ParanoiA

Yes! Absolutely! I would actually vote republican if they would do just that: win the election, go home and watch TV. I would vote for anyone that promised to do just that. Government is always doing something, even when they don't need to. I think the psychology of the "job" just lends itself to the notion that there must be something to do all the time. There isn't. Let the people work, thrive and drive their economy and leave them the hell alone - life is lived in the private sector, not in the halls of congress. I think at this point the government has just about "fixed" us to death. Please Nancy, just take a break babe. Mooch off the system, drink some martini's and take in some sun and relax.

Not that one, but I've seen them. What I see more than anything is the 'Jaywalking' edited videos of simple minded working folk being made fun of and ridiculed because they can't intellectualize their concerns. As if that means they're wrong, or that they don't matter. Somehow, if they can't articulate every detail of a given issue, then they're ignorant and to be dismissed. Then they use the assocation fallacy to indict them all. Maybe they watch Maddow and Olbermann too, to learn that technique. Personally, I love the tea party protests and I hope they continue. I want it to grow and grow and motivate more liberty driven folks to step up and be heard. I love that 16 states are set to challenge the healthcare bill in court. I love the potential for liberty to stand up and shake off all the fleas. Even if it isn't the grass roots libertarian movement I wanted it to be - it's better than the quiet compliance I'm getting from my willfully subordinated countrymen.

If that weren't the case, why didn't the anti-war crowd protest Obama and his increase in troops? Lack of closing Gitmo? I could do the association fallacy that Rachel "Look at me, I got a doctorate" Maddow uses all the time and point out that Bush was protested by Cindy Sheehan long after the war started - yet she doesn't camp out in front of Obama's house does she? Gee, if it was about the war, then there should be no reason to quiet down. But see, that's just stupid too. The only point I was making with my one liner is that it's all relative and that despite your attempts to make believe there's an objective case to loft one party above the other, at the end of they day these are people that really do give a crap about what's going on. The war, liberty and fiscal fears and concerns are passionate subjects for people and it shows. The stakes are high, and that's exactly what to expect out of it. Marginalizing legitimate concern alienates your opponent. I'm not sure if you oppose that or not, I guess it depends on how important this competition between red and blue is to you.

Or is it the tea party is a protest of government encroachment and fiscal fraud and the "anti-war" crowd was a protest of republicans? Nailed it. Right on.

You have a say as a consumer. This is their business and they should be able to promote any model they want - including restricting content if that's what they want. You didn't buy the server, or their equipment and you're not answerable to the same laws and accountability that they are - you are buying a service, not equipment. And you make contractual agreements when you buy the service. You are free to tell them to shove it and then go somewhere else for your service. That's why they don't do it, by the way - and they are and have been perfectly free to do this since the very beginning. Yet, we have no epidemic of ISP's hiding content from us. It's a crap business model, and they know it. This is no different than you deciding that Burger King should include lettuce on their burgers, while they omit lettuce to cut costs. So you propose a law to force them to put lettuce on their burgers claiming every burger eater ought to have access to lettuce, since they paid for their burger and Burger King makes millions of dollars off of them. No, you simply go somewhere else. You are a consumer. You are trying to use laws to force people into doing business your way, instead of using your wallet. Rationalize all you want, but you're forcing a business model on someone and that isn't right. If we did that with all business, there would be no innovation because every step into something different or weird would be met with legal stalwarts forcing them to do business a certain way, appealing to "millions of dollars" in profit and similar excuses that would never fly if used to invade YOUR rights. It might help to understand that I see no dividing line between business and home. Nor any dividing line between economic freedom and social freedom. There is either freedom or there isn't. Intellectualizing partitions between them is a popular human condition because real liberty means you can't control people. We are a country of control freaks fueled by fears manufactured daily by the right and the left. I have no earthly idea what you're talking about. ISP's are free to do this today. Why don't they? Why would there be money in blocking content? Unless you're talking about end-user preferences, such as a family friendly service or what not. And in that case, it's the consumers asking for it. If that's what you mean, I have to ask - why does your voice deserve to be heard over theirs? Why aren't other people allowed a choice for their speech? (I'll bet that's not what you meant though....)

