Steel and Morris are heroes of dissent. And Proud Citizen has nothing to be proud of.
Well, probably because there arent too many americans who are so immature as to think that losing material freedom and/or wealth as the result of speaking freely is somehow Ok as long as it makes them social heroes or something.
Who the hell cares whether others look on you as a hero if your bank account has been emptied and you cant pay your rent? Can your kids eat the fact that some look on you as a hero? Will that keep them warm in the winter, put shoes on their feet?
Social perception is the currency of highschool and college kids. Adults tend live in a material world.
The concept of taxing labor wages I would imagine, would be about the biggest economic sin to the Founding Fathers.
Well no; since the first income tax was enacted in 1787(9?) and it was challenged and went to the Supreme Court, the court ruled (4 of the members of which were on the constitutional committee so its assumed they knew what it meant) that individual income falls under the excise tax, which the constitution allows the govt to levy.
When you work, you are trading your labor in exchange for money/goods/whatever; you are engaging in trade, and so your income is susceptible to excise/tarrif whatever you want to call it.
If businesses have no right to profit, then niether do individuals - youre creating a difference that isnt there. When you sell your labor in exchange for money, you are conducting business. If you have a right to work for more than room and board (thus making a profit), well so does everyone else.
"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority... It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society."
Exactly. This explains why the grandparent's email address is not displayed and his full name and address do not appear above his post.
Besides all that, in the US anyway, if its written, in general its not slander, its libel. Slander is spoken, libel is written.
Before one can be found guilty of libel, it has to be proven that there was malicious intent ~and~ that there was full knowledge on the part of the alleged libeler that the accusations were false.
And this is all moot if any of the comments were prefaced with 'in my opinion..' or something similar, as opinion is protected from accusations of either libel or slander. Its not ironclad, but practically so.
A few things, but foremost, lets get rid of this charade that the UN is a democracy. Name one country where the people of that country vote for their UN representative. Sure, the reps vote, but who votes for them? No one. People who are appointed to their post voting amongst themselves is an extremely loose definition of democracy.
Next, Democracy does not equal freedom. Many posters on here seem to think that the result of a democratic vote is 'people choosing for themselves'. This is rediculous. When people are free to choose for themselves, no one is free to vote on something. The result of a democratic vote is one group of people choosing for everyone else, thus violating the minorities right to decide for themselves. If everyone is free to choose for themselves, then no one has the right to vote on it.
Next, one HUGE difference between the US and many other countries that just makes all of this worse is the fundamental difference between the US legal system and many others: in the US, you are free to do anything unless there is a law prohibiting it, whereas for example in Britain from what I understand you are not free to do something unless there is a law allowing it. To americans it makes absolutely no sense to talk of democracy in the context of 'increasing' rights; when you vote in the US, unless youre voting to do away with or modify an exising law, by default you are ~decreasing~ the amount of rights people had before the vote. Sometimes its a necessary trade off, such as welfare; but make no mistake that the enactment of welfare was a ~decrease~ in americans rights to keep the fruits of their labor (and no, Im not anti-welfare per se, its just an example). Minimum wage laws remove the right to work from people who's labor is worth less than the minimum wage, etc.
Next, the majority does ~not~ rule, no. If no single individual has the right to dictate to you the choices you have to make in life, then niether does a group of individuals. If a person alone tells you you have to do something, you laugh and say whatever, then that individual goes and stands in a group with others and they all vote to have you do that thing, there is ~no~ difference. Merely because one is among a group, ones rights do not increase. New rights dont magically appear. No group has any more or less rights than an individual. There is ~No Such Thing~ as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Euros rightfully complain about the influence of religon in the current US admin all the while most european countries poltical systems are based on the secular religous belief of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Well, fuck that religon just as strongly as organized religon.
Next, democracy is a means to an end, not an end in itself. That end is individual freedom. It does no good to do away with a monarch without doing away with the authority the monarch had. If you remove a monarch and just transfer his authority to 'the people', youre just creating multiple monarchs. Its not how one weilds control over others that is right or wrong, its the fact that one ~has~ control over others that is just plain wrong.
Next, a free country is not a country that is just not 'beholden' to another. A free country is a country where individuals are free to live their lives as they wish, without a govt or their neighbors deciding for them. Some shleprock called Cuba a free country; thats fucking rediculous, and yes Ive been there. If you arent free to keep the fruits of your labor, youre not free. Americans are very sensative to that, perhaps having to do with a little civil war we had a while back you may have heard of.
Lastly, govt legislation is not some 'will of the people/society'. First, that limits society to only those eligible to vote. Second, unless your country has laws that require representatives to vote the way a majority of their constituents tell them to vote, you have no guarantee that the constituents agree. It would be absolutely rediculous for example to claim that american
Slashdot Mirror
Steel and Morris are heroes of dissent. And Proud Citizen has nothing to be proud of.
