This is just like [the United States of America] to try to limit what a business can do. If [Microsoft] wants to sell [an operating system] that only [includes a single internet browser], that is okay. If it upsets consumers, they will buy their [operating system] from somewhere else. This is how business is supposed to work, right?
What it boils down to is a sham. Capitalism does not equal Freedom. Are the people of Nigeria more free than the people of Norway because they have private companies drilling their oil, and sending the profits overseas, rather than a state-owned company that invests the profits locally?
In the last twenty years, the real wages for college educated US workers have barely
kept up with inflation. Outside the US, the situation is even worse in the majority of cases in those countries that have followed the so-called free market solutions to economic and social problems. Meanwhile, as the majority hang out to dry, the profits for those involved in capitalism proper, eg capital instensive ventures, have doubled dozens of times over. The only lesson capitalism seems to offer is that under a capitalist system, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. How long does it take this guy to get that lesson?
Commies and pinkos have been repeating this bullshit for the past 150 years.
If it were true, the poor in more capitalist places would be living below Third World levels.
I'm appalled by all the anticapitalist rhetoric that is being spewed on Slashdot regarding the corporate use of your personal information and the occasional leak of your SSN into the wrong hands.
You people talk like you want absolute ownership over your personal information.
Do you own my memories of what your name is, or what your face looks like?
See articles 9 and 10 here, which applies everywhere in the EU.
ARTICLE 9
FREEDOM OF THOUGHT, CONSCIENCE AND RELIGION
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
2. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
ARTICLE 10
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
No thanks. I prefer "Congress shall make no law...".
When our society commits to providing basic services like the Internet (and water and electricity) in the same way it provides schools and roads - via government - only THEN will these things really "be for all."
No thanks. I don't feel like having an Internet connection that works like our government schools, and in the same condition as a lot of our roads.
I'm a little confused by this statement. I have always been told that it is the "Common Carrier" status of ISPs that prevents state and federal authorities from prosecuting ISPs for delivering porn, illegal software, and anything else deemed illegal. If ISPs are not "Common Carriers", what prevents the authorities from taking action against them for delivering illegal content?
It's not common carrier, but rather Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.". Also, ISPs that comply with the DMCA cannot be held liable for copyright violations by third-party users of their networks.
You must mean the first one? We had a trade embargo against Iraq after that and were quite pissed at the French for buying oil from Iraq.
I provided a link to the Energy Information Administration that showed we were importing oil from Iraq for six years prior to the start of the Iraq War in 2003.
As for the rest of your post, it was all misquoting me. You actually managed to ignore my clarifications and pick pieces of them out that made it seem as if your original statements in your first post actually matched what I was saying. If you do not actually intend to respond to what I am saying then please simply refrain from posting rather than selecting pieces of my statements that by themselves are entirely different statements. What are you, a politician?
I did not misquote you. I usually quote only the portions of a post that I choose to respond to, and break up paragraphs in order to respond to seperate assertions. I did not quote your conspiracy theory, but I did request that you post any credible information to back it up.
Without any supporting evidence, it's quite a jump from "they have the power do it" to "they have done it." Your unfounded assumption is that anyone who has the power of an entire country at his disposal will use it mainly to enrich himself. Accumulation of personal wealth is not everyone's primary motivator.
You would deny that the sky is blue. When people have absolute power, they will use that power to enrich themselves, as Lord Acton observed, as Kim Jong Il has.
"North Korea's 'Dear Leader' reportedly buys Mercedes Benz cars by the dozen and is said to be one of the world's biggest importers of Hennessy's cognac."
"The stories told about the extravagance of Kim Jong-Il's lifestyle are so lurid that at first they seem hard to believe. A number of former cooks, including an Italian and a Japanese sushi chef, have described in detail his gourmet obsessions. One chef published a book in Japan under the pseudonym Kenji Fujimoto; at the very time people were starving in their millions, he travelled to Iran and Uzbekistan to buy caviar, to China for melons and grapes, to Thailand and Malaysia for durians and papayas, to the Czech Republic for Pilsner beer, to Denmark for bacon, and (regularly) to Japan for tuna and other fresh fish."
"When I tracked down a member of one of Kim's "happiness teams" of dancers and masseuses in Seoul, I asked her if these tales could be true. O Yong-hui, a petite slender woman with a pale porcelain complexion and almond eyes started out as a professional gymnast until she was recruited to join one of the four all-girl dance troupes. She is now 33."
"She described how, on joining Kim's court , she was given handmade Italian shoes, Japanese designer clothes (Yamoto, Kenzo, Mori) and an Omega watch inscribed with Kim Jong-Il's name. A check of Swiss trade statistics shows that in 1998, North Korea did indeed import $2.7 million's worth of luxury watches."
"At breakfast she enjoyed French croissants, fresh yoghurt and imported fruits because Kim said they must have clear and healthy skins. At lunch there was fresh raw fish, Japanese-style, and at dinner Korean or western dishes."
