That's what I thought, it was an article saying SATA cables have far higher shielding standards than normal copper audio cables (Which makes sense, but then you have to wonder if the resistance and gauge is too high, what's the biggest signal it can handle?).
Apparently not.
If this were about CAT5 cables, it could be that a lower error rate caused a higher throughput and thus allowed the network audio player to stream a higher quality stream, but no, it's not that either. The thing is plugged into the hard disk (right?).
Which of these actually harms anyone? "High phosphorus fertilizer" perhaps. If there are no rules against motor oil by your collection company then it's fine (I'll bet it isn't though). Shortages (like "water shortages") are only caused by artificially low prices, you slept through this lesson in Econ class (remember?).
Not following the rest of the lemmings off the side of a cliff is a great point to make, but come on, use some realistic examples please.
The lawyer then went on, These very simpIe guidelines You can rely upon: You're gouging on your prices if You charge more than the rest. But it's unfair competition If you think you can charge less.
A second point that we would make To help avoid confusion: Don't try to charge the same amount: That would be collusion! You must compete. But not too much, For if you do, you see, Then the market would be yours And that's monopoly!"
News flash: Not only is the Obama administration upholding Bush policy, but they are expanding upon it (Internet and cell phone logs are exempt from any constitutional protection because there is no "reasonable expectation of privacy," they say). What Bush did is what Bush did in the past, we get to blame Obama too, now. (And, News flash: our individual rights have been under attack for a very, very long time).
I have read and still read Keynes, Krugman, Friedman, Adam Smith, Rothbard, etc, I'm very aware of the arguments. I happen to see where they disagree with each other and where the fundamental disagreements of opinion are. Search the article for "monetary inflation" for my use. This is why I use one or the other by name. Inflation != price inflation != monetary inflation.
Quite easily.
Shortages and surpluses are caused by prices that are not at equilibrium, really, this is econ 101 stuff. A shortage or surplus is caused by prices not at equilibrium by definition. In an unrestricted market, prices will fall if the demand for money increases (i.e. demand for goods falls). If there is a surplus, people will either hold onto their product if they think they can get a better value for it later on (speculation), or simply drop prices until they can get rid of it.
Japan is a first class example of what not to do and why it doesn't work. Where is the example of the depression where we did nothing? Took no action? In the depression of 1920 we literally did nothing and as a consequence that's about how much mention it gets in history texts these days. Unemployment was worse than the Great Depression, certainly that should have spiraled out of control, right? 1990s Japan and 1930s Hoover alike adopted a policy of easy credit, prop up wages and prices, and protectionism (I think Hoover passed the largest tax increase in US History? Or something close).
And what's quite scary, it's really hard to terminate a deflationary cycle.
Except this hasn't actually happened in the history of the world ever. Lots of "close calls" people try and say, but no proof. Hyperinflation has happened, plenty of times, and is a real threat we are facing today, just ask Zimbabwe. But not one case of prices spiraling down to nothingness. The reasoning is simple, there is an effective several trillion dollars of currency floating around. Who wouldn't buy a house if it were for sale at $1 each? A single person with any savings could buy out the entire country of used houses (indeed this is the case in Michigan). But this would, naturally, increase the marginal price before you could do so and bring prices back up to equilibrium. Common sense and logic dictates there has to be a natural, market decided floor where prices won't fall anymore. It might be hard to see the bottom if demand falls, but it's there. Money isn't something you can endlessly exchange faster and faster, it has real value with respect to time.
During the crises the _amount_ of money in the economy does not diminish. So everything should be OK, according to Austrians.
It's hard to say with a fractional reserve system, a fractional reserve bank increases the amount of money in the economy by literally creating a new currency that is 1:1 exchangeable (if in limited quantities) for Federal Reserve Dollars. Often during a "panic" the true money supply will be lower than it otherwise would. Even if this weren't the case, a recession would still be likely because the damage has already been done by the previous boom due to artificially cheap credit. You can't wipe out half the capital in the world and expect the economy to still be functional, likewise you can't distort capital structures and expect the economy to still work as it had (for instance, too many houses, too much oil production, consumer goods in general).
