In response to this post on Slashdot regarding the Russian ideal to mandate everything:
Possibly similar to what I see in the United States. Schools force kids to read great books against their will, rather than ending up with well educated kids, just a lot of kids that really hate to read and will likely not pick up another book once they are out of school.
What is going to matter is implementation. With the reading example, it is intended that kids end up reading really good books, but it comes down to the teacher that often has the biggest influence on what a student ends up with, and how they appreciate it.
Standardization and organization for efficient use of resources to develop a base infrastructure, I believe, is one of the few legitimate purposes of government. Allow for free market competition, but standardize public education and government offices to use an open standards and basic system tools so everyone can play nice. This will expand opportunity for the private sector / free enterprise to build upon these tools. Both the public and the private sector can have influence on the future development and auditing of the tools so that bugs get fixed and if necessary, forks are made.
The problem you identify already exists with Windows. The difference with Linux is that open standards make it much less of a hack job to implement interoperability. Building tools on Windows has you at the mercy of the closed tools you use. If an API is buggy or needs to be changed in some way, you are not allowed to. A free base system gives people options and proprietary software developers on their toes.
If Russia is going to fork Fedora and say "screw it" to the GPL and close source it because they feel like it and make one system everyone will be taught, and stop developing it once it is "good enough", then it will be a disaster. I get the impression that is not their plan; honor the GPL, get help from Red Hat as necessary to train their own developers, become an equal partner with respect to the community and provide upstream contributions, keep the source open and available to the public. This will provide new opportunity in many ways for all people, not just Russia.
I understand where you are coming from, which what encouraged me to respond, but the Russians have never been so insidious or oppressive of its people as Microsoft has been to its user base, unless you think gallop polls are the heart of democracy and liberty... then who knows. A national OS based on Linux is like collecting taxes to build roads, not telling people where they have to drive. Private sector can have their tour buss and taxi cabs, but let that be far different than gated highways mandating police escort.
My feeling with regard to user apathy is to look at the above situation and think "who cares if I get where I need to go?", not to mention all the other great advantages of not having to do any work or remember how to get places.
It isn't the standardization that is the problem, so much as the centralized control of such standardization that creates problems. I am certain the Russian government is going to do a better job of oversight with regard to enabling the Russian people to get the most out of their computing experience than Microsoft.
I look forward to when the United States will consider catching up with the times, but I don't expect much from a country that still regards Ricardian Economics as God's Will... but that's another issue. :)
As far as any perceived irony of Russia and China embracing Linux:
Even worse case scenario, Russia and China want total control over their country, and where they may not be able to have control, the most important thing is to ensure that others DON'T have it. Software freedom will ensure that Microsoft isn't a dictator, and in "oppressive" countries like Russia or China, I am sure their leaders are the first and best to recognize a regime hell bent on global domination and control. Have it their way, they would take credit for giving Microsoft the idea in the first place.
Americans have been spewing their Liberty, Freedom, and Democracy rhetoric so long without any thought to the meaning, they wouldn't know a dictatorship if it kicked them in the face, stole their money and replaced it with "notes" depicting people that used to know what those terms meant.
Too subtle?
Woot to Russia. I look forward to seeing where this goes in many respects.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
California voters rule "God Hates Fags"
So I got to talk to a friend last night that gave me some comfort in the bureaucracy of the issue. Key points:
Scenario #1
1. Governor Schwarzenegger said regarding prop 22 that he supported equal rights, but that as governor he had to support the will of the people BUT that he would leave it to the courts to decide.
2. If that means he is going to stand by the decision of the California supreme court, he can let the issue sit for 30 days, after which not being signed would automatically be vetoed.
3. The state senate is not in session. The senate could over turn his veto with a 66% majority... if they were in session.
4. Prop 8 dies
Scenario #2
1. Governor Schwarzenegger "respects the will of the [majority of] the [voting] people", signs the bill, leaving it to the Supreme court to possibly decide.
2. Five constitutional amendments have been proposed, which would require a 75% majority of the people, AFTER it gets the approval of some high majority of the senate and house each (one 66%, the other 75%. This has all but been completely been burned, never going to happen... so we can hope.
3. The supreme court has refused to hear any issue on gay marriage because they believe the issue has already been resolved. Gay marriage ban is CLEARLY unconstitutional under the 14th amendment equal protection clause.
4. Now with 30+ states with gay marriage bans, and particularly California banning gay marriage, The supreme court will have to hear the issue and make their final ruling.
5. And in case it needs to be said: there were some strong compilations with people that voted yes on 8. Sadly if black, but also the poorer the person, and the less educated you were, the more likely the person was to vote yes on 8. Asian and Hispanic were tied, white people voted no, as well as educated and middle to upper class voted no. So for an extra point, where do most supreme court justices typically fall in that demographic?
Separate issue:
prop 8 still has to be interpreted, so despite all the lies spewed by the churches to successfully sway the poor and uneducated, there is a little lie that got through from the no on 8 side. Married gay couples will not loose their marriage licenses, otherwise it is de facto segregation. The licenses were lawfully obtained at a time when it was legal. there is nothing in prop 8 that makes this retroactive, not to mention the courts get to interpret the law... a court that has already decided on the issue. The language may be "very clear", but the implications are still completly open to interpretation.
Further, until the bill is signed into law, it is still legal. Therefore anyone planning to get married may consider moving their plans up to ASAP.
Scenario #3
Civil Unions are brought up to date to be equal to 'marriage', and marriage is abolished as being a clear violation of separation of church and state, as well as equal protection, effectivly making prop 8 irrelevant. This could happen either in California, but there is a decent chance this is what would happen in the supreme court.
I'd like to see this issue resolved sooner... you know, like today like I expected. But as history has shown, the harder you try to oppress people for a longer period of time, the blow back when they are finally unwilling to put up with it has larger and larger implications as time goes by.
It is more than simply not over, one can say that this has really just begun.
To anyone else that cared about the California propositions, this is how things split according to LA Times:
Scenario #1
1. Governor Schwarzenegger said regarding prop 22 that he supported equal rights, but that as governor he had to support the will of the people BUT that he would leave it to the courts to decide.
2. If that means he is going to stand by the decision of the California supreme court, he can let the issue sit for 30 days, after which not being signed would automatically be vetoed.
3. The state senate is not in session. The senate could over turn his veto with a 66% majority... if they were in session.
4. Prop 8 dies
Scenario #2
1. Governor Schwarzenegger "respects the will of the [majority of] the [voting] people", signs the bill, leaving it to the Supreme court to possibly decide.
2. Five constitutional amendments have been proposed, which would require a 75% majority of the people, AFTER it gets the approval of some high majority of the senate and house each (one 66%, the other 75%. This has all but been completely been burned, never going to happen... so we can hope.
3. The supreme court has refused to hear any issue on gay marriage because they believe the issue has already been resolved. Gay marriage ban is CLEARLY unconstitutional under the 14th amendment equal protection clause.
4. Now with 30+ states with gay marriage bans, and particularly California banning gay marriage, The supreme court will have to hear the issue and make their final ruling.
5. And in case it needs to be said: there were some strong compilations with people that voted yes on 8. Sadly if black, but also the poorer the person, and the less educated you were, the more likely the person was to vote yes on 8. Asian and Hispanic were tied, white people voted no, as well as educated and middle to upper class voted no. So for an extra point, where do most supreme court justices typically fall in that demographic?
Separate issue:
prop 8 still has to be interpreted, so despite all the lies spewed by the churches to successfully sway the poor and uneducated, there is a little lie that got through from the no on 8 side. Married gay couples will not loose their marriage licenses, otherwise it is de facto segregation. The licenses were lawfully obtained at a time when it was legal. there is nothing in prop 8 that makes this retroactive, not to mention the courts get to interpret the law... a court that has already decided on the issue. The language may be "very clear", but the implications are still completly open to interpretation.
Further, until the bill is signed into law, it is still legal. Therefore anyone planning to get married may consider moving their plans up to ASAP.
Scenario #3
Civil Unions are brought up to date to be equal to 'marriage', and marriage is abolished as being a clear violation of separation of church and state, as well as equal protection, effectivly making prop 8 irrelevant. This could happen either in California, but there is a decent chance this is what would happen in the supreme court.
I'd like to see this issue resolved sooner... you know, like today like I expected. But as history has shown, the harder you try to oppress people for a longer period of time, the blow back when they are finally unwilling to put up with it has larger and larger implications as time goes by.
It is more than simply not over, one can say that this has really just begun.
To anyone else that cared about the California propositions, this is how things split according to LA Times:
Propositions Precincts reporting: ~95.0%
- 1A: High-speed rail Yes 52.2% No 47.8%
- 2: Farm animals Yes 63.2% No 36.8%
- 3: Children’s hospitals Yes 54.7% No 45.3%
- 4: Abortion notification Yes 47.6% No 52.4%
- 5: Drug offenses Yes 40.2% No 59.8%
- 6: Criminal justice Yes 30.5% No 69.5%
- 7: Renewable energy Yes 35.1% No 64.9%
- 8: Gay marriage ban Yes 52.0% No 48.0%
- 9: Victims’ rights Yes 53.2% No 46.8%
- 10: Alternative fuels Yes 40.1% No 59.9%
- 11: Redistricting Yes 50.5% No 49.5%
- 12: Loans for veterans Yes 63.4% No 36.6%
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Happy Election Day!!
I am enjoying election day. The only upsetting thing is the people I know with VERY strong opinions on a number of issues, and to be fair share my opinion on most of the propositions, but are not voting. I fear too many people that might share my opinions will not vote, while the minority (like yes on 8 people) will vote in record numbers.
Anyway, there was a great discussion, and a lot of people brought up some interesting questions I enjoyed covering. Anyway, here they are.
---
Are we over regulating business or not enough?
People talk about free market like as if it is an anything goes. If that was true, why was "Wealth of Nations" and "The Theory of Money and Credit" such massive works?
Free market theory theory of economics, IMHO, isn't about what the government shouldn't do, it is about what it CAN'T do given the nature of an economy. The government can be a normal competitor, and one with BIG money, but it can't make bad businesses successful. Money doesn't create wealth, no matter how much you give away. We can redistribute wealth, and that costs money. Doing useful work is the only thing that improves the 'wealth of a nation'.
Sure, people are greedy, but people are driven by greed to do really great things. Greed can always lead to corruption, but what? Somehow our politicians are above that? What country have you been living in? At least greedy businessmen have something to loose. I think the most important thing we can do set high standards and educate people. And the balance? Employees are greedy, and nothing is more greedy than a consumer.
I don't get this whole "how much regulation is enough?". No amount of the wrong regulation is going to work. We need to look at what types of regulations can and can not work. Price fixing DOES NOT WORK. Taxes need to be product and revenue neutral. Regulations need to be equal, but the government needs to know its place. Mises says that one of the few roles of government that it can play that are different than any other large consumer is the handling of broken contracts. In particular, when someone provides goods, services, or money today to get goods, services, or money in the future, and one of those parties fails to meet their obligation, then the government can intervene to see that the failing party is treated fairly in the liquidation of it's assets as appropriate. That is why this bailout thing is such a nightmare! Businesses that have proven not worthy of survival, for many different reasons, need to die. The government needs to ensure that those businesses are liquidated in a fair manner. Instead, they are being propped up? Why?!?
Now I know that isn't all that is happening. Anyone can buy these loans, and if the government wants to get into that business, then they can be an equal player, but buying any loan under its fair market value makes little sense.
The place where there can be a problem is when government tried to drive the market in a direction it doesn't want to go. I think a great example of this is the drug war. We spend tons of money, for a number of different reason to artificially reduce the supply of certain drugs deemed unsafe. What happens? price goes up. That isn't regulation, that is just manipulation. Regulation would be oversight into ensuring drugs were made cleanly and that customers knew what they were getting. Government could give oversight to certification programs that have various standards, just like the FDA, BBB, HUD, and such. If someone is brewing drugs in their bathtub, they should be shut down for the fire hazard. If a place has quality equipment that is well maintained, doctors, clean needles, safe rooms, and counseling services, not only should they get an A+ like the health department does for restaurants, but nobody is going to buy from the drug dealer on the street corner. And I thought this was all about keeping people safe. It has worked in European countries that have adopted this, and I think Canada has a similar program, and that was exactly the result. Also, a good number of people cleaned up, not to mention drug crime virtually disappeared. How can we keep saying that the type of regulation we have today is working when the number one cause of accidental death in this country is from overdose prescription drugs?
Free market says the best players win that give the customer what they want with quality and at a low price. Government has the power to encourage the best business, and that is the type of regulation we need. We can also use a lot of it. But the current ideology in regulation is fundamentally and it has been proven for a very long time that it CAN'T work, and it is those types of regulations that need to be eliminated.
What I see by both sides is blaming bad regulations as PROOF of too little regulation by liberals, and too much regulation by conservatives. There are tons of books on this stuff, not just by Mises and Smith, but too often it really looks like Congress is just guessing at what would work. Why not back off, study the market, and then see where they can find the competitive advantage. Personally, I think if the government likes what a company is doing, they should buy the product, not mess with how much money they aren't going to take away from them.
This is in part why I think Fair Tax makes sense. It was the result of a large, quality study. The government needs taxes, not to mention the government supports this great country where the market exists. I like the way the Ferangi in Star Trek see the market, as a large river that must carefully be navigated. Regulating taxes is like building a damn. A consumption tax puts the damn as far down stream as possible, and in just one place where everyone knows. What we have right now is water polution. When it comes to supply and demand, income taxes just discourage income, which manifests itself in some very bizzare ways. Same with payroll taxes, estate taxes, corporate taxes, and other things. We have this crazy mess of nets in this "river", and rightfully so businesses have to traverse it; a businesses ability to navigate the river directly coorilates to competitive advantage. And when somebody wins, they call it a loop hole.
