Derek Khanna Answers Your Questions 167
Last week you had a chance to ask former Republican staffer Derek Khanna about his well publicized firing, copyright law, and the state of the government. Read below to see his answers to your questions.
Do You Still Identify Yourself as Republican? by eldavojohn
I believe your paper would have been unpopular on both sides of the isle but did the Republican knee jerk reaction to it negatively affect your affinity with the Republican party and your efforts to further their cause? Setting aside your differences on Copyright Law with that party, are you still Republican?
Khanna: Absolutely still a Republican. In fact I actually quibble a bit with your premise. The conservative position is that our current system of copyright is not consistent with the Constitution and inhibits innovation by choosing winners and losers– and pretty much all conservative organizations have come out with that opinion. There is a difference between Republican and Conservative that I won’t get into here, but my opinions are conservative and the Republican Party reflects more of the conservative ideology.
Re:Do You Still Identify Yourself as Republican?
by alexander_686
Follow up question: If you had been a Democratic staffer, do you think you would have been fired or would have been treated differently?
That is, what is the interaction between the Republican party verses the general entrenched interests that influences both parties. I have seen many Democrats also advocate for strict IP laws.
Khanna: I’m not sure, I’m not really qualified to assess what happens on the other side of the aisle. But I would think that the memo would never have gotten written at all. The content industry traditionally supports Democrats. And the memo was written for a conservative audience based upon traditional conservative principles.
Law to guide vs. forbid
by Maximum Prophet
One complaint conservatives about liberals is that they tend to try to outlaw stuff reactively. The EPA comes to mind, forbidding property owners certain uses of their land. How can government encourage people to do the right thing without outlawing the wrong thing? How can the government "Speak Softly" but keep the "Big Stick" only when absolutely necessary? With respect to copyrights, could the government tell people it's wrong to let artists starve, while making it easy to justly compensate them for their work?
Khanna: I’m not going to go too off base here, but there are many solutions available other than regulation and forbidding conduct. Often times the market can sort it out, but if, and only if, you ensure that externalities are built in, and you ensure that the government hasn’t already messed with the incentive structures. I’m not really qualified to jump in on EPA issues. And I’m not entirely sure on the rest of your question, as a believer of the free market I don’t think that our copyright system should be built upon ensuring that ALL artists make lots of money and I think that generally the market will facilitate even easier methods of payments with newer technologies.
Re:Great minds think alike
by Tokolosh
My posting from nearly four years ago:
To quote the Constitution: "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." What does "limited Times" mean? We can agree that one day is insufficient to be an incentive. We can also agree that infinity is too long to promote progress. Therefore, it stands to reason that there is some optimal duration, which both maximizes the rewards for both the inventors, and society at large. Has any research been done to determine this optimum? Is current legislation based on anything other than what lobbyists can buy for their clients?
Khanna: Terrific question. First, limited times is a term left purposefully vague allowing for Congress to change how long copyright should be. This is a reason why I never said that copyright has to be 28 years – set in stone – as the Founders had (kind of it’s a bit more complicated). And my suggested terms are just suggestions – they were designed to be a starting point for hearings to bring in data.
But I think we have to make arguments for why longer than the Founder term is sound. Arguments like, “Our Founder system of 28 years was premised upon a market of x, and today the market is y, which requires a longer recoupment period for the content producer etc.” But of course that wouldn’t justify our current system of life + 70. In my Cato Unbound piece I go through some of the studies on this topic that pretty conclusively find that there is no incentive to content producers for such a long copyright period.
From the piece:
“Research further shows that our system of copyright is suboptimal at best and significantly counterproductive at worst. For much of our history, copyright required registration to receive the full benefit of the extension. If a longer copyright term were critical to provide sufficient incentive to content producers then we would expect, particularly when copyright terms were much shorter, that content producers would choose to extend their copyright. But during the era of registration, Congress found that only “a very small percentage of copyrights are ever renewed.”[2] They found that the rate of renewal in the 1880s was 15%, and less than half of all works were originally registered at all. If a much longer copyright term of life plus 70 years is so necessary, then why did all these content producers choose to only have 28 years of protection rather than the optional 42 years available at the time?
As William Patry argues in his book How to Fix Copyright,
Was there a single author in the world who said, ‘A term of copyright that only lasts for my life plus fifty years after I die is too short. I will not create a new work unless copyright is extent to last for my life plus seventy years’? There is no such person. (p 57)
Several studies have confirmed this as well. In 2009, a study on the production of movies in twenty-three countries that had extended the term of copyright(pdf) found no evidence that longer terms of copyright caused the creation of more works rather than the prior, shorter term. Another study from the University of Cambridge found that the optimal copyright term is 15 years(pdf), with a 99% confidence interval extending up to 38 years. Even the Congressional Research Service concluded that there was at most a small change in incentive in the extension of copyright term.
If there are no or only minimal benefits to this change, what are the costs?”
So in answer to your question there has been a lot of research. We have cross-country research so we know generally what works. And while the data may show slightly different things, it all shows that life + 70 offers us nothing and actually depresses available content. Current legislation is not based upon this discussion, I don’t recall that being the topic of discussion for the last extension, but it should be particularly when the industry comes knocking in 2019 to ask for life + 90 to keep Steamboat Willy from entering the public domain.
I got into some relevant detail in another more recent essay for Cato-Unbound:
“There are certainly legitimate arguments that copyright should be longer than that of our Founders because of certain market conditions that are different from their day – but there are not legitimate argument to say that a system of indefinite copyright abides by the Constitution or our the express intentions of our Founders.
Despite the American history on Copyright, some still argue that copyright should be or could be a perpetual right that exists forever. Many of them have lobbied successfully on a regular basis to ensure that certain highly-lucrative works never enter the public domain. Some against copyright reform hide behind the shadows of claiming that they are not for an indefinite copyright – but every twenty/thirty years they lobby to extend copyright from 56 years, to life + 50, to life +70. It’s very clear what their intentions are. They intend and have largely succeeded in destroying anything of value entering the public domain. Success in perverting the law should not be misinterpreted for constitutional fidelity despite their property law arguments using 18th century vernacular. These proponents are arguing for something very different from what the Founders believed.
