I think you missed my point. The whole intent of the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is to illustrate the evil that can be done by people who intend good but are ignorant of the possible negative consequences.
If you want to pretend that Martin is "ignorant" of the possible negative consequences,
I didn't miss your point, neither do I think his intentions are good. However I point out your use of the word "aside":
"Aside from the contradiction (which I do not think you intended), I say that the idea that it was well-intentioned is giving Martin and friends far too much benefit of doubt."
I don't think I was unreasonable to take the "contradiction" statement as a separate point to the goodness or otherwise of Martin and friends intentions. To clarify, it is my opinion that (1) there is no contradiction between having good intentions and doing evil and (2) there is no evidence of good intentions in this case.
then I have a bridge I would like to sell that you might be interested in buying. It's a good investment. Really.
I'm only in the market for bridges that repel vampires. How many vampires are on your bridge?
If you're a holy roller bent on extinguishing any glimpse of human genitalia from public view, then maybe you might want to consider who designed the human body to excrete waste fluids and eliminate waste. Blame God, if you think it's so evil.
They might have an issue with Isaiah as well, since he went naked for three years. It's in Isaiah 20. The bible says he was commanded by God to do it as part of his preaching message. I'm quite sure he didn't even hide behind a bush for those years and it is pretty much inconceivable that no children would have seen him.
This is one of the things I don't understand about America and Americans. My understanding is that your Constitution includes the Right to bear arms so you can rise up against an oppressive or corrupt government.
The 2nd amendment prevents the government from taking the right to the ability to rise up, it does not imply that the government must tolerate armed insurrection. Those who bear arms against the government have placed themselves outside the rule of that government and become an enemy. If they prevail and form a new government they will presumably not have themselves punished. If they do not prevail they will either be killed as an enemy or forcibly brought back under the rule of the government through the courts and prison system.
So you have the right to keep and bear arms but waging war on the government is only legal if you win. LEVIATHAN by Thomas Hobbes gives an explanation of unalienable rights under the title "Not All Rights Are Alienable" which would probably help your understanding of this. It is available at Project Gutenberg you can search for the title without the quotation marks. It's worth reading the whole book though.
Surely you have enough people with guns to force the issue.
From the Declaration of Independence: Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should
not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while
evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to
which they are accustomed.
Have a read of the list of things they put up with before the Declaration of Independence was made (the list is in the Declaration, also at Project Gutenberg).
The copyright problem is likely transient, ie temporary. The people who have been voted out will leave office. Things can still be dealt with in court and through other legal means. The situation isn't so bad that it is worth the suffering a civil war would cause. Having guns doesn't mean you give up easily on peaceful methods.
I appreciate your educating me though, I am grateful there are people who can argue and be intelligent at the same time.
I've got a lot of info and references to info from/. too, glad to pass it on.
Since you are obviously well read in this area I would like to know more of your thoughts (if you don't mind):
I don't mind but I'm not really well read regarding communism. I've thought about it quite a bit over the last few years of observing western society and I've noticed that people parrot things like "communism works on paper" without ever reading about it. I consider The Communist Manifesto to be the defining statement of what communism is because Marx intended it to be exactly that. It is required reading for anyone to comment intelligently on communism IMO.
What do you think of his idea that there should be no government just a democracy of people?
Is such a thing even feasible under any philosophical doctrine?
Completely unworkable in large groups, no.
If there is no enforcing of some form of property law, it becomes more efficient to plunder neighbours than to produce. Some people may refrain from doing so, but pretty much every tribal society I know of has warred with neighbouring tribes for plunder. I've lived my whole life until now without having a battle to the death over food or women. I like that. You could have more decentralised government, more power in local communities, but not no government. It would require a radical change in human nature that I don't think can be brought about by a political system. There is no utopia.
Do you think any his points were valid? If so, could they be incorporated into Western philosophy?
Some of his complaints against the effects of industrialisation were valid, his solutions were to make things worse, IMO. The exploitation of people as resources, the destruction of family ties, the formation of permanent social classes. We have the ideal that anyone could rise to any position in society but the reality is that there are significant obstacles to that. He was quite right that people should own the means of production but then wanted to abolish the private property system by which people can own the means of production.
I'm still working on what I consider the ideal protection against generational poverty. The internet goes a long way to making education accessible without government schooling, I consider a good resource good public domain or freely copyable and modifiable textbooks to be a necessity.
Visitors just arrived, I'm willing to continue discussion later.
Since I read it, I must point out your arguments are very much taken out of context.
I didn't try to hide the context, linking to an easily searchable text. I will attempt to elaborate on the context as I understood it:
"There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience."
This is very much like the Creationist argument that Darwin said the eye was too complex to have evolved. Marx isn't saying this, he's saying that his opponents(the rich) will accuse Communism of this. He's arguing that such thing should not be used by one class to suppress another.
And yet the historical experience of communism abounds with religious persecution, so much that it is a defining characteristic. His argument appears to be not that communism won't abolish religion but that religion is a "class antagonism" that must be abolished, that is he justifies the abolishment of religion rather than denies it.
The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention
To continues the quote "and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. ", he is arguing that education is influenced by the ruling class and that education should be free and public for all. He is arguing that home schooling. should be replaced with equal public education for all. In this manner western education is very inline with the communist manifesto. One could make the argument that his form of public education is inline with that found in the U.S. constitution.
