On 8/04/2015 6:27 PM, Russell Coker wrote: Still a bit broad. I can't say I ever got to that point. IT worker with some management role perhaps, sure. Non management, I dunno... So true, was cursing some of those last night while watching a DVD (which we legitimately own). What I would like to see media companies do is: - Make content available at a reasonable price in a reasonable time frame. Movie and TV are such a global phenomenon that delaying releases in different areas encourages piracy as people outside the initial release area try and keep up with the rest of the world - Game of Thrones being a classic example (I don't watch this myself, but it is a commonly cited example). Some networks are waking up and scheduling global releases of TV episodes within 24 hours of initial screening. And on the ABC, we have had simulcast releases of major Dr Who episodes with the UK, for those who want to get up early on a Sunday morning. :) - Speaking of TV, stop treating your viewers like crap with not sticking to the schedule, and the way ads are handled now, as well as putting ads into credits of shows and movies. Keep that up, and we might as well close down all TV stations and turn the spectrum over to broadband, since people will move to online services instead. As for Foxtel, it's a poor value proposition, paying for a lot of crap for a couple of channels of interest. - Cinema versus DVD/Blu-Ray release is an ongoing source of frustration. My partner doesn't handle cinemas well, so we're effectively forced to wait months to see major movies - i.e. when the disc version comes out. The bigger the movie, the longer the waitI don't know about others, but I personally see cinema and home viewing as complimentary experiences. On the rare occasions I do get to the cinema, it's a bit of a special or social event, whereas home viewing is a time to unwind and take in the movie. Having seen the DVD would not stop me making a social trip to the cinema to see the same movie at a later date. - DRM is an ongoing bugbear. Note to the media conglomerates - once you removed DRM from music, I started buying tracks online. Now please lower the cost of Australian releases to match overseas releases. And please remove DRM from movies as well, I'm happy to buy unencumbered copies. ebooks still have this scourge, though the convenience does mean I purchase the occasional ebook. - Speaking of ebooks, it is annoying that of a series, only some of the ebooks can be purchased in Australia, others can't. What on earth are the publishers doing? Another example of treating customers like shit. I've got a few incomplete sets, or sets that are part electronic and part paperback. - And many interesting TV series or movies never even make it to Australia. We have Google, Facebook and instant messaging, we know shows are out there. Why not make them available to us? -- 73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL http://vkradio.com

On 9/04/2015 2:20 PM, Brian May wrote: Yep, as I said, they need to stop treating viewers like crap. ;) I've been known to look through credits, when seeing someone who looks "familiar", and trying to answer the question "Was that .... playing that part?". -- 73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL http://vkradio.com

On 10/04/2015 10:09 AM, Mike Hewitt wrote: Yeah, they treat us like shit and wonder why people download pirated copies of shows. Not exactly rocket science. Mind you, the catch up services of the commercial channels are also crap. Compared to Netflix, chalk and cheese in terms of performance and useability. ABC iView is quite good though. No, there's this thing called the Great Dividing Range in the way. ;) Whereabouts are you? Ditch the bigpond address? ;) My experience with Optus email hasn't been that good in the past. :) FYI, I use Thunderbird myself (on Windows ATM). I don't normally reply to myself, so I can't comment there. ;) -- 73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL http://vkradio.com

On 10/04/2015 11:48 AM, Mike Hewitt wrote: AHH OK, cool. I used to live down that way, before escaping the big smoke. ;) Best thing I ever did. :) Only repeaters we'd be able to use (without Internet assistance) would be the VK3RMM pair. :) Hmm, all those tricky little quirks. Most accounts I've encountered allow POP or IMAP, though I use IMAP where I can. Edit it! (yes, it's that simple! :) ). I may have tweaked the quoting style a little, but that would have been so long ago that I can't recall. Can't say I know either of those. -- 73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL http://vkradio.com

On 10/04/2015 12:20 PM, Craig Sanders wrote: I'm pretty old school too, having been on the Net since 1994 and on BBSs for a number of years before that, so I bring the better habits (I hope) of that era with me. :) Sadly, the uality of user interfaces leaves a bit to be desired. Text mode editors are still the best for formatting email. GUI editors take a certain degree of "beating into submission". Thunderbird isn't too bad, though you have to make sure you've cleared some blank lines before manipulating blocks of text (or you'll screw up formatting). Outlook is, well, 'nuff said, though the worst of all are the mobile clients, where the interface makes it hard to do anything but top post. -- 73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL http://vkradio.com