The effect of people not wanting to invest money is the cost of time increases, that is, interest rates will go up. This will serve to correct the production structure to become "longer" or "shorter" as necessary. As demand for credit, products changes, prices and supply will change with it, so I don't really see the problem. If a lack of demand was really the problem, then why is the service sector the last to experience the effects of the recession, and why is production the first?
How can there possibly be "not enough money"?!? If there is a shortage of money, that means that prices are too low, causing a surplus of goods i.e. a shortage of money. And currently, there is no such situation. There is no such thing as "[not] enough money". Everyone wants more money. It is also true that any amount of money works: the number on the money is meaningless. The money fairy could wave the money wand and double all the numbers on money overnight, and nothing would change, except the exchange ratios/prices would double. When problems happen is when you inflate the money supply, by introducing money into one sector, especially investment banking, loans, etc - this distorts demand, distorts production, and distorts supply of one sector at the expense of another. If trillions of dollars were infused into the economy then by definition inflation has already happened. If prices go up or not is irrelevant -- Can you think why this might be? Hint: It has to do with opportunity cost.
To understand what I mean by distorting capital structures, please read my original link. Interest rates are the price of time, it is how much people are willing to pay for things now as opposed to things later. I.e. I am willing to pay 5%/year more to get a car now, rather than saving my money and getting a car 8 years from now. When you change these interest rates, you engage in price fixing (since a price is an exchange ratio, this includes interest rates), and what does basic economics teach about price fixing? What effects does it cause? You can answer that I think.
No, the value of money changes over time. A price is an exchange ratio. If you inflate the money supply i.e. print money, it bids prices up, and causes price inflation, prices that are higher than they otherwise would be. If you read the article I cited you would understand it doesn't add to productive capacity, it only increases production at the expense of future production. This is what happens when you engage in price fixing of interest rates, it distorts the long-term production structure over time, since interest is the price of time. If you manipulate it, you are going to hurt production.
I've read Krugman on and off for a while, he makes a very consistent set of fallacies. Arguments about the housing bubble are perfectly relevant, we are doing the exact same thing that we did to cause it. It's going to cause the appearance of a recovery, and then crash again, even worse than now!
Wow you actually fell for that? We know know the stimulus wasn't too small because of common sense logic. Every dollar that government spends must necessarily take away from other productive capacity - every dollar government spends must necessarily be taxes, either directly, through inflation, or through borrowing (borrowing takes away from private investment, where else does the money come from?). Also consider that the boom we were in wasn't a good thing, it was unsustainable and distorting capital structures. The problem isn't that we aren't spending enough currently, it is that were were spending too much previously (for instance, warmongering, a 1% Fed Funds rate for years following 2001, a form of price fixing... Econ 101, what does price fixing cause?). The fix is a recession, where we pay off debts, where prices drop back down to to sane levels, and where we repair our capital structure to something more in line with what the public wants and less in line of what the government wants (like housing for everyone that Bush, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd alike all wanted so badly).
Sorry, you say you design videogames? Did you consider that maybe the grandparent meant not as challenging? Obviously things take time, but that doesn't mean it's challenging. Challenge != cost. With challenge, there is an implied goal. With "challenging" games, i.e. the ones that are more challenging than most, getting the goal is harder to do with the same amount of skill, for any definition of skill.
There is no reason we couldn't have multiple people who play an adventure, except that it would largely be impractical, adventures take 20-60 hours to finish, that is all time you would necessarily need to spend with probably a single friend. That is why MMORPGs are fairly popular however, it's not a single coherent storyline but an adventure nonetheless, shared with other people.