I thought the quote "The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education" adequately covered that. Indeed since freedom of religion has become widespread all statists have sought to replace it with another method of public indoctrination, compulsory schooling being the most prevalent. I agree that western education is very in line with the communist manifesto, something that in no way validates communism but should instead cause us to seriously question our chosen method of education and who it is really designed to benefit. I recommend investigating the work of John Taylor Gatto, starting with The Six Lesson Schoolteacher. There's a collection of quotes from his essays here: http://www.noogenesis.com/game_theory/Gatto/Gatto.html. One of his books is available online and audio files of his speeches also, both are linked from the wikipedia article. I've heard it said "It's hard to agree with everything he says, but it's hard to ignore what he says".
Most of the evils of communism are not exclusive to communism. The differences between the various forms of totalitarianism are minor compared to their similarities. Indeed the evils of totalitarianism could be said to be good things that are taken to extremes. I'm not an anarchist, I think it's a good thing to have a government. Just not an all controlling one, yet they all seem to have the tendency to grow into that role.
"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists."
He's speaking more of inheritance and child slavery. He's not talking about abolishing the family but looking at children as something other than people who can make profit for you and carry on your wealth. Additionally he argues that capitalism has already destroyed the family for the poor, looking around at the U
The context was the 2nd amendment. In this case the American Government got a bigger army together then the revolutionary army and put down the insurrection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_rebellion "The rebels "could never be found," according to Jefferson, but the militia expended considerable effort rounding up 20 prisoners, clearly demonstrating Federalist authority in the national government."
Doesn't sound like much of a crushing defeat to me. It's not as if they were slaughtered in battle, more like a well executed guerilla action, fire a few shots and disappear. They achieved their goal, the government saved face.
I'm a firm believer that the populace is better of just sitting down and saying fuck you then pulling out the arms and shooting.
Agreed, it only works with certain governments though. In my country right now, that's how I'd handle it but there have been an abundance of governments under whom such an action would be suicide.
He is proposing to restrict things like beheading videos. Do you support terrorists' "rights" to kidnap people and post videos online of their brutal murders? Yes? Then you are a sick person. No? Then you support censorship.
That is a false dichotomy. Terrorists who kidnap and murder people have no regard for laws in my country about whether or not I can watch the video of it. I don't support changing the law to allow kidnapping and murder. I do claim the right to see those videos if I wish. I don't have any desire to watch them over and over but I do find them informative about the kind of people who oppose us and what is going on in other countries.
A friend of mine sent me some pictures of jihad that was going on in her country at the time. She was showing me what was happening to her people, it was very distressing for her. The photos she sent were substantially the same as the ones sent out by the terrorists but for a very different reason. Should she be censored? Unequivocally no! Her right to free speech and appeal for help outweigh any consideration about terrorists.
Banning videos is not a solution to either terrorism or child molestation.
As a sort of P.S. I'm in Australia. In the middle of the governments plan to introduce internet censorship, a man was arrested and charged with using the internet to access and publish child-abuse material for posting a video of a guy swinging his baby around. The clip was broadcast on TV in the USA. You'll notice I haven't linked to it but I'm sure you can find it. Just not in Australia, if our internet gets censored. We already have laws against murder and child molestation. Censorship doesn't help stop those things, it only helps us pretend it isn't happening.
I guess what I don't understand is why the government feels like it needs to censor what it's citizens see.
Are they afraid children are going to see inappropriate content? What ever happened to responsible parenting, then? There's plenty of COTS apps you can get to block your children from sites they shouldn't see. Why can't the government sponsor one of those, and distribute it for free to concerned parents? And mandate that public terminals install it? I'm not even a fan of that, but it's still better than a total ban at a national level...
It isn't about what's good for you, it's about control. There always seems to be a group of people who can't be happy unless they get to run other people's lives. Just yesterday I got an SMS from an old friend telling me (yes, telling, not suggesting) what to do to improve my life. Thankfully he is not in government so I can just ignore the message. When it comes to the parliament we are not so fortunate, if we ignore their meddling they back it up with government force.
You can see it in religion, you can see it in those who want to ban religion, there are those who want to control what you do in your bedroom, there are those who want to control what you do with your money. It would seem from historical observation that being put in a position of power can bring out this tendency even in those who did not seem to possess it before (Power corrupts...).
This is the reason that strong constitutional protection is needed, including and backed up by the right to keep and bear arms. While mass indoctrination of the population through compulsory schooling and employment rather than self-employment is still the norm, it is unlikely that even these measures will suffice. People are conditioned to do what they are told so patient people with access to the education system and the media can wear down opposition to just about anything given enough time.
Within 6 years of passing the second amendment it was used to attempt to throw of domestic oppression unsuccessfully.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion The Whiskey Rebellion, less commonly known as the Whiskey Insurrection, was a popular uprising that had its beginnings in 1791 and culminated in an insurrection in 1794...
The hated whiskey tax was repealed in 1803, having been largely unenforceable outside of Western Pennsylvania, and even there never having been collected with much success.
If you define success as overthrowing the government, then yes, they were unsuccessful. If you define success as achieving their goal of selling their whiskey without paying the whiskey tax then they were completely successful.
Since even your quote referred to Marxist theory, I'd say so. At this point, another Communist Manifesto quote is in order:
"It is high time that Communists should openly, in the
face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their
tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of
Communism with a Manifesto of the party itself.
To this end, Communists of various nationalities have
assembled in London, and sketched the following Manifesto...
It was intended to be the public declaration of what communism is. I don't see any reason to regard it differently now.
I don't think it is unreasonable to use the Communist Manifesto to answer the question "What is communism?".
That is like using On the Origin of Species to answer questions about evolution. Of course quote mining Creationists like to do just that since it weakens the argument, which is I suspect why you use Marx rather than contemporary communist theorists.