Hi, On 10/04/2015 2:33 PM, Rick Moen wrote: Yes. Outlook .... Look Out is a more appropriate name, but sadly too many people seem to love it anyway. :( I used to use QuoteFix with OE, but I believe the person whom looked after it had died. Using WLM, which is sort of an incarnation of OE, well it was a bad one. I loved OE, but now use Thunderbird. Anyone using OE is going to be running XP, and they shouldn't be running XP.... so when the MUA reports as OE, I know it's an email from someone using XP or older.... In TB with plain text replies (best with email lists), the formatting is fine with > symbols. If we reply using HTML, then it gets messy, but some people prefer HTML and in some situations it is actually preferable. Funny 404 page? Cheers A.

Tony Langdon via luv-talk <luv-talk(a)luv.asn.au> wrote: I am in a work environment that is heavily invested in it. The problem is that if the original message is in HTML, the reply is automatically also in HTML and the configuration option that prefixes each line with a > character doesn't take effect. Is there a straightforward solution to this? Switching the message to plain text after issuing the "reply" command doesn't help. My favourite remains Mutt and I also appreciate the Emacs mail user agents. Outlook is firmly part of the Microsoft tradition: large, complex, monolithic, a bug rate to match the impressive feature list, and crashes too often... but the features are nice and the integration of mail and calendar is very good. The keyboard commands are fairly comprehensive - I can't complain that my efficiency is reduced by a lack of keyboard operations (unlike Apple Mail, which I also use). Actually, Microsoft are very good at providing keyboard bindings for their graphical user interfaces - significantly superior to GNOME or Mozilla, disappointingly enough. Nothing is better for keyboard access than the UNIX text environment, including Emacs and Vi, the shell, etc. I'm using this environment quite extensively, with Pandoc's Markdown as my primary document format at the moment, and Git for revision control.

Jason White via luv-talk wrote: Urgh, there used to be this: https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/GtkSettings.html#GtkSettings--gtk-c… ...but they removed it in GTK3.9.8, and it doesn't list any alternative. Can't see one in NEWS, either. Sigh.

Quoting Craig Sanders (cas(a)taz.net.au): I would recommend http://web.archive.org/web/20070930211651/http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/20… -- Cheers, « Il n'est si homme de bien, qu'il mette à l'examen Rick Moen des loi toutes ses actions et pensées, qui ne soit rick(a)linuxmafia.com pendable dix fois en sa vie. » McQ! (4x80) -- Michel de Montaigne, Essais

On 08/04/15 17:01, Andrew McGlashan wrote: Not sure you can be "a bit" of a libertarian. Either you are, or you aren't. If you support some regulation, then you're probably not a libertarian. Essentially, what you're saying is that you only like the laws that you like. But hey, to paraphrase someone or other, a libertarian is just an anarchist who is too lazy or too scared to move to Somalia.

On Thu, 9 Apr 2015 09:43:34 AM Michael Verrenkamp wrote: The purpose of a democracy is to limit the government to doing things that meet the general approval of the citizens. A modern democratic government is a representative democracy because direct democracy would result in wild changes in policy by people who can't consider all the issues (representatives are supposed to make a full time job of understanding legislation that they vote on). The way that some US states allow direct votes about legislation at elections is an example of why direct democracy isn't a good thing. Australia and the US have a state based system where the lower house has representatives for similar numbers of people while the upper house has representatives for each state. This limits the ability of the government to mistreat states with small populations while also giving equal representation to each citizen via votes for the lower house. We have a consititution that can't be easily changed to limit the powers of the government in terms of significant changes to the legal or judicial system. Laws have to be interpreted by the courts and bad laws can by nullified by a jury. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) Prior to the development of modern democratic governments people's lives were run by wealthy and powerful people. The Irish Potato Famine is an example of what happens when the wealthy get most of the things that the Libertarians want. Government was limited and the middlemen who acted on behalf of absentee landlords literally had the power of life and death over the population. Libertarianism was never about allowing middle-class people to do what they want. It was always about facilitating the rich and sociopathic who want to treat everyone else badly. I'm not going to provide links, but a quick google search will turn up self-diagnosed sociopaths expressing admiration for Ayn Rand for her psychopathic personality traits. The fact that people who boast about their desire to hurt other people and admit to acting in a way that is widely regarded as evil admire Ayn so much says a lot about her and the political movement she inspired. Now if you want a government that doesn't mess with their citizens much then The Netherlands is a good example. In .nl you can use any drug you like as long as you don't cause problems, marriage equality happened earlier than most countries, and generally there aren't many laws stopping you from doing anything that doesn't hurt other people. Gun ownership is restricted because that DOES hurt other people. In spite (or maybe because) of libertarianism the US has lots of very invasive laws, they lead the "war on drugs" and export it to every other country. They are only just starting to legalise marriage equality, and they have more support for giving legal guns to people who are likely to kill innocent civilians than any other country. https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/26386-rothbard-on-children-not-for- the-squeamish/ Murray Rothbard (the founder of modern "libertarianism") believes that parents should be allowed to starve their children to death. http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/baby-found-starved-nearly-death-lazy- parents-video/ Above is an article on a libertarian site about parents who literally starved their baby almost to death (the doctors initially thought that they couldn't save the baby). Lots of comments about how bad the parents are, stupid libertarians don't even know their own politics. Real libertarians would only object to the prison sentence for neglecting a child. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