Pull out the unnecessary nets. The market place is difficult enough to figure out without all these artifical barriers. Tax consumption in a fair way as Fair Tax proposes (Personally, I think the prebate would eliminate a need for welfare, but maybe that's just me), and in any place where the market fails, jump in there and compete, and stop just handing out monopolies to the highest bidder that meets some kind of short sighted goal. The market is rough, and every time the government tries to do something unnatural, trying to tame something that can't be tamed, it just keeps resulting in a cascading effect of "unintended consequences".
---
Did the GOP change McCain?
McCain hasn't changed at all. I think knowing him, Palin was the perfect pick. The issue was that McCain was the perfect pick to put up against Hillary. The PROBLEM is that McCain didn't change his strategy. An over simplification of the issue was that Hillary would have come off as an unrealistic leftist, while McCain made off as the conservative / left moderate. The problem (for him) is honestly Obama's change thing. He wants to revolutionize socialism (what some have called democratic socialism). McCain's plan of attack didn't anticipate this at all, and not knowing how to deal with it, he has defaulted to sticking with a failed game plan OR he is being consistent. Either way, we are now forced to decided between a democrat, and a socialist.
And only one is seen as a traitor to their party.
Republicans have not stood on a conservative platform in over 20 years, and conservatives that loved their party are jumping ship. Republicans on their conservative platform saw the advantage of pandering to the religious right. The problem is that they ended up selling out and letting their constituents take over so far as to sell out on their conservative beliefs.
I consider myself a conservative, and do republicans, but my democrat friends say I am an extreme libertarian. I had hope and belief that Republicans had conservatism as the fore front of their policy, but the constant compromising and this neo-conservative nightmare has become "do whatever sounds nice for the people that support us".
Some people like this. Obviously, otherwise why would the Republicans have adopted it? They just under estimated the number of people that are conservative because it is the best thing for the country, not their self serving interests. There are people that love Palin, and there are Republicans that see McCain's move to the left as a positive, encouraging bipartisanship.
And I think it would have been enough for a win against Hillary. It was just the wrong strategy against Obama when it comes to getting the majority of electorates. I do not fault McCain for sticking to what he believes in, if you can at least believe for a moment that he did that. I think the fault lies more with the GOP. I know many people would say this is crazy, but I think the reason Ron Paul was not supported by the GOP is because he is hated by the media / entertainment industry. The GOP be that it couldn't beat the media at that game. Ron Paul ran on a platform of change. dramatic change back to logic and traditional conservatism that believes in a rational science of politics. I think with the back of the GOP, and unfortunately the religious right that would never have voted for Obama, HIS conservative platform of change, getting the Republican party to what it stood for, and had MAJOR victories throughout the 60's, 70's, and 80's would have brought hope to people that we can get back to what worked, within an enlightened vision, versus this radically untested democratic socialist platform of Obama's. The media would have been forced to back off and cover the election in the way it could to get ratings. McCain's coverage is proof that the media doesn't go light on any candidate it doesn't support, and McCain got hit harder than has been seen in a long time. McCain's actual weaknesses didn't help either.
I really think Paul could have stood up to the heat, and I really wish there could have been a real debate between Obama and Paul rather than that monkey dance we were made to endure. IMHO, the reason McCain could not hit any of Obama's weaknesses was because on his important faults, McCain is virtually the same person. I seriously wish some of those weaknesses could have been addressed by a real, experienced, and lovable conservative.
To anyone that follows business stuff, the GOP was to the entertainment industry what Rubbermaid was to Walmart; a disposable asset that could be manipulated in their favor. And to (certain) music lovers, the only chance they had was what happened between ICP and Disney. ICP may not have done as well, as they could have.. but they are doing a whole lot better than Rubbermaid.
The GOP didn't know when to quit, so their voters did instead.
---
Why Palin was a good pick for McCain
1) She was/is the highest rated governor in the Country.
2) Alaska joined the Union for its oil reserves, and Palin strongly believes that this country needs energy independence (despite any reasons / understanding or how closely she may have had business with oil companies).
3) She is not a Washington insider / new face
4) She is a role model for women that take the same position as her on women's issues, not to mention she is a very positive example of a person that takes that kind of position
And as I mentioned earlier, all together, I think the pair / plan would have beat Hillary. It is just senseless against Obama. The GOP picked the perfect weapon, for the wrong type of target.
McCain sold the "I am not Bush" plan. Palin is the "I am not Hillary" plan. In addition to being the complete opposite of Hillary with respect to the issues mentioned above, Palin is a more likable person (remember polls saying in 2000 that Bush was the candidate voters would most like to sit with and have a beer? I meant something), and 5) she is really hot.
Hillary never would have had a chance.
---
When did Obama break?
When do you think it happened?
I think it happened in the last few weeks before the primary. Hillary's hate. McCain's hate. I think Obama saw this as something that was only going to help him, but really sad that he could not have had a real fight debating technical issues.
He is great at the "Hope" "Change" speeches that get all the idiots drooling over him, but he also really has the ability to get down to specific details and argue their merits and set out a clear vision such as his "A Call to Renewal" podcast from 2002.
I said it to myself around the primary that Obama was a great gift, and the best we could really wish for to lead this country... but we don't deserve him, and our petty BS is going to break a really great man. I know this is just what some really hate hearing, but he reminds me of John Coffey from The Green Mile; he was this miracle given to us that by our greed and hate we would destroy for our own selfish, petty reasons.
Now is he broken? Maybe. Could he just need some rest and recover soon after today?
I have Hope.
On a separate note, I hated him a LOT up till recently for supporting the bail out, and further for supporting the PRO-IP Act. But going to give him a chance, and hope it plays out well, like Lessig or Patry being given the position of Internet Czar. Preferably Patry cause I know there is already a position of Internet Advisor Obama has made for Lessig in his cabinet.
---
United States Naval Academy is nothing to scoff at
While I am not a McCain fan AT ALL, and while it is sad that neither Palin or McCain have ANY higher education, and both Biden and Obama have great educational achievements, it is worth keeping in mind that McCain did graduate at the bottom of his class from the United States Naval Academy, which for any of you who are not military buffs, is about the most prestigious, not to mention most difficult, training facility in the world. It would be little different than criticizing an athlete for getting nearly last place in the Olympics. Yeah, it is nearly last, but it is the MF'n Olympics. Or bottom of your class from MIT, Harvard, or Stanford
I don't think it is really something that can be used to criticize his experience. The disgusting mess of this war? Now that is certainly something well worth using against him... I just think it is a separate issue from his academic achievements.
Anyway, there was a great discussion, and a lot of people brought up some interesting questions I enjoyed covering. Anyway, here they are.
---
Are we over regulating business or not enough?
People talk about free market like as if it is an anything goes. If that was true, why was "Wealth of Nations" and "The Theory of Money and Credit" such massive works?
Free market theory theory of economics, IMHO, isn't about what the government shouldn't do, it is about what it CAN'T do given the nature of an economy. The government can be a normal competitor, and one with BIG money, but it can't make bad businesses successful. Money doesn't create wealth, no matter how much you give away. We can redistribute wealth, and that costs money. Doing useful work is the only thing that improves the 'wealth of a nation'.
Sure, people are greedy, but people are driven by greed to do really great things. Greed can always lead to corruption, but what? Somehow our politicians are above that? What country have you been living in? At least greedy businessmen have something to loose. I think the most important thing we can do set high standards and educate people. And the balance? Employees are greedy, and nothing is more greedy than a consumer.
I don't get this whole "how much regulation is enough?". No amount of the wrong regulation is going to work. We need to look at what types of regulations can and can not work. Price fixing DOES NOT WORK. Taxes need to be product and revenue neutral. Regulations need to be equal, but the government needs to know its place. Mises says that one of the few roles of government that it can play that are different than any other large consumer is the handling of broken contracts. In particular, when someone provides goods, services, or money today to get goods, services, or money in the future, and one of those parties fails to meet their obligation, then the government can intervene to see that the failing party is treated fairly in the liquidation of it's assets as appropriate. That is why this bailout thing is such a nightmare! Businesses that have proven not worthy of survival, for many different reasons, need to die. The government needs to ensure that those businesses are liquidated in a fair manner. Instead, they are being propped up? Why?!?
Now I know that isn't all that is happening. Anyone can buy these loans, and if the government wants to get into that business, then they can be an equal player, but buying any loan under its fair market value makes little sense.
The place where there can be a problem is when government tried to drive the market in a direction it doesn't want to go. I think a great example of this is the drug war. We spend tons of money, for a number of different reason to artificially reduce the supply of certain drugs deemed unsafe. What happens? price goes up. That isn't regulation, that is just manipulation. Regulation would be oversight into ensuring drugs were made cleanly and that customers knew what they were getting. Government could give oversight to certification programs that have various standards, just like the FDA, BBB, HUD, and such. If someone is brewing drugs in their bathtub, they should be shut down for the fire hazard. If a place has quality equipment that is well maintained, doctors, clean needles, safe rooms, and counseling services, not only should they get an A+ like the health department does for restaurants, but nobody is going to buy from the drug dealer on the street corner. And I thought this was all about keeping people safe. It has worked in European countries that have adopted this, and I think Canada has a similar program, and that was exactly the result. Also, a good number of people cleaned up, not to mention drug crime virtually disappeared. How can we keep saying that the type of regulation we have today is working when the number one cause of accidental death in this country is from overdose prescription drugs?
Free market says the best players win that give the customer what they want with quality and at a low price. Government has the power to encourage the best business, and that is the type of regulation we need. We can also use a lot of it. But the current ideology in regulation is fundamentally and it has been proven for a very long time that it CAN'T work, and it is those types of regulations that need to be eliminated.
What I see by both sides is blaming bad regulations as PROOF of too little regulation by liberals, and too much regulation by conservatives. There are tons of books on this stuff, not just by Mises and Smith, but too often it really looks like Congress is just guessing at what would work. Why not back off, study the market, and then see where they can find the competitive advantage. Personally, I think if the government likes what a company is doing, they should buy the product, not mess with how much money they aren't going to take away from them.
This is in part why I think Fair Tax makes sense. It was the result of a large, quality study. The government needs taxes, not to mention the government supports this great country where the market exists. I like the way the Ferangi in Star Trek see the market, as a large river that must carefully be navigated. Regulating taxes is like building a damn. A consumption tax puts the damn as far down stream as possible, and in just one place where everyone knows. What we have right now is water polution. When it comes to supply and demand, income taxes just discourage income, which manifests itself in some very bizzare ways. Same with payroll taxes, estate taxes, corporate taxes, and other things. We have this crazy mess of nets in this "river", and rightfully so businesses have to traverse it; a businesses ability to navigate the river directly coorilates to competitive advantage. And when somebody wins, they call it a loop hole.
Pull out the unnecessary nets. The market place is difficult enough to figure out without all these artifical barriers. Tax consumption in a fair way as Fair Tax proposes (Personally, I think the prebate would eliminate a need for welfare, but maybe that's just me), and in any place where the market fails, jump in there and compete, and stop just handing out monopolies to the highest bidder that meets some kind of short sighted goal. The market is rough, and every time the government tries to do something unnatural, trying to tame something that can't be tamed, it just keeps resulting in a cascading effect of "unintended consequences".
---
Did the GOP change McCain?
McCain hasn't changed at all. I think knowing him, Palin was the perfect pick. The issue was that McCain was the perfect pick to put up against Hillary. The PROBLEM is that McCain didn't change his strategy. An over simplification of the issue was that Hillary would have come off as an unrealistic leftist, while McCain made off as the conservative / left moderate. The problem (for him) is honestly Obama's change thing. He wants to revolutionize socialism (what some have called democratic socialism). McCain's plan of attack didn't anticipate this at all, and not knowing how to deal with it, he has defaulted to sticking with a failed game plan OR he is being consistent. Either way, we are now forced to decided between a democrat, and a socialist.
And only one is seen as a traitor to their party.
Republicans have not stood on a conservative platform in over 20 years, and conservatives that loved their party are jumping ship. Republicans on their conservative platform saw the advantage of pandering to the religious right. The problem is that they ended up selling out and letting their constituents take over so far as to sell out on their conservative beliefs.
I consider myself a conservative, and do republicans, but my democrat friends say I am an extreme libertarian. I had hope and belief that Republicans had conservatism as the fore front of their policy, but the constant compromising and this neo-conservative nightmare has become "do whatever sounds nice for the people that support us".
Some people like this. Obviously, otherwise why would the Republicans have adopted it? They just under estimated the number of people that are conservative because it is the best thing for the country, not their self serving interests. There are people that love Palin, and there are Republicans that see McCain's move to the left as a positive, encouraging bipartisanship.
And I think it would have been enough for a win against Hillary. It was just the wrong strategy against Obama when it comes to getting the majority of electorates. I do not fault McCain for sticking to what he believes in, if you can at least believe for a moment that he did that. I think the fault lies more with the GOP. I know many people would say this is crazy, but I think the reason Ron Paul was not supported by the GOP is because he is hated by the media / entertainment industry. The GOP be that it couldn't beat the media at that game. Ron Paul ran on a platform of change. dramatic change back to logic and traditional conservatism that believes in a rational science of politics. I think with the back of the GOP, and unfortunately the religious right that would never have voted for Obama, HIS conservative platform of change, getting the Republican party to what it stood for, and had MAJOR victories throughout the 60's, 70's, and 80's would have brought hope to people that we can get back to what worked, within an enlightened vision, versus this radically untested democratic socialist platform of Obama's. The media would have been forced to back off and cover the election in the way it could to get ratings. McCain's coverage is proof that the media doesn't go light on any candidate it doesn't support, and McCain got hit harder than has been seen in a long time. McCain's actual weaknesses didn't help either.
I really think Paul could have stood up to the heat, and I really wish there could have been a real debate between Obama and Paul rather than that monkey dance we were made to endure. IMHO, the reason McCain could not hit any of Obama's weaknesses was because on his important faults, McCain is virtually the same person. I seriously wish some of those weaknesses could have been addressed by a real, experienced, and lovable conservative.