It's nothing like that at all. Communism is a political philosophy not a science. Evolutionary theory has changed in response to new evidence, as you would expect for any field of scientific endeavour. Coming up with a completely new and unrelated theory and calling it "evolution" would be fundamentally dishonest, as is coming up with new political theories and calling them "communism".
Redefining words to stifle opposing arguments is exactly the kind of behaviour to expect from people intent on destroying freedom of speech and human rights. I'm shocked to hear it from a communist, shocked I say!
Marx not a good enough source of information about communism? I doubt you'll manage to pull that one off very successfully. I suppose the rest of us have it all wrong and "communism" means "love"? Maybe I just need to be sent to a "re-education camp" to learn more about love. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?
Communism like capitalism is an economic model and it has nothing to do with freedom of speech, religion or human rights.
Communism as espoused by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto required the use of public education as an instrument of social control, the destruction of the traditional family and the destruction of traditional religion.
"There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice,
etc. that are common to all states of society. But Communism
abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all
morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis"
"The
Communists have not invented the intervention of society in
education; they do but seek to alter the character of that
intervention"
"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this
infamous proposal of the Communists."
I don't think it is unreasonable to use the Communist Manifesto to answer the question "What is communism?". The answer most definitely has everything to do with freedom of speech, religion and human rights.
As for your opinion on copyright terms, I must disagree, and I think that intellectual piracy had very little to do with American industrial power, but I'm not an expert on that part of American history.
You don't need to be an expert, cheap books (as a result of not paying royalties) made widespread education more available, ability to build patented industrial equipment without payment enabled industry. You can see the same in developed countries were copying software enables them to build their technological (and therefore productive) capabilities, once they get going MS and friends lobby to hit them up for multi-billion dollar payments. They let them use it virtually without protest first because if they had to pay up front they could never get their production happening using that technology. In any case, in the US it wasn't "intellectual piracy", it was the law. Those living in countries that don't sign international "IP" treaties have no individual moral obligation to abide by those treaties.
Second, I think you are undervaluing the impact of economics and the free market on availability of creative materials - it has far more impact than copyright terms do. But that's a different discussion, for a different time...
So hypothetically I can concede this point to you and we'll just abolish copyright laws as being of little value? They don't significantly increase production of works but simply give some people the ability to leverage payment from the public for no benefit to society? I'm not arguing this, just pointing out what seems to be the natural conclusion if you are correct. Copyright law places economic value on the production of many works that would otherwise have no economic incentive to be produced. Many of those works would not be produced at all if not for copyright laws in my opinion. By "available" I don't mean "is on the shelf at $259.95" for a work with $0 reproduction cost, I mean available to be used unrestricted, ie public domain.
here is a hypothetical: I am an artist. I spent most of my adult life poor, my family is also poor because of this.
You chose that life. Your wife chose you. If you have deliberately raised your children in poverty you deserve scorn, not sympathy. You are responsible to provide for your children. When you have them, you ought to consider giving up your passion to spend all your time doing things that don't pay. Do some work people want to pay for and have your art as a hobby or second business.
I know plenty of people that have a side business apart from their main occupation. Often it is because the business doesn't (yet) pay enough to support them. The rest of society is under no obligation to pay extra for their services to enable them to avoid doing work we do value enough to pay for. Same applies to your hypothetical artist.
Well, a lot of that argument depends on whether you feel that intellectual property can and should be left as a legacy for children and grandchildren. I'm of the opinion that it should, but then again, I also have a stake in that. Your mileage may vary, and certainly seems to.
I'm curious to know if you apply that to patents as well as copyright. In some cases, talking about "intellectual property" can make the discussion easier but many time it obfuscates the issue. In my opinion if patents were granted for the length of you suggest the cost of technology would skyrocket and technological progress would slow to a crawl. Should we really have to pay for the use of ideas developed in the late 1800s/early 1900s? I don't think so. On the other hand I can see no real problem with trademarks being perpetual or for a very long time. I take it we are really talking about copyrights, not the more broad "intellectual property"
I think Thomas Jefferson put it well: If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody... The exclusive right to invention [is] given not of natural right, but for the benefit of society." --Thomas Jefferson
I do not think your descendants would have any valid cause for complaint it copyright terms were 14 years. I do think that copyright is a social contract and that the benefits of that contract belong to the people who agree to abide by its terms ie: the people living now. If the primary benefit of that contract (works entering the public domain) does not benefit the people entering into it then it's not really a valid contract. Most of the works protected by copyright now will have zero or almost zero value to my great-great-grandchildren. Software will be hopelessly out of date, movies and music produced now will mainly be useful for historical studies. Long copyright terms strip the public of benefit and therefore invalidate the contract, we can not reasonably be said to have agreed to it. Current rates of copyright violation indicate that we don't.
The US became grew in industrial power (and had well educated citizens) because of not enforcing copyrights and patents from other countries (among other reasons). Ultimately your descendants would benefit far more from free access to other peoples works than by exclusive access to yours.
I still haven't figured out WHY Linux guys would want a bunch of Windows users on Linux
I don't know about others, but my reasons:
1) To make it worthwhile for hardware vendors to make their devices work easily. I don't buy hardware all that often but today for the first time I saw a pic of tux on a box in a store with "Linux compatible" on it, relevant kernel version on the back. Makes it a heap easier than taking notes from a HCL to the shop or taking notes in the shop then going home and checking the products for compatibility before going out and buying.
