It rests on the premise of whether or not your car is your property.
According to the judge it is not.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
He focuses on the bold and forgets the italics. This is a blatant abuse of the Constitution.
Next they will say that lashing people is not blatantly unconstitutional because people are secure in their persons against unreasonable searches and seizures, not unreasonable lashings. And people will swallow it.
Oh, I didn't mean to accuse YOU of 'revisionism', I mean that the fact that this inaccurate view of history is the common knowledge.
As to the part where I get lynched, well, I can't answer to that. But how did the robber barons rape people exactly (figuratively)?
For example, the price of kerosene was 30 cents a gallon in 1869, Rockefeller started Standard Oil in 1870, and by the time of its antitrust case the price was 6 cents a gallon. Oh, and they didn't 'monopolize' anything either. They had something like 65% market share in 1907 and there were a little over a _hundred_ other oil companies in competition.
I mean, if that's rape, Apple and Sony are bloodthirsty sadistic murderers.
Your argument that the depression "taking a long time does not necessarily mean policy was bad" still doesn't tackle the big problem: why all other panics when government did NOTHING were shorter lived and over in a quickie?
While when Roosevelt tried to: fix prices, cut production, make work, steal people's gold, kill pigs, create cartels, etc, it didn't work and prolonged it.
I have a proposal - why don't all the libertarians in the United States move to Texas and Texas withdraw from the union. We'll take back all our nationally owned hardware (all of NASA stuff, military assets, etc) and do what Zeddicus Zuu'l Zorander did the Midlands: let you suffer from the consequences of your own actions.
Texas is already pretty crappy on a lot of measures [education anyone?] because of their libertarian/republican crap government. Without the rest of the United States to come save you from your own policies where do you think they'd be?
Funny, some Libertarians are already doing this, but they're moving to New Hampshire. Ever heard of the Free State Project?
I'm not sure they're planning to try anything as crazy like secession though... I mean, I don't think anyone wants to be the next South. Just trying to influence local politics to get the most freedom as possible.
The reason the government spends 36% of GDP and takes in 28% worth of taxes is not because the government is 'adding significant value'. It is because the government engages in something called DEFICIT SPENDING i.e. it spends more money than it taxed by means of either borrowing and taxing it in the future with interest ( on your tab ) or by creating inflation, which you pay for as well in higher prices and has the nice side effect of booms and busts here and there.
Before you say you 'don't think that counts as parasitic', make sure you did _actually_ think.
A) Um... how exactly do you claim I said the exact opposite of what I said in regards to the economists
Well, you said that any economists without 'their head in their ass' would say I'm wrong. I merely pointed out that the economists who would say I'm right - mostly of the Austrian school - have predicted this crisis, while most of the mainstream profession was totally clueless. Did I misunderstand you?
B) Hoover changed policies mid-flight when it was clear his initial ones where wrong. atleast if i remember my history correctly
Well, I'm afraid that's not correct. His initial policies were to try and keep falling prices artificially high.
Here's a quote from Hoover himself: "We determined that we would not follow the advice of the bitter liquidationists and see the whole body of debtors of the United States brought to bankruptcy and the savings of our people brought to destruction."
It is a truly remarkable feat of revisionist history to forget his interventionist policies and paint him as a laissez-faire hands-off kind of guy.
C) I brought up the Laffer Curve preemptively - most libertarians and republicans like to toss it around as if it says "cutting taxes is always the right thing to do!"
It depends. If your goal is to maximize government revenue, then it may or may not be the right thing to do. As a Libertarian, I wish to minimize government revenue, so to me cutting taxes 'is always the right thing to do'.
D) Yes because it couldn't possibly be that we made banks not be idiots, they did it all on their own. The sudden return to bank stupidity when those regulations were gutted is just completely a coincidence.
Like I said, learn what is free banking and the differences between that and interventionist schemes with central banking.