Frankly they lost the argument 226 years ago. The Founders explicitly rejected this position.”
Down the Pipe
by CanHasDIY
Is there any future legislation that you know of / heard about during your time as a staffer that we, the People, should get a heads-up on? Specifically, anything nefarious regarding things like copyright, patents, digital property and/or privacy, et. al?
Khanna: Patents need to be fixed and we obviously need major privacy legislation such as ECPA reform etc. I talked about some of the upcoming privacy issues in my interview with Techdirt. I was always particularly concerned with drone strikes against US citizens so I’m happy that is finally receiving some real attention by MSM and the American people.
As I wrote in my piece in the National Review, I think we can do a much better job in allocating visas to high-skilled workers – and I think there is an actual way to accomplish that goal as outlined in the article or other ideas along a similar thought process (perhaps by providing greater help for small businesses acquiring H-1Bs).
But more on topic, we should keep an eye on the Transpacific Partnership Treaty (TPP) because it will be codifying provisions of the DMCA that are very problematic. The DMCA has been used to make some technology “contraband” and to stifle political speech. While we need to protect intellectual property, the DMCA has proved to be a terrible law. It should not be entirely surprising that the DMCA may need revisions and oversight. The DMCA was passed three years before the iPod, six years before Google Books and nine years before the Kindle. But now that it's clear that the DMCA is being interpreted in a way clearly contrary for which it was passed, it’s incumbent upon Congress to act.The idea of putting the DMCA into an international agreement is a very bad idea. If in the United States it has been used to justify censorship of political speech, imagine what other countries will do that don’t have the First Amendment and are looking for legal structure to justify censorship.
This is a big fight and as a Congressional staffer we weren’t allowed to read it – so very scary stuff and I think an unprecedented level of secrecy on this. I also touched upon this in the Cato Unbound piece:
“This treaty includes provisions on intellectual property that are above and beyond those in the Berne Convention. Setting controversial and contested copyright terms in stone through treaty was wrong then, and it’s wrong now. It’s an affront to the legislative process to try to “re-codify” legislative wins into treaty agreements. That would make it significantly more difficult to ever change course.
The length of copyright terms has always received significant debate and disagreement. This was likely the intention of the Founders in not specifying what a "limited time" meant within the Constitution itself. But current drafts of the TPP allegedly establish the law at life plus 70 years. Additionally, it would include or even expand portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) relating to anti-circumvention technologies. To be clear, I am strongly against unauthorized copyright infringement, but the DMCA outlawing of anti-circumvention technologies is extremely controversial—and rightfully so.
The DMCA created rules that until recently made it illegal to jailbreak your own iPhone or to develop a program to read a Kindle book aloud to someone who is blind. The DMCA still bars developing, selling, providing, or even linking to technologies that play legal DVDs purchased in a different region, or to convert a DVD you own to a playable file on your computer. Because no licensed DVD playing software is currently available for the Linux operating system, if a Linux user wishes to play a DVD that they have legally bought, they cannot legally play it on their own computer. The DMCA’s rules have also made legitimate fair uses of copyrighted material much harder. Using snippets of video for classrooms is legal fair use, but to do so, teachers have to use illegal technology to “rip” the DVD to a playable and editable file, or they must illegally download the file online.
Within the leaked details of the TPP Treaty there are many troubling features, but perhaps most troubling is the secrecy surrounding the negotiations. Members have been allowed to view documents, but most of their staff and the general public have been denied access. Outside of the national security realm, this type of secrecy in regard to a treaty is particularly troubling and perhaps unprecedented. Another troubling aspect is that despite this secrecy, there have been “stakeholder” presentations representing one particular side and vested interest, rather than the perspective of the general public or the requirements of our Constitution. One of the stakeholder presentations at the latest TPP negotiations was titled "The Walt-Disney Company: Creativity, Brought to you by Copyright.” At the same time, representatives from the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) were denied access and not allowed in the building for recent negotiations.”
But the recent decision by the Librarian of Congress really takes the cake, which made it illegal to unlock your own cellphone. In a recent article I stated that:
“Congress's inaction in the face of the decision by the Librarian of Congress represents a dereliction of duty. It should pass a new law codifying that adaptive technology for the blind, backing up DVD's to your computer, and unlocking and jail breaking your phone are lawful activities regardless of the decisions of the Librarian of Congress.” (article)
Our White House petition on this issue is currently at 75,000 but we have to get to 100,000 by February 23, 2013. This will be a big opportunity for advocates of sounds technology policy.
Hope?
by Hatta
How do we Americans manage to retain any hope for any sort of positive change when people who are paid to identify beneficial reforms get fired for upsetting special interests? Doesn't your case prove that it's impossible to effect reform through the system? Do you belive that Democracy in America still exists, and if so, why?
Khanna: Democracy is more than just people voting and it’s more than just activism for your candidate of choice. The people have immense power when they are united and coordinated. Unfortunately, most organizing up till now has required major organizations to set-up – but not anymore.
Members of Congress are particularly sensitive to interests from their constituents as expressed through letters, e-mail and phone calls to their office. This is why a united and coordinated movement can be so successful in stopping legislation. But activist movements, like the SOPA protest, cannot rest after stopping one bad piece of legislation. Instead, we must take the next step which is actually passing good legislation.
I imagine that ad-hoc groups of people who agree on some policy idea will form to both stop bad legislation but also to push good legislation. It will take a while to transition to that, but once that is done, then we will have much more of an effect and a substantive democracy. But that will require activism and involvement.
The cellphone unlocking issue is a perfect example of where the people could actually fix policy. The traditional players in DC are unlikely to do so on their own, the wireless industry likes the ruling, and many of the other technology companies may see this as an issue where they have little to gain– so it’s up to the people themselves to step up and say this ruling is crazy. The idea that average people can be arrested for unlocking their phones is insane. I hope that the people step up for their own property rights.