2) To make it less feasible for government agencies such as the tax office to make their software/services available to windows users only. For several years I've been running my countries tax software in wine, this year it was broken. Government should not be requiring me to purchase from a particular vendor to access online tax services, but I know they will not act on principle but only if the numbers are too large for them to ignore. Even the business registration site claims that firefox won't work (even though it does) and recommends IE or netscape. It gives a download link for netscape that gives a 404.
Doctors and other medical professionals are licensed, all medication sold has to pass government review ie: be licensed. What is it in particular about this treatment getting licensed that scares you more than the already existing licensing in the field of medicine?
My daughter got sent something like that from a cousin. The site asked for your email login and password for you to sign up. They then logged into you email and spammed your contact list, wash, rinse, repeat.
I didn't realise "assault rifle" is a contentious term. A quick wiki gave me this:"An assault rifle is a selective fire (automatic and semi-automatic) rifle or carbine firing ammunition with muzzle energies intermediate between those typical of pistol and high-powered rifle ammunition."
Yet the "assault weapons ban" dealt with an entirely different definition. If people would stick to one definition then ok, but to the media it sometimes seems that any semi auto version of a military rifle is an "assault weapon". When a flash suppressor and pistol grip define a rifle as an "assault weapon" then the term has ceased to be useful.
My biggest concern about protecting myself using a gun is that I'm probably not as good at using one as whoever has just entered my house, or is holding one to my head as I drive into my driveway.
Defensive firearm use usually happens at "across the room" distances or closer. The skill level required to hit your target is not difficult to attain. The key is situational awareness, becoming aware of any attack at the earliest moment. If you have a good awareness level you can probably avoid combat in many cases anyway, so it's well worth your while whether you are armed or not.
The other guy is surely going to be quicker on the trigger. And I reckon I'm more likely to get out of a tricky situation by giving them the car or the TV than by shooting my way out.
That's a judgement call you can still make if you are armed. I hope you don't pay with your life for making that call before you needed to. Choosing to be unarmed is just giving you less options should the worst happen.
I also think that if every civilian chose, instead of using their vote, to use their handguns and shotguns instead, to take on an invasive, non-representative government, they would not get far.
It's not for instead of their vote, it's for if the government refused to comply with the vote. As for not getting far, warthogs and all, if there was a civilian uprising in the US the military (if they all took the governments side) would be outnumbered by approximately 150 to 1. Unless you think the US military stands ready to carpet bomb or nuke US cities it is unlikely that the US government would be able to resist such an uprising and still have a country left to run.
Social equality exists in countries where citizens do not have RKBA, so RKBA is not the only way.
Give it time. Within living memory most of Europe was under communist or fascist rule.
Although the right to bear arms may be used to secure that capacity, with the advances in military technology achieved since the Second Amendment was codified, not accessible to civilians, I don't think the Second Amendment secures that capacity any more.
There are a number of things you are probably not taking into account in that assessment. The source of US military personnel is the US civilian population, making them less willing to war on the US people than the people of another country. The US population is the source of supplies to the US military. It is much more difficult to secure supply lines if those supplies originate from the people you are fighting against. The unwillingness of the US military to take extreme measures against US civilians, like bombing cities and infrastructure etc. The nature of irregular warfare. The fact that you can't hold territory without infantry on the ground and the 150:1 ratio in favor of the civilians.
An invasion of a country with the civilian population armed with rifles could be done. Occupation would be pretty much impossible.
Or should one rather keep assault rifles in the home?
1. Personally I prefer a shotgun for home defence.
2. "Assault rifle" is an ambiguous term generally used for propaganda purposes. It is impossible for me to know what you mean as I don't know how you are defining the term. It is my opinion that the ballistics of rifle fire make rifles generally unsuitable for home defence regardless of whether they are considered an assault rifle or not, possible exceptions being in rural areas. For the purpose of having a militia, which is a separate issue, I would favor private ownership of rifles probably considered by many to be "assault rifles" although I find the term meaningless.
Are those laws reasonable? If so, why do they differ?
Being reasonable does not guarantee identical opinion. Opinions are shaped by what people value as well as reason. I have not done a thorough study to see what laws I find reasonable and which I don't. It's a meaningless question because it's impossible to answer in the context of a/. post. I would have to catalogue every state firearms law and give an opinion on it. Please try to ask questions that can be reasonably answered, wording your questions using meaningful terms.
blah blah... *average* attacker... blah blah + link to statistics
That page is obviously put together by someone with an anti-gun agenda. For instance, it lists "suicide rate" separately to "gun suicide rate" and "homicide rate" separately to "gun homicide rate". If you lose a loved one to suicide or murder I doubt you would gain any comfort from the fact that a weapon other than a firearm was used. It also doesn't account for differences in the way homicide statistics are compiled in different countries or that historically the US has had a higher murder rate than England, for example, even in times when gun ownership was widespread in England, indicating that other factors that firearms laws are more influential on homicide rates.
In any case it is not about what is safer, it is about who is in charge. If the government can disarm the population, you do not have a "government of the people, by the people, for the people". Historically the ruling class controls the use of arms. If you want equality in society, RKBA is the only way.
I completely agree that if you know one system, you can figure out another. But that's the thing...you have to figure it out.
When I showed my mother my linux box, I said "You click that for the web browser, click that for email, click that for writing documents" opening each one to show her. Her response "It's exactly the same as windows!".
Ok, so maybe she is a little below the knowledge of "average computer user" but from my experience working in a computer store catering to the general public, maybe not. My guess is that there is a group of least knowledgeable people to whom it makes no difference what operating system they use because they need it set up, maintained and repaired for them anyway, and must be told what icon to click on to do the tasks they require. A second group of slightly more knowledgeable people who can find their way around windows to an extent that leaves them befuddled when faced with Linux because of the differences, then a third group who have enough understanding to become familiar with any OS they choose to use and the ability to make that choice on feature/benefit rather than fear/propaganda.