When Reagan removed regulations did he end the FDIC depositor insurance? Did he abolish the Fed, the "lender of last resort"? If you simply make sure the banks are free to loan and do whatever, but tell them, 'don't worry if you fail or inflate like mad, we got your back', does it surprise you that they do?
Sorry buckoo. However you want to try to cut it we've TRIED libertarianism before. It doesn't work. It cannot work in a modern society.
Well, I would respond to you that when the US tried libertarianism they experienced the most prosperous society this world has ever known. The problems surfaced because of the incremental rise of interventionism, which, like socialism is doomed from the get go.
How coincidental is it, that the one time government tried to actively fight a downturn, it lasted for decades, when all the other market panics were sorted out by the free market much more swiftly?
A better, and truer sentence would be: We've TRIED socialism before. It doesn't work. It cannot work in a modern society.
Very well. I suppose it is mere coincidence that the economists with 'heads up their arses' predicted this crisis and the Great Depression, while the ones 'seeing the sunlight' were all in the media saying things were great and getting better.
By a laissez-faire advocate 'response to the depression' I assume you mean Hoover. He was no such thing. His spending to try to curb the depression was unprecedented. FDR's advisors admitted that all they did was extend his policies. FDR ran on a platform of 'cutting reckless spending'.:)
The Laffer Curve is a tool for maximizing government revenue. For you to suggest that economic stimulus has anything to do with it is clueless on your part, sorry.
Before making the untested assumption that 'regulation' curbed the boom-bust cycle, maybe you should study up on free banking's history and the financial panics in the US during the 19th century. I can recommend some books if you like.
Yea, I've heard that line. Don't quite agree with it.
When I really compared the crash of '29 and the depression with other panics like 1920, 1879 and even earlier stuff I came to the conclusion that far from saving us from depression, it was government intervention that get us in it.
I'm sorry, how is this anything but a non sequitur?
If the people in Alaska are really concerned about monitoring that volcano's activity, what's stopping them from implementing a LOCAL government effort to deal with it, which affords the population MUCH more control?
Or do you think you can get more accountability from a boob in Washington rather than your neighbor Bob who works for the local government?
Example: iD Software managed several of these feats, making quality engines, having some kind of time and money estimate beforehand and then actually finishing something.
Well, if the government doesn't have the power to regulate drug "safety", then when somebody else comes up with a blue pill to sell they don't have much else to do except put up or shut up.
I just think that maybe people who stand to die while the FDA employs useless parasites to carry cars full of files around should have the right to take the risk. You know? You own your own body? Sounds crazy doesn't it? Sorry...:-)
On the other hand there are plenty of examples of how the private sector can really screw individuals, mainly because they're only concerned with making a profit.
You talk of facts and logic. This statement is a non sequitur.
Companies certainly are just interested in making a profit. The point is, they can only make a profit if you BUY STUFF from them. You only BUY STUFF from them if you WANT, so its in their best interests to provide what you want to get a profit.
It is when government becomes the middleman that companies get a thug to beat up people to make them buy something. I say this because I'm sure that health care is one of the things you think the private sector can't do better and cheaply.
Example, the US does NOT have private health care, they have MANAGED care. Before government got involved the poor could resort to charity hospitals, middle-class people dealt directly with doctors and hospitals, so they could negotiate a price they could afford and the rich, well, the rich don't care in either scenario.
I'll give you a couple of freebees; even leaving out Defense and Security (which allow us to even have this conversation in the safety of our own homes without worrying about someone coming in and killing us)
If you think a country must spend 5% of its GDP in defense so that people can have conversations without constantly fending off brigands, well, its only a miracle that any of us are alive.
Good thing the US Constitution has that 2nd Amendment clause too, eh?
Your first statement invalidates anything you might be trying to say in the second. You can say it's not mindless all you want, but until you back up your statements with some facts and logic your arguments don't hold any water.
Taxes don't make people poorer? _I_ am not being logical? You suppose you are richer when I swindle you for a fourth of what you earn?
Asking that they give something back, anything back at all, makes perfect sense, because in a very direct way we facilitate the entire operation of that business.