Lawmakers becoming Obsolete
by SinisterRainbow
The United States was founded as Republic, primarily (so it is said) because having individual voices was impossible with the technology of the time. However, we live in an age where the Internet has given us instant communication and access to vast information, where we can relatively securely pass information around, and where especially, we can have every voice heard to write our own bills and laws. Iceland may be small, but they have proven it's more than just a theory. We have open source books, open source software, open encyclopedia, with more 'open' type projects all the time - which have proved immensely successful and very efficient when it comes to money. However, the trend is in the opposite direction, with more power given to lawmakers and large corporations (in the de facto sense at least as contributions are now unlimited, it raises the bar of entry), and congress with it's two main parties, are in a huge poker match. What do you see as the pros and cons against an open-Bill type of system, where the power of the people get a more realistic voice, where the history can be saved for eternity, where the slightest changes can all be remembered using repositories, where anyone can contribute, where it would save multi-millions of dollars in taxes, where multiple types of Bills can be presented and the one the people wish for most receives the most votes? You have represented a party that claims they stand for smaller government, yet it's one that has increased government size as much and many times, more than democrats. Shouldn't such a system be at the forefront of Republican agenda? Or has big business lined the pockets so fat of every member in congress that this is not possible without some type of revolution..?
Khanna: You are correct that the Republican Party claims they are the party of smaller government, yet they have failed to deliver while they were in power – and conservatives are frustrated with the party for that reason. I think that Democrats have been worse in that regard, but clearly the Bush years were very bad ones for fiscal conservatism.
Your idea for a more open government and transparency is interesting, but while I want the people to be more involved in our process I do like the idea – in concept – of representative democracy (I’m not sure exactly what you are saying in that regard).
Would you do it the exact same way again?
by rmdingler
Hindsight being on the order of 20/15 or so, would you make the same bold statement, or, knowing the consequences and repercussions, would you be a bit more tactful and attempt to reform the system from within?
Khanna: I tried to reform the system from within – by doing my job. In this situation, discretion and tact was used as much as possible.
Now What?
by eldavojohn
You told other staffers when you left: Don't be discouraged by the potential consequences. You work for the American people. It's your job, your obligation to be challenging existing paradigms and put forward novel solutions to existing problems.
So now what? What's your plan? I mean, you can tell them not to be discouraged but that's a pretty hefty weight to put on your own shoulders. Anyone who gets a check from the content industry (and I think that's everyone in DC) is going to blacklist you. Do you see yourself taking a Ralph Nader-like approach to politics? How do you even get your foot back in the door? You do realize that if you don't return or rise to another kind of constituent-focused power that your above encouragement will fall upon deaf ears as you will become the example of what happens to an outspoken staffer?
Khanna: Yes, I stand by that statement. We need creative destruction of failed ideas and we need a thriving competition for promising new ideas. Not solving problems but “getting along” is not enough to fix our system at this point.
In normal times, the system can function by each of us playing a minimal role in its proper functioning – but when the system is like it is today, it requires those of us who are paying attention to be more active participants. Democracy is tough, it requires active engagement and participation.
As for me, I have a bunch of plans in the works. Right now I’m working on the cellphone unlocking issue that I mentioned because it’s outrageous and unacceptable. But it’s also a misstep by the other side and therefore it’s a strategic opportunity to restore property rights. Doing so will start to change the overall discussion on technology policy and it’s a winnable battle. I hope you will consider signing and promoting our White House petition and getting us over 100,000 by the end of the week.
I plan on continuing to write and research on sensible technology policies for our country through my fellowship with Yale Law and hopefully being a part in successful advocacy movements going forward.
Follow me on twitter to find out about my next steps. Or shoot me on twitter @Dkhanna11 and e-mail if you have ideas (Khannaderek@gmail.com).
Couldn't read (Score:4, Interesting)
Does nobody in politics have the ability to think? It's no better than fans beating each other up because someone is in a red shirt sitting in the Cowboys section, or wearing blue in the Redskins.
When the best defense he can come up with is that his party at least let him write the paper before firing him, and he thinks that it would never have been written on the other side of the isle, then we are truly screwed. Our values are all for sale, so long as we don't ever do anything that might help "the other side" Regardless of what's "best" for anyone.
Re:Couldn't read (Score:5, Insightful)
) I couldn't read past the first two. "I don't like the Republicans (for how they treated me, for how some of my beliefs align with them), but I guess, without ever really looking, that my conservative views are more closely aligned with Republican, so I'm a Republican for life, no matter how bad they treat me or the rest of the country."
Funny how you feel the need to make up words to put in his mouth.
Democrats are anti-conservative. Republicans are a mix of conservative and anti-conservative. Both suck, but one sucks much more.
Whether you're a social conservative or a fiscal conservative, the past 6 years of majority Democrat rule is adequate evidence for a conservative to dismiss them as an option. Others are free to hold out hope, but hope doesn't mean much in politics. Votes do.
Furthermore, our political system favors two parties, so influencing one of the main two parties is the easiest path to political success.
Given that Democrats are not an option, it is completely rational to focus efforts on the other party. If conservative ideas are any good, the other party will start winning elections and force the Democratic party to shift their stance if they want to stay in power.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The insanity here is not in choosing a R or D, but the absolutist manner in which he identified himself as a conservative. Its like saying that I'll always believe that the theories of Issac Newton for life are absolutely true, regardless of what experiments show. You should always be willing to recalibrate your theories in light of new information. I suspect there is something else behind the conservativisim that is his real goal in life, politics, economics,etc that is unspoken. That is what the focus sh
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> The insanity here is not in choosing a R or D, but the absolutist manner in which he identified himself as a conservative
You're putting words into his mouth too. And not just a little, but completely:
"... but my opinions are conservative and the Republican Party reflects more of the conservative ideology."
He's not labeling himself. He is establishing an identity here. He is simply using a word to describe his opinions. One word. The insanity here is you claiming it's "insane" that he would provide
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Don't have time to tear your argument apart. Political ideology should rise to a standard higher than a personal preference.
I like consuming ham => no consequence to me.
I want to elect a governement that requrires all citezens to consume ham => Problem for me.
He still uses consevatisim as the benchmark for his thinking. This stuff is good, *because* its consevative. Rather than conservatisim is good because of this.
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The absolutist manner in which you criticize his absolutism is ... interesting. You do realize you've applied a foot bullet to your own argument, right?
If he knows what principles he stands for, why should he not proudly claim them? Moral questions are not in the same category as scientific questions.
For example, is "do not murder other people" a result of scientific experimentation, or is it based on principles? Is it subject to change and revision?