By the way, taking in the story like is part of PLAYing an adventure, it is the best part of the adventure there is (and it goes without saying, there are bad stories that will ruin a game, too, just to make that clear), and it is what makes DnD the best game there is (and that is my personal opinion, just to be clear). If you don't like the story, don't play adventures (though I do hope you find something new to like, I suggest Metroid Prime, 100% of the story of an adventure with 0% of the cutscene... alright unless you want to count establishing shots as cutscenes, but that's largely skipable, not that you would want to). But don't slam them as acceptable for no one.
Who says a gold standard would mean "tying fiscal policy to the amount of shiny stuff we can dig out of the ground?" Get rid of the notion we should set a monetary policy (you mean monetary policy, right?). Monetary policy is something that just happens. It isn't invented, nor should we force it to. If people want to use a fiat currency because it is more productive, great. BitCoin is a fiat currency by all means. But don't pass legal tender laws and force people to use it. That's setting a particular monetary policy, something that of right is best left to individuals.
As for fiscal policy, what harm could it possibly cause? We have a government that spends money responsibly and doesn't take away from the supply that individuals demand? Oh, the horror!
The dollar is not "backed" by "the productive capacity of the America economy," it's backed by nothing. By the pure virtue that the dollar is a money it can be exchanged on the economy (this is true of all monies, backed or fiat), but without being backed, i.e. exchangeable in terms of another good there is nothing to stop it from being inflated sky-high.
I never said "theft" I said "force". You managed to misquote me and then set up a straw man around that misquote, good work.
How else can the government guarantee anything, unless they force someone to provide it, either by theft, by slavery, by taxation, etc? Perhaps you would like to tell me how we could deliver cheap healthcare, water, food, and/or housing in a way that doesn't involve infringing individual rights?
Maybe I'm grossly misunderstanding something, but the AGPL imposes an end-user requirement on the actual use of the software, however the AGPL is not an end-user license, it's a copyright license which grants a user permission to re-distribute their software. The AGPL has no authority to dictate which terms a user must comply with to simply use the software, since they aren't distributing it.
If you, or in the case of the US Constitution, your legal system subscribes to natural rights (human rights, unalienable rights, liberty, negative liberties, negative rights, etc), then yes, you do have a right to be able to own a gun. Natural rights are superior to any legal system and can never be legitimately infringed by any entity including a government (or, not without "due process" i.e. a presumption of innocence and can only be taken away for a crime committed).
Hm, appointing unfair judges for life... Based on the will of ~0.000033667% of the people? Sound familiar?
That's exactly why judges are appointed for life, in the Constitution: So there is no political pressure to make a choice favorable to someone else, like a king. A better example would be the Supreme Court today, like FDR threatening to "pack the court" or simply the circus that appointing a new Supreme Court justice today is. In theory it's also possible to simply stop funding the courts, too.
Lets see, Ben Franklin estimated taxes in the colonies at around 12.5%... Today we have a 15% income tax at the realistic minimum (unless you are like a kid at a summer job or something then its only 10%) and up to 35% if you are successful at what you do! Plus, the income tax is actually unconstitutional! (Thats why they needed to pass a constitutional amendment for it to be in effect today)
For better or worse, the world is well-adjusted to the lower standard of living that taxes affords us. But even more so, the issue is government spending, we don't see any direct victims of taxes because of all the tricks like inflation they spend money with.
I would agree that the Revolution wasn't about only about, or even started by, taxes, it was about so much more (Can you imagine the government forcing you to house and feed the military?). But which of the Framers were fighting for money and power? At best, maybe some of the southern delegates, maybe Hamilton - most all of them were passionately and honestly concerned for their own liberty (and therefore, by definition, everyone's). Documents like the Federalist and the constitutional convention debate notes are filled with these examples - one example that sticks out, Franklin argued public servants shouldn't receive a pay (New Hampshire today pays legislators $200/2 years). As for the Constitution, the ban on slave trade and the reduced representation that slave states got, free trade between states, limitations on taxes (wiped out by the 16th amendment), enumerations of specific powers the Federal government is limited to, and more.