No it isn't, because what financed all those beautiful roads, legal systems and whatever they do so well, they did it with money they STOLE! Government HAS NO MONEY, it takes it from OTHER PEOPLE!
Now, Mr. Anonymous Coward take a trip to 'lawful and rich government' Zimbabwe and then to Somalia and see what country you like best. I feel truly sorry about your need to compare watermelons with grapes not to look like a retard.
Only since you don't even have the guts to sign what you write when you want to use 'bad words' trying to sound impressive, foreign travel is probably not an option for you.
Read the US Constitution before starting to whine about losing 'legal authority'.
If you don't pay your taxes and resist arrest while the IRS and is breaking down your door and putting guns to your family's heads you get an ACTUAL bullet.:-)
And I suppose you consider that government has a MORAL right to 100% of a country's GDP, since you equate the fact that the private sector would like some of it back as a demand of ransom, or something.
All these services you talk about except federal highways are paid by local, not federal taxes. So think a little deeper before having a knee-jerk favorable reaction to a government that spends 36% of people's production, overall.
And ALL these things you said could be done better and more cheaply by the private sector. I mean, somehow plumbing only comes easy to bureaucrats?
Taxes DO serve a purpose. They make people poorer and dependent on the government, therefore guaranteeing it's survival.
This isn't 'mindless anti-establishment', its quite mindful Liberalism actually.
Slashdot Mirror
It rests on the premise of whether or not your car is your property.
According to the judge it is not.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
He focuses on the bold and forgets the italics. This is a blatant abuse of the Constitution.
Next they will say that lashing people is not blatantly unconstitutional because people are secure in their persons against unreasonable searches and seizures, not unreasonable lashings. And people will swallow it.
Nobody ever said posting as an AC didn't have a downside. ;-)
Are you trying to say swine flu didn't change EVERYTHING, Brian?
Is this what you're trying to say?
Huh?
Huh?
Its fucking awesome, that's what it is! :D
No, you're right. Doom was freakin awesome. I think I meant id after Quake, then :P
I still remember playing deathmatch and racing the plasma bolts while my friend screamed and melted around me on the null-modem.
We're both old. :D
Oh, I didn't mean to accuse YOU of 'revisionism', I mean that the fact that this inaccurate view of history is the common knowledge.
As to the part where I get lynched, well, I can't answer to that. But how did the robber barons rape people exactly (figuratively)?
For example, the price of kerosene was 30 cents a gallon in 1869, Rockefeller started Standard Oil in 1870, and by the time of its antitrust case the price was 6 cents a gallon. Oh, and they didn't 'monopolize' anything either. They had something like 65% market share in 1907 and there were a little over a _hundred_ other oil companies in competition.
I mean, if that's rape, Apple and Sony are bloodthirsty sadistic murderers.
Your argument that the depression "taking a long time does not necessarily mean policy was bad" still doesn't tackle the big problem: why all other panics when government did NOTHING were shorter lived and over in a quickie?
While when Roosevelt tried to: fix prices, cut production, make work, steal people's gold, kill pigs, create cartels, etc, it didn't work and prolonged it.
I have a proposal - why don't all the libertarians in the United States move to Texas and Texas withdraw from the union. We'll take back all our nationally owned hardware (all of NASA stuff, military assets, etc) and do what Zeddicus Zuu'l Zorander did the Midlands: let you suffer from the consequences of your own actions.
Texas is already pretty crappy on a lot of measures [education anyone?] because of their libertarian/republican crap government. Without the rest of the United States to come save you from your own policies where do you think they'd be?
Funny, some Libertarians are already doing this, but they're moving to New Hampshire. Ever heard of the Free State Project?
I'm not sure they're planning to try anything as crazy like secession though... I mean, I don't think anyone wants to be the next South. Just trying to influence local politics to get the most freedom as possible.
