Schlafly on Copyright 54
WildJoeWild writes "Copyright extremists are working to control as much information as possible. Almost every week we see a new example of how they are thwarting the free flow of information. Read the rest of the article here."
Strange Bedfellows (Score:1, Flamebait)
When they say that politics makes strange bedfellows....
Phyllis Schlafly!!!!?
This is like Jerry Fallwell's buddies coming out on the side of small webcasters.
She's still a fundie luddite.
she's quite a smart lady. (Score:3, Interesting)
Best advice I would have for anyone is to step away from the old paradigms of following any "party lines" rhetoric and even to cease getting sucked into the extremely limiting parameters of identifying one's self as "right" or "left" leaning and instead just differentiate "right" and "wrong". Makes things a lot easier to sort out.
I manage to catch her little two minute daily audio editorials listening to various net broadcasts carried on Genesis Communications [gcnlive.com], a pretty good collection of shows with a more traditional US constitutional (and common sense) "Independent" viewpoint as opposed to acting like most talk shows as pure propoganda arms of one or the other of the two dominant political for-profit gangs, err, I mean "partys", for example the two biggees of the "establishment" like Rush Limbeau and Larry King. I consider those shows to be more like political training wheels for people just starting to get any sort of political interest going, once you can get a balance and want to go further (which should take like one show apiece from those two gents to see it for what it is, establishment propoganda), the offerings from genesis are a lot more real and hardcore freedom-oriented, as are some of the other independent media outlets.
FWIW, here is Mrs. Schalfly's website, Eagle Forum. [eagleforum.org]
Re:she's quite a smart lady. (Score:2)
All valid points, I am ready to conceed. I probably chose "luddite" poorly. I meant it in a social sense, rather than a technological one. I'm probably a bit off-base there too. People do not exist as strict categories - despite our best attempts to project ourselves as such on Slashdot! ;-)
It is odd to me though, looking at this. I was one of those high-school students who was dismayed and outraged when the ERA failed to be ratified within the expiry provision.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:But she's our fruitcake (Score:3, Funny)
More meat, please. (Score:1)
This is a pretty strong statement. While I'm not disagreeing with it, and my views are in line with yours, the statement should either qualified as purely editorial material or backed up with a whole lot more examples than the scant article contains.
Has anyone seen a better article to match the story?
Re:More meat, please. (Score:3, Informative)
Well, I counted 13 examples of abuse in the "scant" article
My goodnes. Did I just defend Phyllis Schlafly? Must be part of that Twilight Zone marathon on SciFi...
Re:More meat, please. (Score:2)
http://yro.slashdot.org/
Hell just froze over (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hell just froze over (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hell just froze over (Score:2, Interesting)
The term was first used by specialists - law school professors - to categorize the law of patents, trademark, copyright, and trade secrets (and probably other stuff). All of these are valuable intangibles with very, very different legal basis; however they tend to get lumped together in law school because they're more similar to each other than they are to anything else. Legal people are of course very aware of those differences; patent attornies don't normally do copyright work and vice versa...
Because it was a handy term, it made its way into general usage, but like many technical terms that migrate into the public realm, the nuances of meaning don't always make it (e.g. "hacker"). To a legal person, there's lots of kinds of property, with all sorts of attributes, such as expiration (e.g. a stock option); to the average lay person, if the hear "something property", they think about the kind of property they know best, personal property, and assume that this new kind of property has most of those attributes, including permenant ownership and total control.
In other words, personal property is the lay person's prototype when thinking about property of any kind, and "intellectual property" has been used to shift the ground of the debate by inducing assumptions about the nature of a copyright.
Great, Just what we need (Score:1, Flamebait)
Phyllis Schlafley commenting on the information age? What's next? Childcare tips from Michael Jackson? Gourmet vegetarian cooking recipes from Idi Amin?
GMD
Phyllis Who? (Score:2, Informative)
To those of you who may not know who Phyllis Schafly is, it may be informative to read the biography of her on that site [townhall.com].
As a further illustration of the type of news this is, when you visit the site, you get a pop-up window inviting you to receive "commentaries" from Ann Coulter [amazon.com] and Rush Limbaugh.
Before some of you out there gag, understand that this is an important victory for the opponents of these controlling forces in today's intellectual-property field. It is not just "commie pinko liberals" who are advocating change here, but thoughtful conservative writers as well. If others follow, we may have support building from an unlikely place. I say it's good.
Re:Phyllis Who? (Score:1)
Why is it that somebody on the political Left who advocates change is a "commie pinko liberal" while somebody on the Right is a "thoughtful conservative"?
From your commentary, it sounds to me that, no matter how good the opinion is, if it comes from the Left side of the political spectrum, it's probably a loony idea. Have you given any thought yourself to the idea that some, if not many, people on the Right are nutbars, including your own Prez?
Re:Phyllis Who? (Score:1)
I happen to be a registered Democrat and hard-line liberal, going to a quite liberal college, voting for those who would generally be categorized as liberal, and would rather my friends shoot me than vote for most of the Republican candidates I see floating around (with notable exceptions).
My comment about "commie pinko liberals" was semi-sarcasm, as the quotes should make clear.
And I believe that my explanation retains its same point regardless of where on the political spectrum I happen to put myself. Speaking of which, what was *your* point here, besides trying to discredit me?