On Fri, 10 Apr 2015 09:14:34 AM Andrew McGlashan wrote: Democracy doesn't achieve it's goals as well as it should. But that's a lot better than libertarianism achieving any of it's goals. It happens too. Remember that we are now in the "good government" stage of Tony Abbot's term as PM - he has implicitely admitted that his previous time in office was one of "bad government". There's a big difference between a shop owner closing up shop and people starving to death in the Irish Potato Famine. That said we need more government controls over such things not less. You are generally free to do as you please without harming anyone. Of course if you want to use recreational chemicals as you please then you would be better off in Amsterdam. When you find yourself agreeing with the self-diagnosed sociopaths of the Internet then your political ideas probably aren't well described as "no interest in harming anybody". You don't HAVE to take drugs in .nl. It's just one aspect of a free society that people have the option to do such things. That's because you are very gullible. You believe any conspiracy theory that goes around. I agree that the laws are too complex. A large part of that is due to lack of logic when designing laws, often due to bad attempts to impose morality via the legal system. For example the idea of a Basic Income is opposed on moral grounds because people who are less fortunate are regarded as unworthy of assistance. But the research has shown that when people get a Basic Income they usually spend it on education and improve their situation. Keeping people stuck in poverty because of a moral objection to helping them is bad morals and bad economics. Better to help them improve their situation and become taxpayers! If a Basic Income replaced most social security and most tax deductions then the tax laws would be greatly simplified. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

On 11/04/2015 1:25 AM, Russell Coker wrote: Bullshit Russell. More bullshit. Of course, everything Snowden tells us about what has been going on was also "just a conspiracy" ... but it's not is it? Almost all the other rubbish you wrote doesn't even warrant a reply. Cheers A.

On 11/04/2015 12:05 PM, Lev Lafayette wrote: As I posted soon after, it was an incorrect quoting error I'm not disputing that fact above, but am disputing other nonsense, which I clarified already. And once again, I do not support such views that are being bandied about for libertarians ... again, it is clear that has been an incorrect use of the term "libertarian" by myself. A.

On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 02:33:33PM +1000, Rohan McLeod wrote: this makes perfect sense to Libertarians because children are, of course, property and markets are the best, indeed only, way to solve all problems (including the problem of matching sellers with excess children they want to get rid of with buyers who have insufficient children). without a flourishing free market, sellers might be forced to simply abandon their excess children without any chance to make a profit or even recover expenses and many businesses who could benefit from having a few more children would have to go without and be unable to expand their business or even replaced damaged assets. as long as no-one helps them (theft!) or feeds them (welfare!) if you want to know how an american-style Libertarian thinks, just look for whichever idea promotes property rights to the greatest extent, no matter how insane it might sound. so, presumably it depends on the skin colour and family history of the infringer, because that determines whether they ought to be property or not (the emancipation of slaves was an evil statist theft of private property and is still completely invalid even now). of course, if a hereditary owner can be deduced then the state owes them compensation for destruction of their property. a secondary consideration is how much property and what kind the infringer owns. if they don't own much then shooting them in the back is justified action against the criminal classes. if they do own a lot, then shooting them would be some kind of property crime (the only kind that matters). craig -- craig sanders <cas(a)taz.net.au>