The reason the government spends 36% of GDP and takes in 28% worth of taxes is not because the government is 'adding significant value'. It is because the government engages in something called DEFICIT SPENDING i.e. it spends more money than it taxed by means of either borrowing and taxing it in the future with interest ( on your tab ) or by creating inflation, which you pay for as well in higher prices and has the nice side effect of booms and busts here and there.
Before you say you 'don't think that counts as parasitic', make sure you did _actually_ think.
A) Um... how exactly do you claim I said the exact opposite of what I said in regards to the economists
Well, you said that any economists without 'their head in their ass' would say I'm wrong. I merely pointed out that the economists who would say I'm right - mostly of the Austrian school - have predicted this crisis, while most of the mainstream profession was totally clueless. Did I misunderstand you?
B) Hoover changed policies mid-flight when it was clear his initial ones where wrong. atleast if i remember my history correctly
Well, I'm afraid that's not correct. His initial policies were to try and keep falling prices artificially high.
Here's a quote from Hoover himself: "We determined that we would not follow the advice of the bitter liquidationists and see the whole body of debtors of the United States brought to bankruptcy and the savings of our people brought to destruction."
It is a truly remarkable feat of revisionist history to forget his interventionist policies and paint him as a laissez-faire hands-off kind of guy.
C) I brought up the Laffer Curve preemptively - most libertarians and republicans like to toss it around as if it says "cutting taxes is always the right thing to do!"
It depends. If your goal is to maximize government revenue, then it may or may not be the right thing to do. As a Libertarian, I wish to minimize government revenue, so to me cutting taxes 'is always the right thing to do'.
D) Yes because it couldn't possibly be that we made banks not be idiots, they did it all on their own. The sudden return to bank stupidity when those regulations were gutted is just completely a coincidence.
Like I said, learn what is free banking and the differences between that and interventionist schemes with central banking.
When Reagan removed regulations did he end the FDIC depositor insurance? Did he abolish the Fed, the "lender of last resort"? If you simply make sure the banks are free to loan and do whatever, but tell them, 'don't worry if you fail or inflate like mad, we got your back', does it surprise you that they do?
Sorry buckoo. However you want to try to cut it we've TRIED libertarianism before. It doesn't work. It cannot work in a modern society.
Well, I would respond to you that when the US tried libertarianism they experienced the most prosperous society this world has ever known. The problems surfaced because of the incremental rise of interventionism, which, like socialism is doomed from the get go.
How coincidental is it, that the one time government tried to actively fight a downturn, it lasted for decades, when all the other market panics were sorted out by the free market much more swiftly?
A better, and truer sentence would be: We've TRIED socialism before. It doesn't work. It cannot work in a modern society.
Very well. I suppose it is mere coincidence that the economists with 'heads up their arses' predicted this crisis and the Great Depression, while the ones 'seeing the sunlight' were all in the media saying things were great and getting better.
By a laissez-faire advocate 'response to the depression' I assume you mean Hoover. He was no such thing. His spending to try to curb the depression was unprecedented. FDR's advisors admitted that all they did was extend his policies. FDR ran on a platform of 'cutting reckless spending'. :)
The Laffer Curve is a tool for maximizing government revenue. For you to suggest that economic stimulus has anything to do with it is clueless on your part, sorry.
Before making the untested assumption that 'regulation' curbed the boom-bust cycle, maybe you should study up on free banking's history and the financial panics in the US during the 19th century. I can recommend some books if you like.
Yea, I've heard that line. Don't quite agree with it.
When I really compared the crash of '29 and the depression with other panics like 1920, 1879 and even earlier stuff I came to the conclusion that far from saving us from depression, it was government intervention that get us in it.
I'm a crackpot libertarian, but I certainly agree with both of your suggestions.
Actually 36% might be misleading, since I meant Federal spending, but I had already slapped submit when I realized that. :-/
36% is a correct figure, but it takes into consideration the overall government burden: Federal, State and local levels.
The Federal government alone spent 21% of GDP in 2008. Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Yea, I know! I'm still crying over that insensitive moderation. ;-)
I'm sorry, how is this anything but a non sequitur?