Right but their demand is partly created by the government censored market. No one would need HBO for boobies and dirty words if they got that from their local provider. Seriously, we have to go to a private, closed network just to get away from family friendly censorship by the government. Do you see the obvious here? The most relaxed standards for censorship are on private, closed networks. And you're really convinced they are the devil for filtering content. Your government has proven it will censor. These ISP's have not. I'm not sure how you can stand behind those who have proven a thirst for limiting speech. Are you really not concerned they will force American ISP's to provide family friendly censorship? And you don't think that international ISP's won't take notice and charge us silly americans for unrestricted content? Once the government gains the power over our ISP's, every complaint you've heard about the internet will be redirected to a bureaucratic institution all too willing to "fix" it - even more trampling of rights. No, I don't want to pay 5 bucks to get to google - and I won't. Neither will a whole lot of people. Why don't they do that today? In a way though, I do see your point. I have the same problem with cell phones. I'm just not impressed with them like everyone else seems to be. And I think they screw people in general because no one will reject their product. They take a screwin and just keep coming back. I could see providers slowly injecting little screwball things here and there, just enough that customers won't leave and won't reject their business model. Before long it becomes standard for the industry. I do get that. But I have good reason to believe the government will ruin it far worse than a bunch of capitalists.

One thought that occurs to me is a large portion of folks on the net neutrality wagon, no one here at SFN from what I can tell, are doing so because they fear ISP's banding / pricing schemes might come to pass. Then I look at TV. Satellite Radio. It's seems obvious that the presence of the FCC cleans up portions of these markets, causing "premium" channel markets to pop up - HBO, Showtime, Sirius... We always pay for premium - we pay for our exposure to lack of censorship. That's exactly what they, and some here, claim to fear. What makes anyone believe that the presence of government regulation would increase freedom? Or worse, won't cause us to lose freedom? Yes it's working great. We've been at this for how many decades now? We don't need to control everyone. Really we don't.

So then you won't complain when I pipe Austrian Economics audio straight into your house. Surely you won't "censor" me and block the din? After all, I have free speech. Yeah, I don't. Surprise! Absolutely telephone companies should be free to do just that. You think they would? How many liberals would even maintain service? Liberals have republican friends, employers, business associates...it wouldn't sell enough to pay for the copper and fiber to do it. Now, family friendly telephone service that bleeps dirty words might happen... I don't understand the mentality that produces logic that ISPs are going to censor content against the wishes of the market. If they censor anything, it will be just like my example above - a choice by the end user NOT to see it. Funny, all of these ISP's are free to do such things right now, and have been for years...so how many are doing it? Where's the filtering? I actually think AOL may be one such ISP, but I've never seen any evidence. Are they even in business still? The internet contains the freest speech we've ever enjoyed - and it's not regulated. Imagine that. It's almost like government trims more speech than free profiteers. Go figure.

They aren't free-er. They simply own the phone lines. You are free not to use their phone lines. You are free not to do business with them. No one should enjoy any more legal protection for their speech than anyone else. Using laws to promote your speech over others is an abuse of power. You have no right to be heard - only a right to speak. Personally, I would never do business with any ISP that filtered anything at all - that's pure chickenshit. I'm not even sure why anyone would concede to the FCC's authority on speech either. They are the worst violators of free speech over the air waves - and that's government.

Right, Comcast can stop its customers - not all of america. The government effects all of us since we are all subjects. Ah, but see there's that liberal twist I always get out of this. It protects free speech for us, at the expense of free speech for the owner of the business. There are those who seek liberty for all, and those who seek liberty for themselves. This would be the latter case. ISP's "censoring" speech, IS free speech. They own the equipment and should have every right to prioritize the content. Just like I should be able to freely censor the KKK's message into my home, I should be able to censor their message into my equipment. This is free speech, the way it is. You want to remove their right to filter/promote certain speech on their equipment so that you can enjoy the access to speech that you want over their equipment. Liberty at the expense of others is nothing I can support.

How would an expanded FCC authority over the internet effect sites like...oh, Wikileaks? Or our access to them? Believe me, I can't stand the notion of ISP's and websites choking their bandwidth in demand for more money, like has been talked about. But to me the deeper appeal of the internet is unregulated speech. It's been such a wild west frontier - must we ruin it with bureaucrats and politicians?

These are all decent gee wiz questions, but I'm not sure what it has to do with an "option" of nuclear retaliation. Again, it's an option, not a promise. And it carries obvious responsibilities to the rest of the globe. It's all going to be dependent on the scenario - which is why it seems silly to apply blanket conclusions. I think that's why they use the word option.

I completely agree. As I said, these guys were wrong. My concern is more about us turning a sincere wrong into a nefarious orgy of flippant murder. I don't think we'd hear any accusations about "video-game" killing if every voice on that recording was exceedingly professional. I think the callous nature of war operations is biasing how people measure this mistake.