The answer should be obvious - there is no im
Between the Horns (Score:2)
Moral absolutes aren't.
You can't just say "Murder is wrong!" as an absolute statement and then quibble about what the definition of murder is. I mean, you can, if you want to tell yourself that you have some sort of superior moral character, but you're still engaged in moral relativism. Logically "Some killing is not murder" is equivalent to "Some killing is not wrong". You can feel free to take refuge in the tautological definition of murder ("wrongful killing") but otherwise you're pretty much hoist on yo
Re: (Score:2)
You can't just say "Murder is wrong!" as an absolute statement and then quibble about what the definition of murder is.
I'm not quibbling about the definition of a murder. I was acknowledging the reality that we don't have perfect information, and so we have to make a judgement whether a dead person was murdered or killed. The uncertainty isn't in the definition, it's in the situation - was this murder or self defense or an accident? Depends.
That we're not sure whether Col. Mustard murdered Mr. Body has no bearing on the reality that there is a definition of murder, and we can agree that someone whose action fits th
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I don't get the impression that you comprehend a word of what I wrote. "Sometimes it's okay to kill people" is not compatible with moral absolutism. Contrast the statement, "Killing is always wrong," or even better, "Abortion is always wrong."
The only way that you can make the statement "Murder is always wrong" is to use a circular definition, e.g. "Murder is wrongful killing."
You're welcome to be condescending but you should work on your reading comprehension. The definition of right and wrong are not bein
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I don't get the impression that you comprehend a word of what I wrote. "Sometimes it's okay to kill people" is not compatible with moral absolutism. Contrast the statement, "Killing is always wrong," or even better, "Abortion is always wrong."
"Abortion is never wrong" is no less a morally absolute statement than "Abortion is always wrong". That overlaps with "Sometimes it's okay to kill people" - which you just claimed to be incompatible with moral absolutes. Care to rethink that, or are you happy to contradict yourself?
It seems that you think that morally absolute definitions cannot have exceptions. They can't have arbitrary exceptions, but they can have absolute exceptions. Ex: Killing a man is always wrong; unless he was first at
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That's a poor attempt to Godel me. "Do not murder people" is absolutely a result of social scientific research. Take a look at ethics. There can be good societal reasons based on research for ethical behavior. Or do you beleive that we must necissarily inject religeous reasoning into our laws?
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That's a poor attempt to Godel me. "Do not murder people" is absolutely a result of social scientific research. Take a look at ethics. There can be good societal reasons based on research for ethical behavior. Or do you beleive that we must necissarily inject religeous reasoning into our laws?
Nope. Murder laws predate social scientific research. Attempting to back-credit science for those laws is plagiarism; unless you'd like to cite how mankind developed murder laws through trial and error using a primitive form of the scientific method. (Such a history does not exist; murder laws exist as long as man has recorded it)
Scientific results are always provisional - "We haven't disproven this yet" As such, it doesn't provide any way to inform ethics. Remember eugenics? That was the S
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That started with "I’m not really qualified to assess what happens on the other side of the aisle."
I was actually rather pleased by how up-front he was in saying when he didn't really understand things. If a person follows such a sentence, with a "...but", and you happen to understand "the other side" better than he does, its your own damn fault if you bother to read on.
OTOH, you'd hope a (former) political operative would make it their business to try to understand "the other side". If nothing else
Re:Couldn't read (Score:4, Informative)
While claiming correctly that he didn't exactly know what happens on the other side of the isle, he did in fact later guess in the same answer that the Democrats would likely not even have written a position paper on copyright in the first place.
I think he's correct in that assessment.
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I don't know, do you ever question the constant "crisis mongering" that is going on in Washington these days. I mean the world is going to end if you listen the likes of Obama, Reid and Pelosi, and (R) want to eat babies and kill puppies, starve grandma and polute the world, rape women and dolphins, all because Obama is getting the sequestration he asked for.
You see, it is all how you look at things and whether or not you like the (D) or (R) better to start. I mean if NDAA happened under GWB, you bet the le
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I don't know, do you ever question the constant "crisis mongering" that is going on in Washington these days.
Yes, I question Rove, Bush, Cheney, and the "entertainment" industry around supporting them, Rush, Alex Jones and the rest. They've been "crisis mongering" since the 1980s.
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No, the problem isn't not seeing individuals. He was fired by individuals (Steve Scalise and some handful of reps who made the request), not by everyone on the Republican Party. And he flat out says the current Republican Party is broken. What more do you want?
Hell, it's *your* type of thinking, advocating dislike or distrust for an entire group because of the actions of individuals, that is often used by authoritarians to divide and conquer opposition.
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I hate both Parties. I was merely debating a point.
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(Random aside - I typed "Stockhausen Syndrome" initially, and was briefly very confused by that.)
Wait, What? (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe your paper would have been unpopular on both sides of the isle but did the Republican knee jerk reaction to it negatively affect your affinity with the Republican party and your efforts to further their cause? Setting aside your differences on Copyright Law with that party, are you still Republican?
Khanna: Absolutely still a Republican. In fact I actually quibble a bit with your premise. The conservative position is that our current system of copyright is not consistent with the Constitution and inhibits innovation by choosing winners and losers– and pretty much all conservative organizations have come out with that opinion. There is a difference between Republican and Conservative that I won’t get into here, but my opinions are conservative and the Republican Party reflects more of the conservative ideology.
Your response was very confusing to me. So if the Republican Party fired you for saying exactly what "all conservative organizations" opine on the topic of copyright ... then the Republican Party is not a conservative organization? But your opinions are conservative ... but you're still a Republican ... which is a party that has "more of the conservative ideology" but they still fire you for saying what all conservative organizations believe? Do you see where I'm having a hard time grasping how your three sentence response logically adds up? I sorta wish you would have gotten into the difference between Republican and Conservative. I guess that's the key to understanding how they fired you? My assumption is that money trumps ideology in politics.
Why retain the label of Republican when you could just call yourself Conservative and identify the problems with the Republicans or side with Libertarians or Tea Party? I mean, you sell your idea as core Conservatism and publish it for Republicans yet you're fired for it. And then you still continue to call yourself Republican? Why?
Like it Or Not (Score:5, Interesting)
The levers of Power are held by two competing teams.
