Which casts a huge megalith of doubt on their intentions. No profit driven enterprise would spend more on litigation than they expect to get in return - which is why, for example, car companies don't issue recalls for lemons if they expect to be able to settle for far less than a recall will cost.
So that leaves one wondering - what do they really want? And there's only one answer left.
You just said in 4.5 paragraphs what I've been struggling to wrap my head around for quite some time. I've taken notice that 'money' doesn't seem to be doing what it should be doing, but I could never come up with a convincing argument as to why that was so.. and you just gave me more than one.
See abb3w's reply to me - he fixed up my history. You're right about the court case; I've had trouble finding the right historical information and now I've got it.
I've often thought about the straight capitalist answer to my claim though, that that was one of the worst days in history... that answer being, "without those rights, we wouldn't have had the kind of innovation and invention we've had." While the truth of that claim is debatable, I prefer to answer with "so what - at least we wouldn't be walking straight down the path to total destruction."
Do corporations still even HAVE charters? That was the original way they were created, by charter from the government.. Now I think the only thing standing between a corporation and liquidation (besides bankruptcy) is their C or S Corporation license (or LLC as the case may be).
I posted this as a reply to someone else, but I'll put it here too, since you're asking....
A couple of years ago, I went out to a movie with a friend of mine (actually, we went to see the Matrix 2.. haha), where I met a friend of his. I had never met this girl before.
Later that evening we were walking her home because it was rather late and it wasn't safe for a girl to be out alone at night. I walked about 50-100 feet in front of them because the sidewalk was narrow and I was kind of tired and not in a very talkative mood.
At one point, I got a very strong sense that I had seen this place before, stopped, pointed to a house - and a specific window, and said "That's your house right? That's your bedroom window?"
It took them about 20 seconds to respond, because I was right - it was her house, and her window. They spent the next 5 minutes asking me how I knew that. I had never been in that area of the city, nor had I ever been to her house. I recognized the house, and specifically the window, from a dream I had had a couple of weeks earlier.
Deju Vu really can't account for experiences like that. I don't know where that stuff comes from. I am really not a mystic in any sense; I think that sort of thing can be explained scientifically, we just don't have the tools to do it yet.
A couple of years ago, I went out to a movie with a friend of mine, where I met a friend of his. I had never met this girl before.
Later that evening we were walking her home because it was rather late and it wasn't safe for a girl to be out alone at night. I walked about 50-100 in front of them because the sidewalk was narrow and I was kind of tired and not in a very talkative mood.
At one point, I got a very strong sense that I had seen this place before, stopped, pointed to a house - and a specific window, and said "That's your house right? That's your bedroom window?"
It took them about 20 seconds to respond, because I was right - it was her house, and her window. They spent the next 5 minutes asking me how I knew that. I had never been in that area of the city, nor had I ever been to her house. I recognized the house, and specifically the window, from a dream I had had a couple of weeks earlier.
Deju Vu really can't account for experiences like that. I don't know where that stuff comes from. I am really not a mystic in any sense; I think that sort of thing can be explained scientifically, we just don't have the tools to do it yet.
I've gone so far as to write down what people are about to say before they say it, remembering what they said before.. and been right.
Now, that could just be because I know them well enough to make good guesses.
But, I've experienced other forms like yours; once I stood at a street corner and predicted the color and model of cars that came to the intersection, and in what order, for a couple of minutes.
I've tried to find ways to keep the 'deja-vu' going so that the sense doesn't fade away, which has always proved interesting.
I won't immediately claim that these experiences are due to any sort of ESP, but I think that as long as the scientific community scoffs at the mere idea of there being ANYTHING outside the realm of what they can easily comprehend, no true scientific research of this sort will occur. Kind of like how archeologists who search for Atlantis automatically become pariahas in the archeological community. So long as the stigma exists, even asking the question is career suicide.
By 'running' I meant, 'going somewhere else to live the way you want to.' That is no longer a possibility, unless we somehow find a way to make Antarctica habitable.