On Sat, 11 Apr 2015, Craig Sanders <cas(a)taz.net.au> wrote: Regarding children as property is a problem that has a far wider scope than libertarians. In our society kids officially can't legally leave the control of their parents until they are 16, but in practice the police won't forcibly return them when they are a few months away from their 16th birthday. As far as I'm aware in child custody disputes the children have little input to the decisions. http://mises.org/library/brutality-slavery The above article by Rothbard is worth reading. Note that he doesn't take any sort of hard line against slavery. His opening paragraph is about why slave- owners have to care for their slaves to preserve their property value while "they could exploit the bondservants more ruthlessly because they did not own them permanently". http://theyesmen.org/hijinks/wharton Some time ago "The Yes Men" did a satirical presentation about African slavery which pretty much rips off Rothbard's ideas in this regard. http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/murray-rothbard-lew- rockwell-and.html The above URL has some background on Rothbard and race. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/ _______________________________________________ luv-talk mailing list luv-talk(a)luv.asn.au http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-talk

On 11/04/2015 3:40 PM, Russell Coker wrote: Just stop the nonsense. No-one here wants or is a libertarian by the definitions and references on this list. I've already made it crystal clear that I am NOT a libertarian by ANY those definitions. What is the purpose of continuing this nonsense beyond the much more real issue, within this group, of the right to evade copyright laws and prosecution through illegally downloading movies and tv shows? Get back on topic. A.

On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 04:01:33PM +1000, Andrew McGlashan wrote: you've promoted enough loony libertarian ideas and web sites in the past that your current attempt to disassociate yourself from it doesn't seem all that credible. does anyone here seriously believe that there is an actual right to do that? or that there should be such a right? some or even many here might believe that privacy rights trump a copyright holder's desire to find the identity of the account holder of certain IP addresses, and that an IP address doesn't identify the infringer. and many might believe that compensation for copyright-holders should be limited to the actual retail cost of the items and any legitimate expenses incurred (or zero if the infringer can prove they bought a copy). and some may think "fuck it, i'm not likely to get caught" and download stuff regardless of copyright laws. but i doubt that anyone really believes that there is a right to infringe copyright. especially since the GPL depends on copyright in order to work. craig -- craig sanders <cas(a)taz.net.au>

On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 02:47:30AM +1000, Trent W. Buck wrote: true, i agree with all of that....and civil disobedience is one of the major reasons why people indulge in copyright infringement that i somehow completely forgot to mention. but civil disobedience is not the same thing as having a right to pirate. assuming you have such a right when you don't can land you in legal hot water...whereas in an act of civil disobedience you accept the risk that you might get caught or, in some cases, getting caught and prosecuted is the entire point of the act because it a) is a protest and has a chance of publicising your POV that the law needs to be changed and b) gives you legal standing to challenge the law. craig -- craig sanders <cas(a)taz.net.au>

On Sat, 11 Apr 2015, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan(a)affinityvision.com.au> wrote: We have had similar discussions several times in the past. Similar information has been presented. But some people (such as you) were apparently not convinced last time. Lev gave the history of the term "libertarian", I think it's safe to say that the anarchist definitions have left common use a long time ago. Anyone who uses the word "libertarian" nowadays and isn't talking about history is talking about Rothbard et al. A question was asked and I answered it. The fact that you don't like the discussion is not relevant. You don't set the list policy. This list is for random discussions, the description is "General chat list for LUV members". This discussion is on-topic. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/ _______________________________________________ luv-talk mailing list luv-talk(a)luv.asn.au http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-talk

On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 04:01:33PM +1000, Andrew McGlashan wrote: you've promoted enough loony libertarian ideas and web sites in the past that your current attempt to disassociate yourself from it doesn't seem all that credible. does anyone here seriously believe that there is an actual right to do that? or that there should be such a right? some or even many here might believe that privacy rights trump a copyright holder's desire to find the identity of the account holder of certain IP addresses, and that an IP address doesn't identify the infringer. and many might believe that compensation for copyright-holders should be limited to the actual retail cost of the items and any legitimate expenses incurred (or zero if the infringer can prove they bought a copy). and some may think "fuck it, i'm not likely to get caught" and download stuff regardless of copyright laws. but i doubt that anyone really believes that there is a right to infringe copyright. especially since the GPL depends on copyright in order to work. craig -- craig sanders <cas(a)taz.net.au> _______________________________________________ luv-talk mailing list luv-talk(a)luv.asn.au http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-talk