And just like NFL franchises, changing the owners of the teams takes a lot of money.
If you want to play, then you have to pick a team (Republican or Democrat).
If you want to watch, then you can root for each team equally depending on their field position or which down they are on (independent).
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Stick to weeding out trolls.
eldavojohn goes off the rails in his first sentence. Khanna was not fired by "the Republican Party." He was fired by *one* guy at the request of a handful of others. That's what you want to give A+ to? Don't ever go into teaching, please.
Overall the Republicans are still more conservative, so a conservative like Khanna will have the best luck working within the GOP, perhaps with, you know, one of the *thousands* of others who didn't fire him.
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Can you read? Do you know what modifiers are?
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When I read the question, I knew that is exactly what the answer would be, already knowing those were exactly the problems with that response. That sounds like I'm bullshitting after the fact, but this is a repeating response to republicans doing something a republican finds distasteful throughout the last couple decades.
As a similar example, ask someone you know who voted for Bush twice what they think of him now. About 60% of them will give exactly this response.
And before anyone gets on my case, it's n
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Whew, that got my head spinning almost as much as the first answer. "That sounds like I'm bullshitting after the fact, " Indeed, but you continue here with a distracting example about Bush that in its self, does not make sense. that last sentence then implies you aren't intelligent to be able to change opinion even in the face of facts...doesn't that negate your whole copyright approach?
When politics becomes religion, when dogma, not reason rules the day it does not matter what the party, it is a path to
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Obama has done pretty well considering intentional sabotage. I'd replace him with an identical candidate opposed to warrantless wiretaps and oversightless drone strikes in an instant, but he's otherwise done quite well.
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I kept my health care plan. I'm only reading a seething moronic disdain from you without any real intellectual substance. You don't like Obama, therefor I must not either? What's the point of this line of reasoning?
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Ok. Thanks for making me read that. Your bare assertions of doom have totally convinced me.
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Mostly sunni killed by Shia or shia killed by sunni.
One of the 'not stated' motivations of invading Iraq is restarting the thousand year old sunni/shia war. America can't say that if it's true.
Also empowering the Kurds. Again, America can't say that out loud and remain Turkeys ally.
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Why retain the label of Republican when you could just call yourself Conservative and identify the problems with the Republicans or side with Libertarians or Tea Party? I mean, you sell your idea as core Conservatism and publish it for Republicans yet you're fired for it. And then you still continue to call yourself Republican? Why?
US politics encourages a two party system.
I would also guess he feels connected to the historical Republican Party. It was anti-slavery on principle, because it believed in a nation of ideals, not race.
Wiki has some good quotes from Lincoln, but especially read the ones from the Lincoln-Douglas debates (1958). http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln [wikiquote.org]
If they [immigrants from other nations] look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none [...] but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence, they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" and then they feel that [...] they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration; and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.
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Favoring either party based on their founder (I realize Lincolns wasn't exactly a founder) is absurd. Lincoln expanded the role of government; Jackson shrunk it. Lincoln was more of an intellectual, Jackson more a man of the people. Democrats wouldn't elect Jackson today because he was a bigot. I can't see Lincoln arguing for more states rights, or flatting the tax base (he created the progressive tax system).
Founders are founders for a reason - they become leaders of their respective parties or nations because their ideas carried weight and aligned with the movements they led.
Parties are not monolithic, but a set of factions with a broad unifying ideology. The ideology that drove the Republican party of Lincoln was one to preserve US as a nation of liberty and ideals.
The modern conservative Republican who wishes to preserve the US as a nation of liberty and ideals is continuing (conserving!) that intellect
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The original Founding Fathers created a republic for the people, if they can keep it. By the time of Lincoln, that was no longer the case - entire states full of people didn't want to keep the republic.
What should have happened is let the union split, or dissolve altogether. See, the ideal was just "one nation of liberty" (your words), not "one nation of liberty, and it has to include all these states in it, nobody can ever leave, EVER"
Does a single state have the right to dissolve the union? 2 states? 49% of the states? Majority? Supermajority?
Who decides if a state wants to leave the union? Its governor? Its legislature? A majority vote of its population? A supermajority of its population?
The Constitution provides no guidance on how to dissolve the republic, so the nation had to ad lib it.
It was a national divorce; with one side claiming no-fault divorce, and the other claiming that it must be with mutual consent.
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Politics is partially about popularity. And the GOP is still the most popular conservative party by far. And make no mistake, there are a large amount of Republicans out there that are in fact interested in small government (*ahem* Ron Paul *ahem*). They're just not the dominating faction.
Of course, this is really all a symptom of the two party system. If he doesn't identify as a Republican, he's not going to go anywhere. The Libertarian party, while it exists, isn't exactly the most well-known. And the Tea
the Tea Party is done. (Score:2)
The tea party was an anti-tax, small government thing for about a second.
Then the bible thumpers noticed them and sent in their activists. They grabbed power, added the usual 'social conservative' boilerplate.
IMHO the main problem the Rs have is a quasi religious, well organized, insane, extremist wing.
What would happen to the Ds if the occupy/ELF/PETA/code pink/deadhead people were sober, had regular meetings and had spent years taking control of local D operations nationwide? The Ds would be FUBAR!
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D statests will be 'in charge' (grid locked, I hope) until the currency crashes, then it won't matter much, for a while.
The only thing that might hold off the worst is if the Euro crashes first. Last currency of those two will benefit a little from capital flight. On the other hand capital will look around and not see a maintainable fiscal policy on whichever side outlasts. I see lots of other currencies benefiting.
Who knows, 'they' might surprise us and learn to balance a budget. There will be real pr
boat people (Score:2)
*facepalm* (Score:5, Insightful)
One complaint conservatives about liberals is that they tend to try to outlaw stuff reactively. The EPA comes to mind, forbidding property owners certain uses of their land.
Oh yeah, that wacky liberal who gave us the EPA. What was his name again, that pot smoking, Grateful Dead following hippie?
Richard Nixon.
That Nixon is now considered a liberal is all the proof I need that US politics are truely farked beyond all recognition.
National Pirate a Disney Moive Day (Score:2)
but it should be particularly when the industry comes knocking in 2019 to ask for life + 90 to keep Steamboat Willy from entering the public domain.