"You have no possible reply that is not hypocritical so I won't be responding any more" screams TROLL and is a cheap cop-out screaming you are so unsure of your position you can't defend it, but I'll feed it anyways...
You say that there is no human right to health care etc.... Then you say that forceful taxation violates human rights.
Exactly. How is this hypocritical, at all? You have no entitlement to healthcare, because if you were entitled to it, it must be forcefully taken from someone else. It's not that hard to understand, really. I just gave you the definition of human/natural rights as used in law... it has a definition, how can you contradict it? "Rights" in general has various meanings, sure. Natural rights is a pretty specific concept that says you have a right to not be coerced, this includes not being held up for money with the threat of being held up at gunpoint by the IRS or any other government. Just because no government recognizes this doesn't mean that it's not the definition of natural rights!
Um, there is no human right to healthcare, or an equal amount of "wealth" as everyone else, or a paid for or cheap education. Human rights are something that exists without coercion, not something that can only be satisfied with a coercive institution. Indeed, forcefully taking tax money from people to fund these things, itself is a violation of human rights (and for that matter, nation-building wars, etc). Likewise, there is no human right to getting your Internet access a particular way, though, human rights would dictate that an ISP can expect not to be told by a state what content it must block.
The only meaning to "human rights" or "fundamental rights" (the preferred term of the US Supreme Court) has to do with coercion, and never a guarantee to an entitlement!
Just keep in mind what Facebook did in this case was in response to coercive government power, something they would not have done otherwise (perhaps, it was still against their terms of use, though if those terms of use would even be worded the way they are without government censorship is a different issue). This is an issue of coercive government censorship in addition to (otherwise acceptable though not good) cooperate censorship.
Monopolies themselves are not a bad thing, monopolies are sometimes the most efficient form of enterprise, particularly geographic monopolies where competition would be redundant and simply a waste of natural resources. What is a bad thing is a monopoly where there would otherwise not be one due to intervention in the market, for instance, patents, FCC regulations, or subsidies (especially subsidies).
Yes, problem is corporate lobbying, corporatism, and laws and regulations favorable to big business that a small company simply couldn't navigate. That's not necessarily the ISP's fault, that's government choosing to use power where it has no right to.
The Constitution says nothing about citizen's rights, it protects individuals. Corporations are made up of individuals and they have the same individual rights that government may not infringe on.
Most all of the Internet is privately owned, there is nothing "public" about it.
And you seem to be confusing my points with corporatism, the conglomeration of big business and big government. That is bad, but clearly that's not what I'm talking about.
And even if government did build some of the Internet, that's a skunk cost, that in no way implies it is a "public" good or that we just "allow" companies to run it. Those companies own their network. Their network. It's no different than owning your network that runs inside your own residence.
Did anyone notice where this story came from? Think Progress, the far-left-liberal group. Recently a bill was introduced in the House that would provide the FCC the ability to regulate ISPs, it was written by Free Press, a badly misnamed organization dedicated to regulating an over-use of free speech, and, among other things, criminalizing private media ownership in favor of "democratic" collective ownership, regulating bloggers, reporters, instituting government-funded reporting and journalism, and re-introducing the fairness doctrine. Woa! And government doesn't want to regulate ISPs, they just need to? Nothing bad could come of this? Seriously?
Since when were ISPs bad? They provide a great service to many people. Remember what the Internet is. It's a network of privately owned computers, linked together. Each individual has the say as to what happens with their computers and their network, each individual has every right to say how to route their data. Engineering and internal self-regulation has always solved more problems than outside regulation done by force. This is how the Internet has always operated, why are we now criminalizing this idea of Internet freedom?
That would likely be suicidal for an ISP, as has pay-per-byte access (except for the most contained of transfer mechanisms like cellular data). But, that said, is it really acceptable to tell a network owner what they have to do their network? AT&T has every right to conduct business like that if they so desire to.