I think the "least knowledgeable" first group is the largest and can be most easily migrated to linux by targeting the third group on whom the first group depends. Which is pretty much happening, slowly.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you missed my point. The whole intent of the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is to illustrate the evil that can be done by people who intend good but are ignorant of the possible negative consequences.
If you want to pretend that Martin is "ignorant" of the possible negative consequences,
I didn't miss your point, neither do I think his intentions are good. However I point out your use of the word "aside":
"Aside from the contradiction (which I do not think you intended), I say that the idea that it was well-intentioned is giving Martin and friends far too much benefit of doubt."
I don't think I was unreasonable to take the "contradiction" statement as a separate point to the goodness or otherwise of Martin and friends intentions. To clarify, it is my opinion that (1) there is no contradiction between having good intentions and doing evil and (2) there is no evidence of good intentions in this case.
then I have a bridge I would like to sell that you might be interested in buying. It's a good investment. Really.
I'm only in the market for bridges that repel vampires. How many vampires are on your bridge?
you say yourself that interfering with content is "evil", then you say that the concept was well-intentioned.
Aside from the contradiction (which I do not think you intended)
You might have heard the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
Good intentions and evil are not mutually exclusive. There is no contradiction there.
If you're a holy roller bent on extinguishing any glimpse of human genitalia from public view, then maybe you might want to consider who designed the human body to excrete waste fluids and eliminate waste. Blame God, if you think it's so evil.
They might have an issue with Isaiah as well, since he went naked for three years. It's in Isaiah 20. The bible says he was commanded by God to do it as part of his preaching message. I'm quite sure he didn't even hide behind a bush for those years and it is pretty much inconceivable that no children would have seen him.
May I suggest you tell both ATI and the manufacturer you would otherwise have chosen the reason for your purchasing decision.
This is one of the things I don't understand about America and Americans. My understanding is that your Constitution includes the Right to bear arms so you can rise up against an oppressive or corrupt government.
The 2nd amendment prevents the government from taking the right to the ability to rise up, it does not imply that the government must tolerate armed insurrection. Those who bear arms against the government have placed themselves outside the rule of that government and become an enemy. If they prevail and form a new government they will presumably not have themselves punished. If they do not prevail they will either be killed as an enemy or forcibly brought back under the rule of the government through the courts and prison system.
So you have the right to keep and bear arms but waging war on the government is only legal if you win. LEVIATHAN by Thomas Hobbes gives an explanation of unalienable rights under the title "Not All Rights Are Alienable" which would probably help your understanding of this. It is available at Project Gutenberg you can search for the title without the quotation marks. It's worth reading the whole book though.
Surely you have enough people with guns to force the issue.
From the Declaration of Independence: Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Have a read of the list of things they put up with before the Declaration of Independence was made (the list is in the Declaration, also at Project Gutenberg).
The copyright problem is likely transient, ie temporary. The people who have been voted out will leave office. Things can still be dealt with in court and through other legal means. The situation isn't so bad that it is worth the suffering a civil war would cause. Having guns doesn't mean you give up easily on peaceful methods.
I appreciate your educating me though, I am grateful there are people who can argue and be intelligent at the same time.
I've got a lot of info and references to info from /. too, glad to pass it on.
Since you are obviously well read in this area I would like to know more of your thoughts (if you don't mind):
I don't mind but I'm not really well read regarding communism. I've thought about it quite a bit over the last few years of observing western society and I've noticed that people parrot things like "communism works on paper" without ever reading about it. I consider The Communist Manifesto to be the defining statement of what communism is because Marx intended it to be exactly that. It is required reading for anyone to comment intelligently on communism IMO.
What do you think of his idea that there should be no government just a democracy of people?
Is such a thing even feasible under any philosophical doctrine?
Completely unworkable in large groups, no.
If there is no enforcing of some form of property law, it becomes more efficient to plunder neighbours than to produce. Some people may refrain from doing so, but pretty much every tribal society I know of has warred with neighbouring tribes for plunder. I've lived my whole life until now without having a battle to the death over food or women. I like that. You could have more decentralised government, more power in local communities, but not no government. It would require a radical change in human nature that I don't think can be brought about by a political system. There is no utopia.
Do you think any his points were valid? If so, could they be incorporated into Western philosophy?
Some of his complaints against the effects of industrialisation were valid, his solutions were to make things worse, IMO. The exploitation of people as resources, the destruction of family ties, the formation of permanent social classes. We have the ideal that anyone could rise to any position in society but the reality is that there are significant obstacles to that. He was quite right that people should own the means of production but then wanted to abolish the private property system by which people can own the means of production.
I'm still working on what I consider the ideal protection against generational poverty. The internet goes a long way to making education accessible without government schooling, I consider a good resource good public domain or freely copyable and modifiable textbooks to be a necessity.
Visitors just arrived, I'm willing to continue discussion later.
Since I read it, I must point out your arguments are very much taken out of context.
I didn't try to hide the context, linking to an easily searchable text. I will attempt to elaborate on the context as I understood it:
And yet the historical experience of communism abounds with religious persecution, so much that it is a defining characteristic. His argument appears to be not that communism won't abolish religion but that religion is a "class antagonism" that must be abolished, that is he justifies the abolishment of religion rather than denies it.
