Is this one of the human rights? As far as I know, no nation in the world allows you self-defense against the state (also known as cop-killing).
If the state itself has become oppressive then what it says you can or can't do is probably not considered relevant by you, ie: if you are planning to overthrow the government, if you are successful you don't need them to approve, if you fail you are probably dead. At the moment you take up arms against the government you have given up (at least temporarily) the expectation of legal recourse as a solution to your problem.
Another thing is that the state does not decide your innocence or guilt, a jury does. Check out the Eureka Stockade for an example. Citizens bore arms against the government, were comprehensively defeated, acquitted at trial and had most of their grievances addresses by the time a year was out. The right to bear arms doesn't necessarily mean a pitched battle to the death with government forces, and there is significant historical precedent for this in the Magna Carta for example, whose proponents did not kill or depose the king.
No, you aren't getting it. Banks create money as loans which is released into the economy. If you or I did this it would be called counterfeiting, but because of laws regarding banking you and I are compelled to accept this bank created money as payment. I don't care what system of pretend money they come up with so long as I'm not compelled to go along with it.
It has no value outside of a system of government compulsion. That's the real point being made here, because people are blaming this on a failure of free market capitalism and it isn't. Maybe you like the system, maybe it really is great and I don't understand it properly, I can accept that possibility. It is not, however, free market capitalism and any attempt to blame the current financial problems on the free market indicates either a lack of understanding or an agenda. Laws against fraud and theft are in no way the same as laws compelling the acceptance of bank created "thin air" money.
How many different events have to be "solved" by a centralisation of power before you stop blindly accepting it and become a little bit suspicious.
Gold was too soft to be useful for anything. Now we use it as a conductor, but for the most part it is still useless.
And jewellery. If you don't know what jewellery is useful for, you're not thinking hard enough. If you don't think that has value, you're a bit unusual.
:)
I think you're conflating fractional reserve lending with the money multiplier effect.
No, he's right. If they were loaning out the money on deposit, your available balance would have to go down in your savings account when someone got a loan. Only fixed term deposits would be possible in practice. Even if they are only loaning a portion, say $80 after a $100 deposit, there is then $180. Where did the other $80 come from? The government didn't print it, they only printed the $100, yet there we have $180. The $80 is directly created by the bank and that's before the money multiplier effect kicks in. Now I don't mind that as a private agreement between people, but when it's injected into the economy as currency with equal standing to legal tender is the problem.
Fractional reserve banking is libertarian, it existed before the state passed laws allowing it.
Not as equivalent to legal tender. You have a choice whether or not to accept private bank notes. If people are aware of it and there's no coercion that's ok. That's not the case now.
The Europeans can talk about that because we all know that your own governments killing millions of their own citizens doesn't count. 100 million or so last century wasn't it? What's that? Happening again? Tut tut! You need some help stopping it? No, no, you'll be fine. You'll sort it out yourselves no doubt, probably won't even kill anyone, peaceful civilized chaps that you are.
Yeah I know, it isn't really happening right now, but history indicates we won't have to wait long.
But you do have too much belief in money, and I hope this beats it out of you.
There is no real money in the US economy. Real money as defined in the US Constitution is gold or silver. The problem here isn't Libertarian belief in money, it's that Libertarian money (legal US money, gold and silver) isn't being used.
It's hardly surprising when a financial system without any money collapses. Why people think that's a failure of the free market escapes me. Rational people don't have confidence in pretend money. When you have people confident in the value of pretend money, that's a failure of the free market to evaluate that currency, but that false evaluation is entirely caused by government regulation, ie the government enforcement of payment of debts with fiat currency.
And legalised fractional reserve lending creates a fiat currency system, even with an ostensibly gold backed currency.
In an unregulated market fractional reserve lending should be prosecuted as fraud. It is fractional reserve lending that is the root cause of the collapse in the money supply. This is entirely due to government regulation. Fiat money precludes the possibility of a free market and even with an ostensibly gold backed currency is in reality a fiat currency if the government allows fractional reserve lending.
As I've said before, I'm not against people financing the operations of others for profit, but they shouldn't be allowed to inject fictional currency into the money supply to do so. Only with government interference in the market or criminal activity is this possible.