I wish I was more knowledgeable on the Austrian view. The one knowledgeable one that I know of here at SFN (maybe ecoli too?) was considered a bore and was dismissed based on his lecture technique as opposed to actually being wrong, much less proven wrong. I actually really like the fella, and he seems to understand economics on a much deeper level than anyone here. So, the sole expert has vacated, as far as I can tell. There is no "discussion" of any academic credibility here as long as the academics are not present. In hopes that he may return, or some other expert could step up, I'd be very curious about full reserve banking and how it relates with the Austrian model. Also, do we save money and capital with a non-centralized, unplanned economy? It would seem a planned, regulated economy would cost more, if nothing else to pay the regulators. How much is this cost? Is it higher than the costs we would incurr from the disadvantages of an unplanned, non-centralized economy? There are realities that I find disturbing. Ecoli pointed this out, way above and it certainly is curious. The regulator never gets blamed - failures are still the fault of the regulated. How does that happen? I claim to be able to regulate your economy to prevent disaster - but then I fail to anticipate the actions of millions of points of business interest and that's *not* my fault? Crazy.

No. And yes. And maybe. Context is much needed here. That's why we call them "options" - as in options on the table. Options have been removed and then proclaimed for the world to hear. That's seems stupid. But Obama isn't stupid, so thinking deeper, I suspect he may have even used this as a way to reiterate, sideways, that Iran and North Korea will face nuclear retaliation. It may have been a threat buried under the wrapping paper of a policy change. So, it depends on how many are killed and injured with their WMD. If several million people were slaughtered, then nuclear becomes an option to me. That option depends on and flexes with a list of responsible priorities. Among those will be our responsibility to other nations in the area. By retaliating with WMD, we risk initiating war with other countries if they suffer casualties or damage in that process. A policy of retaliation doesn't imply ignoring any of the responsibilities to other nations. Those responsibilities to other nations could very well keep us from retaliating with nuclear at all. The policy says nothing about the detail and there's no reason to assume this detail wouldn't be considered by those advocating the option. It's an emotional appeal to suggest otherwise. Personally, I still think we should claim nuclear WMD as an option in retaliation to biological or chemical WMD's. Even if we never intend to actually use the option, it should be announced anyway. Options don't suggest a promise, just an option.

Ok then what's the point in building and using an armored attack helicopter if you're just going to sit around waiting for a mightier opponent? The point of building these machines is to create unfair advantage over the opponent. This isn't kids fighting on the playground where there's an expectation of equal mass to be fair - this is war where there's an expectation of overwhelming force on our part. That's the Powell doctrine. The guys made a mistake. Every war has bunches and bunches of mistakes and not one of them look noble. The same thing we hear on that radio for this screw up is the same thing you'll hear during the successes. It works. If it didn't, we would be losing. I'm probably always going to side with the troops because I'm not reading this post in a sand bowl, under fire, dodging creative IED's being ordered to kill anyone dangerous. I'm reading this in a climate controlled building with QT coffee, surrounded by friendlies in all directions and donuts a mere 30 feet away. I don't think we are being intellectually impressive at all by not putting ourselves in their shoes, or admitting that we actually can't. How thoughtful and deep are we that we can't imagine how these people, young men and women, adapt to a hostile based lifestyle for months and months on end? We can't imagine they would talk and operate like that? We can't fathom any adaption technique that might be callous in appearance?

Wikileaks sounds good, but after reading this man's critique of the video, I'm not so sure their mission is a noble one. I watched the video and agree entirely with his take on this. Wikileaks did not go to any trouble to point out the armed men in the video at 3:39 (one with an AK variant and one with an RPG) like they did the cameramen. That fancy pointer on the video screen should have noted such a crucial point - unless of course it undermines your agenda. I would be more forgiving, but it's just too obvious to dismiss. It's irresponsible, and dangerously so in this context. The shot at 4:08 to 4:18 looked like an RPG to me - granted I don't know squat about this sort of thing - but Anthony says it's a camera lens, yet defends the mistake: All that said, I agree with this: Do I like it when people ask themselves questions just to turn right around and answer them? No. But I do think the fella has a balanced point. They were wrong. It was a bad shoot. And Wikileaks has a new, unique burden that I hope they get right in the future. It has the chemistry to be an awesome device against corruption and another chance at the truth. It bothers me about as much as it does when I see detectives laughing and telling jokes about 10 feet away from a dead hooker in the street. People adapt to uncomfortable realities. You bet they're callous, and you'd have to be shoot people, no matter what they've done. It always looks so awful to us, yet we have minimal - no make that fractional - exposure to such things at all, (here in grainy black and white video). Seems obvious I'm watching people who have adapted to their life in battle on the other side of the world. They could die any time. I don't think their priorities are the same as ours, and I don't have a problem with it. Did you also notice that was one or two people in the whole thing? The rest of them are quite professional on the radio - but you know what they say...do something right and nobody notices, do something wrong and you never hear the end of it.