I thought the quote "The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education" adequately covered that. Indeed since freedom of religion has become widespread all statists have sought to replace it with another method of public indoctrination, compulsory schooling being the most prevalent. I agree that western education is very in line with the communist manifesto, something that in no way validates communism but should instead cause us to seriously question our chosen method of education and who it is really designed to benefit. I recommend investigating the work of John Taylor Gatto, starting with The Six Lesson Schoolteacher. There's a collection of quotes from his essays here: http://www.noogenesis.com/game_theory/Gatto/Gatto.html. One of his books is available online and audio files of his speeches also, both are linked from the wikipedia article. I've heard it said "It's hard to agree with everything he says, but it's hard to ignore what he says".
Most of the evils of communism are not exclusive to communism. The differences between the various forms of totalitarianism are minor compared to their similarities. Indeed the evils of totalitarianism could be said to be good things that are taken to extremes. I'm not an anarchist, I think it's a good thing to have a government. Just not an all controlling one, yet they all seem to have the tendency to grow into that role.
The context was the 2nd amendment. In this case the American Government got a bigger army together then the revolutionary army and put down the insurrection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_rebellion
"The rebels "could never be found," according to Jefferson, but the militia expended considerable effort rounding up 20 prisoners, clearly demonstrating Federalist authority in the national government."
Doesn't sound like much of a crushing defeat to me. It's not as if they were slaughtered in battle, more like a well executed guerilla action, fire a few shots and disappear. They achieved their goal, the government saved face.
I'm a firm believer that the populace is better of just sitting down and saying fuck you then pulling out the arms and shooting.
Agreed, it only works with certain governments though. In my country right now, that's how I'd handle it but there have been an abundance of governments under whom such an action would be suicide.
He is proposing to restrict things like beheading videos. Do you support terrorists' "rights" to kidnap people and post videos online of their brutal murders? Yes? Then you are a sick person. No? Then you support censorship.
That is a false dichotomy. Terrorists who kidnap and murder people have no regard for laws in my country about whether or not I can watch the video of it. I don't support changing the law to allow kidnapping and murder. I do claim the right to see those videos if I wish. I don't have any desire to watch them over and over but I do find them informative about the kind of people who oppose us and what is going on in other countries.
A friend of mine sent me some pictures of jihad that was going on in her country at the time. She was showing me what was happening to her people, it was very distressing for her. The photos she sent were substantially the same as the ones sent out by the terrorists but for a very different reason. Should she be censored? Unequivocally no! Her right to free speech and appeal for help outweigh any consideration about terrorists.
Banning videos is not a solution to either terrorism or child molestation.
As a sort of P.S. I'm in Australia. In the middle of the governments plan to introduce internet censorship, a man was arrested and charged with using the internet to access and publish child-abuse material for posting a video of a guy swinging his baby around. The clip was broadcast on TV in the USA. You'll notice I haven't linked to it but I'm sure you can find it. Just not in Australia, if our internet gets censored. We already have laws against murder and child molestation. Censorship doesn't help stop those things, it only helps us pretend it isn't happening.
I guess what I don't understand is why the government feels like it needs to censor what it's citizens see.
Are they afraid children are going to see inappropriate content? What ever happened to responsible parenting, then? There's plenty of COTS apps you can get to block your children from sites they shouldn't see. Why can't the government sponsor one of those, and distribute it for free to concerned parents? And mandate that public terminals install it? I'm not even a fan of that, but it's still better than a total ban at a national level...
It isn't about what's good for you, it's about control. There always seems to be a group of people who can't be happy unless they get to run other people's lives. Just yesterday I got an SMS from an old friend telling me (yes, telling, not suggesting) what to do to improve my life. Thankfully he is not in government so I can just ignore the message. When it comes to the parliament we are not so fortunate, if we ignore their meddling they back it up with government force.
...).
You can see it in religion, you can see it in those who want to ban religion, there are those who want to control what you do in your bedroom, there are those who want to control what you do with your money. It would seem from historical observation that being put in a position of power can bring out this tendency even in those who did not seem to possess it before (Power corrupts
This is the reason that strong constitutional protection is needed, including and backed up by the right to keep and bear arms. While mass indoctrination of the population through compulsory schooling and employment rather than self-employment is still the norm, it is unlikely that even these measures will suffice. People are conditioned to do what they are told so patient people with access to the education system and the media can wear down opposition to just about anything given enough time.
Within 6 years of passing the second amendment it was used to attempt to throw of domestic oppression unsuccessfully.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion ...
The Whiskey Rebellion, less commonly known as the Whiskey Insurrection, was a popular uprising that had its beginnings in 1791 and culminated in an insurrection in 1794
The hated whiskey tax was repealed in 1803, having been largely unenforceable outside of Western Pennsylvania, and even there never having been collected with much success.
If you define success as overthrowing the government, then yes, they were unsuccessful. If you define success as achieving their goal of selling their whiskey without paying the whiskey tax then they were completely successful.
I will concede that you have a point though.
Since even your quote referred to Marxist theory, I'd say so. At this point, another Communist Manifesto quote is in order:
...
"It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a Manifesto of the party itself.
To this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London, and sketched the following Manifesto
It was intended to be the public declaration of what communism is. I don't see any reason to regard it differently now.
It's nothing like that at all. Communism is a political philosophy not a science. Evolutionary theory has changed in response to new evidence, as you would expect for any field of scientific endeavour. Coming up with a completely new and unrelated theory and calling it "evolution" would be fundamentally dishonest, as is coming up with new political theories and calling them "communism".
Redefining words to stifle opposing arguments is exactly the kind of behaviour to expect from people intent on destroying freedom of speech and human rights. I'm shocked to hear it from a communist, shocked I say!