You can't give someone money and then later impose conditions on what you must do with it, that violates rule of law and the very idea of exchange and contracts. Government cannot go around telling people what they must do with their property, that's central planning, and it makes it impossible for private owners to regulate how their property is used efficiently.
Slashdot Mirror
That's what I thought, it was an article saying SATA cables have far higher shielding standards than normal copper audio cables (Which makes sense, but then you have to wonder if the resistance and gauge is too high, what's the biggest signal it can handle?).
Apparently not.
If this were about CAT5 cables, it could be that a lower error rate caused a higher throughput and thus allowed the network audio player to stream a higher quality stream, but no, it's not that either. The thing is plugged into the hard disk (right?).
Which of these actually harms anyone? "High phosphorus fertilizer" perhaps. If there are no rules against motor oil by your collection company then it's fine (I'll bet it isn't though). Shortages (like "water shortages") are only caused by artificially low prices, you slept through this lesson in Econ class (remember?).
Not following the rest of the lemmings off the side of a cliff is a great point to make, but come on, use some realistic examples please.
From http://mises.org/daily/3801
News flash: Not only is the Obama administration upholding Bush policy, but they are expanding upon it (Internet and cell phone logs are exempt from any constitutional protection because there is no "reasonable expectation of privacy," they say). What Bush did is what Bush did in the past, we get to blame Obama too, now. (And, News flash: our individual rights have been under attack for a very, very long time).
I have read and still read Keynes, Krugman, Friedman, Adam Smith, Rothbard, etc, I'm very aware of the arguments. I happen to see where they disagree with each other and where the fundamental disagreements of opinion are.
Search the article for "monetary inflation" for my use. This is why I use one or the other by name. Inflation != price inflation != monetary inflation.
Shortages and surpluses are caused by prices that are not at equilibrium, really, this is econ 101 stuff. A shortage or surplus is caused by prices not at equilibrium by definition. In an unrestricted market, prices will fall if the demand for money increases (i.e. demand for goods falls). If there is a surplus, people will either hold onto their product if they think they can get a better value for it later on (speculation), or simply drop prices until they can get rid of it.
Japan is a first class example of what not to do and why it doesn't work. Where is the example of the depression where we did nothing? Took no action? In the depression of 1920 we literally did nothing and as a consequence that's about how much mention it gets in history texts these days. Unemployment was worse than the Great Depression, certainly that should have spiraled out of control, right? 1990s Japan and 1930s Hoover alike adopted a policy of easy credit, prop up wages and prices, and protectionism (I think Hoover passed the largest tax increase in US History? Or something close).
Except this hasn't actually happened in the history of the world ever. Lots of "close calls" people try and say, but no proof. Hyperinflation has happened, plenty of times, and is a real threat we are facing today, just ask Zimbabwe. But not one case of prices spiraling down to nothingness. The reasoning is simple, there is an effective several trillion dollars of currency floating around. Who wouldn't buy a house if it were for sale at $1 each? A single person with any savings could buy out the entire country of used houses (indeed this is the case in Michigan). But this would, naturally, increase the marginal price before you could do so and bring prices back up to equilibrium. Common sense and logic dictates there has to be a natural, market decided floor where prices won't fall anymore. It might be hard to see the bottom if demand falls, but it's there. Money isn't something you can endlessly exchange faster and faster, it has real value with respect to time.
It's hard to say with a fractional reserve system, a fractional reserve bank increases the amount of money in the economy by literally creating a new currency that is 1:1 exchangeable (if in limited quantities) for Federal Reserve Dollars. Often during a "panic" the true money supply will be lower than it otherwise would. Even if this weren't the case, a recession would still be likely because the damage has already been done by the previous boom due to artificially cheap credit. You can't wipe out half the capital in the world and expect the economy to still be functional, likewise you can't distort capital structures and expect the economy to still work as it had (for instance, too many houses, too much oil production, consumer goods in general).