And actually, I agree with everything you said. I simply resort to hyperbole, sometimes, to help make a point.
I have spent HOURS search for this kind of specific information and it is incredibly difficult to find. Tons of treatises on the rights of a corporation, but no clear explication of its history.
i have the right to speak to whoever i want...but i'm not entitled to do so through a phone. owning a car is a privilege. owning a computer is a privilege.
And owning fruit is a privilege, and owning a home is a privilege, and owning a wedding ring is a privilege.. I suppose you see your contradiction now.
Ownership is not a privilege, it is a right. Using public physical areas is a privilege, like driving your car; I would consider driving a privilege, not a right, simply because you have to share the road with other drivers and you need to earn the reasonable expectation that you won't be constantly crashing into other people.
And you are simply making my point for me: to call something a privilege says that those rights belong to someone else and they are ALLOWING you to use them. Dictionary definition of it is "A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste."
If that is the world in which you want to live, my little serf, feel free, a pathetic sick little world in which everything you do is signed and sanctioned by those in power. I actually happen to think I am free, and NO MAN will ever tell me what my rights are.
If you can win the soldiers, then you win the war. The police don't count, they won't have enough firepower to hold back the revolution. It would be smart of them to just stay out of it.
I have often thought this is the only chance a revolution would have of winning. While armed citzenry could put up a good fight, they simply don't have military weaponry.
So I figure.. get some. Turn a few commanders and see what happens when the military faces itself.
Yes, I'm talking civil war... and I don't think we have a choice.
Remember that democracy itself emerged from global tyranny -- about 500 years ago, every country was ruled by nobility, and everyone else was a serf or a slave.
And 50% of the available land hadn't been explored. In those days, there was still somewhere to run.
Now, there's no place left to run - no place left to enamour ourselves with the delusion that our culture has ever headed any direction but its own destruction. It's time to pay the piper now, the cold, hard justice of the universe that cares nothing for the survival of the human race but only in enforcing the laws that govern it: a people that destroy their planet at every possible chance will not survive.
We have fooled ourselves into thinking otherwise for over 12,000 years.
The consequence of such a statement is to essentially say that your ability to do anything is by the good graces of the powerful, which is such a heinous contradiction to the principles of freedom and liberty that I think I'll just end this comment here.
This ruling is absurd. The invocation of state secrets, an absurd doctrine, in such a mundane case, is absurd. This level of monitoring is absurd
When I first heard about this stuff, I fully expected the government to fess up, say, "Ok, we fucked up, sorry. We're closing down the program and going to Congress to get recommendations on a legal, non-evil way to do this instead. Ok? Sorry. Sorry. Dammit, sorry. Ok?"
Imagine my surprise when the government instead has decided to stonewall every possible effort to comprehend the program and defend our liberties, even to the tiniest degree.
In such a mundane case, is right. Most of the work I do is classified, so I understand where State Secrets might have a place - some resentful engineer suing the government for rights to some patent for some superweapon or whatever should probably NOT show up in a court room.
This is nothing like that. This is about the fundamental basis of what we consider LIBERTY in American and I am.. saddened.. astounded.. bulldozed.. by what has happened in the past 7 months, in the short term, and the past 5 years, in the long term.
Hope is becoming a word without meaning, WhiteWolf. What the hell are we supposed to do.
I personally would feel pretty devastated that by holding out for a principle that I (and you, of course) believe in, I had actually enabled a bunch of killers. That's what makes the issue difficult; if you try to uphold the liberty we all believe in, there's a chance you can help people who literally want to see us destroyed. I don't think there's an easy answer to this question.
Sorry, no.
I would not even blink an eye. I would look straight at those who point at me accusingly and I would tell them:
"While you cower in your corner and imprison yourselves in your ideal world of perfect safety, I stood and declared that I would not purchase my safety with my liberty and the liberty of my children through all of time. I stood and I said "I am free! And you cannot take that away from me." I recognized that liberty is difficult, and requires dilligence and responsibility. Sometimes, that has a price. But I am still free, and I am still a man. You, are a shadow of a man."