Marx not a good enough source of information about communism? I doubt you'll manage to pull that one off very successfully. I suppose the rest of us have it all wrong and "communism" means "love"? Maybe I just need to be sent to a "re-education camp" to learn more about love. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?
Communism like capitalism is an economic model and it has nothing to do with freedom of speech, religion or human rights.
Communism as espoused by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto required the use of public education as an instrument of social control, the destruction of the traditional family and the destruction of traditional religion.
"There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc. that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis"
"The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention"
"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists."
There is of course some context to these quotes, which you can check out for yourself - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61/61.txt
I don't think it is unreasonable to use the Communist Manifesto to answer the question "What is communism?". The answer most definitely has everything to do with freedom of speech, religion and human rights.
As for your opinion on copyright terms, I must disagree, and I think that intellectual piracy had very little to do with American industrial power, but I'm not an expert on that part of American history.
You don't need to be an expert, cheap books (as a result of not paying royalties) made widespread education more available, ability to build patented industrial equipment without payment enabled industry. You can see the same in developed countries were copying software enables them to build their technological (and therefore productive) capabilities, once they get going MS and friends lobby to hit them up for multi-billion dollar payments. They let them use it virtually without protest first because if they had to pay up front they could never get their production happening using that technology. In any case, in the US it wasn't "intellectual piracy", it was the law. Those living in countries that don't sign international "IP" treaties have no individual moral obligation to abide by those treaties.
Second, I think you are undervaluing the impact of economics and the free market on availability of creative materials - it has far more impact than copyright terms do. But that's a different discussion, for a different time...
So hypothetically I can concede this point to you and we'll just abolish copyright laws as being of little value? They don't significantly increase production of works but simply give some people the ability to leverage payment from the public for no benefit to society? I'm not arguing this, just pointing out what seems to be the natural conclusion if you are correct. Copyright law places economic value on the production of many works that would otherwise have no economic incentive to be produced. Many of those works would not be produced at all if not for copyright laws in my opinion. By "available" I don't mean "is on the shelf at $259.95" for a work with $0 reproduction cost, I mean available to be used unrestricted, ie public domain.
here is a hypothetical: I am an artist. I spent most of my adult life poor, my family is also poor because of this.
You chose that life. Your wife chose you. If you have deliberately raised your children in poverty you deserve scorn, not sympathy. You are responsible to provide for your children. When you have them, you ought to consider giving up your passion to spend all your time doing things that don't pay. Do some work people want to pay for and have your art as a hobby or second business.
I know plenty of people that have a side business apart from their main occupation. Often it is because the business doesn't (yet) pay enough to support them. The rest of society is under no obligation to pay extra for their services to enable them to avoid doing work we do value enough to pay for. Same applies to your hypothetical artist.
Well, a lot of that argument depends on whether you feel that intellectual property can and should be left as a legacy for children and grandchildren. I'm of the opinion that it should, but then again, I also have a stake in that. Your mileage may vary, and certainly seems to.
I'm curious to know if you apply that to patents as well as copyright. In some cases, talking about "intellectual property" can make the discussion easier but many time it obfuscates the issue. In my opinion if patents were granted for the length of you suggest the cost of technology would skyrocket and technological progress would slow to a crawl. Should we really have to pay for the use of ideas developed in the late 1800s/early 1900s? I don't think so. On the other hand I can see no real problem with trademarks being perpetual or for a very long time. I take it we are really talking about copyrights, not the more broad "intellectual property"
I think Thomas Jefferson put it well:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody... The exclusive right to invention [is] given not of natural right, but for the benefit of society." --Thomas Jefferson
I do not think your descendants would have any valid cause for complaint it copyright terms were 14 years. I do think that copyright is a social contract and that the benefits of that contract belong to the people who agree to abide by its terms ie: the people living now. If the primary benefit of that contract (works entering the public domain) does not benefit the people entering into it then it's not really a valid contract. Most of the works protected by copyright now will have zero or almost zero value to my great-great-grandchildren. Software will be hopelessly out of date, movies and music produced now will mainly be useful for historical studies. Long copyright terms strip the public of benefit and therefore invalidate the contract, we can not reasonably be said to have agreed to it. Current rates of copyright violation indicate that we don't.
The US became grew in industrial power (and had well educated citizens) because of not enforcing copyrights and patents from other countries (among other reasons). Ultimately your descendants would benefit far more from free access to other peoples works than by exclusive access to yours.
I still haven't figured out WHY Linux guys would want a bunch of Windows users on Linux
I don't know about others, but my reasons:
1) To make it worthwhile for hardware vendors to make their devices work easily. I don't buy hardware all that often but today for the first time I saw a pic of tux on a box in a store with "Linux compatible" on it, relevant kernel version on the back. Makes it a heap easier than taking notes from a HCL to the shop or taking notes in the shop then going home and checking the products for compatibility before going out and buying.
2) To make it less feasible for government agencies such as the tax office to make their software/services available to windows users only. For several years I've been running my countries tax software in wine, this year it was broken. Government should not be requiring me to purchase from a particular vendor to access online tax services, but I know they will not act on principle but only if the numbers are too large for them to ignore. Even the business registration site claims that firefox won't work (even though it does) and recommends IE or netscape. It gives a download link for netscape that gives a 404.
Doctors and other medical professionals are licensed, all medication sold has to pass government review ie: be licensed. What is it in particular about this treatment getting licensed that scares you more than the already existing licensing in the field of medicine?
Yes, Fiel sharing must be stopped, it supports terrorism!
Regarding your sig: duly enjoyed.