The effect of people not wanting to invest money is the cost of time increases, that is, interest rates will go up. This will serve to correct the production structure to become "longer" or "shorter" as necessary. As demand for credit, products changes, prices and supply will change with it, so I don't really see the problem. If a lack of demand was really the problem, then why is the service sector the last to experience the effects of the recession, and why is production the first?
How can there possibly be "not enough money"?!? If there is a shortage of money, that means that prices are too low, causing a surplus of goods i.e. a shortage of money. And currently, there is no such situation. There is no such thing as "[not] enough money". Everyone wants more money. It is also true that any amount of money works: the number on the money is meaningless. The money fairy could wave the money wand and double all the numbers on money overnight, and nothing would change, except the exchange ratios/prices would double. When problems happen is when you inflate the money supply, by introducing money into one sector, especially investment banking, loans, etc - this distorts demand, distorts production, and distorts supply of one sector at the expense of another. If trillions of dollars were infused into the economy then by definition inflation has already happened. If prices go up or not is irrelevant -- Can you think why this might be? Hint: It has to do with opportunity cost.
To understand what I mean by distorting capital structures, please read my original link. Interest rates are the price of time, it is how much people are willing to pay for things now as opposed to things later. I.e. I am willing to pay 5%/year more to get a car now, rather than saving my money and getting a car 8 years from now. When you change these interest rates, you engage in price fixing (since a price is an exchange ratio, this includes interest rates), and what does basic economics teach about price fixing? What effects does it cause? You can answer that I think.
No, the value of money changes over time. A price is an exchange ratio. If you inflate the money supply i.e. print money, it bids prices up, and causes price inflation, prices that are higher than they otherwise would be. If you read the article I cited you would understand it doesn't add to productive capacity, it only increases production at the expense of future production. This is what happens when you engage in price fixing of interest rates, it distorts the long-term production structure over time, since interest is the price of time. If you manipulate it, you are going to hurt production.
I've read Krugman on and off for a while, he makes a very consistent set of fallacies. Arguments about the housing bubble are perfectly relevant, we are doing the exact same thing that we did to cause it. It's going to cause the appearance of a recovery, and then crash again, even worse than now!
Wow you actually fell for that? We know know the stimulus wasn't too small because of common sense logic. Every dollar that government spends must necessarily take away from other productive capacity - every dollar government spends must necessarily be taxes, either directly, through inflation, or through borrowing (borrowing takes away from private investment, where else does the money come from?). Also consider that the boom we were in wasn't a good thing, it was unsustainable and distorting capital structures. The problem isn't that we aren't spending enough currently, it is that were were spending too much previously (for instance, warmongering, a 1% Fed Funds rate for years following 2001, a form of price fixing... Econ 101, what does price fixing cause?). The fix is a recession, where we pay off debts, where prices drop back down to to sane levels, and where we repair our capital structure to something more in line with what the public wants and less in line of what the government wants (like housing for everyone that Bush, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd alike all wanted so badly).
Sorry, you say you design videogames? Did you consider that maybe the grandparent meant not as challenging? Obviously things take time, but that doesn't mean it's challenging. Challenge != cost. With challenge, there is an implied goal. With "challenging" games, i.e. the ones that are more challenging than most, getting the goal is harder to do with the same amount of skill, for any definition of skill.
There is no reason we couldn't have multiple people who play an adventure, except that it would largely be impractical, adventures take 20-60 hours to finish, that is all time you would necessarily need to spend with probably a single friend. That is why MMORPGs are fairly popular however, it's not a single coherent storyline but an adventure nonetheless, shared with other people.
By the way, taking in the story like is part of PLAYing an adventure, it is the best part of the adventure there is (and it goes without saying, there are bad stories that will ruin a game, too, just to make that clear), and it is what makes DnD the best game there is (and that is my personal opinion, just to be clear). If you don't like the story, don't play adventures (though I do hope you find something new to like, I suggest Metroid Prime, 100% of the story of an adventure with 0% of the cutscene... alright unless you want to count establishing shots as cutscenes, but that's largely skipable, not that you would want to). But don't slam them as acceptable for no one.