On Sat, 11 Apr 2015 08:48:35 AM Craig Sanders wrote: In regard to the previous topic of discussion it's worth noting that such re- sending with bogus attribution is plagiarism at best and can be regarded as a copyright violation. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

Russell Coker wrote: Well I would allow scientific theories are objectively falsifiable; perhaps phenomenological theories are phenomenologically falsifiable eg. someone suggests a certain meditational system will have a subjectively observable effect; perhaps even mathematical theorems as hypothetical conclusions in a certain axiom system.; are hypthetically falsifiable. eg one can actually check the sum of the angles of a Euclidean triangle sum to 180 deg ; providing the triangle is not too large. But I can't imagine what would be intended by "falsifying' a value statement Philosophers agree to disagree about a great many things; the nature and existence of good and evil are high on the list. Some (ethical realists) would agree an act is evil in the same way an apple is red; others that good and evil are of the nature of existential (aka non-contingent) choices eg Hamlet "....nothing's ether good or bad but thinking makes it so .." Personally by 'standpoint' I intend: " A situation where a number of approaches or points of view are possible ; but only one is chosen" eg from the "standpoint" of an elephant, a lion is a small animal; from the standpoint of a mouse, a lion is a large animal eg, from the stand point of a front view the elephant will look quite different from a side view; I would think a standpoint may be untenable; if alturnatives don't exist; but I doubt that they like value statements are in any way falsifiable I'm not a huge fan of arguement and debate; mostly it just seems to establish who is the best debater. Enquiry seems to me to be poorly served by attempts to justify or disqualify a conclusion; particularly when there is some emotional attachment or aversion to it. regards Rohan McLeod

Russell Coker wrote: Er, you're making some pretty big semantic jumps there. *Murder* might be "wrong", but I don't see where you're demonstrating that "starving people" is automatically murder -- rather than (say) manslaughter, criminal negligence, assisted suicide, or lawful killing. You've just jumped from "murder" to "killing people". I'm not convinced you can handwave away these distinctions.

Lev Lafayette wrote: Well I would see all values as subjective; though we may share them; the values may concern objective (aka material) phenomena eg.aesthetics of design, ethics of social behaviors or they may concern subjective phenomena eg. pain (which the Bhuddists claim is just a very strong opinion !) I don't see a problem with "verifiable statement " used loosely to contrast with a statement, whose credibility say is based on the authority of it's source; (I use the word 'scholastic' for such.....somewhat ideosyncratically !) But the problem with verification is it is not the compliment of falsification. One fact can falsify a theory (make it false regardless of any further facts); but how could one fact make a theory true regardless of any further facts ? For me a statement of fact ; objective, subjective, hypothetical (eg mathematical), perhaps metaphysical (as a correlation between subjective and objective); explicitly (but more often implicitely) asserts a number (often infinite) of facts. Falsification then simply amounts to an observed fact which contradicts one of those. But falsification in this sense doesn't seem applicable to value statements; or is applicable with great difficulty "This is a good axe " might be transformed into a factual statement " This axe fully conforms to the general functional expectation of an axe" say; and that functional expectation would imply many facts. But "This is a good person" would be much more problematic to so transform; certainly in any sense which would have general acceptance regards Rohan

Lev Lafayette wrote: Of course not; that is quite a different usage of the word 'value'; I am using 'value" as shorthand for ' value judgement'; ie. a statement about how someting should or shouldn't be Yes; more sensibly it limits itself to " consistency with the body of facts, thus far'; but naive notions of truth and verification are frequent enough (I think); to justify making clear that science (say) is more precisely concerned with, falsification than verification. regards Rohan

Lev Lafayette wrote: I'm going to read "objective value" as a value judgement about an objective phenomena. That is a statement about how some objective phenomena, should or should not be; now for me such a statement is ontologically distinct from a factual statement; about the same objective phenomena. So there can be no possibility of expanding " a value judgement about something"; to include factual statements. The same would be true of subjective phenomena. Regarding "intersubjective" ; well I don't know would be intended by this word ; in the context of subjective and objective; perhaps you can provide an example. "Subjective" aka phenomenological referes to things which are intrinsically; percievable only to one person. Objective aka material refers to things which are intrinsically percievable ; by many people. eg My headache is subjective; it's neural correlate is objective; well it will be ! I'm not entirely convinced especially giiven the misunderstanding , concerning the other usage of value; that this is not some kind of semantic issue ? regards Rohan