My daughter got sent something like that from a cousin. The site asked for your email login and password for you to sign up. They then logged into you email and spammed your contact list, wash, rinse, repeat.
Google makes money by putting ads in front of you - hardly somehting to love them for.
They put ads in front of you by providing good quality free services/products, hardly something to hate them for.
I didn't realise "assault rifle" is a contentious term. A quick wiki gave me this:"An assault rifle is a selective fire (automatic and semi-automatic) rifle or carbine firing ammunition with muzzle energies intermediate between those typical of pistol and high-powered rifle ammunition."
Yet the "assault weapons ban" dealt with an entirely different definition. If people would stick to one definition then ok, but to the media it sometimes seems that any semi auto version of a military rifle is an "assault weapon". When a flash suppressor and pistol grip define a rifle as an "assault weapon" then the term has ceased to be useful.
My biggest concern about protecting myself using a gun is that I'm probably not as good at using one as whoever has just entered my house, or is holding one to my head as I drive into my driveway.
Defensive firearm use usually happens at "across the room" distances or closer. The skill level required to hit your target is not difficult to attain. The key is situational awareness, becoming aware of any attack at the earliest moment. If you have a good awareness level you can probably avoid combat in many cases anyway, so it's well worth your while whether you are armed or not.
The other guy is surely going to be quicker on the trigger. And I reckon I'm more likely to get out of a tricky situation by giving them the car or the TV than by shooting my way out.
That's a judgement call you can still make if you are armed. I hope you don't pay with your life for making that call before you needed to. Choosing to be unarmed is just giving you less options should the worst happen.
I also think that if every civilian chose, instead of using their vote, to use their handguns and shotguns instead, to take on an invasive, non-representative government, they would not get far.
It's not for instead of their vote, it's for if the government refused to comply with the vote. As for not getting far, warthogs and all, if there was a civilian uprising in the US the military (if they all took the governments side) would be outnumbered by approximately 150 to 1. Unless you think the US military stands ready to carpet bomb or nuke US cities it is unlikely that the US government would be able to resist such an uprising and still have a country left to run.
Social equality exists in countries where citizens do not have RKBA, so RKBA is not the only way.
Give it time. Within living memory most of Europe was under communist or fascist rule.
Although the right to bear arms may be used to secure that capacity, with the advances in military technology achieved since the Second Amendment was codified, not accessible to civilians, I don't think the Second Amendment secures that capacity any more.
There are a number of things you are probably not taking into account in that assessment. The source of US military personnel is the US civilian population, making them less willing to war on the US people than the people of another country. The US population is the source of supplies to the US military. It is much more difficult to secure supply lines if those supplies originate from the people you are fighting against. The unwillingness of the US military to take extreme measures against US civilians, like bombing cities and infrastructure etc. The nature of irregular warfare. The fact that you can't hold territory without infantry on the ground and the 150:1 ratio in favor of the civilians.
An invasion of a country with the civilian population armed with rifles could be done. Occupation would be pretty much impossible.
Or should one rather keep assault rifles in the home?
1. Personally I prefer a shotgun for home defence.
2. "Assault rifle" is an ambiguous term generally used for propaganda purposes. It is impossible for me to know what you mean as I don't know how you are defining the term. It is my opinion that the ballistics of rifle fire make rifles generally unsuitable for home defence regardless of whether they are considered an assault rifle or not, possible exceptions being in rural areas. For the purpose of having a militia, which is a separate issue, I would favor private ownership of rifles probably considered by many to be "assault rifles" although I find the term meaningless.
Are those laws reasonable? If so, why do they differ?
Being reasonable does not guarantee identical opinion. Opinions are shaped by what people value as well as reason. I have not done a thorough study to see what laws I find reasonable and which I don't. It's a meaningless question because it's impossible to answer in the context of a /. post. I would have to catalogue every state firearms law and give an opinion on it. Please try to ask questions that can be reasonably answered, wording your questions using meaningful terms.
blah blah ... *average* attacker ... blah blah + link to statistics
That page is obviously put together by someone with an anti-gun agenda. For instance, it lists "suicide rate" separately to "gun suicide rate" and "homicide rate" separately to "gun homicide rate". If you lose a loved one to suicide or murder I doubt you would gain any comfort from the fact that a weapon other than a firearm was used. It also doesn't account for differences in the way homicide statistics are compiled in different countries or that historically the US has had a higher murder rate than England, for example, even in times when gun ownership was widespread in England, indicating that other factors that firearms laws are more influential on homicide rates.
In any case it is not about what is safer, it is about who is in charge. If the government can disarm the population, you do not have a "government of the people, by the people, for the people". Historically the ruling class controls the use of arms. If you want equality in society, RKBA is the only way.
I completely agree that if you know one system, you can figure out another. But that's the thing...you have to figure it out.
When I showed my mother my linux box, I said "You click that for the web browser, click that for email, click that for writing documents" opening each one to show her. Her response "It's exactly the same as windows!".
Ok, so maybe she is a little below the knowledge of "average computer user" but from my experience working in a computer store catering to the general public, maybe not. My guess is that there is a group of least knowledgeable people to whom it makes no difference what operating system they use because they need it set up, maintained and repaired for them anyway, and must be told what icon to click on to do the tasks they require. A second group of slightly more knowledgeable people who can find their way around windows to an extent that leaves them befuddled when faced with Linux because of the differences, then a third group who have enough understanding to become familiar with any OS they choose to use and the ability to make that choice on feature/benefit rather than fear/propaganda.
I think the "least knowledgeable" first group is the largest and can be most easily migrated to linux by targeting the third group on whom the first group depends. Which is pretty much happening, slowly.