Do you think the corruption of individual policemen is the same as the justice system itself condoning murder?
So those policemen are in prison or the murder they committed has been condoned by the justice system?
Oh and by the way, people give up the right to personal revenge in return for the state exacting it on their behalf, hopefully impartially and proportionately. Among peaceable people you can give up revenge entirely, but the violent are only kept in check by superior force and the threat of retaliation.
I know it isn't exactly the same, but every government exercises lethal force. And police officers have killed innocent people in the "line of duty" even unarmed people, as stated in the story I linked to, UK police shot an unarmed man 7 times in the head. That's an execution. So, in my view, since the UK government kills people without trial they've got no business criticizing countries that kill people after a trial. They are not more just or civilised, it's hypocritical.
We just change how we go about it and who we apply it to. Afghanistan citizens rather than our own, for example. Criticising countries that have the death penalty is hypocritical, especially when there are people that want it restored anyway.
I'd rather get rid of prison terms for all non-violent offences which overall I see as a far larger problem than the death penalty. Not to the individual obviously, but to society.
Hey, as a condition of your military alliances and free trade agreements, why don't you require foreign governments implement the bill of rights instead of the DMCA. I mean it, contact your congressman about this please.
In the meantime, I'm doing a study on US oppression, specifically on the different ways the US oppresses its own citizens compared to citizens of other countries. If you could help me get US citizenship so I can further my studies, I'd be grateful. I'm willing to suffer this oppression, since it's for the cause of science and all that, you see.
The real question is: is it going to get that bad ? Was the great depression even "that bad" or are the stories of stock traders jumping out of windows greatly exaggerated ?
I'm having trouble parsing that, are you saying that stock traders jumping out of windows is a bad thing?
My wife's grandfather insists it was a great time to be alive (the depression). This is a guy who lost his drivers license in his 90s and started getting his grocery shopping on push bike, resisting offers of lifts. Maybe just a tad more independent than most.
And people don't always become more selfish in hard times, sometimes the only way to survive is to cooperate.
How hard is it to work out that the software distributed in a manner that it benefits people (customers) will eventually gain dominance over software that is distributed in a manner that restricts customers for the benefit of the distributor?
This is why BSD-style licensing will eventually take over the world, after proprietary licensing dies off and causes the GPL and friends to lose steam.;)
Which is more useful to you as a developer? Code that demands to only be used with other code under the exact same style of mandated freedom, or code that can be used for anything (but you know that if you don't share, your potential customers will ignore you)?
BSD gives you the freedom to release proprietary software based on others work, so that is attractive to the developer (next generation of distributor) but immediately that is done the effect on the customer is the same as any proprietary software. The only freedom BSD license gives is to allow the distributor able to make the software less beneficial to the customer than GPL'd software.
The flip side is, how can you make money giving stuff away for free without control of its distribution?
Merchandising. Kids movies could still make money that way at least, also bands selling t-shirts etc.
Advertising embedded or incorporated, like tobacco companies used to ensure movie heros smoked.
Using the electronically distributable to promote the sale of physical copies, like baen books.
To the nitwits out there: I am not claiming that these are the only way people should be able to make money, I'm just answering a question.
My experience was quite different. My first computer was a second hand box with 95 on it. I was a tinkerer, didn't know anything about anything (malware etc) but you can bet I learned how to reinstall windows 95. When I first installed linux I would dual boot because I couldn't get everything working. After time I got my linux partition doing everything I needed but I was still messing up my windows install. I just stopped reinstalling it. My tinkering just never seemed to render my linux installs unusable. It's good as a home desktop OS and has been for years, depending on who you are.
Here is a situation where potentially thousands of people in the industry are going to be laid off because of this economic downturn, and all he can mention is how great it's going to be for OSS. I mean, I see his point and it may be a valid one, but he could be a little less gung-ho about it.
Maybe he's hoping to hire some of those laid off workers. I do see your point though, I warned a relative about debt levels, houses, etc. Now I'm keeping really quiet about it. It's a really hard situation for people who didn't know how to evaluate the situation and went with what seemed like good advice because it was popular, only to be stung.