To anyone that follows business stuff, the GOP was to the entertainment industry what Rubbermaid was to Walmart; a disposable asset that could be manipulated in their favor. And to (certain) music lovers, the only chance they had was what happened between ICP and Disney. ICP may not have done as well, as they could have.. but they are doing a whole lot better than Rubbermaid.
The GOP didn't know when to quit, so their voters did instead.
---
Why Palin was a good pick for McCain
1) She was/is the highest rated governor in the Country.
2) Alaska joined the Union for its oil reserves, and Palin strongly believes that this country needs energy independence (despite any reasons / understanding or how closely she may have had business with oil companies).
3) She is not a Washington insider / new face
4) She is a role model for women that take the same position as her on women's issues, not to mention she is a very positive example of a person that takes that kind of position
And as I mentioned earlier, all together, I think the pair / plan would have beat Hillary. It is just senseless against Obama. The GOP picked the perfect weapon, for the wrong type of target.
McCain sold the "I am not Bush" plan. Palin is the "I am not Hillary" plan. In addition to being the complete opposite of Hillary with respect to the issues mentioned above, Palin is a more likable person (remember polls saying in 2000 that Bush was the candidate voters would most like to sit with and have a beer? I meant something), and 5) she is really hot.
Hillary never would have had a chance.
---
When did Obama break?
When do you think it happened?
I think it happened in the last few weeks before the primary. Hillary's hate. McCain's hate. I think Obama saw this as something that was only going to help him, but really sad that he could not have had a real fight debating technical issues.
He is great at the "Hope" "Change" speeches that get all the idiots drooling over him, but he also really has the ability to get down to specific details and argue their merits and set out a clear vision such as his "A Call to Renewal" podcast from 2002.
I said it to myself around the primary that Obama was a great gift, and the best we could really wish for to lead this country... but we don't deserve him, and our petty BS is going to break a really great man. I know this is just what some really hate hearing, but he reminds me of John Coffey from The Green Mile; he was this miracle given to us that by our greed and hate we would destroy for our own selfish, petty reasons.
Now is he broken? Maybe. Could he just need some rest and recover soon after today?
I have Hope.
On a separate note, I hated him a LOT up till recently for supporting the bail out, and further for supporting the PRO-IP Act. But going to give him a chance, and hope it plays out well, like Lessig or Patry being given the position of Internet Czar. Preferably Patry cause I know there is already a position of Internet Advisor Obama has made for Lessig in his cabinet.
---
United States Naval Academy is nothing to scoff at
While I am not a McCain fan AT ALL, and while it is sad that neither Palin or McCain have ANY higher education, and both Biden and Obama have great educational achievements, it is worth keeping in mind that McCain did graduate at the bottom of his class from the United States Naval Academy, which for any of you who are not military buffs, is about the most prestigious, not to mention most difficult, training facility in the world. It would be little different than criticizing an athlete for getting nearly last place in the Olympics. Yeah, it is nearly last, but it is the MF'n Olympics. Or bottom of your class from MIT, Harvard, or Stanford
I don't think it is really something that can be used to criticize his experience. The disgusting mess of this war? Now that is certainly something well worth using against him... I just think it is a separate issue from his academic achievements.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Great people inspired by great people
One of the early things I loved about Obama was his fight for open government. He was the first state senator to have a podcast telling the people he represented what he was doing for them, or at least what was going on.
So I feel lucky to have stumbled upon one of hid podcasts from 2002, being cited by another man I have a lot of respect for, Linux Torvalds.
Some quick citations:
Linus Torvalds talk about Richard Stallman, GPL and Obama on digg pointing to
Black & White By Linux Torvalds detailing how his 17 year commitment to Linux has come from what he loves, not what he hates, arguing that GPLv3 and RMS build on the later. Linus cites a speech of Barack Obama, A Call to Renewal, where he argues for people to see the good in religious and non-religious faith rather than divisions which are really so few when it comes to our desire to find truth, even if it doesn't always feel that way.
RMS is an odd guy, but I see him an iconic. He is that totally weird crazy guy talking about a different better world, completely uncompromising. I watched a video of him criticizing the OLPC where he was ranting about how it was filled with proprietary software that he couldn't remove, but the parts that were removable, he did. Now this may seem odd, cause many know the OS is is Linux based. So what is he talking about? The device firmware. He was upset that there were components in the computer that he wasn't allowed to know how they work. I laughed, but at the same time I understood. He is just the Jerry Farwell of the F/OSS world. As far as GPLv3 is concerned, I think it is a highly defensible position in a world where F/OSS is threatened in many ways. Sometimes it is just really hard to not hate what can be an alternative to what you love. My original switch to Linux was out of hate for the problems I was having with Windows, and was looking for an alternative. I had already done the Mac thing... and there is no reson to rehash that. In the 1 year and 10 months I have been windows free, I feel inspired by every problem I encounter, and accomplished with each solution I find and can share with others. Battling DRM on the other hand, or flat out buggy code, versus under developed code, just make me cynical and depressed. I have since come to LOVE Linux... but I still have a hard time escaping hate toward windows each and every time someone describes a problem that is a fault of its design and methodology or such. This has also come from no longer trying to sell Linux or Ubuntu, and focusing more on free software.
So I am amazed at both these men for their ability to find the message of love to oppose the messages of hate. Obama and Torvalds have had some heavy hitters, people very uncompromising in their position. Something that each of them iterate is that it isn't about converting the radicals, or getting people not to listen to them, it is about providing a better alternative that can inspire people to get involved.
I can't do either of these men any justice, and I would encourage everybody to read Torvalds article, and the transcript of Obama's podcast from 2002. But thinking about their words, I think this is what I find amazing in Lawrence Lessig's speeches. He talks about all the harm done in the world, with respect to culture, but with all of his focus on the simple changes we could implement to make this world a more amazing place.
Obama talks about how we can regress to citing dogma from scripture, but we can do the same thing with our law. We can't just point to law or the bible and say that is all we need. In any debate you need to get to the heart of the argument. I am sad to say that the "Yes on 8" people have put more effort into that. I think as far as pure debating goes, the yes's won, if only because the no on 8 people find the issue so simple with regard to equal rights and freedom what else is there really to say?
It can't just be obvious, or there wouldn't be an opposition. We live in a day where women have the right to vote in the United States, but how do you think Susan B. Anthony was able to argue on behalf of women in a world where there was nothing to compare it to. She had to fight that civil rights movement alone with the people that stood by her. Issues like slavery were not as obvious as we are taught in schools today; that was a major social reconstruction.
There is a lot more I want to say, but this has already gone way off topic, but I will say this: It has given me the hope back that I needed to support Barack Obama and stand by him. I am hurt by some things that I disagree with him on, but this Call to Renewal and his infomercial before he world series tells me we need this type of thinker, and kind of person that has spent more tie talking with families and real Americans than I ever have.
I don't know why he has supported some of the things he has supported, as I have mentioned, but I will trust that he will listen to the people, that that he has made informed decisions, even if not alwas the perfect one. More importantly, I think he keeps a very open mind, at least as open as I hope I can be, or that others would judge me by.
So here on November 3, here is -1 undecided voter. It is my hope that every undecided voter is undecided for the purpose of due diligence right up to the last moment, allowing our minds to be as open to possibilities as we can hope for our future.
So I feel lucky to have stumbled upon one of hid podcasts from 2002, being cited by another man I have a lot of respect for, Linux Torvalds.
Some quick citations:
Linus Torvalds talk about Richard Stallman, GPL and Obama on digg pointing to
Black & White By Linux Torvalds detailing how his 17 year commitment to Linux has come from what he loves, not what he hates, arguing that GPLv3 and RMS build on the later. Linus cites a speech of Barack Obama, A Call to Renewal, where he argues for people to see the good in religious and non-religious faith rather than divisions which are really so few when it comes to our desire to find truth, even if it doesn't always feel that way.
RMS is an odd guy, but I see him an iconic. He is that totally weird crazy guy talking about a different better world, completely uncompromising. I watched a video of him criticizing the OLPC where he was ranting about how it was filled with proprietary software that he couldn't remove, but the parts that were removable, he did. Now this may seem odd, cause many know the OS is is Linux based. So what is he talking about? The device firmware. He was upset that there were components in the computer that he wasn't allowed to know how they work. I laughed, but at the same time I understood. He is just the Jerry Farwell of the F/OSS world. As far as GPLv3 is concerned, I think it is a highly defensible position in a world where F/OSS is threatened in many ways. Sometimes it is just really hard to not hate what can be an alternative to what you love. My original switch to Linux was out of hate for the problems I was having with Windows, and was looking for an alternative. I had already done the Mac thing... and there is no reson to rehash that. In the 1 year and 10 months I have been windows free, I feel inspired by every problem I encounter, and accomplished with each solution I find and can share with others. Battling DRM on the other hand, or flat out buggy code, versus under developed code, just make me cynical and depressed. I have since come to LOVE Linux... but I still have a hard time escaping hate toward windows each and every time someone describes a problem that is a fault of its design and methodology or such. This has also come from no longer trying to sell Linux or Ubuntu, and focusing more on free software.
So I am amazed at both these men for their ability to find the message of love to oppose the messages of hate. Obama and Torvalds have had some heavy hitters, people very uncompromising in their position. Something that each of them iterate is that it isn't about converting the radicals, or getting people not to listen to them, it is about providing a better alternative that can inspire people to get involved.
I can't do either of these men any justice, and I would encourage everybody to read Torvalds article, and the transcript of Obama's podcast from 2002. But thinking about their words, I think this is what I find amazing in Lawrence Lessig's speeches. He talks about all the harm done in the world, with respect to culture, but with all of his focus on the simple changes we could implement to make this world a more amazing place.
Obama talks about how we can regress to citing dogma from scripture, but we can do the same thing with our law. We can't just point to law or the bible and say that is all we need. In any debate you need to get to the heart of the argument. I am sad to say that the "Yes on 8" people have put more effort into that. I think as far as pure debating goes, the yes's won, if only because the no on 8 people find the issue so simple with regard to equal rights and freedom what else is there really to say?
It can't just be obvious, or there wouldn't be an opposition. We live in a day where women have the right to vote in the United States, but how do you think Susan B. Anthony was able to argue on behalf of women in a world where there was nothing to compare it to. She had to fight that civil rights movement alone with the people that stood by her. Issues like slavery were not as obvious as we are taught in schools today; that was a major social reconstruction.
There is a lot more I want to say, but this has already gone way off topic, but I will say this: It has given me the hope back that I needed to support Barack Obama and stand by him. I am hurt by some things that I disagree with him on, but this Call to Renewal and his infomercial before he world series tells me we need this type of thinker, and kind of person that has spent more tie talking with families and real Americans than I ever have.
I don't know why he has supported some of the things he has supported, as I have mentioned, but I will trust that he will listen to the people, that that he has made informed decisions, even if not alwas the perfect one. More importantly, I think he keeps a very open mind, at least as open as I hope I can be, or that others would judge me by.
So here on November 3, here is -1 undecided voter. It is my hope that every undecided voter is undecided for the purpose of due diligence right up to the last moment, allowing our minds to be as open to possibilities as we can hope for our future.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Is this what people really think today about equality?
Bjornredtail writes in response to this video against prop 8:
Lessig didn't comment on what I think is the strongest argument in favor of prop 8: Individual Freedom.My response:
I think that having state recognition of homosexual marriage will be used to force people and their organizations to recognize gay marriage, regardless of their personal beliefs.
This is far more worrisome than the limited inequality that would exist if prop 8 passed. The state recognizes civil unions, and the state would not block a gay couple from being married without state recognition.
Can you explain how civil rights forced white people to like black people, or [forced] anybody to believe that blacks were equal just because they were given equal protection under the law? The only argument I have heard on this issue is that being gay is a choice, and being black is not. [So one is treated] like a disease [and the other like an illness]. You speak like these were things we were forced to do. I disagree, maybe they were the RIGHT thing to do. Or is civil rights just a defense against the uppity? What do you really believe?Note: Comments on youtube are limited to 500 words, which requires me to pick words sometimes too carefully in ways that are too quickly to the point at the expense of clarity. With more room on my blog, I have restored the comment in full with the parts that I think needed more clarity. I have done this before, but this time I just thought I would take a chance to point it out.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Response to McClintock's opinion on the California Propositions
@Josh and Tom
I do not see how you can call yourself a Libertarian or a conservative and support prop 4 or 8. I am a registered libertarian because I believe the constitution outlined a framework for the limitations in the purpose government is meant to serve. There are certain things people CAN do and there are things that people CAN NOT do. The only role I see necessary for the government is infrastructure and contract enforcement / dissolution, with very broad interpretation. Roads, power lines, Internet are infrastructure issues. Issues from murder to civil rights are a matter of social contract. Good policy is the only thing that can legitimize a government. When a government goes beyond its role of infrastructure and contract enforcement, it becomes illegitimate. This was a fundamental flaw identified with democracies by the Greeks is that Governments that serve the majority rather social contract of the society for the individual, you end up with a class-ism separating people into groups for which the government serves, and others to which are only slaves.
Marriage is a social contract. It may have many varieties with regard to religion, race, eye color, and hair style, but natural law allows two people to coexist in what ever way they desire. God's law, if you would have it: Anything that can happen on a deserted island. Two people can coexist and either work together, or not. These are the fundamental laws put into place by the natural order of the universe. That can not be regulated legitimately any more than making heavy things smaller controls gravity.
Now, a legitimate government can recognize that individuals may wish to coexist in a way that is mutually beneficial. This is a natural social contract. The government can, as part of its role it serves in assisting with social contracts, reduce the obligations on parts of the individuals to contribute to the government because in the way that the government is there to assist people, those people are already assisting people with each other. To make matters simple, the government will only recognize one such commitment between any two people at a time (not including dependents, but that is a different type of social contract). This amounts to reduction in taxes, joint filing, hospital visits, and other such things that make them a unit in the eyes of the law, and recognizing the reduction of work necessary by the government because these two people are partly doing the governments job with respect two those individuals, for each other.