Lev Lafayette wrote: Alright this is simply a semantic matter; you call this a value judgement; I don't ; we can go round this circle all day. "This type of computer is the one we should all use"; is a "value judgement about an objective phenomena" This type of statement is (I am claiming) difficult or impossible to falsify ! Well if they were written down I would say they are objective; if they are spoken it would be possible they can be recorded, so potentially objective but if no objective evidence exists of them how can we be sure they are shared ? ; therefore I would consider them subjective ! regards Rohan

Lev Lafayette wrote: Not in the above sense ! I have to repeat" how do we know they are shared, without objective evidence ? regards Rohan

Lev Lafayette wrote: That reminds me of this: Exposure was the preferred method of disposal, as that act in itself was not murder; moreover, the exposed child technically had a chance of being rescued by the gods or any passersby.^[32] -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Greece_and_Rome

On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 11:50:09AM +1000, Andrew McGlashan wrote: since you describe yourself as a Libertarian (in the american or anarcho-capitalist sense) and you're not one of the .001% who actually benefit from such an ideology, then "gullible" would seem to be an appropriate and accurate label, and definitively not "bullshit". also, your predilection for posting links to batshit-insane conspiracy and bizarre legal theory or tax theory websites, larouchian nutbaggery and worse, as if they are in any way credible contributes greatly. craig -- craig sanders <cas(a)taz.net.au>

You have resorted to profanity because you can't support your arguments. Feel free to demonstrate a lack of gullibility by not believing all the conspiracy theories. On April 11, 2015 11:50:09 AM GMT+10:00, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan(a)affinityvision.com.au> wrote: -- Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 with K-9 Mail.

On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 03:20:17AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote: for cannabis, it is. in some states. but there's still cocaine and amphetamines and heroin and ecstacy and lsd and others to provide a plentiful supply of slave labor in privatised prisons. there's just far too much money in the war on drugs for it ever to be allowed to end. there's drug sales, and corruption/bribes for politicians and officials, and civil forfeiture for the cops to get their snouts in the trough, and prison labor and lots more. sort of. except for the fact that libertarianism is an ideology pushed by corporations and the mega-rich because it suits their interests for the vast bulk of the cretinous and credulous populace to believe that they'll be better off if they bend over to be fucked by corporations in the name of "Liberty" they've spent many billions on propaganda over the decades, directly in advertising and indirectly in TV and movie programming, to promote the idea that government is the source of all evil, that any kind of regulation is bad because regulations are socialism and socialism is baby-eating satanism, and that liberty means letting the rich do whatever they want without limit or consequence...and finally to dangle the absurdist fantasy that ordinary folks can aspire to be one of the rich and powerful. most of the world is horrified by what the rich and powerful get away with...while many americans support whatever they do because they fantasize that one day it could be them. so, yes, libertarianism is outside of the power structure. it's just one of their tools. it suits them for useful idiots to believe that neo-feudalism equals liberty. this would be surreally hilarious if it weren't true. craig -- craig sanders <cas(a)taz.net.au>

On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 06:55:47AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote: i'm sure that'll work, just as video cameras are stopping cops from shooting unarmed blacks in the back...and sees them not only charged with murder but convicted and sentenced. wishful thinking. unless the individual cop is extremely unlucky, they'll just lose their job and be found not guilty and then sue for compensation and/or their job back. or get another job as a cop in a different jurisdiction. obedient uniformed thugs are a very useful private army for the 1% and like to know that they'll be protected when doing their job of suppressing the poor. but, more relevantly to the drugs issue, they just shift the goalposts as needed. if marijuana is deemed to be OK, then ice or something else will be the evil gateway drug and all-round scapegoat. with all that money, there's plenty for propaganda campaigns. in this country the current so-called epidemic is "ice". which is somehow magically different from the identical crystal meth that's been around for decades and is, according to our really truly well informed prime minister, the worst drug ever. there's been a moderate increase in users smoking meth rather than snorting it or injecting it (as was previously popular for heavy users in search of a greater rush), but the actual level of usage in the country has remained unchanged at, iirc, around 2% for a very long time. craig -- craig sanders <cas(a)taz.net.au> BOFH excuse #377: Someone hooked the twisted pair wires into the answering machine.

Craig Sanders wrote: Apropos: Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. -- https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck#Disputed