I feel it's important to have a good copyright system. At the same time, this whole life + 70 nonsense is, as we've discussed, counterproductive. To that end, I propose a national day of piracy every year. Perhaps on April 1st, although I'm open to other ideas (September 19th?). The goal being to declare a specific day of civil disobediance where we openly p
Which movies you pirate changes the validity (Score:2)
but it should be particularly when the industry comes knocking in 2019 to ask for life + 90 to keep Steamboat Willy from entering the public domain.
I feel it's important to have a good copyright system. At the same time, this whole life + 70 nonsense is, as we've discussed, counterproductive. To that end, I propose a national day of piracy every year. Perhaps on April 1st, although I'm open to other ideas (September 19th?). The goal being to declare a specific day of civil disobediance where we openly pirate something that should be public domain and then declare what you pirated on a social network.
And if you openly pirate, say, Steamboat Willie, on the grounds that it should have passed into the public domain, I think that's a reasonable and arguably justifiable protest. But if you openly pirate, say, Wreck-it Ralph, or Brave, or (shortly) Monsters University - movies that have been out for less than a year - then your alleged argument that copyright should have a shorter, 20-30 year term is unsupported by your actions.
And therein lies the problem... How many people are pirating Steamboat Willie, th
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And if you openly pirate, say, Steamboat Willie, on the grounds that it should have passed into the public domain, I think that's a reasonable and arguably justifiable protest. But if you openly pirate, say, Wreck-it Ralph, or Brave, or (shortly) Monsters University - movies that have been out for less than a year - then your alleged argument that copyright should have a shorter, 20-30 year term is unsupported by your actions.
And therein lies the problem... How many people are pirating Steamboat Willie, the Seven Year Itch, To Catch a Thief, etc., as opposed to recent movies, music, games, and software? The Top 10 most pirated movies chart [torrentfreak.com] for this week lists Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, Django Unchained, Argo, The Hobbit, Here Comes the Boom, Flight, Zero Dark Thirty, and Robot and Frank, every one of which is less than a year old. Similarly, the top pirated games (for 2011, I can't find 2012 numbers) [torrentfreak.com] were all released that year.
Your suggestion isn't bad, except that people shouldn't be pirating just anything, but specifically things that would have fallen into the public domain but-for the last extension. Things that are currently 60 years past the life of the author, say. That would be a meaningful, and credible, protest.
I agree with you that there's a difference, but...
I'm reminded of a story I heard somewhere (book, movie, sorry can't remember) were some people were on their way to work and they where discussing the fact that if they were late the punishment was death. Somewhere along the way they were delayed and were going to be late for their work and one guy asks another one what is the punishment for revolting, and the answer was death. So faced with the same punishment if they revolted or late for work and they we
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I'm reminded of a story I heard somewhere (book, movie, sorry can't remember) were some people were on their way to work and they where discussing the fact that if they were late the punishment was death. Somewhere along the way they were delayed and were going to be late for their work and one guy asks another one what is the punishment for revolting, and the answer was death. So faced with the same punishment if they revolted or late for work and they were already late for work, they decided to revolt instead.
While the current punishment for piracy isn't death, it's the same if you pirate a movie that would of been in the public domain vs. something that is current and wouldn't be in the public domain; then to the pirate, what is the difference?
Of course to the pirate, nothing, but if the purpose of the piracy is civil disobedience (which the OP was talking about and you responding to) then it does matter because it would be to express the idea that Copyright is broken.
Ah, but it's not exactly the same. Sure, the charge - copyright infringement - is the same, but there's a difference between Disney asking a jury for huge statutory damages for you distributing a copy of Wreck-it Ralph, and Disney asking a jury for huge statutory damages for you distributing a copy of Steamboat Willie. It's that credibility thing I mentioned. The jury is going to side with the person making an obvious political stand over the one who looks greedy and is trying to claim a political point as
Thank you Mr. Khanna (Score:2)
Many of the comments in response to this article are depressing, with the "la la la I can't hear you!" from posters who are..well crap, if I say "liberal" or "democrat" or any label they're going to start nitpicking over that, so I'll just say "are probably people who are used to not liking things Republicans say." The "us vs them" attitude is counterproductive towards actual change.
Here is a Republican whose ideas about copyrights, patents, and the DMCA seem to line up pretty darn well with the Slashdot gr
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The problem with republicans, whom he himself STRONGLY sides with, is that they push market fixes for stuff that the market broke. Conservatives at some point need to decide if their loyalty is to the country or to the market.
Go to your local market (Score:3)
Go to a market, a real one. Any kind, either one that has been going for centuries or a new one whatever the latest name is that it has gotten, swapmeet, farmers market, it is all the same.
Then stay a while if it is new. I guarentee you that by the time the 3rd market has been held, the rules WILL have been written down and by the end of the year it will be a booklet. Why?
Because people SUCK at working without rules. Just watch what happens when the traffic lights fail. And for every time when the communi
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A functioning market is not the same thing as anarchy. Does a free market need rules? Yes â" and judges to enforce said rules.
Do you want to point to broken markets that do broken things? I can point out just as many examples of broken regulations doing broken things. However, the invisible hand of a market that is regulated parsimoniously (i.e. with the minimum required regulations - which I will admit is no easy thing) will tend to outwit the philosopher kingâ(TM)s bureaucrats.
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Please cite your references showing that the Dept of Ed. as the root cause of America's decline in education. I speak from personal experience that the bulk of our educational problems stem from state and local governments. Infrastructure vs operating Budgets, redistribution of property taxes collected to other counties, borrowing from education rainy day fund to balance state general budget, and legislati
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Re:Stop (Score:5, Insightful)
Your loss. I'm not a fan of "the free market fixes everything" but that's not what he said (the key word here is "often") and despite my usually mdoerate position he had a lot of thoughtful and intelligent things to say.
Yeah, if you read the whole sentence he says:
Often times the market can sort it out, but if, and only if, you ensure that externalities are built in, and you ensure that the government hasn’t already messed with the incentive structures.