That said, it has seemed obvious to me since reading the GPLv2 and seeing RedHat 7 where this thing (OSS) was going, and I've always been a bit surprised that most people don't see it too. Proprietary licences are designed to benefit the business, GPL is designed to benefit the user (and the users they distribute to, in perpetuity).
How hard is it to work out that the software distributed in a manner that it benefits people (customers) will eventually gain dominance over software that is distributed in a manner that restricts customers for the benefit of the distributor? It is very unlikely that any other consideration will outweigh that in the long run although they often do in the short term. Tough economic times require purchases to be evaluated more thoroughly, so yes it is likely to benefit OSS.
Likewise, how hard is it to figure out that if you allow corporations to produce the money supply out of thin air as loans that you are headed for financial collapse? Tighter regulation can do nothing to prevent the collapse of a financial system based on money that isn't worth anything.
Not [citation needed] that it happens, [citation needed] that it wouldn't happen with a world government. That's the way I read it anyway, I was thinking of making a similar challenge to your idea.
While I'm here, the world government controlled education is incompatible with freedom, both in your first point. How can you be free if a government agent tells you how to think? For the same reason we need freedom of religion we need freedom of education, in my opinion. That means not government controlled, and ultimately that means not government funded. The closest I would come to government schooling is government provided public domain textbooks available (not compulsory). Perhaps compulsory education for convicted criminals, preferably as part of a program replacing prison for non-violent offenders.
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. I'm sure you can find the source for this quote yourself.
Yes, well, Thomas Jefferson had a very different take on that.
Apparently you didn't locate the source. It's the Declaration of Independence, by Thomas Jefferson. The founders tolerated some rather severe abuse and exhausted every reasonable avenue for peaceful resolution before taking up arms. What's the percentage of voter turnout you expect for the next election? What's the chance of a jury finding you not guilty if you break an unjust law? If you can't find enough people to get you off the governments hook in a jury trial don't bother even thinking about a revolution.
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Is this one of the human rights? As far as I know, no nation in the world allows you self-defense against the state (also known as cop-killing).
If the state itself has become oppressive then what it says you can or can't do is probably not considered relevant by you, ie: if you are planning to overthrow the government, if you are successful you don't need them to approve, if you fail you are probably dead. At the moment you take up arms against the government you have given up (at least temporarily) the expectation of legal recourse as a solution to your problem.
Another thing is that the state does not decide your innocence or guilt, a jury does. Check out the Eureka Stockade for an example. Citizens bore arms against the government, were comprehensively defeated, acquitted at trial and had most of their grievances addresses by the time a year was out. The right to bear arms doesn't necessarily mean a pitched battle to the death with government forces, and there is significant historical precedent for this in the Magna Carta for example, whose proponents did not kill or depose the king.
No, you aren't getting it. Banks create money as loans which is released into the economy. If you or I did this it would be called counterfeiting, but because of laws regarding banking you and I are compelled to accept this bank created money as payment. I don't care what system of pretend money they come up with so long as I'm not compelled to go along with it.
It has no value outside of a system of government compulsion. That's the real point being made here, because people are blaming this on a failure of free market capitalism and it isn't. Maybe you like the system, maybe it really is great and I don't understand it properly, I can accept that possibility. It is not, however, free market capitalism and any attempt to blame the current financial problems on the free market indicates either a lack of understanding or an agenda. Laws against fraud and theft are in no way the same as laws compelling the acceptance of bank created "thin air" money.
How many different events have to be "solved" by a centralisation of power before you stop blindly accepting it and become a little bit suspicious.
No... without any lending regulations, there would be *no laws* to dictate that fractional reserve lending is fraud
Libertarianism is not anarchy. The rule of law is not in conflict with a free market, most people would regard it as a prerequisite.
Gold was too soft to be useful for anything. Now we use it as a conductor, but for the most part it is still useless.
And jewellery. If you don't know what jewellery is useful for, you're not thinking hard enough. If you don't think that has value, you're a bit unusual.
:)
No, he's right. If they were loaning out the money on deposit, your available balance would have to go down in your savings account when someone got a loan. Only fixed term deposits would be possible in practice. Even if they are only loaning a portion, say $80 after a $100 deposit, there is then $180. Where did the other $80 come from? The government didn't print it, they only printed the $100, yet there we have $180. The $80 is directly created by the bank and that's before the money multiplier effect kicks in. Now I don't mind that as a private agreement between people, but when it's injected into the economy as currency with equal standing to legal tender is the problem.