Between person + person = contract and the recognition of that contract by the government, what legitimate role could the government have in judging who the members of that contract after we have recognized then as citizens.
Under this interpretation of the role of government and legitimate social policy, person + dog = marriage is legitimately illegal because the dog is not a citizen, and therefore can not enter a legal contract in any way that is enforceable by the government (don't read too much into it, it was only meant to be taken at face value and the context). person + child = marriage is not legitimate because the government does not recognize children as adults. Government recognizes its citizens, and children are still wards of the parents. In a society, with regard to social policy alone, there is a social contract that says "I will be a part of this society, but I don't want you to have sex with my kids". This social contract is enforceable by law going back to natural law / deserted island. People need to know the differences between being part of the society, and being alone in nature.
So as Wanda Sykes puts it, if you are against same-sex marriage, don't marry a member of the same sex. You don't want to enter into a certain contract with somebody, you don't have to; another part of the governments role.
Now, more of the way that this role of government is recognized is in the first amendment, with regard to religion. The contract of Marriage exist in all religions I know of. It is an important part of peoples faiths. The religious implications are irrelevant with regard to the role the government plays.
Government should not regulate religion, religious ceremonies, or other things that have no legitimacy having a relationship to the law. However, there is no reason why the government should not be allowed to call its relationship to this social contract that coexists with the persons faith, also marriage. If the government can not legitimately coexist with the word marriage for the implications it can have with regard to a persons faith, then either the relationship needs to be abolished, or the name needs to change for people to recognize and respect its differences.
Marriage for all, or we need to only have civil unions.
Now prop 4 is a little more complicated. I mentioned earlier the legitimacy the government has to step in with regard to relationship with minors, but this is something different. The elements and legitimacy of the government with regard to social contract contrasted with natural / God's law. Natural law says, as in what will happen in nature, is that a woman becomes fertile. With regard to the moral standards of our society, it is very young, but nature only knows a female as either prepubescent, and fertile. We can mess with it in all kinds of ways. We could force medication on people, we can chain chastity belts on them, we can even traumatize them with terrible stories of whores and witchcraft, but none of that changes the natural order of things.
Further, there is way more to reproduction and fertility than man + woman = baby, or eggs + sperm = baby, or penis + vagina = baby. Look at infant mortality rates around the world, and see it is more complicated then that. Women that want to become mothers that have lived so far very rewarding lives that want to expand on their experiences by adding motherhood to that experience are warned of the dangers of possible complications involved in breeding. It is common to expect possible mis carriages in early term. Part of this comes from nature knowing and regulating this. The natural law causes some people to not become mothers, causes people to die during childbirth, causes miscarriages / spontaneous abortion. A big part of that is a womans body can know if it is right to have a baby. In nature, animals frequently kill their young if they know that the children would not survive, and that if the mother takes care of herself, she is going to have better opportunities to actually have a healthy litter or whatnot in the future. Obviously, this is most common amongst mammals.
This is a complicated and emotional issue. While this may have sounded like an argument to support abortion, that was not the purpose. The places where the government can get involved with regard to abortion were outlined in Roe v. Wade, which was NOT a 'free for all' on abortion. It clearly outlined circumstances and situations where the government at different levels could get involved. To any supporter of pro-choice or pro-life as each life to be referred, I hope you know and understand exactly what Roe v. Wade actually decided, because I will agree that it addressed the core "issue" in a very unique way, unlike much of any other supreme court decision before or after.
So to social contracts and natural law, it makes it is illegitimate for the government to not recognize the right to privacy rights of minors IN THIS UNIQUE CASE. Driving, smoking, drinking, voting, owning property, and many other things that are rights, privileges, and benefits of civilized society. In this way, the government has an obligation to uphold the requests of the parent with regard to those issues as the child is still a legal defendant. Over simplifying, in every other case, the government is protecting the people from the government such that benefits do not become hindrances, even if they continue to be liabilities.
For lack of a better term, the government does not enable women to become pregnant in the way that all the other things of a great society can offer. Further, the courts have recognized the wisdom of Edward Abbey and this legal relationship between citizen and government:
"Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State."
God / Nature has already given a woman the right to choose, in many ways. As the government has decided its role in enforcing the social contract of expectations of the part of society for a fertile woman, we leave to the woman what would otherwise be left to nature. There is no legitimate reason for an issue so closely related in the natural contract between a woman and nature for something like the government to come in and apply its ideas about age and maturity on an issue with which the government had no role to play.
Other than that, most everything else there is to say on the matter has been said. Parents should have the right to form open and honest relationships with their children as their defendants as they see fit. There is little justification for government to impose mandates on parenting other than the strict guidelines with regard to overt abuse and neglect. Teachers can be compelled to teach certain subjects and for certain core material be covered because parents are trusting their kids with that teacher. The government is expected to regulated, especially when it comes to a government (public) school. To give the government the power to force parents to talk about anything with their kids can be understandable, but it is completely illegitimate with regard to the role of government.
As for the other issues:
prop 1: infrastructure. Will this proposal over all make a positive contribution to the infrastructure of California? Yes.
I have some issues with the way that those contracts are given out, but that is a completely different issue that is not going to be resolved by revising this bill in any way.
2: Social policy? Well, that is why we vote. Is this the minimum standard we as a society want to set for providing these types, whether they be used domestically or for import. I think it is a good bill, but it is not complete. If we want this to be our social policy, it needs to be more than a restriction on California farmers. Prop 2 should be a consumer protection not a farm animal protection; farm animals are not citizens. The restriction should be on what is legal to produce and sell in this state. Then California is setting a good example in its policy, and providing for protections for consumers that wanted that policy. Seems easy enough. So vote yes if you think this is good and can be improved, or reject it for either disagreeing with the idea, or because we should not make bad laws that need to be fixed later. I side with only passing good laws.
3. Government might have a legitimate role in medicine, but it has utterly failed in every attempt. The progress made has been by individuals, doctors, and organizations that have been forced to battle the government. Yuck, what a mess. Government needs to get out, figure itself out before trying to just do MORE. Out of the context of what government has done for health care, this proposal makes no sense in our present economic situation.
5. Something the government has gotten overly involved in and screwed up horribly. The number one cause of accidental death in this country is prescription drugs followed by non prescription drugs. The drug war wasn't just a failure, but it should have reinforced this idea of the role of government and splitting up people into classes it very damaging to society. Our only solution to drug problems in the past (at least drugs the government can't give out patents for and such) is use it as an excuse to circumvent civil rights laws, and lock up undesirables. The issue has become more complicated, and we have learned that prohibition does not work. This will be a delicate issue, and while I could be in support of a sledge hammer to the issue, I recognize the desire by people for this to be a progressive matter, and that aside from the problems with the law, there are some real issues with drugs that need to be addressed. Prop 5 is a very well designed step towards a society that supports and protects social policy.
6. I think about the same is true for prop 6 as prop 5, but I am less familiar with the details and implications of the proposals, but feel that right or wrong, it is a legitimate role of government to address this issue, and that the people I would be most concerned about this bill being affected are in support of it.
7. Infrastructure? NO! This is a private business matter. There are TONS of problems with power companies in the state due to well intentioned BAD policy. This might possibly have a place in some state that had a handle on the issue, but it is particularly awful to try to throw on top of the heaping pile of [junk] that has become utilities management in this state. This is the most corrupt industry in this state, rivaled maybe only by telecommunications.
9. The way McClintock is putting it, such a law is already in place. If there is a problem, it is being addressed from the wrong angle. I am for victims rights, but there is a limit to everything before it just becomes [bad].
10. I completely agree with McClintock's argument.
11. Same
12. Same
The government is not your god. What a sick implication that you would petition the government to address issues completely outside of its role or purpose. Take some responsibility for your own lives, and use sound judgment before giving up your rights to make the government to do your bidding, cause some how historically, that never quite seems to work out. The government is power hungry and happy to take anything you give it. Think of Stephen King's "Needful Things". Be careful what you wish for.
UPDATE: Glad I blogged this, cause my reply wasn't posted. maybe it was too long, but I had a lot to say. Rather than starting a new post, I want to share the thoughts I had in the few hours after this posting.
With regard to the principles I argued for that make a legitimate government, I started thinking more about something humorous about this election. We are stuck picking between a democrat, and a socialist. With regard to some of the comments made on the Mark Levin Show (Afternoons PSD Sirius Patriot 144) about Obama's anti-founding fathers, anti us constitution comments from 2001 on Chicago Public Radio, I started reflecting on "Trying something different". If failure is a reflection of the plan then it is not terribly difficult to argue the plan didn't work. Our founding fathers told us what would work, and how this country would ultimately fail. They were right. So if we are going to praise them for what they did so well, maybe we should give them a little more credit for this countries failure.
Barack Obama has Hope for Change. republicans (little 'r' just for you Mike Church) have the worst fears of his Marxist regime, as they put it. I have been arguing for awhile that arguing with others that the constution is GREAT, bug that we gave up on it long ago. We live in a Media run, strongly religious right, communist nation. So maybe the republicans are right, and maybe the reason this isn't getting any huge attention because this is exactly what people want, and kinda don'd want to use the forbidden 'C' word to describe their beliefs because it has been such a taboo subject since the McCarthy Era and the Rosenburg trial. Or maybe they just havn't actually read the Communist Manifesto and understand the vision Marx had.
So what if Obama wants to try this new social experiment of what I have refered to as "democratic socialism". Obviously some people disadreed with Ron Paul on his reasons why people should not vote for him; "If you think that government has to take care of us, from cradle to grave, and if you think our government should police the world, [then I am not your cannidate]" he says.
With all the problems in this country right now, I think people are desperately looking for something different, in a major way, possible just in protest of how bad things have gotten screwed up so bad. The country wants to take another look at communism, but with more of a classless approach, a compassion for the american dream that works on giving a helping hand to everyone that wants to try. People are saying screw progress, we want help today.
I don't think this is the best solution for the country... but I do recognize that despite the fact that I think what is flanned is totally wrong in so many ways, I am exactly in the margin to get the most help... if you ignore the possibility of the whole system collapsing in on itself such that nobody can get any help.
Maybe this is the last I can hope for instead of feeling so cynical. I am told to worry about the economy, so I look into it (reading up on some of the great minds on the issue, such as Smith and Mesis) and see the people that are meant to ei leading this nation doing what appears to be down right guessing! All I can think is WTF, a HS Economics clas could show you why what you are doing is totally messed up. Taxes, people complain about taxes. So a real study is put forth to find the best system for all that would not change the present level of income. Pure reform. Real research was done my some of the best minds and finally produce a masterpiece. Finally some rational legislation based on logical reason and historical fact. The Fair Tax. What happenr? It gets ignored! All democrats can say is "Sales Tax is regressive". Read the damn bill! Yeah, it is pretty freaking long, but NOTHING compared to the montrosity of the present system.
It is crazy and frustrating. I am more sympathetic of the people happy that Obama has won than the people claiming the end of the world that McCain lost. I think a lot was totally fucked up by the Clintons, and Bush is being blamed for not fixing it. I CAN NOT accept all the blame being thrown at Bush in the face of a democraticly controlled congress. But fuck democratically controlled, there are 435 members of congress with all their stupid little commities trying to get everything right. Yeah, Bush wasn't a great leader, but this isn't Boy Scouts, you are United States Congressmen. With such a push over of a president, why wasn't this the time for Congress to shine?
Hmm...
Well Here's to HOPE. I am glad people like Obama... but other than that, I don't think I have anything positive to say. Maybe later... on a different subject.
I do not see how you can call yourself a Libertarian or a conservative and support prop 4 or 8. I am a registered libertarian because I believe the constitution outlined a framework for the limitations in the purpose government is meant to serve. There are certain things people CAN do and there are things that people CAN NOT do. The only role I see necessary for the government is infrastructure and contract enforcement / dissolution, with very broad interpretation. Roads, power lines, Internet are infrastructure issues. Issues from murder to civil rights are a matter of social contract. Good policy is the only thing that can legitimize a government. When a government goes beyond its role of infrastructure and contract enforcement, it becomes illegitimate. This was a fundamental flaw identified with democracies by the Greeks is that Governments that serve the majority rather social contract of the society for the individual, you end up with a class-ism separating people into groups for which the government serves, and others to which are only slaves.
Marriage is a social contract. It may have many varieties with regard to religion, race, eye color, and hair style, but natural law allows two people to coexist in what ever way they desire. God's law, if you would have it: Anything that can happen on a deserted island. Two people can coexist and either work together, or not. These are the fundamental laws put into place by the natural order of the universe. That can not be regulated legitimately any more than making heavy things smaller controls gravity.
Now, a legitimate government can recognize that individuals may wish to coexist in a way that is mutually beneficial. This is a natural social contract. The government can, as part of its role it serves in assisting with social contracts, reduce the obligations on parts of the individuals to contribute to the government because in the way that the government is there to assist people, those people are already assisting people with each other. To make matters simple, the government will only recognize one such commitment between any two people at a time (not including dependents, but that is a different type of social contract). This amounts to reduction in taxes, joint filing, hospital visits, and other such things that make them a unit in the eyes of the law, and recognizing the reduction of work necessary by the government because these two people are partly doing the governments job with respect two those individuals, for each other.
Between person + person = contract and the recognition of that contract by the government, what legitimate role could the government have in judging who the members of that contract after we have recognized then as citizens.
Under this interpretation of the role of government and legitimate social policy, person + dog = marriage is legitimately illegal because the dog is not a citizen, and therefore can not enter a legal contract in any way that is enforceable by the government (don't read too much into it, it was only meant to be taken at face value and the context). person + child = marriage is not legitimate because the government does not recognize children as adults. Government recognizes its citizens, and children are still wards of the parents. In a society, with regard to social policy alone, there is a social contract that says "I will be a part of this society, but I don't want you to have sex with my kids". This social contract is enforceable by law going back to natural law / deserted island. People need to know the differences between being part of the society, and being alone in nature.
