ban at various times and you'll get the idea of why censorship is fundamentally incompatible with freedom. Think of Christians wanting to protect the children from Charles Darwin and "political correctness" extremists wanting to ban Mark Twain.
"People are taught what to think, not how to think."
." or "What observations do you need . . ." only then followed by a process from which conclusions can be drawn.
Exactly. That's the single greatest failure in public education today, and not only in science. Kids should be taught to QUESTION everything from scientific theories to political beliefs to religious teachings. A generation of young adults determined to seek out information on their own as opposed to accepting what they're told at face value could have a significant positive effect on the world.
For science in particular, my limited experience leads me to believe that "experiment design" is something that's seriously lacking. The hands-on experiments in science classes are typically just "canned" procedures. "Do these 3 things and write down what you observe.". That's a recipe for producing people who just "go through the motions" without having to expend much thought. I think the first assignments should be "Design an experiment to . .
I think it's a bit of both. I wouldn't say that "most" private citizens share this love of freedom, but the number is far from negligible.
/. crowd is that we use the Internet for news instead of relying on the MSM. This telecom story got some coverage, but how many of the YRO stories we see here on a daily basis (spy satellites, real ID, confiscating electronics at the Border, etc. etc.) actually get coverage in the mainstream news?
I believe that one thing that differentiates the
I heard Mike McConnell (Director of National Intelligence) on NPR this morning stating that the Senate had determined that the telecom companies hadn't done anything wrong . . .
Unfortunately the reporter didn't ask the obvious follow up question . . .
"If they've done nothing wrong, why do they need a law granting them immunity?"
"Iraq had tanks, rocket launchers, fighter planes, SAM installations, a proper disciplined armed forces each armed and trained with using automatic weapons, etc, etc, etc. And they couldn't hold off the US at all."
Do you actually think the United States has "won" in Iraq? How many U.S. soldiers have been killed and maimed since the Iraqi army was defeated and the whole "Mission Accomplished" thing? How much is the U.S. spending day after day to maintain a troop presence and conduct operations in the country? The thing that history has taught us is that an insurgency will eventually break the will of the invader.
I keep seeing this ludicrous "The military has tanks, jet fighters and nuclear weapons so any insurgency is doomed to fail." argument. It demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of guerilla warfare and the history of armed insurrection in the post WW2 era. I highly recommend "The War of the Flea" by Robert Taber.
http://www.amazon.com/War-Flea-Classic-Guerrilla-Warfare/dp/1574885553
This was written in the 1960s, but it's just as relevant today. During the Vietnam war, the United States had tanks, jet fighters, nuclear weapons, heavy artillery, etc. etc. and got their asses handed to them by a rag-tag army with some AK-47s, RPGs and high tech weapons like sharpened sticks and spent 50 caliber shell casings. Since then, we've seen the Russians in Afghanistan, Israelis in Lebanon, and I dare say the United States in Iraq. The evidence is rather overwhelming.
Basically, the only way for the occupying invader to win a guerilla war is to completely decimate the civilian population. In the United States, killing the people that you're trying to subjugate would be absolutely pointless (you actually think the U.S. government would use a nuclear weapon on its own populace?), and would be like dumping gasoline on the fire of rebellion.
Never underestimate a determined combatant fighting on his home soil.
"I think that punishing the telco's for it is a BAD thing. It's not the jobs of the Telco's to protect your rights."
No, but it's their job to abide by the terms of the privacy agreements they have with their customers.
"No, it's just brain dead."
LOL.
Thanks for providing a bit of anecdotal evidence demonstrating his point and the applicability of Pavlov's research to homo sapiens.
>Is it "they" or is it "them"?
"Them are watching you." isn't a correct sentence, so I vote for "They".
OK, From a pure logical sense, you are correct.
HOWEVER, we have a mountain of evidence based on direct observation of the past behavior of our government, and other governments around the world, indicating that the "slippery slope" is very real. We also have an increasing amount of evidence to suggest that anything coming out of the DHS is a BAD idea. If they come out with 10 bad ideas in a row, am I to assume that it's a coin toss as to whether their next policy proposal will be good or bad?
It's called inductive reasoning. Is that a fallacy as well?
We're not writing code or playing around with probability theory and the philosophy of logic. Welcome to the reality of Big Government (Brother?)
. . . are actually speaking out AGAINST the whole nightmare scenario of Real ID?
Gee, I wonder?