The ends do not justify the means. And in fact, the means create the ends; in simpler words: we become that which we hate. To become the essence of dictatorship means there's nothing left worth saving.
I think our forefathers did a tremendous job of designing our gov't but the invention of the corporate entity kinda killed their whole vision........
I've said words to the same effect here before..
One of the worst days in human history was the day in 1849 when a U.S. Federal judge declared that corporations have the same rights as individuals.
Prior to that day, corporations were answerable to the government as to their purpose and behavior. On that day, they became free to be as unethical and irresponsible as your average Joe.
Problem is, your Average Joe doesn't have the ruthless efficiency of never sleeping, nor the power to destroy countless natural resources in the pursuit of 'profit.'
I agree entirely. The emphasis of my tongue in cheek is on the word 'victory' - only on a day like today could one consider the government gaining power over the people to be a 'victory' of ANY kind.
Face it: we've lost. The entire world is descending into darkness and despair, and this time there's no climbing out of it for a really long time (centuries, perhaps even millenia). Police states almost never collapse from within: it almost always takes an outside influence to topple them. That can't happen if the entire world is under the control of police states.
At least the patriots of the American Revolution had a fighting chance of winning, thanks to the technological circumstances of the time. But now, there's no chance at all.
I have, sadly, come to much the same conclusions.
Just a few years ago I think there was a possibility it could swing either way...
And then the American People elected one of the worst men in history to the office of President. If Bush's blatant horror had been visited only on Americans, the world may have hope; but he and others have succeeded in convincing the rest of the world to follow.
People with power only ever want one thing... more power. And in an age when a single word can kill a million people, there's little anyone can do to fight. That's the fundamental difference between now, and all past revolutions... the power to literally destroy the world never existed in the hands of those being fought.
Men like Ray Kurzweil talk about the 'technological singularity', the point at which technological advancement becomes so accelerated that it breaks all possibility for prediction. But there's another singularity we're heading for: cultural singularity, a point at which it becomes impossible for our society ever to change its direction, even if everyone wanted to.
G'Quan wrote: 'There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.'
Maybe somebody ought to crack the lottery and share the money with those burned for trying to save the world?
If I came into that kind of money, I would buy 10,000 acres in the middle of nowhere, build my own little town/city and invite everyone who wants to live free, to live there.
Oh, and build a secret army while I'm at it for when the Feds come accusing me of voluntarily leaving paradise, because NOBODY leaves paradise. Everyone should be a happy little Borg.
OWN IT TODAY! a recent DVD tv ad says to unsuspecting consumers.
Completely offtopic, I wonder if vendors could be sued for false advertisement when claiming "own it today!" if the *AA's and related owned Congressman prefer to believe you have simply 'licensed' the content.
Slashdot Mirror
Which casts a huge megalith of doubt on their intentions. No profit driven enterprise would spend more on litigation than they expect to get in return - which is why, for example, car companies don't issue recalls for lemons if they expect to be able to settle for far less than a recall will cost.
So that leaves one wondering - what do they really want? And there's only one answer left.
Power and control.
Wow.
You just said in 4.5 paragraphs what I've been struggling to wrap my head around for quite some time. I've taken notice that 'money' doesn't seem to be doing what it should be doing, but I could never come up with a convincing argument as to why that was so.. and you just gave me more than one.
Very nice. Mods, make with the mod points.
See abb3w's reply to me - he fixed up my history. You're right about the court case; I've had trouble finding the right historical information and now I've got it.
I've often thought about the straight capitalist answer to my claim though, that that was one of the worst days in history... that answer being, "without those rights, we wouldn't have had the kind of innovation and invention we've had." While the truth of that claim is debatable, I prefer to answer with "so what - at least we wouldn't be walking straight down the path to total destruction."
Do corporations still even HAVE charters? That was the original way they were created, by charter from the government.. Now I think the only thing standing between a corporation and liquidation (besides bankruptcy) is their C or S Corporation license (or LLC as the case may be).