So as Wanda Sykes puts it, if you are against same-sex marriage, don't marry a member of the same sex. You don't want to enter into a certain contract with somebody, you don't have to; another part of the governments role.
Now, more of the way that this role of government is recognized is in the first amendment, with regard to religion. The contract of Marriage exist in all religions I know of. It is an important part of peoples faiths. The religious implications are irrelevant with regard to the role the government plays.
Government should not regulate religion, religious ceremonies, or other things that have no legitimacy having a relationship to the law. However, there is no reason why the government should not be allowed to call its relationship to this social contract that coexists with the persons faith, also marriage. If the government can not legitimately coexist with the word marriage for the implications it can have with regard to a persons faith, then either the relationship needs to be abolished, or the name needs to change for people to recognize and respect its differences.
Marriage for all, or we need to only have civil unions.
Now prop 4 is a little more complicated. I mentioned earlier the legitimacy the government has to step in with regard to relationship with minors, but this is something different. The elements and legitimacy of the government with regard to social contract contrasted with natural / God's law. Natural law says, as in what will happen in nature, is that a woman becomes fertile. With regard to the moral standards of our society, it is very young, but nature only knows a female as either prepubescent, and fertile. We can mess with it in all kinds of ways. We could force medication on people, we can chain chastity belts on them, we can even traumatize them with terrible stories of whores and witchcraft, but none of that changes the natural order of things.
Further, there is way more to reproduction and fertility than man + woman = baby, or eggs + sperm = baby, or penis + vagina = baby. Look at infant mortality rates around the world, and see it is more complicated then that. Women that want to become mothers that have lived so far very rewarding lives that want to expand on their experiences by adding motherhood to that experience are warned of the dangers of possible complications involved in breeding. It is common to expect possible mis carriages in early term. Part of this comes from nature knowing and regulating this. The natural law causes some people to not become mothers, causes people to die during childbirth, causes miscarriages / spontaneous abortion. A big part of that is a womans body can know if it is right to have a baby. In nature, animals frequently kill their young if they know that the children would not survive, and that if the mother takes care of herself, she is going to have better opportunities to actually have a healthy litter or whatnot in the future. Obviously, this is most common amongst mammals.
This is a complicated and emotional issue. While this may have sounded like an argument to support abortion, that was not the purpose. The places where the government can get involved with regard to abortion were outlined in Roe v. Wade, which was NOT a 'free for all' on abortion. It clearly outlined circumstances and situations where the government at different levels could get involved. To any supporter of pro-choice or pro-life as each life to be referred, I hope you know and understand exactly what Roe v. Wade actually decided, because I will agree that it addressed the core "issue" in a very unique way, unlike much of any other supreme court decision before or after.
So to social contracts and natural law, it makes it is illegitimate for the government to not recognize the right to privacy rights of minors IN THIS UNIQUE CASE. Driving, smoking, drinking, voting, owning property, and many other things that are rights, privileges, and benefits of civilized society. In this way, the government has an obligation to uphold the requests of the parent with regard to those issues as the child is still a legal defendant. Over simplifying, in every other case, the government is protecting the people from the government such that benefits do not become hindrances, even if they continue to be liabilities.
For lack of a better term, the government does not enable women to become pregnant in the way that all the other things of a great society can offer. Further, the courts have recognized the wisdom of Edward Abbey and this legal relationship between citizen and government:
"Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State."
God / Nature has already given a woman the right to choose, in many ways. As the government has decided its role in enforcing the social contract of expectations of the part of society for a fertile woman, we leave to the woman what would otherwise be left to nature. There is no legitimate reason for an issue so closely related in the natural contract between a woman and nature for something like the government to come in and apply its ideas about age and maturity on an issue with which the government had no role to play.
Other than that, most everything else there is to say on the matter has been said. Parents should have the right to form open and honest relationships with their children as their defendants as they see fit. There is little justification for government to impose mandates on parenting other than the strict guidelines with regard to overt abuse and neglect. Teachers can be compelled to teach certain subjects and for certain core material be covered because parents are trusting their kids with that teacher. The government is expected to regulated, especially when it comes to a government (public) school. To give the government the power to force parents to talk about anything with their kids can be understandable, but it is completely illegitimate with regard to the role of government.
As for the other issues:
prop 1: infrastructure. Will this proposal over all make a positive contribution to the infrastructure of California? Yes.
I have some issues with the way that those contracts are given out, but that is a completely different issue that is not going to be resolved by revising this bill in any way.
2: Social policy? Well, that is why we vote. Is this the minimum standard we as a society want to set for providing these types, whether they be used domestically or for import. I think it is a good bill, but it is not complete. If we want this to be our social policy, it needs to be more than a restriction on California farmers. Prop 2 should be a consumer protection not a farm animal protection; farm animals are not citizens. The restriction should be on what is legal to produce and sell in this state. Then California is setting a good example in its policy, and providing for protections for consumers that wanted that policy. Seems easy enough. So vote yes if you think this is good and can be improved, or reject it for either disagreeing with the idea, or because we should not make bad laws that need to be fixed later. I side with only passing good laws.
3. Government might have a legitimate role in medicine, but it has utterly failed in every attempt. The progress made has been by individuals, doctors, and organizations that have been forced to battle the government. Yuck, what a mess. Government needs to get out, figure itself out before trying to just do MORE. Out of the context of what government has done for health care, this proposal makes no sense in our present economic situation.
5. Something the government has gotten overly involved in and screwed up horribly. The number one cause of accidental death in this country is prescription drugs followed by non prescription drugs. The drug war wasn't just a failure, but it should have reinforced this idea of the role of government and splitting up people into classes it very damaging to society. Our only solution to drug problems in the past (at least drugs the government can't give out patents for and such) is use it as an excuse to circumvent civil rights laws, and lock up undesirables. The issue has become more complicated, and we have learned that prohibition does not work. This will be a delicate issue, and while I could be in support of a sledge hammer to the issue, I recognize the desire by people for this to be a progressive matter, and that aside from the problems with the law, there are some real issues with drugs that need to be addressed. Prop 5 is a very well designed step towards a society that supports and protects social policy.
6. I think about the same is true for prop 6 as prop 5, but I am less familiar with the details and implications of the proposals, but feel that right or wrong, it is a legitimate role of government to address this issue, and that the people I would be most concerned about this bill being affected are in support of it.
7. Infrastructure? NO! This is a private business matter. There are TONS of problems with power companies in the state due to well intentioned BAD policy. This might possibly have a place in some state that had a handle on the issue, but it is particularly awful to try to throw on top of the heaping pile of [junk] that has become utilities management in this state. This is the most corrupt industry in this state, rivaled maybe only by telecommunications.
9. The way McClintock is putting it, such a law is already in place. If there is a problem, it is being addressed from the wrong angle. I am for victims rights, but there is a limit to everything before it just becomes [bad].
10. I completely agree with McClintock's argument.
11. Same
12. Same
The government is not your god. What a sick implication that you would petition the government to address issues completely outside of its role or purpose. Take some responsibility for your own lives, and use sound judgment before giving up your rights to make the government to do your bidding, cause some how historically, that never quite seems to work out. The government is power hungry and happy to take anything you give it. Think of Stephen King's "Needful Things". Be careful what you wish for.
UPDATE: Glad I blogged this, cause my reply wasn't posted. maybe it was too long, but I had a lot to say. Rather than starting a new post, I want to share the thoughts I had in the few hours after this posting.
With regard to the principles I argued for that make a legitimate government, I started thinking more about something humorous about this election. We are stuck picking between a democrat, and a socialist. With regard to some of the comments made on the Mark Levin Show (Afternoons PSD Sirius Patriot 144) about Obama's anti-founding fathers, anti us constitution comments from 2001 on Chicago Public Radio, I started reflecting on "Trying something different". If failure is a reflection of the plan then it is not terribly difficult to argue the plan didn't work. Our founding fathers told us what would work, and how this country would ultimately fail. They were right. So if we are going to praise them for what they did so well, maybe we should give them a little more credit for this countries failure.
Barack Obama has Hope for Change. republicans (little 'r' just for you Mike Church) have the worst fears of his Marxist regime, as they put it. I have been arguing for awhile that arguing with others that the constution is GREAT, bug that we gave up on it long ago. We live in a Media run, strongly religious right, communist nation. So maybe the republicans are right, and maybe the reason this isn't getting any huge attention because this is exactly what people want, and kinda don'd want to use the forbidden 'C' word to describe their beliefs because it has been such a taboo subject since the McCarthy Era and the Rosenburg trial. Or maybe they just havn't actually read the Communist Manifesto and understand the vision Marx had.
So what if Obama wants to try this new social experiment of what I have refered to as "democratic socialism". Obviously some people disadreed with Ron Paul on his reasons why people should not vote for him; "If you think that government has to take care of us, from cradle to grave, and if you think our government should police the world, [then I am not your cannidate]" he says.
With all the problems in this country right now, I think people are desperately looking for something different, in a major way, possible just in protest of how bad things have gotten screwed up so bad. The country wants to take another look at communism, but with more of a classless approach, a compassion for the american dream that works on giving a helping hand to everyone that wants to try. People are saying screw progress, we want help today.
I don't think this is the best solution for the country... but I do recognize that despite the fact that I think what is flanned is totally wrong in so many ways, I am exactly in the margin to get the most help... if you ignore the possibility of the whole system collapsing in on itself such that nobody can get any help.
Maybe this is the last I can hope for instead of feeling so cynical. I am told to worry about the economy, so I look into it (reading up on some of the great minds on the issue, such as Smith and Mesis) and see the people that are meant to ei leading this nation doing what appears to be down right guessing! All I can think is WTF, a HS Economics clas could show you why what you are doing is totally messed up. Taxes, people complain about taxes. So a real study is put forth to find the best system for all that would not change the present level of income. Pure reform. Real research was done my some of the best minds and finally produce a masterpiece. Finally some rational legislation based on logical reason and historical fact. The Fair Tax. What happenr? It gets ignored! All democrats can say is "Sales Tax is regressive". Read the damn bill! Yeah, it is pretty freaking long, but NOTHING compared to the montrosity of the present system.
It is crazy and frustrating. I am more sympathetic of the people happy that Obama has won than the people claiming the end of the world that McCain lost. I think a lot was totally fucked up by the Clintons, and Bush is being blamed for not fixing it. I CAN NOT accept all the blame being thrown at Bush in the face of a democraticly controlled congress. But fuck democratically controlled, there are 435 members of congress with all their stupid little commities trying to get everything right. Yeah, Bush wasn't a great leader, but this isn't Boy Scouts, you are United States Congressmen. With such a push over of a president, why wasn't this the time for Congress to shine?
Hmm...
Well Here's to HOPE. I am glad people like Obama... but other than that, I don't think I have anything positive to say. Maybe later... on a different subject.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Wanda Sykes puts things into perspective
Thanks feministing.com for sharing this video in your article on gay marriage.
Which came first, Copyright or Creativity?
So there was an article on Slashdot today that got me very excited.
There is a big discussion going on, as usual with these issues, with a full range of opinions on this.
In this discussion the question came up of which came first, creativity or copyright with the argument presented:
This was a comment by Tharos.
It was the "Pretty Simple" I could not ignore. This was my response, disagreeing that organizations like the RIAA are something only of the present that came about AFTER the Internet:
Interesting perspective on history. But if many people think this is the way that it happened, no wonder we are in the mess we are in today, IMHO.
Survival has always been about advantage. Even in interspecies interaction, the winner most always the one that knows something the other does not. Where food is, where predators are not, deceptions in numbers, camouflage, and other things. Ultimately, nature and human history have shown that knowledge is power. Further, in competition, it is about having more power, even if by simply ensuring less knowledge by potential adversaries.
It may not have been called copyright in the century leading up to the Statute of Anne, but the control over the flow of information, and special armies to protect such information from falling into the "wrong hands" has been around as long as there has been written language. In some places, there were even were secret spoken languages meant only for the elite that were forbidden to be learned by commoners by threat of death. Even Caesar used encryption algorithms to pass secret messages to troops (Still known today as the Caesar shift). Scribes were required to take oaths not to reveal the secrets shared with them, and master texts were bound by shackle to the most trusted members, not in ways necessarily to keep the book from harm, but to keep the text away from unauthorized eyes.
All this is copy protection because every time we see an image or read a text, or see a sound, our brains make a copy... albeit some better than others.
So in many ways, copyright, the protection and control over knowledge came first, and with the birth of creativity and free thinking immediately came with it along side was methods of copy protection.
Wit the invention of the printing press in 1439, copyright was thrown into chaos. The distribution of knowledge was able to fight copyright in new ways never before conceived. Governments quickly responded with copyright police that hunted down book publishers, rounding them up for public hangings and beheading for their crimes to serve as an example of how they would deal with pirates; stealing work from scribes and writers. It was a problem the elite argued would destroy knowledge, creativity, and progress as there would be no longer any motivation for thinkers to think, scientists to study, or writers to write.
Well, they were right in part. The scribes guild vanished over a period of time. Knowledge as it was known, held in secret by a powerful few, had been destroyed.
But... someone and for some reason people did keep writing books, and all the tales of the end of the world of creativity never quite came about. Some argue it was actually the other way around, that a revolution took place and a generation of thinkers were born, but whose to say what really happened, right?
But then came a new battle. The scribes were gone, and book publishing had taken over. People had been enlightened, and there was a new thirst for knowledge, this time in masses, and printed books had been legalized. This time, the control was in the hands of the book publishers. But as the elite scribes had known, power isn't just control, but exclusive power. Book publishers wanted exclusive rights to publish books. The printers guild aka Stationer's Company, were granted exclusive right to print the books, so long as royalties were paid to the Queen. Books were 'bought' by the queen, and she would give the texts to book publishers that would get exclusive printing rights indefinitely. No royalties were ever paid to writers, and writers were banned from self publishing or seeking an independent press. Queen Mary I of Great Britain was the first MPAA / RIAA of its kind. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
By 1709, Shakespeare had been dead nearly 100 years. The independent publishers fought even harder for a more free copyright law, as opposed to the indefinitely perpetual copyright law in place. Shakespeare is a part of our culture and can not be owned by anyone. Stories are a part of who we are, not to be owned by individuals. Knowledge should be spread by any means necessary, and we are here to meet that demand.