Who says a gold standard would mean "tying fiscal policy to the amount of shiny stuff we can dig out of the ground?" Get rid of the notion we should set a monetary policy (you mean monetary policy, right?). Monetary policy is something that just happens. It isn't invented, nor should we force it to. If people want to use a fiat currency because it is more productive, great. BitCoin is a fiat currency by all means. But don't pass legal tender laws and force people to use it. That's setting a particular monetary policy, something that of right is best left to individuals.
As for fiscal policy, what harm could it possibly cause? We have a government that spends money responsibly and doesn't take away from the supply that individuals demand? Oh, the horror!
The dollar is not "backed" by "the productive capacity of the America economy," it's backed by nothing. By the pure virtue that the dollar is a money it can be exchanged on the economy (this is true of all monies, backed or fiat), but without being backed, i.e. exchangeable in terms of another good there is nothing to stop it from being inflated sky-high.
I never said "theft" I said "force". You managed to misquote me and then set up a straw man around that misquote, good work.
How else can the government guarantee anything, unless they force someone to provide it, either by theft, by slavery, by taxation, etc? Perhaps you would like to tell me how we could deliver cheap healthcare, water, food, and/or housing in a way that doesn't involve infringing individual rights?
Maybe I'm grossly misunderstanding something, but the AGPL imposes an end-user requirement on the actual use of the software, however the AGPL is not an end-user license, it's a copyright license which grants a user permission to re-distribute their software. The AGPL has no authority to dictate which terms a user must comply with to simply use the software, since they aren't distributing it.
If you, or in the case of the US Constitution, your legal system subscribes to natural rights (human rights, unalienable rights, liberty, negative liberties, negative rights, etc), then yes, you do have a right to be able to own a gun. Natural rights are superior to any legal system and can never be legitimately infringed by any entity including a government (or, not without "due process" i.e. a presumption of innocence and can only be taken away for a crime committed).
Hm, appointing unfair judges for life... Based on the will of ~0.000033667% of the people? Sound familiar?
That's exactly why judges are appointed for life, in the Constitution: So there is no political pressure to make a choice favorable to someone else, like a king. A better example would be the Supreme Court today, like FDR threatening to "pack the court" or simply the circus that appointing a new Supreme Court justice today is. In theory it's also possible to simply stop funding the courts, too.
Lets see, Ben Franklin estimated taxes in the colonies at around 12.5%... Today we have a 15% income tax at the realistic minimum (unless you are like a kid at a summer job or something then its only 10%) and up to 35% if you are successful at what you do! Plus, the income tax is actually unconstitutional! (Thats why they needed to pass a constitutional amendment for it to be in effect today)
For better or worse, the world is well-adjusted to the lower standard of living that taxes affords us. But even more so, the issue is government spending, we don't see any direct victims of taxes because of all the tricks like inflation they spend money with.
I would agree that the Revolution wasn't about only about, or even started by, taxes, it was about so much more (Can you imagine the government forcing you to house and feed the military?). But which of the Framers were fighting for money and power? At best, maybe some of the southern delegates, maybe Hamilton - most all of them were passionately and honestly concerned for their own liberty (and therefore, by definition, everyone's). Documents like the Federalist and the constitutional convention debate notes are filled with these examples - one example that sticks out, Franklin argued public servants shouldn't receive a pay (New Hampshire today pays legislators $200/2 years). As for the Constitution, the ban on slave trade and the reduced representation that slave states got, free trade between states, limitations on taxes (wiped out by the 16th amendment), enumerations of specific powers the Federal government is limited to, and more.
"You have no possible reply that is not hypocritical so I won't be responding any more" screams TROLL and is a cheap cop-out screaming you are so unsure of your position you can't defend it, but I'll feed it anyways...