I posted this as a reply to someone else, but I'll put it here too, since you're asking....
A couple of years ago, I went out to a movie with a friend of mine (actually, we went to see the Matrix 2.. haha), where I met a friend of his. I had never met this girl before.
Later that evening we were walking her home because it was rather late and it wasn't safe for a girl to be out alone at night. I walked about 50-100 feet in front of them because the sidewalk was narrow and I was kind of tired and not in a very talkative mood.
At one point, I got a very strong sense that I had seen this place before, stopped, pointed to a house - and a specific window, and said "That's your house right? That's your bedroom window?"
It took them about 20 seconds to respond, because I was right - it was her house, and her window. They spent the next 5 minutes asking me how I knew that. I had never been in that area of the city, nor had I ever been to her house. I recognized the house, and specifically the window, from a dream I had had a couple of weeks earlier.
Deju Vu really can't account for experiences like that. I don't know where that stuff comes from. I am really not a mystic in any sense; I think that sort of thing can be explained scientifically, we just don't have the tools to do it yet.
A couple of years ago, I went out to a movie with a friend of mine, where I met a friend of his. I had never met this girl before.
Later that evening we were walking her home because it was rather late and it wasn't safe for a girl to be out alone at night. I walked about 50-100 in front of them because the sidewalk was narrow and I was kind of tired and not in a very talkative mood.
At one point, I got a very strong sense that I had seen this place before, stopped, pointed to a house - and a specific window, and said "That's your house right? That's your bedroom window?"
It took them about 20 seconds to respond, because I was right - it was her house, and her window. They spent the next 5 minutes asking me how I knew that. I had never been in that area of the city, nor had I ever been to her house. I recognized the house, and specifically the window, from a dream I had had a couple of weeks earlier.
Deju Vu really can't account for experiences like that. I don't know where that stuff comes from. I am really not a mystic in any sense; I think that sort of thing can be explained scientifically, we just don't have the tools to do it yet.
I've gone so far as to write down what people are about to say before they say it, remembering what they said before.. and been right.
Now, that could just be because I know them well enough to make good guesses.
But, I've experienced other forms like yours; once I stood at a street corner and predicted the color and model of cars that came to the intersection, and in what order, for a couple of minutes.
I've tried to find ways to keep the 'deja-vu' going so that the sense doesn't fade away, which has always proved interesting.
I won't immediately claim that these experiences are due to any sort of ESP, but I think that as long as the scientific community scoffs at the mere idea of there being ANYTHING outside the realm of what they can easily comprehend, no true scientific research of this sort will occur. Kind of like how archeologists who search for Atlantis automatically become pariahas in the archeological community. So long as the stigma exists, even asking the question is career suicide.
You owe me a new keyboard. Slashdot is no place for hilarity, mister!
By 'running' I meant, 'going somewhere else to live the way you want to.' That is no longer a possibility, unless we somehow find a way to make Antarctica habitable.
And actually, I agree with everything you said. I simply resort to hyperbole, sometimes, to help make a point.
Oh I don't know, I rather enjoyed Jeremiah. I liked the story and thought it had great potential... too bad they only made 21 (?) episodes..
Thank you thank you thank you..
I have spent HOURS search for this kind of specific information and it is incredibly difficult to find. Tons of treatises on the rights of a corporation, but no clear explication of its history.
Thanks!
And owning fruit is a privilege, and owning a home is a privilege, and owning a wedding ring is a privilege.. I suppose you see your contradiction now.
Ownership is not a privilege, it is a right. Using public physical areas is a privilege, like driving your car; I would consider driving a privilege, not a right, simply because you have to share the road with other drivers and you need to earn the reasonable expectation that you won't be constantly crashing into other people.
And you are simply making my point for me: to call something a privilege says that those rights belong to someone else and they are ALLOWING you to use them. Dictionary definition of it is "A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste."