A settlement was reached in the British courts in 1709 with the Statute of Anne, looking to balance the rights of people who would write stories contributing to culture, science, and "useful arts", and the rights of the people whom were members of that culture, both as readers, thinkers, and writers that draw upon that culture. Copyright would hence forth be limited to a period of fourteen years for new works, with requirements that copies be placed in all the libraries of Britain, and free for Stationer's Company to reproduce.
The founding fathers of the United States Constitution recognized this important protection and balance between culture, progress, and control, and thus included in the powers granted to congress the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"... Which with the powerful lobbyists of today have taken from "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries", but that is skipping ahead...
Quickly, Fox, Kodak, and Disney take a whole bunch of stuff, without any regard to copyrighted books and movies to patented film types and projectors, moving to California to form Hollywood because it was far enough from Washington DC to avoid the law, not to mention inventors seeking patent royalties for their inventions. skipping ahead, Disney becomes super power, tries to expand copyright but fails until people are distracted by WWII. Threatened by radio, congress grants freedom to radio despite major opposition. Disney / MPAA greatly threatened by Cable Companies saying it is going to "destroy creativity" just like radio as these companies run their pirate cables, just as scribes had claimed in 1400's. Congress grants statutory royalties. VCR comes out. BIG freak out, blah blah blah, more copy right statutes. broadcast flag, blah blah blah, CD, DVD MAJOR FREAK OUT... again, as usual as the dominent power of information / culture distribution was threatened. Internet, same thing so on and so forth.
So what I see? Culture was created and controlled by and elite few and distribution was difficult. Over the past millennium, there is always the attempt for "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." ~George Orwell (or Rage against the Machine for those that don't read books), or as Lawrence Lessig puts it, "1. Creativity and innovation always builds on the past. 2. The past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it. 3. Free Societies enable the future by limiting the past. 4. Ours is less and less a free society."
So I see it as, there is and always will be creativity. It can not be stopped. People with power and money from their success will fight to keep that control, and that power can potentially be limited by government. People will always fight for progress by any means necessary. Our government today is powerless to encourage progress due the many controls of the creators of the past.
The difference, as Sigmund freud put it, we are lucky to live in an age where people only burn our books and not us.
For a more complete version, read Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, or watch any of his videos / lectures on youtube or opencinema, and a great film, Steal This Film Part II on the history of copyright, or part one on government coruption by the media, produced by The Pirate Bay.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs "Larry Lessig: How Creativity is being strangled by the law"
Obligatory comment left by me on this video:
Jack Valenti called it his own terrorist war, him being on the side of the monopolies. Hmm... the only terrorist I see is the man determined to rewrite the constitution in his favor. They may not be on our soil, but today we have a great American patriot that is not looking for mediation or compromise but has set his mission to destroy this evil the only way he knows how. He has enlisted hundreds of millions in advertising to fuel a undefeatable black market for any piece of culture the demons of our time would try to lock away and strategically hand out like bread to starving children. He has given the world a Horn of Plenty, looting from the pirates that stole our culture and try to comodotize and control it. Our great American Patriot's are Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, and Peter Sunde. Long Live The Pirate Bay!
With this caveat:
When our society returns to progress and we live in a Free culture as promoted by Lessig, Patry, and other men I consider great American heroes (reserving patriot for those of Edward Abbey's definition. GREAT men, just different), there will be no place for the pirate bay. As it is a front line of defense against injustice, a free culture will not need (no offense) such a crude and unorganized site that is merely an index. Sites like Jamendo will dominate. The evidence I present to defend this is this: Look at the inclusions in the index. Look for public domain works. Look for creative Commons work. Try to find work people are trying to give away or share with the world. You won't find any. The great success of The Pirate Bay is fueled only as a counter to greed and corruption. This explains the hundreds of millions of dollars in "off-shore accounts" around the world. Freedom, and a love for cultural sharing where artists recognize the influence culture has had on them, and the opportunities for creativity it provides unilaterally, there is no place on the pirate bay. It is only a forum for patriots to band together against corruption. When the corruption is broken, the Pirate Bay will sail off into the sunset of our history, as it will have no place in the free world.
Let that be a reminder to would be cultural tyrants out there. This is a war YOU started, and the Pirate Bay will help end. The numbers say every Internet user is a soldier, and every dollar TPB makes should stand as a memorial to the intolerance of your ways.
And on a related note, notice the praises for the television stations that now share their content on the web? The business model of the future may not be complete, but you can easily see where it is going. I know there is a day where one studios artwork will disappear from the pirate bay, and all that money they had been getting will go to the studios, and that will be the first studio to start its own bit torrent tracker, or whatever they have to call it. Hopefully that will take place before the last movie achieves rot away on their not so permanent nitrate film.
The Pirate Bay will soar so long as it is profitable. Ye of so little faith that can't find a better business model, and must turn to the government to "fix" it for you, like fixing any other game.
Ooh, and to anyone that read the other news on slashdot, it appears our old friend Ted Stevens will be observing a series of cubes. Ha ha ha!
Please comment if you made it through my whole rant. It is appreciated.
There is a big discussion going on, as usual with these issues, with a full range of opinions on this.
In this discussion the question came up of which came first, creativity or copyright with the argument presented:
1. creativity
2. printing press
3. mass distribution
4. copyright
5. the Internet
6. the RIAA
pretty simplo IMO.
This was a comment by Tharos.
It was the "Pretty Simple" I could not ignore. This was my response, disagreeing that organizations like the RIAA are something only of the present that came about AFTER the Internet:
Interesting perspective on history. But if many people think this is the way that it happened, no wonder we are in the mess we are in today, IMHO.
Survival has always been about advantage. Even in interspecies interaction, the winner most always the one that knows something the other does not. Where food is, where predators are not, deceptions in numbers, camouflage, and other things. Ultimately, nature and human history have shown that knowledge is power. Further, in competition, it is about having more power, even if by simply ensuring less knowledge by potential adversaries.
It may not have been called copyright in the century leading up to the Statute of Anne, but the control over the flow of information, and special armies to protect such information from falling into the "wrong hands" has been around as long as there has been written language. In some places, there were even were secret spoken languages meant only for the elite that were forbidden to be learned by commoners by threat of death. Even Caesar used encryption algorithms to pass secret messages to troops (Still known today as the Caesar shift). Scribes were required to take oaths not to reveal the secrets shared with them, and master texts were bound by shackle to the most trusted members, not in ways necessarily to keep the book from harm, but to keep the text away from unauthorized eyes.
All this is copy protection because every time we see an image or read a text, or see a sound, our brains make a copy... albeit some better than others.
So in many ways, copyright, the protection and control over knowledge came first, and with the birth of creativity and free thinking immediately came with it along side was methods of copy protection.
Wit the invention of the printing press in 1439, copyright was thrown into chaos. The distribution of knowledge was able to fight copyright in new ways never before conceived. Governments quickly responded with copyright police that hunted down book publishers, rounding them up for public hangings and beheading for their crimes to serve as an example of how they would deal with pirates; stealing work from scribes and writers. It was a problem the elite argued would destroy knowledge, creativity, and progress as there would be no longer any motivation for thinkers to think, scientists to study, or writers to write.
Well, they were right in part. The scribes guild vanished over a period of time. Knowledge as it was known, held in secret by a powerful few, had been destroyed.
But... someone and for some reason people did keep writing books, and all the tales of the end of the world of creativity never quite came about. Some argue it was actually the other way around, that a revolution took place and a generation of thinkers were born, but whose to say what really happened, right?
But then came a new battle. The scribes were gone, and book publishing had taken over. People had been enlightened, and there was a new thirst for knowledge, this time in masses, and printed books had been legalized. This time, the control was in the hands of the book publishers. But as the elite scribes had known, power isn't just control, but exclusive power. Book publishers wanted exclusive rights to publish books. The printers guild aka Stationer's Company, were granted exclusive right to print the books, so long as royalties were paid to the Queen. Books were 'bought' by the queen, and she would give the texts to book publishers that would get exclusive printing rights indefinitely. No royalties were ever paid to writers, and writers were banned from self publishing or seeking an independent press. Queen Mary I of Great Britain was the first MPAA / RIAA of its kind. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
By 1709, Shakespeare had been dead nearly 100 years. The independent publishers fought even harder for a more free copyright law, as opposed to the indefinitely perpetual copyright law in place. Shakespeare is a part of our culture and can not be owned by anyone. Stories are a part of who we are, not to be owned by individuals. Knowledge should be spread by any means necessary, and we are here to meet that demand.
A settlement was reached in the British courts in 1709 with the Statute of Anne, looking to balance the rights of people who would write stories contributing to culture, science, and "useful arts", and the rights of the people whom were members of that culture, both as readers, thinkers, and writers that draw upon that culture. Copyright would hence forth be limited to a period of fourteen years for new works, with requirements that copies be placed in all the libraries of Britain, and free for Stationer's Company to reproduce.
The founding fathers of the United States Constitution recognized this important protection and balance between culture, progress, and control, and thus included in the powers granted to congress the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"... Which with the powerful lobbyists of today have taken from "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" to "
Quickly, Fox, Kodak, and Disney take a whole bunch of stuff, without any regard to copyrighted books and movies to patented film types and projectors, moving to California to form Hollywood because it was far enough from Washington DC to avoid the law, not to mention inventors seeking patent royalties for their inventions. skipping ahead, Disney becomes super power, tries to expand copyright but fails until people are distracted by WWII. Threatened by radio, congress grants freedom to radio despite major opposition. Disney / MPAA greatly threatened by Cable Companies saying it is going to "destroy creativity" just like radio as these companies run their pirate cables, just as scribes had claimed in 1400's. Congress grants statutory royalties. VCR comes out. BIG freak out, blah blah blah, more copy right statutes. broadcast flag, blah blah blah, CD, DVD MAJOR FREAK OUT... again, as usual as the dominent power of information / culture distribution was threatened. Internet, same thing so on and so forth.
So what I see? Culture was created and controlled by and elite few and distribution was difficult. Over the past millennium, there is always the attempt for "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." ~George Orwell (or Rage against the Machine for those that don't read books), or as Lawrence Lessig puts it, "1. Creativity and innovation always builds on the past. 2. The past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it. 3. Free Societies enable the future by limiting the past. 4. Ours is less and less a free society."
So I see it as, there is and always will be creativity. It can not be stopped. People with power and money from their success will fight to keep that control, and that power can potentially be limited by government. People will always fight for progress by any means necessary. Our government today is powerless to encourage progress due the many controls of the creators of the past.
The difference, as Sigmund freud put it, we are lucky to live in an age where people only burn our books and not us.
For a more complete version, read Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, or watch any of his videos / lectures on youtube or opencinema, and a great film, Steal This Film Part II on the history of copyright, or part one on government coruption by the media, produced by The Pirate Bay.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs "Larry Lessig: How Creativity is being strangled by the law"
Obligatory comment left by me on this video:
I'd also like to mention that from this video, with regard to the revolution by our youth. Our youth rejects the law as a whole because of the major parts of it that are corrupt, even though parts of the law in principle have validity. These congressional monopolies were written into our constitution only in so far as to promote progress. There was a balance. Now that congress has become so one sided, youth rejects balance in revolt against the corrupt monopolies congress has been bullied to give out.
This is the most important issue of our day. Our government is controlled by the media because those that don't get the entertainment industries approval CAN NOT get elected for prohibition to exposure via vital media such as TV and radio. I don't want to call it a fix all, but the passiveness to this control by the media bleeds into many issues that have resulted in entertaining further bad policies by example of what we have had to endure from the media. Lessig, you NAILED IT! You are my hero.
Jack Valenti called it his own terrorist war, him being on the side of the monopolies. Hmm... the only terrorist I see is the man determined to rewrite the constitution in his favor. They may not be on our soil, but today we have a great American patriot that is not looking for mediation or compromise but has set his mission to destroy this evil the only way he knows how. He has enlisted hundreds of millions in advertising to fuel a undefeatable black market for any piece of culture the demons of our time would try to lock away and strategically hand out like bread to starving children. He has given the world a Horn of Plenty, looting from the pirates that stole our culture and try to comodotize and control it. Our great American Patriot's are Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, and Peter Sunde. Long Live The Pirate Bay!
With this caveat:
When our society returns to progress and we live in a Free culture as promoted by Lessig, Patry, and other men I consider great American heroes (reserving patriot for those of Edward Abbey's definition. GREAT men, just different), there will be no place for the pirate bay. As it is a front line of defense against injustice, a free culture will not need (no offense) such a crude and unorganized site that is merely an index. Sites like Jamendo will dominate. The evidence I present to defend this is this: Look at the inclusions in the index. Look for public domain works. Look for creative Commons work. Try to find work people are trying to give away or share with the world. You won't find any. The great success of The Pirate Bay is fueled only as a counter to greed and corruption. This explains the hundreds of millions of dollars in "off-shore accounts" around the world. Freedom, and a love for cultural sharing where artists recognize the influence culture has had on them, and the opportunities for creativity it provides unilaterally, there is no place on the pirate bay. It is only a forum for patriots to band together against corruption. When the corruption is broken, the Pirate Bay will sail off into the sunset of our history, as it will have no place in the free world.
Let that be a reminder to would be cultural tyrants out there. This is a war YOU started, and the Pirate Bay will help end. The numbers say every Internet user is a soldier, and every dollar TPB makes should stand as a memorial to the intolerance of your ways.
And on a related note, notice the praises for the television stations that now share their content on the web? The business model of the future may not be complete, but you can easily see where it is going. I know there is a day where one studios artwork will disappear from the pirate bay, and all that money they had been getting will go to the studios, and that will be the first studio to start its own bit torrent tracker, or whatever they have to call it. Hopefully that will take place before the last movie achieves rot away on their not so permanent nitrate film.