Exactly. How is this hypocritical, at all? You have no entitlement to healthcare, because if you were entitled to it, it must be forcefully taken from someone else. It's not that hard to understand, really. I just gave you the definition of human/natural rights as used in law... it has a definition, how can you contradict it? "Rights" in general has various meanings, sure. Natural rights is a pretty specific concept that says you have a right to not be coerced, this includes not being held up for money with the threat of being held up at gunpoint by the IRS or any other government. Just because no government recognizes this doesn't mean that it's not the definition of natural rights!
Um, there is no human right to healthcare, or an equal amount of "wealth" as everyone else, or a paid for or cheap education. Human rights are something that exists without coercion, not something that can only be satisfied with a coercive institution. Indeed, forcefully taking tax money from people to fund these things, itself is a violation of human rights (and for that matter, nation-building wars, etc). Likewise, there is no human right to getting your Internet access a particular way, though, human rights would dictate that an ISP can expect not to be told by a state what content it must block.
The only meaning to "human rights" or "fundamental rights" (the preferred term of the US Supreme Court) has to do with coercion, and never a guarantee to an entitlement!
Just keep in mind what Facebook did in this case was in response to coercive government power, something they would not have done otherwise (perhaps, it was still against their terms of use, though if those terms of use would even be worded the way they are without government censorship is a different issue). This is an issue of coercive government censorship in addition to (otherwise acceptable though not good) cooperate censorship.
Monopolies themselves are not a bad thing, monopolies are sometimes the most efficient form of enterprise, particularly geographic monopolies where competition would be redundant and simply a waste of natural resources. What is a bad thing is a monopoly where there would otherwise not be one due to intervention in the market, for instance, patents, FCC regulations, or subsidies (especially subsidies).
Yes, problem is corporate lobbying, corporatism, and laws and regulations favorable to big business that a small company simply couldn't navigate. That's not necessarily the ISP's fault, that's government choosing to use power where it has no right to.
The Constitution says nothing about citizen's rights, it protects individuals. Corporations are made up of individuals and they have the same individual rights that government may not infringe on.
Most all of the Internet is privately owned, there is nothing "public" about it.
And you seem to be confusing my points with corporatism, the conglomeration of big business and big government. That is bad, but clearly that's not what I'm talking about.
And even if government did build some of the Internet, that's a skunk cost, that in no way implies it is a "public" good or that we just "allow" companies to run it. Those companies own their network. Their network. It's no different than owning your network that runs inside your own residence.
Did anyone notice where this story came from? Think Progress, the far-left-liberal group.
Recently a bill was introduced in the House that would provide the FCC the ability to regulate ISPs, it was written by Free Press, a badly misnamed organization dedicated to regulating an over-use of free speech, and, among other things, criminalizing private media ownership in favor of "democratic" collective ownership, regulating bloggers, reporters, instituting government-funded reporting and journalism, and re-introducing the fairness doctrine. Woa! And government doesn't want to regulate ISPs, they just need to? Nothing bad could come of this? Seriously?
Since when were ISPs bad? They provide a great service to many people. Remember what the Internet is. It's a network of privately owned computers, linked together. Each individual has the say as to what happens with their computers and their network, each individual has every right to say how to route their data. Engineering and internal self-regulation has always solved more problems than outside regulation done by force. This is how the Internet has always operated, why are we now criminalizing this idea of Internet freedom?
That would likely be suicidal for an ISP, as has pay-per-byte access (except for the most contained of transfer mechanisms like cellular data). But, that said, is it really acceptable to tell a network owner what they have to do their network? AT&T has every right to conduct business like that if they so desire to.
You can't give someone money and then later impose conditions on what you must do with it, that violates rule of law and the very idea of exchange and contracts. Government cannot go around telling people what they must do with their property, that's central planning, and it makes it impossible for private owners to regulate how their property is used efficiently.