If that is the world in which you want to live, my little serf, feel free, a pathetic sick little world in which everything you do is signed and sanctioned by those in power. I actually happen to think I am free, and NO MAN will ever tell me what my rights are.
So I figure.. get some. Turn a few commanders and see what happens when the military faces itself.
Yes, I'm talking civil war... and I don't think we have a choice.
Now, there's no place left to run - no place left to enamour ourselves with the delusion that our culture has ever headed any direction but its own destruction. It's time to pay the piper now, the cold, hard justice of the universe that cares nothing for the survival of the human race but only in enforcing the laws that govern it: a people that destroy their planet at every possible chance will not survive.
We have fooled ourselves into thinking otherwise for over 12,000 years.
Now, there's no place left to run.
My reply to that particular thought
When I first heard about this stuff, I fully expected the government to fess up, say, "Ok, we fucked up, sorry. We're closing down the program and going to Congress to get recommendations on a legal, non-evil way to do this instead. Ok? Sorry. Sorry. Dammit, sorry. Ok?"
Imagine my surprise when the government instead has decided to stonewall every possible effort to comprehend the program and defend our liberties, even to the tiniest degree.
In such a mundane case, is right. Most of the work I do is classified, so I understand where State Secrets might have a place - some resentful engineer suing the government for rights to some patent for some superweapon or whatever should probably NOT show up in a court room.
This is nothing like that. This is about the fundamental basis of what we consider LIBERTY in American and I am.. saddened.. astounded.. bulldozed.. by what has happened in the past 7 months, in the short term, and the past 5 years, in the long term.
Hope is becoming a word without meaning, WhiteWolf. What the hell are we supposed to do.
I would not even blink an eye. I would look straight at those who point at me accusingly and I would tell them:
"While you cower in your corner and imprison yourselves in your ideal world of perfect safety, I stood and declared that I would not purchase my safety with my liberty and the liberty of my children through all of time. I stood and I said "I am free! And you cannot take that away from me." I recognized that liberty is difficult, and requires dilligence and responsibility. Sometimes, that has a price. But I am still free, and I am still a man. You, are a shadow of a man."
The ends do not justify the means. And in fact, the means create the ends; in simpler words: we become that which we hate. To become the essence of dictatorship means there's nothing left worth saving.
One of the worst days in human history was the day in 1849 when a U.S. Federal judge declared that corporations have the same rights as individuals.
Prior to that day, corporations were answerable to the government as to their purpose and behavior. On that day, they became free to be as unethical and irresponsible as your average Joe.
Problem is, your Average Joe doesn't have the ruthless efficiency of never sleeping, nor the power to destroy countless natural resources in the pursuit of 'profit.'
One of the worst days in human history...
I agree entirely. The emphasis of my tongue in cheek is on the word 'victory' - only on a day like today could one consider the government gaining power over the people to be a 'victory' of ANY kind.
Just a few years ago I think there was a possibility it could swing either way...
And then the American People elected one of the worst men in history to the office of President. If Bush's blatant horror had been visited only on Americans, the world may have hope; but he and others have succeeded in convincing the rest of the world to follow.
People with power only ever want one thing... more power. And in an age when a single word can kill a million people, there's little anyone can do to fight. That's the fundamental difference between now, and all past revolutions... the power to literally destroy the world never existed in the hands of those being fought.
Men like Ray Kurzweil talk about the 'technological singularity', the point at which technological advancement becomes so accelerated that it breaks all possibility for prediction. But there's another singularity we're heading for: cultural singularity, a point at which it becomes impossible for our society ever to change its direction, even if everyone wanted to.
There's only one way this will end...
In fire.
I submitted it to YRO.. I was as surprised as you!
Ah well.
The phrase "a major victory was won by the federal government" was written tongue in cheek. I don't consider this a good thing at all.
Been a long time since I saw such a well thought out possible solution to the problem.
Mod the f- up!
Oh, and build a secret army while I'm at it for when the Feds come accusing me of voluntarily leaving paradise, because NOBODY leaves paradise. Everyone should be a happy little Borg.
Hm.