The Pirate Bay will soar so long as it is profitable. Ye of so little faith that can't find a better business model, and must turn to the government to "fix" it for you, like fixing any other game.
Ooh, and to anyone that read the other news on slashdot, it appears our old friend Ted Stevens will be observing a series of cubes. Ha ha ha!
Please comment if you made it through my whole rant. It is appreciated.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Sherrie Lockwood
Have you noticed anything? She seems to be about the only person posting all the yes on 8 videos. Further, she is censoring all the comments so that there are only comments from people that are yes on 8. I have seen a full range of comments, and most op the prop 8 videos have many thousands of comments. Hers? only a few hundred, yet she has some of the most watched videos. viewings in the tens of thousands.
It appears she has me blocked me from sending her any kind of messages or commenting on any of her videos. I think that is very telling.
I checked out her web site. WOW, she is very active. HUGE website about herself, church, children, and scout troop. As if her hundreds of videos were not enough.
The really weird thing is with all the stuff she is saying about traditional family, she is a single mother of three boys.
I have nothing wrong with that, and she really appears to be a great mom, and her kids seem really cool, looking through her site... but how is that in any way "traditional", in so far as she seems to keep making the argument?
I think she is the best example of a person with an alternative lifestyle that is a wonderfully supportive parent that has raised some great children. Who is to say you can't call what she has a family? Anyone to pity those kids for coming from a "broken home" really needs a reality check.
Ironic, I think.
I'll skip the history lesson on this one.
It appears she has me blocked me from sending her any kind of messages or commenting on any of her videos. I think that is very telling.
I checked out her web site. WOW, she is very active. HUGE website about herself, church, children, and scout troop. As if her hundreds of videos were not enough.
The really weird thing is with all the stuff she is saying about traditional family, she is a single mother of three boys.
I have nothing wrong with that, and she really appears to be a great mom, and her kids seem really cool, looking through her site... but how is that in any way "traditional", in so far as she seems to keep making the argument?
I think she is the best example of a person with an alternative lifestyle that is a wonderfully supportive parent that has raised some great children. Who is to say you can't call what she has a family? Anyone to pity those kids for coming from a "broken home" really needs a reality check.
Ironic, I think.
I'll skip the history lesson on this one.
California Proposition 4 Rant
Got an email from a friend asking my opinion on California Proposition 4, Parental notification before abortion law being proposed. This was my rant:
UPDATE: Jonanda42 has given be permission to post her question that got me going on prop 4. Here it is.
I certainly hear the cry of parents that care and worry about the choices their children will make. I would hope that every mother daughter relationship has the strength to discuss such an emotionally difficult choice.
I am pro choice, but not in the choice of whether or not to have an abortion, but the choice of how and when to start a family. Sex is fun and it feels good. Some people use this in good ways, and some take advantage of it in really terrible ways.
Many things have been tried through out our history to control breeding and population both in the name of religion and science. Eugenics is just bad social policy, because it is people thinking they are better than nature and can therefore make better choices than an individual. People talk about it like as though as if it was only the Nazi's that ran those types of policies, but they were not. Similar "programs" of different types were going on all around the world, particularly in the US since the 1920's. It doesn't work. The last of a national eugenics program did not end until 1958.
So what does this have to do with abortion and parental consent? People still sympathize with eugenics for its merits, even when we know its horrific dangers as a social policy.
Pro-choice is about that individual freedom. We do not force people to breed any more than we would tell Sarah Palin that she is too old to have a child because of the risk of Down's Syndrome (1 in 8 children of women over 40 have DS). We do not judge people for those kinds of choices, nor do we push people with the law. It is a way that we accept that life has a way of running its own course.
The place we do push people with the law is with child abuse. If a child is obviously abused, or admits to abuse, there are mandatory reporting laws. These I agree with, even if I would criticize CPSs effectiveness, as I have called them myself on more than a few occasions.. Some would likely say that a pregnant minor is proof of abuse... but that is not what this law is trying to address.
The world is a big scary place, and we all try to look out for each other. There is no bigger choice in a persons life than when to start a family. Biologically, and if there is a God what he decided, the time when that natural right comes for a woman to make that choice is the day she becomes fertile. That is just biological law.
Prop 4 tries to manipulate that in a very careful way. We can not know every persons family, but this law is only intended to help one very specific group of people, while neglecting another.
Most kids I think are wrong about how they think their parents would react to an unexpected pregnancy unless it had been previously discussed in great detail. But there are some kids that do know. Some kids are really smart and may know that their parents would disown them, or see them as a murderer if they got an abortion. Maybe the kid lives on the street and has worked very hard to stay away from abusive parents. I can not know what every minors position might be, or the circumstances of their pregnancy. For many that get abortions, as difficult as it is, there is a chance there are even bigger more complicated issues. And there are a lot of kids in bad/other situations. They do need help. This law is not going to provide any kind of help those kids need.
This law adds bureaucracy to an already difficult situation in order to assist strongly religious parents in preventing their children from having abortions. That is the only objective of prop 4. Even voting no, I desperately with there was a proposition to help more of these kids in a way I could be voting yes on. This is NOT it.
Parents need to talk to their kids and help them make good life choices. This starts from the time you as a parent decide to have children. Talk about love, sex, and family values. Give them condoms. Help them get birth control. Remind them that their body is sacred and to share it when it is going to be respected. If they are having strong feelings, encourage them to masturbate in privacy, use a vibrator... just don't go with them to pick it out. You have all the time to care and connect with your child and hope that you have given them all the best.
You pray that with all this work that your child will want to share the details of love and sadness with you. You hope that when they meet someone they love that they may marry, have kids, and make the same happiness that you were so privileged to have, and they will tell you every detail along the way so you can be happy for them...
... and that is what I hope every parent wants
...but there is always that barrier that keeps you from really knowing. That part is individuality. Their uniqueness that makes them who they are that you love is the same thing that means you really can't ever know exactly what is going on in their head, no matter how much you may want to.
So there I think outlines all the fears of the best parents. Prop 4 comes from that love in a way. But it is too much. You have had a lot of time with that kid until that day they become fertile which is so far from what we consider adulthood today.
And hopefully all that means that they would talk to you.
But if for whatever reason they as individuals decide this is something they can't talk to you about, this time, then we need to understand and accept that choice, no matter how difficult that may be. And at that point when they have made their choice, hopefully informed as you raised them to think, is not the time for a doctor to be compelled by the government to insist on opening the lines of communication between parent and daughter.
Maybe there are girls out there that had to grow up a little too fast, need to take things one step at a time, and decide that this isn't the time in their life to start a family. We can't take that power away from them.
End of rant
So that pretty much covers all the various things that go through my head with regard to parental notification laws.
Prop 4 is bad social policy, even if it can sound in the best interest of our children, unfortunately this isn't it. The reality is that it is just an anti-abortion last line of defense that I can not support.
---
I'll post the original question that inspired this rant, when I get consent :) posted!
UPDATE: Jonanda42 has given be permission to post her question that got me going on prop 4. Here it is.
---
Prop 4 is a little more complex for me. Although I am pro choice, having had daughters myself, I have difficulty with the idea that an underage girl could seek an abortion without parental or guardian consent. I do agree, however, that she may be in an environment that might not be condusive to that kind of news and she may be at risk for abuse. But I hope that those cases are few and far between.
What do you think about prop 4?
I certainly hear the cry of parents that care and worry about the choices their children will make. I would hope that every mother daughter relationship has the strength to discuss such an emotionally difficult choice.
I am pro choice, but not in the choice of whether or not to have an abortion, but the choice of how and when to start a family. Sex is fun and it feels good. Some people use this in good ways, and some take advantage of it in really terrible ways.
Many things have been tried through out our history to control breeding and population both in the name of religion and science. Eugenics is just bad social policy, because it is people thinking they are better than nature and can therefore make better choices than an individual. People talk about it like as though as if it was only the Nazi's that ran those types of policies, but they were not. Similar "programs" of different types were going on all around the world, particularly in the US since the 1920's. It doesn't work. The last of a national eugenics program did not end until 1958.
So what does this have to do with abortion and parental consent? People still sympathize with eugenics for its merits, even when we know its horrific dangers as a social policy.
Pro-choice is about that individual freedom. We do not force people to breed any more than we would tell Sarah Palin that she is too old to have a child because of the risk of Down's Syndrome (1 in 8 children of women over 40 have DS). We do not judge people for those kinds of choices, nor do we push people with the law. It is a way that we accept that life has a way of running its own course.
The place we do push people with the law is with child abuse. If a child is obviously abused, or admits to abuse, there are mandatory reporting laws. These I agree with, even if I would criticize CPSs effectiveness, as I have called them myself on more than a few occasions.. Some would likely say that a pregnant minor is proof of abuse... but that is not what this law is trying to address.
The world is a big scary place, and we all try to look out for each other. There is no bigger choice in a persons life than when to start a family. Biologically, and if there is a God what he decided, the time when that natural right comes for a woman to make that choice is the day she becomes fertile. That is just biological law.
Prop 4 tries to manipulate that in a very careful way. We can not know every persons family, but this law is only intended to help one very specific group of people, while neglecting another.
Most kids I think are wrong about how they think their parents would react to an unexpected pregnancy unless it had been previously discussed in great detail. But there are some kids that do know. Some kids are really smart and may know that their parents would disown them, or see them as a murderer if they got an abortion. Maybe the kid lives on the street and has worked very hard to stay away from abusive parents. I can not know what every minors position might be, or the circumstances of their pregnancy. For many that get abortions, as difficult as it is, there is a chance there are even bigger more complicated issues. And there are a lot of kids in bad/other situations. They do need help. This law is not going to provide any kind of help those kids need.
This law adds bureaucracy to an already difficult situation in order to assist strongly religious parents in preventing their children from having abortions. That is the only objective of prop 4. Even voting no, I desperately with there was a proposition to help more of these kids in a way I could be voting yes on. This is NOT it.
Parents need to talk to their kids and help them make good life choices. This starts from the time you as a parent decide to have children. Talk about love, sex, and family values. Give them condoms. Help them get birth control. Remind them that their body is sacred and to share it when it is going to be respected. If they are having strong feelings, encourage them to masturbate in privacy, use a vibrator... just don't go with them to pick it out. You have all the time to care and connect with your child and hope that you have given them all the best.
You pray that with all this work that your child will want to share the details of love and sadness with you. You hope that when they meet someone they love that they may marry, have kids, and make the same happiness that you were so privileged to have, and they will tell you every detail along the way so you can be happy for them...
... and that is what I hope every parent wants
...but there is always that barrier that keeps you from really knowing. That part is individuality. Their uniqueness that makes them who they are that you love is the same thing that means you really can't ever know exactly what is going on in their head, no matter how much you may want to.
So there I think outlines all the fears of the best parents. Prop 4 comes from that love in a way. But it is too much. You have had a lot of time with that kid until that day they become fertile which is so far from what we consider adulthood today.
And hopefully all that means that they would talk to you.
But if for whatever reason they as individuals decide this is something they can't talk to you about, this time, then we need to understand and accept that choice, no matter how difficult that may be. And at that point when they have made their choice, hopefully informed as you raised them to think, is not the time for a doctor to be compelled by the government to insist on opening the lines of communication between parent and daughter.
Maybe there are girls out there that had to grow up a little too fast, need to take things one step at a time, and decide that this isn't the time in their life to start a family. We can't take that power away from them.
End of rant
So that pretty much covers all the various things that go through my head with regard to parental notification laws.
Prop 4 is bad social policy, even if it can sound in the best interest of our children, unfortunately this isn't it. The reality is that it is just an anti-abortion last line of defense that I can not support.
---
Thursday, October 23, 2008
To Jonanda42:
Jonanda42, thanks for the request for comment, but reading your page got me into a rant. my comment ended up being way too long to post, so here is what I wrote in full. A reply comment would be appreciated. My other rant on California prop. 8 is included in the article as well.
Take care
---
Thanks for the request for comment. I'll share what I think the most important point is:
I wrote a full opinion on one aspect of the issue (not my usual satire) on my blog. The short of it, many states had constitutional bans on interracial marriage as recently as 2000. Not enforceable since 1963 with Loving v. Virginia, the year before the civil rights at of 1964 that gave extended equal protect of the law regardless of race, GENDER, religion, and national origin. So, are people really arguing that equal protection regardless or gender was a mistake, or needs to be dissected more carefully? With our grossly incompetent congress at this point in time, the reference you want to give them is the bible?!? The bible is a cute piece of fiction with some interesting stories that reveal a lot about life 1600 years ago, and further back for the old testament. People are actually arguing the relevance of the bible to guide our politics, but disregard the constitution as dated because the founders could not have known what todays world would be like? BULLSHIT! I think our founders understood a hell of a lot more about tyranny than the vast majority of the country. Back to prop 8 for a sec, this is the PERFECT example of how democracy is a doomed failure. You want to read an ancient text that was actually based on fact? Read The Histories, a fantastic piece about what the Ancient Greeks learned about why democracy sucks; key point: despite whatever works, it eventually comes down to the majority being able to do whatever they want to the minority. 51% of people can vote to change the constitution while 49% oppose? That is FUCKED UP, and the fact that this is even on the ballot pisses me off. Blacks only make up 15% of the American population... so what? that means the other 85% can RAPE them for anything their hearts desire? Sadly, equality didn't come through change in the hearts of Americans. It took some rouge supreme court justices that looked at the heart of the constitution to understand the great theory of America and FORCED it upon an unwilling majority declaring "WAKE THE FUCK UP, THIS IS AMERICA!!!". So go on and impose your little democratic gestapo because some law might make you come out of the fucking closet, or tell your children they have the right to make informed decisions about love. The one great thing about even the remote chance this might pass is that it will justify an appeal to the United States Supreme Court where it will be found unconstitutional, and it will force EVERY STATE to recognize gay marriage. And not only will your your precious little children be taught about love between two people, but right next to Loving v. Virginia their history books will cits that nasty time in history before fags v. California.