Fractional reserve banking is libertarian, it existed before the state passed laws allowing it.
Not as equivalent to legal tender. You have a choice whether or not to accept private bank notes. If people are aware of it and there's no coercion that's ok. That's not the case now.
The Europeans can talk about that because we all know that your own governments killing millions of their own citizens doesn't count. 100 million or so last century wasn't it? What's that? Happening again? Tut tut! You need some help stopping it? No, no, you'll be fine. You'll sort it out yourselves no doubt, probably won't even kill anyone, peaceful civilized chaps that you are.
Yeah I know, it isn't really happening right now, but history indicates we won't have to wait long.
But you do have too much belief in money, and I hope this beats it out of you.
There is no real money in the US economy. Real money as defined in the US Constitution is gold or silver. The problem here isn't Libertarian belief in money, it's that Libertarian money (legal US money, gold and silver) isn't being used.
It's hardly surprising when a financial system without any money collapses. Why people think that's a failure of the free market escapes me. Rational people don't have confidence in pretend money. When you have people confident in the value of pretend money, that's a failure of the free market to evaluate that currency, but that false evaluation is entirely caused by government regulation, ie the government enforcement of payment of debts with fiat currency.
And legalised fractional reserve lending creates a fiat currency system, even with an ostensibly gold backed currency.
In an unregulated market fractional reserve lending should be prosecuted as fraud. It is fractional reserve lending that is the root cause of the collapse in the money supply. This is entirely due to government regulation. Fiat money precludes the possibility of a free market and even with an ostensibly gold backed currency is in reality a fiat currency if the government allows fractional reserve lending.
As I've said before, I'm not against people financing the operations of others for profit, but they shouldn't be allowed to inject fictional currency into the money supply to do so. Only with government interference in the market or criminal activity is this possible.
Do you think the corruption of individual policemen is the same as the justice system itself condoning murder?
So those policemen are in prison or the murder they committed has been condoned by the justice system?
Oh and by the way, people give up the right to personal revenge in return for the state exacting it on their behalf, hopefully impartially and proportionately. Among peaceable people you can give up revenge entirely, but the violent are only kept in check by superior force and the threat of retaliation.
I know it isn't exactly the same, but every government exercises lethal force. And police officers have killed innocent people in the "line of duty" even unarmed people, as stated in the story I linked to, UK police shot an unarmed man 7 times in the head. That's an execution. So, in my view, since the UK government kills people without trial they've got no business criticizing countries that kill people after a trial. They are not more just or civilised, it's hypocritical.
What ever happened to that continent called Autralia, I wonder?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_vs._Australia
Can't you do some research before posting? Sheesh!
How many countries that you would consider first world nations have not abolished capitol punishment?
No country has abolished capital punishment. Australia? No: http://news.smh.com.au/national/police-fatally-shoot-man-with-knife-20081010-4y99.html UK? No: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/police-sure-man-they-shot-was-bomber/2008/09/23/1221935641875.html
We just change how we go about it and who we apply it to. Afghanistan citizens rather than our own, for example. Criticising countries that have the death penalty is hypocritical, especially when there are people that want it restored anyway.
I'd rather get rid of prison terms for all non-violent offences which overall I see as a far larger problem than the death penalty. Not to the individual obviously, but to society.
Hey, as a condition of your military alliances and free trade agreements, why don't you require foreign governments implement the bill of rights instead of the DMCA. I mean it, contact your congressman about this please.
In the meantime, I'm doing a study on US oppression, specifically on the different ways the US oppresses its own citizens compared to citizens of other countries. If you could help me get US citizenship so I can further my studies, I'd be grateful. I'm willing to suffer this oppression, since it's for the cause of science and all that, you see.
It seems we're getting dupes from a parallel SlashDot.
I think this story is from C:\
And that would raise the demand for expensive, uncustomizable software how?
You've saved me from having to rebut that, great comment.
You might like Lessig's review of Keen's book.
http://www.lessig.org/blog/2007/05/keens_the_cult_of_the_amateur.html
The real question is: is it going to get that bad ? Was the great depression even "that bad" or are the stories of stock traders jumping out of windows greatly exaggerated ?