So we should start making chemical and biological weapons or we should not respond in kind? If we get attacked with WMD's we don't manufacture, I hardly see the sense in throwing our hands up "Oh well, we don't make those, you win".

Now there's a sound conclusion. For the record, I did get married long before I reached my most irritating. Sometimes you have to trick them into it.

That's a great idea. I know I'd really enjoy reading it and I'm sure it would be educational too. In math class I remember covering the rule or principle, and then we got examples on the blackboard. Seems to work. Plus it would be cool to see the heavy hitters locked in battle; Jedi "smear the queer". *For those who don't know, "smear the queer" is an American version of football that kids play where the guy holding the ball is to be tackled violently by everyone on the field, or even in the stands for that matter. Everyone kills the guy with the ball. I'm not sure why anyone even takes the ball to be honest...

That is a good piece, thanks Cap'n. And to take this further, it also results in drug users turning to a dangerous criminal environment as well. Really, regardless of where we stand on legalization, we should at least acknowledge that we're not following through on the job. It's illegal. Ok, fine. Then finish it and wipe it the hell out. We're either doing a half-assed job of enforcement, or it's unenforceable. And that's what creates the fatally dangerous market that is so dominant and prolific to the point whole cultures are stereotypically defined by them. So, probably even more important than the legal question is the enforcement ultimatum, like my dad always used to say: shit or get off the pot. If you want it to be illegal, then really, actually, for real, do something about it - more than just meaningless pledges at election time to add more police officers. Do it, or don't. Half doing it and half failing is worse than doing it all or giving up on it all. This hit and miss, inconsistent, ineffective prosecution of the drug war is failing for either end - it's the worst of our options.

Does is strike anyone else as odd and cruel to essentially make it dangerous to acquire a product? It's not like we're talking about whether or not a product should be accessible, because it's accessible either way. We're effectively kicking the town drunk. It's not bad enough that he's an alcoholic. Oh no. We're actually creating fatal danger for him to negotiate to acquire his drug - which we also know he will do since we understand addiction. And while jryan makes a valid point about knowing about this "government manufactured" danger and choosing to allow yourself exposure to it - I have to wonder how that logic would play out if the government started building lava pits on children's playgrounds using that same appeal to known dangers in reponse to public outcry. "Sorry. You knew the lava pit was there ahead of time, so no, we see no reason to remove it - and it was all your fault for getting burned". Not my best example, but surely we can realize some culpability on the part of our laws for creating a danger that isn't necessary since it isn't effective at achieving its mission statement. Think of all the innocent people killed by drug gangs, the proverbial drive-by's, neighborhoods dominated by criminals getting rich off of selling drugs and keeping the residents living in fear - disturbingly similar to war lords in 3rd world war torn countries. That's on us. We're culpable for that.

Agreed. Rush Limbaugh refers to conservative non-religio fundies as blue blooded republicans and he sneers at them. I think conservative non-fundamentalist christians or atheists tend to fall more libertarian. Because it's usually the appeals to religious morality (which I think is encoded in "traditional american values") that fuel the exceptions religious conservatives use to work around their own principles. When you remove the religious component, and the subtending morality engineering to recreate "traditional american values", you're left with a more libertarian model. Not to be confused with the 'blue blooded' republicans up North. I don't think there's anything remotely libertarian-like about them, they are more of the hybrid democrat/republican type - fiscal conservative, social liberal.

And if marijuana didn't exist, do we really believe the heavier drugs would be an esoteric indulgence? Somehow without this magical "gateway" drug, access to the heavy stuff is occluded? I guess I just don't understand the significance of pointing out marijuana as a starting point. The subtending logic implied by that notice just doesn't check out.

I've heard this before, but I can't passed the obvious: we walk before we run. I'm sure we start with mild drugs before heavier ones. Also, I've always wondered if people are thinking "illegal" when they consider the question of what they started with. I suspect alcohol as the gateway drug, since it's far more accessible for kids, being legal and all. But most people don't think of it as a "drug".