All you can hope for is deadly cancer that will turn you into dirt (sorry, heaven is a lie) so you won't have to see a place where fags can marry. Sorry suckers, it is going to happen, and your gay son is going to help.
Take care
---
Thanks for the request for comment. I'll share what I think the most important point is:
I wrote a full opinion on one aspect of the issue (not my usual satire) on my blog. The short of it, many states had constitutional bans on interracial marriage as recently as 2000. Not enforceable since 1963 with Loving v. Virginia, the year before the civil rights at of 1964 that gave extended equal protect of the law regardless of race, GENDER, religion, and national origin. So, are people really arguing that equal protection regardless or gender was a mistake, or needs to be dissected more carefully? With our grossly incompetent congress at this point in time, the reference you want to give them is the bible?!? The bible is a cute piece of fiction with some interesting stories that reveal a lot about life 1600 years ago, and further back for the old testament. People are actually arguing the relevance of the bible to guide our politics, but disregard the constitution as dated because the founders could not have known what todays world would be like? BULLSHIT! I think our founders understood a hell of a lot more about tyranny than the vast majority of the country. Back to prop 8 for a sec, this is the PERFECT example of how democracy is a doomed failure. You want to read an ancient text that was actually based on fact? Read The Histories, a fantastic piece about what the Ancient Greeks learned about why democracy sucks; key point: despite whatever works, it eventually comes down to the majority being able to do whatever they want to the minority. 51% of people can vote to change the constitution while 49% oppose? That is FUCKED UP, and the fact that this is even on the ballot pisses me off. Blacks only make up 15% of the American population... so what? that means the other 85% can RAPE them for anything their hearts desire? Sadly, equality didn't come through change in the hearts of Americans. It took some rouge supreme court justices that looked at the heart of the constitution to understand the great theory of America and FORCED it upon an unwilling majority declaring "WAKE THE FUCK UP, THIS IS AMERICA!!!". So go on and impose your little democratic gestapo because some law might make you come out of the fucking closet, or tell your children they have the right to make informed decisions about love. The one great thing about even the remote chance this might pass is that it will justify an appeal to the United States Supreme Court where it will be found unconstitutional, and it will force EVERY STATE to recognize gay marriage. And not only will your your precious little children be taught about love between two people, but right next to Loving v. Virginia their history books will cits that nasty time in history before fags v. California.
All you can hope for is deadly cancer that will turn you into dirt (sorry, heaven is a lie) so you won't have to see a place where fags can marry. Sorry suckers, it is going to happen, and your gay son is going to help.
You just can't outlaw stupid...
This could probably be a whole series, but this is just in relationship to a recent visit to the local superior court house to help a friend do some research on his case. It made me think about the procedure of things, and the up and coming prop 5 on the ballot. See link if you are not familiar.
Just to note, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Though that should probably be at the bottom of my page, I am just saying it now in case I don't ever get amount to putting it on my page... as with many things :)
(UPDATE: There now is a little disclaimer next to the copyright notice, woot)
That being said, I am getting a stronger and stronger impression that a public defender is about as helpful as having Brutus and Judah as military advisors; they are not traitors to the cause... necessary... yet... but they swear to have your best interests at heart. So anachronisms aside, I think the system as it is designed is GREAT! If you look at the law and the job the judge and public defender have to do, it is amazing. The standard, if you look at the rules, are VERY high for protecting the interests of an accused... the problem? Same problem you have in any game where everyone knows the rules of the game except you. You CAN NOT win in that situation, and as the title suggests, you can't outlaw stupid. So what happens, and whose fault is it, especially when they, or anyone for that matter, already has evidence against you?
Unfortunately, there are a LOT of people that never take the time to learn the law, mostly because it is considered boring or uninteresting... but complain when the systems does not work the way (they thought) it was supposed to. Know why it fails? Because between a seasoned judge, district attorney, and oddly enough your own lawyer, you are still the weakest link.
Ok, getting back on track, what does this have to do with prop 5? In the blindingly fast process of arraignment I observed, there were two ways that cases went. Plead guilty and receive the minimum mandatory sentence graciously offered by the judge and set date for sentencing, OR plead not guilty to which you were asked a series of 'simple' questions that waive as many of your constitutional rights as possible. Ironically, I bet that was what they thought "not guilty" avoided.
The one that really got me was the "Do you want to give your lawyer more than 45 days to review your case?" You think this would be a very simple, straight forward question, right? Of course it is! The 6th amendment gives you the right to a speedy trial. With misdemeanor charges in California, that means they have 45 days to prove their case, or dismiss. However, some people need more time than that to fight the evidence against them, otherwise there would be a violation of due process, taking what was meant to be a protection and turn it against you.
So my question is this: Why is the accused being asked at an arraignment without an attorney how long it will take a lawyer to put their case together, especially when you have the right to waive at ANY time, but you can never un-waive? Isn't this a better issue to discuss with the lawyer, and allow the lawyer to advise the client on?
(UPDATE: Evidently you can waive and unwaive at any time, more or less, but it resets the clock for the D.A.; 45 days starts over)
But of course that issue was handled in Miranda v. Arizona. Not only do you already have so many rights to protect you, but police have to explain them to you before 'many things can happen'. You have a right to an attorney (further, you have a right to a competent attorney, US v. Pope) and all that other good stuff. Do people just not get that those rights still apply when you are in court, not JUST with police?
There are too many clichés about "common sense" to pick one, but it appears to me that it is a big issue of law. For example, if you are unsure of what entering a plea necessarily does, why are you answering the question? But at the same time, why should a judge be explaining those "special circumstances" to you? I only read about this recently. When you enter a plea, as offered by the judge, you acknowledge validity of the proceedings. Sure, you got all these rights and stuff, and you and the court are going to argue many things. If you enter a plea, you are not necessarily waiving a right, but it can be used against you later. Or more simply, arraignment is a stage in the proceedings. Once you enter a plea, you are assisting in moving things forward. Well, what if there was something that you could have challenged in that stage? Well, as we have seen in many movies, is that you can only say "guilty, not guilty, or no contest". But what if you just say nothing? Can you get in trouble for not saying anything at all? What if you don't understand what is going on, but you know you have the 5th amendment to protect you in some way?
Maybe it is insignificant, as I really haven't researched it thoroughly, but if you do not enter a plea, the judge is forced to enter you into a plea of not guilty, with the interesting side effect of never having a record of your acknowledgement of the validity of the proceedings. It is called a "mute" plea, and goes on record as such. My impression that pleading can be used against you later; "Well, if any of your rights had been violated before this point, why didn't you say something. Sorry, too late". Anyway, take that for what it is worth, I look forward to looking into it further.
Ok, so as briefly mentioned earlier, accused have the right to a competent attorney. Did a little homework on what that really means. I discovered, for lack of a better word, really quite hard core. US v. Pope is very interesting. I am sure to anyone that hasn't read it will finish saying, "Wow, I never knew the standards for lawyers are so tough!". They should understand the evidence being used against you, what is legal, and defend their client to the best of the ability like any other lawyer. Some lawyers may have special arguments or tricks up their sleeves, and that doesn't count. Neither do obscure interpretations of the law, but they should be up to date on relevant cases, particularly for the local county and state.
So what inspired this post was outrage, nearly getting up and yelling at the judge Better judgment told me that could have resulted in nothing but bad, by comparison to sitting there quietly. I painfully could not justify taking the risk, despite feeling that any lawyer worth his weight in water would have done things differently. Nobody there for misdemeanor weed possession had representation. I think there were about a dozen people there for such charges.
And here is one of those places where entering a plea would be bad. These people were being charged with a crime the people of California are trying to change, with prop 5. Among other things, it would reduce minor possession to an infraction and a $100 fine, and no civil assessment, meaning it would be just like a traffic ticket where you just have to pay the fine, and you are done.
These people moved forward with misdemeanor proceedings, to which all I could think was WHY?!? Don't plead guilty to something that might not be illegal in two weeks?!? The law is retroactive in this case. Pleading innocent wouldn't make sense either because you are still moving forward with something that might not even be illegal in two weeks.UPDATE: I wrote this with a lot of frustration and obviously didn't look over it when I wrote it. I will go back and fix some of these really broken sentences in the near future. Sorry to inconvenience anyone that was interested in what I was trying to say. FIXED!
Just to note, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Though that should probably be at the bottom of my page, I am just saying it now in case I don't ever get amount to putting it on my page... as with many things :)
(UPDATE: There now is a little disclaimer next to the copyright notice, woot)
That being said, I am getting a stronger and stronger impression that a public defender is about as helpful as having Brutus and Judah as military advisors; they are not traitors to the cause... necessary... yet... but they swear to have your best interests at heart. So anachronisms aside, I think the system as it is designed is GREAT! If you look at the law and the job the judge and public defender have to do, it is amazing. The standard, if you look at the rules, are VERY high for protecting the interests of an accused... the problem? Same problem you have in any game where everyone knows the rules of the game except you. You CAN NOT win in that situation, and as the title suggests, you can't outlaw stupid. So what happens, and whose fault is it, especially when they, or anyone for that matter, already has evidence against you?
Unfortunately, there are a LOT of people that never take the time to learn the law, mostly because it is considered boring or uninteresting... but complain when the systems does not work the way (they thought) it was supposed to. Know why it fails? Because between a seasoned judge, district attorney, and oddly enough your own lawyer, you are still the weakest link.
Ok, getting back on track, what does this have to do with prop 5? In the blindingly fast process of arraignment I observed, there were two ways that cases went. Plead guilty and receive the minimum mandatory sentence graciously offered by the judge and set date for sentencing, OR plead not guilty to which you were asked a series of 'simple' questions that waive as many of your constitutional rights as possible. Ironically, I bet that was what they thought "not guilty" avoided.
The one that really got me was the "Do you want to give your lawyer more than 45 days to review your case?" You think this would be a very simple, straight forward question, right? Of course it is! The 6th amendment gives you the right to a speedy trial. With misdemeanor charges in California, that means they have 45 days to prove their case, or dismiss. However, some people need more time than that to fight the evidence against them, otherwise there would be a violation of due process, taking what was meant to be a protection and turn it against you.
So my question is this: Why is the accused being asked at an arraignment without an attorney how long it will take a lawyer to put their case together, especially when you have the right to waive at ANY time
(UPDATE: Evidently you can waive and unwaive at any time, more or less, but it resets the clock for the D.A.; 45 days starts over)
But of course that issue was handled in Miranda v. Arizona. Not only do you already have so many rights to protect you, but police have to explain them to you before 'many things can happen'. You have a right to an attorney (further, you have a right to a competent attorney, US v. Pope) and all that other good stuff. Do people just not get that those rights still apply when you are in court, not JUST with police?
There are too many clichés about "common sense" to pick one, but it appears to me that it is a big issue of law. For example, if you are unsure of what entering a plea necessarily does, why are you answering the question? But at the same time, why should a judge be explaining those "special circumstances" to you? I only read about this recently. When you enter a plea, as offered by the judge, you acknowledge validity of the proceedings. Sure, you got all these rights and stuff, and you and the court are going to argue many things. If you enter a plea, you are not necessarily waiving a right, but it can be used against you later. Or more simply, arraignment is a stage in the proceedings. Once you enter a plea, you are assisting in moving things forward. Well, what if there was something that you could have challenged in that stage? Well, as we have seen in many movies, is that you can only say "guilty, not guilty, or no contest". But what if you just say nothing? Can you get in trouble for not saying anything at all? What if you don't understand what is going on, but you know you have the 5th amendment to protect you in some way?
Maybe it is insignificant, as I really haven't researched it thoroughly, but if you do not enter a plea, the judge is forced to enter you into a plea of not guilty, with the interesting side effect of never having a record of your acknowledgement of the validity of the proceedings. It is called a "mute" plea, and goes on record as such. My impression that pleading can be used against you later; "Well, if any of your rights had been violated before this point, why didn't you say something. Sorry, too late". Anyway, take that for what it is worth, I look forward to looking into it further.
Ok, so as briefly mentioned earlier, accused have the right to a competent attorney. Did a little homework on what that really means. I discovered, for lack of a better word, really quite hard core. US v. Pope is very interesting. I am sure to anyone that hasn't read it will finish saying, "Wow, I never knew the standards for lawyers are so tough!". They should understand the evidence being used against you, what is legal, and defend their client to the best of the ability like any other lawyer. Some lawyers may have special arguments or tricks up their sleeves, and that doesn't count. Neither do obscure interpretations of the law, but they should be up to date on relevant cases, particularly for the local county and state.
So what inspired this post was outrage, nearly getting up and yelling at the judge Better judgment told me that could have resulted in nothing but bad, by comparison to sitting there quietly. I painfully could not justify taking the risk, despite feeling that any lawyer worth his weight in water would have done things differently. Nobody there for misdemeanor weed possession had representation. I think there were about a dozen people there for such charges.
And here is one of those places where entering a plea would be bad. These people were being charged with a crime the people of California are trying to change, with prop 5. Among other things, it would reduce minor possession to an infraction and a $100 fine, and no civil assessment, meaning it would be just like a traffic ticket where you just have to pay the fine, and you are done.
These people moved forward with misdemeanor proceedings, to which all I could think was WHY?!? Don't plead guilty to something that might not be illegal in two weeks?!? The law is retroactive in this case. Pleading innocent wouldn't make sense either because you are still moving forward with something that might not even be illegal in two weeks.
Why not simply request a continuance? Two week continuance? First request? I'd bet you could ask for a two week continuance for ANYTHING! Like, "Umm... I don't know if I want a public defender, I need to ask my mom" would be a good enough reason, let alone the fact that the law may dramatically change very soon.
As I said before, any lawyer worth their weight in water would have made that argument, and any lawyer that didn't should be charged with malpractice.
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