I'm having trouble parsing that, are you saying that stock traders jumping out of windows is a bad thing?
My wife's grandfather insists it was a great time to be alive (the depression). This is a guy who lost his drivers license in his 90s and started getting his grocery shopping on push bike, resisting offers of lifts. Maybe just a tad more independent than most.
And people don't always become more selfish in hard times, sometimes the only way to survive is to cooperate.
BSD gives you the freedom to release proprietary software based on others work, so that is attractive to the developer (next generation of distributor) but immediately that is done the effect on the customer is the same as any proprietary software. The only freedom BSD license gives is to allow the distributor able to make the software less beneficial to the customer than GPL'd software.
;)
The flip side is, how can you make money giving stuff away for free without control of its distribution?
Merchandising. Kids movies could still make money that way at least, also bands selling t-shirts etc.
Advertising embedded or incorporated, like tobacco companies used to ensure movie heros smoked.
Using the electronically distributable to promote the sale of physical copies, like baen books.
To the nitwits out there: I am not claiming that these are the only way people should be able to make money, I'm just answering a question.
My experience was quite different. My first computer was a second hand box with 95 on it. I was a tinkerer, didn't know anything about anything (malware etc) but you can bet I learned how to reinstall windows 95. When I first installed linux I would dual boot because I couldn't get everything working. After time I got my linux partition doing everything I needed but I was still messing up my windows install. I just stopped reinstalling it. My tinkering just never seemed to render my linux installs unusable. It's good as a home desktop OS and has been for years, depending on who you are.
Here is a situation where potentially thousands of people in the industry are going to be laid off because of this economic downturn, and all he can mention is how great it's going to be for OSS. I mean, I see his point and it may be a valid one, but he could be a little less gung-ho about it.
Maybe he's hoping to hire some of those laid off workers. I do see your point though, I warned a relative about debt levels, houses, etc. Now I'm keeping really quiet about it. It's a really hard situation for people who didn't know how to evaluate the situation and went with what seemed like good advice because it was popular, only to be stung.
That said, it has seemed obvious to me since reading the GPLv2 and seeing RedHat 7 where this thing (OSS) was going, and I've always been a bit surprised that most people don't see it too. Proprietary licences are designed to benefit the business, GPL is designed to benefit the user (and the users they distribute to, in perpetuity).
How hard is it to work out that the software distributed in a manner that it benefits people (customers) will eventually gain dominance over software that is distributed in a manner that restricts customers for the benefit of the distributor? It is very unlikely that any other consideration will outweigh that in the long run although they often do in the short term. Tough economic times require purchases to be evaluated more thoroughly, so yes it is likely to benefit OSS.
Likewise, how hard is it to figure out that if you allow corporations to produce the money supply out of thin air as loans that you are headed for financial collapse? Tighter regulation can do nothing to prevent the collapse of a financial system based on money that isn't worth anything.
~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/auto-delete
#!/bin/bash
echo rm -f $1 | at now + \
`zenity --title="Auto delete file" \
--text="Number of weeks to keep file" \
--entry` weeks
Not [citation needed] that it happens, [citation needed] that it wouldn't happen with a world government. That's the way I read it anyway, I was thinking of making a similar challenge to your idea.
While I'm here, the world government controlled education is incompatible with freedom, both in your first point. How can you be free if a government agent tells you how to think? For the same reason we need freedom of religion we need freedom of education, in my opinion. That means not government controlled, and ultimately that means not government funded. The closest I would come to government schooling is government provided public domain textbooks available (not compulsory). Perhaps compulsory education for convicted criminals, preferably as part of a program replacing prison for non-violent offenders.
Apparently you didn't locate the source. It's the Declaration of Independence, by Thomas Jefferson. The founders tolerated some rather severe abuse and exhausted every reasonable avenue for peaceful resolution before taking up arms. What's the percentage of voter turnout you expect for the next election? What's the chance of a jury finding you not guilty if you break an unjust law? If you can't find enough people to get you off the governments hook in a jury trial don't bother even thinking about a revolution.
I think you can't convict someone by passing a law against what they have already done, I don't think immunity violates that.