"We ate off porcelain dishes inlaid with roses and used silver tableware. Everything was imported. Nothing I have ever seen in South Korea is as good", she said. When her five years was up - no girls stay longer - she decided to flee with her husband, a former bodyguard."
"I double-checked their stories with an ex-bodyguard, Lee Young-guk who observed Kim at close quarters during eleven years of service."
"In a real sense, he is the richest man in the world. There are no limits on what he can do", Lee said. "He has at least ten palaces set in sprawling grounds and insists each is always occupied by thousands of staff so his enemies are never sure where he is. They contain golf courses, stables for his horses, garages full of motor-bikes and luxury cars, shooting-ranges, swimming pools, cinemas, funfair parks, water-jet bikes and hunting grounds stocked with wild deer and duck."
They talk a big talk about free markets, while at the same lobbying for legislation that makes it decidely unfree. The Internet right now allows for very little in the way of required capital to start up a business. If the Telcos get their way, they'll gladly raise that cost, even if it means an overall worse economy, even if it implodes the Internet as we know it, even if that impedes on the American dream (you know, work hard, build a business).
Having the government dictate how the owner of a communications line may use the line is not a free market.
On the grounds that if millions of people in Iraq were killed by the U.S., people would notice, and lot of the people who rabidly condemn the U.S. would instead be praising the U.S.
"Iraq Body Count" give figures of 38,059 to 42,434 civilians killed. The only way they can get those numbers is by counting Muslims-on-Muslim violence, which seems to account for the vast majority of deaths.
"Actually no, that wasn't it. There's plenty of oil in Iraq, and the oil isn't being pumped by Americans and transported exclusively to the U.S."
Actually that was largely it.
That was not it. Only a small amount of oil is imported from Iraq in any given month relative to the total amount imported.
At that time frame the total US trade deficit grew immensely because we imported so much oil. As for the rest of it, NONE of the oil was going to US from Iraq previously.
The U.S. was importing oil from Iraq for years prior to the start of the Iraq war.
If you have any credible information to back your conspiracy theories, do post it.
90% of the Wealth in the United States rests with 5% of the nation. That is about as unequal a distribution of wealth as you will find anywhere in the world.
In North Korea, a nation of around 22 million people, virtually all the wealth is owned by one man, or if Kim Jong Il isn't that powerful, maybe a couple thousand at most. Similarly in Cuba.
You must be blind. After killing millions of Iraqis and blowing damn near every structure of 3 bricks or more Iraq is pretty conquered.
This is just delusional.
You know how gas prices were up around last hurricane season and then came down about 50 cents, now they are back up again? That was it.
Actually no, that wasn't it. There's plenty of oil in Iraq, and the oil isn't being pumped by Americans and transported exclusively to the U.S.
You're willfully uninformed, delusional, or both. Even the most ardent anticommunist would agree that whatever criticisms might legitimately be levelled against Cuba and North Korea, a gross imbalance of wealth is not among them.
Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il both have the power to decide who lives and who dies. Both have standards of living exceeding that of Bill Gates. Ordinary people who live in Cuba or North Korea are essentially slaves, and virtually all wealth is ultimately possessed by a couple thousand people at most.
You should care because it affects yourself, and humanity.
No, it does not.
Assuming you don't care about others, I'll focus on how it affects you. There are obvious drawbacks if you aren't in the top 1%, so I'll ignore the problems with the top 1% increasingly calling the shots. If you are in the top 1% you will be affected when the unwashed masses become miserable enough to make problems for you through crime, terrorism, revolution, or populist backlash punitively progressive taxation.
Funny; all the places where we see massive social unrest teetering on the edge of explosion is in places where the State has taken steps to ensure a "more equal distribution of income", such as France.
Which brings me to your second statement. Government policy decides how wealth is distributed. Everything from anarchy
How can there be "government policy" with no government?
to communism to laissez-faire capitalism
If the government does not intervene in the economy, how is the government deciding how wealth is "distributed"?
Instead of Communist, I think you mean totalitarian. Back during the cold war it suited the US govt for people to think of the two as the same, so it's not suprising you are confused.
Communism requires the destruction of private property rights in the means of production, which in turn requires unrelenting violence, constant terror and mass-murder, as was predicted in the 19th century, as was repeatedly demonstrated throughout the 20th.
Wow. Nice hyperbole. Milions of Iraqis have died? The anti-war "Iraq Body Count" has 42434 last time I looked. Iraq had ~26 million people total. If 'millions' had died, it would have been a lot more noticible (~8%)
Even then, the only way 'Iraq Body Count' can get the numbers they do is by including incidents of Muslims killing other Muslims, which seems to account for the vast majority.
Pardon me, but what the hell is the point of this law if "it is unlikely that individual online gamblers will be targeted for arrest"? Selective enforcement... for the win!