Which is one of the chestnuts I tire of when debating ultra Conservatives and Libertarians. Because "messed with the incentive structure" can mean a lot of things. For most Libertarians, any taxation at all is "messing with the incentive structure." One I'm fond of is when (anarcho?) Libertarians argue against police forces and propose that if we weren't taxed to pay for the budgetary mess that is the local police, we would all be swimming in so much cash we could have ten guns in each house and our own state of the art security systems and entire neighborhoods would be locked down so tight that criminals would all but disappear -- if there even were any criminals after they got all that tax money back!
So yeah, it sounded to me like his "if and only if" the government hasn't messed with "incentive structures" statement was to say that "well the government's charging you property tax so it's already not a free market and anything that goes wrong is clearly the fault of the government. Hell, you'd be knee deep in cash and that drinking water pollution problem would evaporate but instead the EPA is just wasting money."
Re:Stop (Score:5, Informative)
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Then they need to find something to do with these bad-ass military weapons, "Let's make a swat team!"
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Re:Stop (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is one of the chestnuts I tire of when debating ultra Conservatives and Libertarians. Because "messed with the incentive structure" can mean a lot of things. For most Libertarians, any taxation at all is "messing with the incentive structure."
In your opinion, what level of taxation is not "messing with the incentive structure"?
How complicated is your tax return? Is it complicated because it has to be for the gov't to collect enough money? Or is it complicated because there are hundreds of different tax rules to encourage certain economic behaviors?
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Taxation should be VERY simple.
You make $x, then you pay y% of it....no deductions, no loopholes, etc.
That way it would be fair, everyone would pay lower (for the most part), and taxation would be what it should be for, funding necessary govt. operations.
It should NOT be used to tr
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Taxation should be VERY simple.
You make $x, then you pay y% of it....no deductions, no loopholes, etc.
That way it would be fair, everyone would pay lower (for the most part), and taxation would be what it should be for, funding necessary govt. operations.
The problem with such a simple model is that current pay structures aren't set up for it; the transition period will hurt a sufficiently large number of people that it is "politically difficult" to make the change. Another problem is that a lot of people don't earn very much either; the cost of taxing them is likely to exceed the income received. A relatively simple variation on it is to use a basic banded taxation system. For example, allow everyone to make some minimum without being taxed (which is set fa
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Take off your blinders, look what happened to the tea party.
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Those aren't all 'rich' things....I say do away with ALL deductions, none at all.
That should lower everyones tax bill overall, and everyone would have some skin in the game. I'll allow for maybe on deduction, to help the truly impoverished, but anyone making over $x...pays something and no deductions for anything.
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I'll give you child credits, but we are still 2 to 1. I would also posit that child credits are a bone to prevent paying things like maternity/paternit
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The Preamble [wikipedia.org] is right there at the top of the first page of the Constitution. It is as much a part of the Constitution as anything else. It is a general statement of the Constitution's fundamental purposes and guiding principles and anything else in there should be interpreted in the light of those purposes and principles.
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I think you are missing, a bit, the point about regulation verse incentive structure – and I think you should broaden your horizons. Take smoking as an example.
You can regulate it. You have to 18, limiting to where you can smoke, banning sports advertisements. etc. (I know somebody who’s job is to directly market chewing tobacco. They have to ask the person if they are over 18, chew, etc. – then offer coupons / sample. A very odd job.) Yes minors still sneak cigarettes.
Or you can incentivi
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The funny thing is that not that long ago the stereotypical liberal response to a problem was to directly mandate behavior through legislation, while the stereotypical conservative response was to steer market forces through incentives and disincentives.
Now the liberals have adopted the old conservative positions, and the conservatives have decided that in no case ever can government accomplish anything, evidence be damned, so it should stop trying (unless it's blowing people up). At the same time people c
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Less so then you think.
Since we have a First Past the Post system we tend to have 2 parties - one broad center left and one broad center right.
Parties don't blow up to be replaced by a new one - they slowly evolve - as the populations drifts one way or the other they adapt - steal ideas from the other.
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But!!!???...My Money!!
Don't take my beautiful money!
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So yeah, it sounded to me like his "if and only if" the government hasn't messed with "incentive structures" statement was to say that "well the government's charging you property tax so it's already not a free market and anything that goes wrong is clearly the fault of the government. Hell, you'd be knee deep in cash and that drinking water pollution problem would evaporate but instead the EPA is just wasting money."
No, I don't think that's what a Republican staffer is saying at all with regards to incentive structures.
The first thing I thought of when I read that was the incentive structure in housing lending. In a "freer" market, when someone wants to get a home mortgage loan from a bank, the bank is incentivized make loans people have a reasonable chance of being able to pay back. However, poor people are upset they can't get home loans (because the bank thinks they wouldn't be able to pay them back) and so congress
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One I'm fond of is when (anarcho?) Libertarians argue against police forces and propose that if we weren't taxed to pay for the budgetary mess that is the local police, we would all be swimming in so much cash we could have ten guns in each house and our own state of the art security systems and entire neighborhoods would be locked down so tight that criminals would all but disappear -- if there even were any criminals after they got all that tax money back!
One thing I'm fond of is when Liberals(?) put words into other people's mouths and then beat them up for what comes out.
Right this way, sir [libertarianism.com].
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That article is entirely supportive of AC's position that the original remark is made up BS:
" A libertarian society would certainly have police to protect citizens from gangs and criminals, they just wouldn't be tax-supported. ...
One way of providing this would be government provision, similar to today, but funded by donations, user fees, fee-based charges, or similar methods or combinations.
So we already have a mixed public-private police system, and the private sector part is the largest, and is growing."
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>During the labor unrest of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businessmen hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate unions, to supply guards to keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, and sometimes to recruit goon squads to intimidate workers.
Great example ...
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"Often times the market can sort it out"
I stopped reading right there.
If you can't even take 10 minutes to read a different opinion you are obviously a moron.
Re:Stop (Score:4, Insightful)
If you take 10 minutes to read every opinion with a fundamentally flimsy premise, you'll be wasting decades.
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Close minded, wrong and proud of it.
I'd say that puts him firmly into moron territory. Even if he's not a moron, he's so well indoctrinated to not make a difference.
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It's better when the government does it?
Re:Stop (Score:4, Insightful)
"Often times the market can sort it out"
"but if, and only if, you ensure that externalities are built in, "
I don't really see how you can ensure that externalities are "built in" (or priced in) without regulation.