If the people in Alaska are really concerned about monitoring that volcano's activity, what's stopping them from implementing a LOCAL government effort to deal with it, which affords the population MUCH more control?
Or do you think you can get more accountability from a boob in Washington rather than your neighbor Bob who works for the local government?
The US gov't already swallows 36% of GDP. What is feeding another couple hundred parasites?
Example: iD Software managed several of these feats, making quality engines, having some kind of time and money estimate beforehand and then actually finishing something.
There, fixed that for you. :)
Is that why he looks like a younger Alan Greenspan?
Well, if the government doesn't have the power to regulate drug "safety", then when somebody else comes up with a blue pill to sell they don't have much else to do except put up or shut up.
Government stands in the way of growth! Interview at 8.
I just think that maybe people who stand to die while the FDA employs useless parasites to carry cars full of files around should have the right to take the risk. You know? You own your own body? Sounds crazy doesn't it? Sorry... :-)
And no, I don't have an account in the Caymans.
Maybe other people are willing to take the risk and maybe not _die_ while the clinical trials take place. Just maybe.
On the other hand there are plenty of examples of how the private sector can really screw individuals, mainly because they're only concerned with making a profit.
You talk of facts and logic. This statement is a non sequitur.
Companies certainly are just interested in making a profit. The point is, they can only make a profit if you BUY STUFF from them. You only BUY STUFF from them if you WANT, so its in their best interests to provide what you want to get a profit.
It is when government becomes the middleman that companies get a thug to beat up people to make them buy something. I say this because I'm sure that health care is one of the things you think the private sector can't do better and cheaply.
Example, the US does NOT have private health care, they have MANAGED care. Before government got involved the poor could resort to charity hospitals, middle-class people dealt directly with doctors and hospitals, so they could negotiate a price they could afford and the rich, well, the rich don't care in either scenario.
I'll give you a couple of freebees; even leaving out Defense and Security (which allow us to even have this conversation in the safety of our own homes without worrying about someone coming in and killing us)
If you think a country must spend 5% of its GDP in defense so that people can have conversations without constantly fending off brigands, well, its only a miracle that any of us are alive.
Good thing the US Constitution has that 2nd Amendment clause too, eh?
Your first statement invalidates anything you might be trying to say in the second. You can say it's not mindless all you want, but until you back up your statements with some facts and logic your arguments don't hold any water.
Taxes don't make people poorer? _I_ am not being logical? You suppose you are richer when I swindle you for a fourth of what you earn?
Asking that they give something back, anything back at all, makes perfect sense, because in a very direct way we facilitate the entire operation of that business.
No it isn't, because what financed all those beautiful roads, legal systems and whatever they do so well, they did it with money they STOLE! Government HAS NO MONEY, it takes it from OTHER PEOPLE!
Now, Mr. Anonymous Coward take a trip to 'lawful and rich government' Zimbabwe and then to Somalia and see what country you like best. I feel truly sorry about your need to compare watermelons with grapes not to look like a retard.
Only since you don't even have the guts to sign what you write when you want to use 'bad words' trying to sound impressive, foreign travel is probably not an option for you.
Read the US Constitution before starting to whine about losing 'legal authority'.
Heh, that's a metaphor...
If you don't pay your taxes and resist arrest while the IRS and is breaking down your door and putting guns to your family's heads you get an ACTUAL bullet. :-)
And I suppose you consider that government has a MORAL right to 100% of a country's GDP, since you equate the fact that the private sector would like some of it back as a demand of ransom, or something.
All these services you talk about except federal highways are paid by local, not federal taxes. So think a little deeper before having a knee-jerk favorable reaction to a government that spends 36% of people's production, overall.
And ALL these things you said could be done better and more cheaply by the private sector. I mean, somehow plumbing only comes easy to bureaucrats?
Taxes DO serve a purpose. They make people poorer and dependent on the government, therefore guaranteeing it's survival.
This isn't 'mindless anti-establishment', its quite mindful Liberalism actually.