Well, probably because there arent too many americans who are so immature as to think that losing material freedom and/or wealth as the result of speaking freely is somehow Ok as long as it makes them social heroes or something.
Who the hell cares whether others look on you as a hero if your bank account has been emptied and you cant pay your rent? Can your kids eat the fact that some look on you as a hero? Will that keep them warm in the winter, put shoes on their feet?
Social perception is the currency of highschool and college kids. Adults tend live in a material world.
The concept of taxing labor wages I would imagine, would be about the biggest economic sin to the Founding Fathers.
Well no; since the first income tax was enacted in 1787(9?) and it was challenged and went to the Supreme Court, the court ruled (4 of the members of which were on the constitutional committee so its assumed they knew what it meant) that individual income falls under the excise tax, which the constitution allows the govt to levy.
When you work, you are trading your labor in exchange for money/goods/whatever; you are engaging in trade, and so your income is susceptible to excise/tarrif whatever you want to call it.
If businesses have no right to profit, then niether do individuals - youre creating a difference that isnt there. When you sell your labor in exchange for money, you are conducting business. If you have a right to work for more than room and board (thus making a profit), well so does everyone else.
But that aside: if you've got something to say have the guts to put your name to it.
So your name is really CountBass? Did your parents have sense of humor?
"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority ... It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society."
Exactly. This explains why the grandparent's email address is not displayed and his full name and address do not appear above his post.
Besides all that, in the US anyway, if its written, in general its not slander, its libel. Slander is spoken, libel is written.
Before one can be found guilty of libel, it has to be proven that there was malicious intent ~and~ that there was full knowledge on the part of the alleged libeler that the accusations were false.
And this is all moot if any of the comments were prefaced with 'in my opinion..' or something similar, as opinion is protected from accusations of either libel or slander. Its not ironclad, but practically so.
A few things, but foremost, lets get rid of this charade that the UN is a democracy. Name one country where the people of that country vote for their UN representative. Sure, the reps vote, but who votes for them? No one. People who are appointed to their post voting amongst themselves is an extremely loose definition of democracy.
Next, Democracy does not equal freedom. Many posters on here seem to think that the result of a democratic vote is 'people choosing for themselves'. This is rediculous. When people are free to choose for themselves, no one is free to vote on something. The result of a democratic vote is one group of people choosing for everyone else, thus violating the minorities right to decide for themselves. If everyone is free to choose for themselves, then no one has the right to vote on it.
Next, one HUGE difference between the US and many other countries that just makes all of this worse is the fundamental difference between the US legal system and many others: in the US, you are free to do anything unless there is a law prohibiting it, whereas for example in Britain from what I understand you are not free to do something unless there is a law allowing it. To americans it makes absolutely no sense to talk of democracy in the context of 'increasing' rights; when you vote in the US, unless youre voting to do away with or modify an exising law, by default you are ~decreasing~ the amount of rights people had before the vote. Sometimes its a necessary trade off, such as welfare; but make no mistake that the enactment of welfare was a ~decrease~ in americans rights to keep the fruits of their labor (and no, Im not anti-welfare per se, its just an example). Minimum wage laws remove the right to work from people who's labor is worth less than the minimum wage, etc.
Next, the majority does ~not~ rule, no. If no single individual has the right to dictate to you the choices you have to make in life, then niether does a group of individuals. If a person alone tells you you have to do something, you laugh and say whatever, then that individual goes and stands in a group with others and they all vote to have you do that thing, there is ~no~ difference. Merely because one is among a group, ones rights do not increase. New rights dont magically appear. No group has any more or less rights than an individual. There is ~No Such Thing~ as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Euros rightfully complain about the influence of religon in the current US admin all the while most european countries poltical systems are based on the secular religous belief of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Well, fuck that religon just as strongly as organized religon.
Next, democracy is a means to an end, not an end in itself. That end is individual freedom. It does no good to do away with a monarch without doing away with the authority the monarch had. If you remove a monarch and just transfer his authority to 'the people', youre just creating multiple monarchs. Its not how one weilds control over others that is right or wrong, its the fact that one ~has~ control over others that is just plain wrong.
Next, a free country is not a country that is just not 'beholden' to another. A free country is a country where individuals are free to live their lives as they wish, without a govt or their neighbors deciding for them. Some shleprock called Cuba a free country; thats fucking rediculous, and yes Ive been there. If you arent free to keep the fruits of your labor, youre not free. Americans are very sensative to that, perhaps having to do with a little civil war we had a while back you may have heard of.
Lastly, govt legislation is not some 'will of the people/society'. First, that limits society to only those eligible to vote. Second, unless your country has laws that require representatives to vote the way a majority of their constituents tell them to vote, you have no guarantee that the constituents agree. It would be absolutely rediculous for example to claim that american