And even if you can, IMO, it's better to prevent negative externalities than to pay off the afflicted bystanders afterwards.
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A market works best with a little regulation. For example, to break up monopolies.
Telling someone he can't do something restricts freedom more than telling him he can do it but he has to clean up the mess.
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The problem I have with that is what if the mess includes dead or crippled for life people? You can't clean up a mess like that and money is poor compensation for irreversible damage. And what if the guy doesn't have the financial wherewithal? Who pays for cleaning it up then? The only answer I have is government. It's usually cheaper to prevent the mess in the first place.
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"better to prevent negative externalities than to pay off the afflicted bystanders afterwards."
Do you even measure the cost of "prevent negative extenalities" vs "pay off afflicted bystanders"? If it cost $3 to prevent something and only $1 to pay off instead, would it not be better to charge the $1 than the $3?
I am of the opinion, that bad things are going to happen. Period. We cannot prevent all bad things from happening through laws, policies and regulations. And trying to, ends up being worse for everyo
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This is like when a car company discovers a flaw in their vehicle which affects 1/10,000 by causing a large, fiery explosion, but their bean counters tell them it is cheaper to pay off the families than recall all of the vehicles for a service. Just because it saves money doesn't mean it is the right thing to do, and often any form of monetary compensation isn't sufficient for the loss caused.
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The bean counters were wrong about how much it cost to pay off the families.
It would have been cheaper to recall the Pinto. They all know that now.
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How much is death worth? Nothing, or priceless (basically the same thing). You make the payoff more expensive than the repairs and all of that goes away. BUT then you have a basis for giving a cost, which then gives Government the power to regulate should the car company negate to fix it.
There is a law firm out there right now, advertising Table saws that don't have a new "system" in place that can save thousands of lost fingers and other body damage. Do we mandate the new system be installed on ALL table s
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> I don't really see how you can ensure that externalities are "built in" (or priced in) without regulation.
He was discussing "regulation and forbidding conduct" and said nothing about total deregulation. Especially taken with the context of the question he was pretty clearly discussing regulation in terms of, say, 'no you can't do that unless you file the right paper work and we approve it *wink*' for the EPA case.
For the copyright case, he was probably interpreting the question along the lines of Cana
Not the Wild West (Score:2)
There may be a language issue here.
In common, everyday usage, “Regulation” means “do this, don’t do that.” - a hard hand telling you what to do. “Priced In” means behavior X is going to be subsidized / taxed – a soft hand encouraging “correct” behavior.
This is not to say that there would not be regulations around the “priced in”. Society needs to decide what is correct via government. Rules have to put in place to prevent fraud, etc.
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I was tempted to, but if you keep reading pretty soon you get past the boilerplate Libertarian rhetoric and onto the interesting stuff.
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Many a travesty has been justified by the uttering that exact, hand-washing excuse 'The free market can fix it' and its ilk. It's like hearing 'I was just following orders' - we don't buy it anymore, take some personal responsibility for pitching a potentially awful idea.
It's a shame that people who have a lot of intriguing and thoughtful ideas still use this catch-phrase, since it just causes people to tune it out.
Skimming the interview, its clear that there is a LOT of thing wrong with the way the govern
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Of course going the other way, many a travesty has been justified by uttering, "we need to Do Something, for the Children!!!"
In fact I think that's caused far more travesties to happen than the Free Market has.
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Of course - "For the Children' basically is a ticket to disable logic and make decisions based solely on emotion, be damned the side-effects later on.
Decisions need to be made on logical analysis and observation, considering precedence and legality. Sometimes, you -do- need to reel in the free market though, else we'd be working ourselves to death for the glory of the company store. Framework helps businesses compete on a known playing field, where some behavior is recognized as being bad for civilized so
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Re:Stop (Score:5, Insightful)
The contrary (liberal) view is that "government is the only solution" is equally bad, for the exact same reason.
A truly free market CAN sort out a great deal. Keeping a market free is Government's role. However do-gooding people (both D and R), create all sorts of laws and policies that are contrary to a truly free marketplace. In these cases, Government interference is just as bad as a market that is not truly free. In fact, I would suggest that unnecessary government interference and not free are the exact same problem.
This is not to say that we should live in a anarchistic state, where there is no government oversight, because that doesn't work eitther. The correct balance is that we create laws to punish people who do bad things. We must also realize that we cannot prevent BAD THINGS (tm) from happening. This means we stop trying to protect people from themselves, because that affects people who don't need to be micro managed by tyranical governments.
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How about the nuanced view: Sometimes, government is the best solution. Sometimes, a free market is the best solution. There's a range of policies between free-for-all and complete-government-control, and the best solution will vary depending on what's being bought or sold and on the wider context the market is operating in (e.g. rationing rubber or gasoline might have been wise in 1942 and stupid in 1948).
Some sort of scale here might be in order, ranging from 0 (no government control) to 9 (complete gover
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Yes! It's the black and white, false dichotomy, my team vs other team, bi-partisan bickering!
Maybe you should read the rest of his post. Pointing out two extremes and advocating a balance between the two is not a "false dichotomy" in any meaningful sense.
You might call his characterization of the liberal position a strawman, but "false dichotomy" is so wrong that you need to take a refresher on Logical Fallacies 101.
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A false dichotomy claims there are fewer options than there are in reality.
The OP claimed that an extreme was unworkable. He advocated looking for a solution in between two identified extremes - in short, he acknowledged the existence of a SPECTRUM between the extremes. There was no false limiting of available options, so there is no "false dichotomy" or "black-white" thinking - it was the very opposite of what you were criticizing.
I did not agree that he made a strawman, either. I said that it
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I stopped reading right there.
As per your training.
How dare you speak in favor of double plus ungood thoughtcrime.
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What, you thought his entire worldview would've been overturned because of a single issue?
Exactly. Especially when those in the other party are even more firmly against the positions from his paper than the party that fired him.
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One could hope...
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But I will be damned if I let you have the final post on this thread. No way no how. I do not cut and run. Never give up. Never surrender. And now back to dancing. Boom chicka wow huh huh yeah. Booty shakin yall.
Oh, God! MY EYES!