Simple. It's another club for those in government to use against their enemies, political and personal, and anyone else they want to "punish".
Funny coincidence, there's an article in the L.A. Times today about how Russia is going back to its old trick of declaring political opponents to be "mentally ill" and throwing them into sanitariums whenever they want them out of the way. A barbaric practice to be sure, but how many Slashdotters would do the same if they were given the chance?
I am not calling for anyone to be imprisoned for merely expressing deranged opinions. I simply recommend that they obtain psychiatric treatment and maybe some anti-psychotic medications.
People should be involuntarily confined only upon being convicted after a fair trial of a crime that brought physical harm upon another individual.
Slashdot Mirror
The same place you find mandates for the FCC, the SEC, Social Security, welfare, antitrust laws, Sarbanes-Oxley, NLRA, etc.
Correct.
2006 Index of Economic Freedom:
Nigeria
Rank: 146
Score: 4.00
Category: Repressed
Commies and pinkos have been repeating this bullshit for the past 150 years.
If it were true, the poor in more capitalist places would be living below Third World levels.
Do you own my memories of what your name is, or what your face looks like?
No thanks. I prefer "Congress shall make no law...".
A more likely explanation is that this is because North America isn't as balkanized as Europe.
Another is that English speakers don't have incentives to learn French or German like French and German speakers do to learn English.
No thanks. I don't feel like having an Internet connection that works like our government schools, and in the same condition as a lot of our roads.
It's not common carrier, but rather Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.". Also, ISPs that comply with the DMCA cannot be held liable for copyright violations by third-party users of their networks.
I provided a link to the Energy Information Administration that showed we were importing oil from Iraq for six years prior to the start of the Iraq War in 2003.
I did not misquote you. I usually quote only the portions of a post that I choose to respond to, and break up paragraphs in order to respond to seperate assertions. I did not quote your conspiracy theory, but I did request that you post any credible information to back it up.
You would deny that the sky is blue. When people have absolute power, they will use that power to enrich themselves, as Lord Acton observed, as Kim Jong Il has.
http://www.forbes.com/2002/03/04/royalsphotoshow_5 .html:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/xml/xhtml/articles/26 86.html :
Telephone companies are "common carriers". ISPs are not.
Having the government dictate how the owner of a communications line may use the line is not a free market.
If you don't want political interference in science, don't use government funds in research.
Those who accept the king's gold must dance to his tune.
On the grounds that if millions of people in Iraq were killed by the U.S., people would notice, and lot of the people who rabidly condemn the U.S. would instead be praising the U.S.
"Iraq Body Count" give figures of 38,059 to 42,434 civilians killed. The only way they can get those numbers is by counting Muslims-on-Muslim violence, which seems to account for the vast majority of deaths.
That was not it. Only a small amount of oil is imported from Iraq in any given month relative to the total amount imported.
The U.S. was importing oil from Iraq for years prior to the start of the Iraq war.
If you have any credible information to back your conspiracy theories, do post it.
The fact that both have their respective governments and populations at their personal disposal?
Shall I also provide a citation that the sky is blue?
In North Korea, a nation of around 22 million people, virtually all the wealth is owned by one man, or if Kim Jong Il isn't that powerful, maybe a couple thousand at most. Similarly in Cuba.
This is just delusional.
Actually no, that wasn't it. There's plenty of oil in Iraq, and the oil isn't being pumped by Americans and transported exclusively to the U.S.
Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il both have the power to decide who lives and who dies. Both have standards of living exceeding that of Bill Gates. Ordinary people who live in Cuba or North Korea are essentially slaves, and virtually all wealth is ultimately possessed by a couple thousand people at most.
No, it does not.
Funny; all the places where we see massive social unrest teetering on the edge of explosion is in places where the State has taken steps to ensure a "more equal distribution of income", such as France.
How can there be "government policy" with no government?
If the government does not intervene in the economy, how is the government deciding how wealth is "distributed"?
Communism requires the destruction of private property rights in the means of production, which in turn requires unrelenting violence, constant terror and mass-murder, as was predicted in the 19th century, as was repeatedly demonstrated throughout the 20th.
Why should I care?
Your question presupposes that somebody decides how much wealth the "top 1%" have.
Even then, the only way 'Iraq Body Count' can get the numbers they do is by including incidents of Muslims killing other Muslims, which seems to account for the vast majority.
Simple. It's another club for those in government to use against their enemies, political and personal, and anyone else they want to "punish".
I am not calling for anyone to be imprisoned for merely expressing deranged opinions. I simply recommend that they obtain psychiatric treatment and maybe some anti-psychotic medications.
People should be involuntarily confined only upon being convicted after a fair trial of a crime that brought physical harm upon another individual.
Yes, my recommendation also includes organizations like the "Center for Media and Democracy".