Re:Phyllis Who? (Score:1)
Perhaps I did misinterpret your commentary as some sort of Right wing attack, but that sort of idea, where somebody on the Left is a "commie pinko liberal" as opposed to the guy on the right being a "thoughtful conservative" has been prevalent ever since the early 80's, when EVERYTHING shifted to the right, and trashing the conscious side of the sixties became fashionable. I, for one, think that many of the ideas brought forth in the sixties had merit, bringing people together, in contrast to the divisiveness in politics and society today, where everything has to make a buck. So I'm getting just a little bit sick of people dismissing ideas from the Left as somehow loony without giving them much consideration.
Re: Phyllis Who? (Score:2)
> To those of you who may not know who Phyllis Schafly is, it may be informative to read the biography of her on that site [townhall.com].
For a more candid view of the mentality she espouses, grep dejagoogle for "schafly" and see what kind of idiocy her sons post to talk.origins betimes.
Re:Phyllis Who? (Score:1)
I've never thought of Schlafly as a "thoughtful" conservative writer; it scares me that she said so many things that I agreed with in one editorial.
This must be difficult for some to accept. (Score:2)
I'm sure a lot of you are surprised to find out that freedom of information is not a left-wing specific issue. For that matter, it's not a right-wing specific issue, either.
Now that we have that out in the open, we're going to stop bashing the right-wing extremists that want to control what we can and and cannot see? Oh, and the right-wing shouldn't be too hard on Senator Fritz Hollings, the Democratic "Senator from Disney".
FLAMEBAIT
Seriously, though, I hope most of you are open-minded enough to realize that freedom of information and fair use rights are of importance to a lot of people all across the political spectrum -- regardless of their opinions on other issues.
Re:This must be difficult for some to accept. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to point out that the fact that freedom of information, and associated DRM/copyright/fair use issues, doesn't fall along the regular political axes, makes it incredibly difficult to know where our politicians stand on these issues.
For example, is Senator John McCain in favor of consumer rights, or is he in the pocket of the ??AA/? Nobody knows [slashdot.org], because this issue doesn't follow political boundaries. What about your congressman? With the exceptions of Hollings and Berman, on one side; Boucher, Doolittle, and Lofgren on the other, and perhaps a few others, nobody has any idea. Keep in mind that the DMCA passed via voice vote in both houses of Congress - though the Senate passed a version different than that of the House - and so there is no real record beyond remarks entered into the Congressional Record of Congress's support for consumer rights.
What we really need is a way to gather information about our Congresspeople's opinions on this issue - to bring it to the forefront - so that we can be better informed in 2004 when we head to the polls, and so that we can better inform the general public (whose rights this will affect when the nation goes digital in 2007) rather than
For Further Reading (Score:2, Informative)
Re:For Further Reading (Score:2)
The wolf in sheep's clothing... (Score:3, Informative)
It is odd to see two sides of the ideological divide come together. But that doesn't mean they see eye-to-eye. I've been wondering what agenda might be wrapped up in an otherwise worthy attack on corporate profiteering. I thought, what's most closely associated with the Sonny Bono Act? Disney. Hmm. Schlafly spoke her mind on the Bono Act in 1998 (here [eagleforum.org] at the bottom):
So there's one theory. This anti-Disney thing is very very big with many "pro-family" partisans. She spends most of her essay attacking the stench of money given both parties to pass the Act, which is true, but what did she choose to come out so strongly on *this* crooked law? I can suggest a few more.
Take help wherever it's offered, but check what's in their other hand, too.
& a federalism argument... (Score:2)
It's a long shot, but it's there.
With Friends Like These... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:4, Insightful)
Orrin Hatch, for instance, is a fairly conservative and very Christian man. We disagree on many important issues, but we do agree that citizens have fair-use rights to copyrighted material. Orrin's a musician [hatchmusic.com], so he sees this issue from a very different side than most conservatives.
If Phyllis writes an editorial with which you agree, send her mail and say, "You and I disagree about many issues, but we're on the same wavelength here. Thanks!" Take help where you can find it, folks.
Off-topic rant: one of the most insidious and dangerous intellectual crutches many people use is this false dichotomy of "good" or "bad" people or ideas. No person, and precious few ideas, are wholly good or bad - most are some sort of compromise. Hitler instigated some of the most horrible acts ever seen on this planet, but word has it he was good to his dog.
Using this crutch is easy and tempting, but it immediately requires you to build up all sorts of mental walls. Instead, see both sides of an issue. See the ideas with which you disagree are formed, how they propogate, and why people espouse them - then attack the root, not the manifestation.
Mr. Senator from Disney doesn't kiss the Mouse's ass because he's evil, but because the ass is gold-plated and some of it rubs off on him. And our political system requires those at the highest level (e.g. U.S. Congress) to gather and spend truly stunning amounts of money to stay in power.
You can call people "evil" or "enemies" and thus shut yourself out of the system, you can work within the system to defeat those people (or more to the point, their ideas), or you can change the system. The latter two options require the ability to see both sides of an issue, and the causes of a person's behavior.
People's actions have good or evil consequences (often both); ideas have good or evil implementations. Get beyond the juvenile labels and to the root causes and you'll be a lot better off.
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:2)
Who will pop up next on "our side", Ollie North and John Poindexter and their "Felons Fighting for Fair Use (FFFFU)"?
More seriously, you can see a hint in her editorial of how having a whacko on your side can dirty the debate. Along with all the sound arguments culled from our literature, she argues for a right of video stores to distribute their own bowdlerized versions of movies, without permission. (Blockbuster does it routinely, but is big enough to demand and get permission!) This confuses the issue, because it's not defending an existing right, it's trying to create a new one that not even Schlafly would want if she thought about it for a moment. (Incidentally, it would knock the teeth out of the GPL.)
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:2)
> right, it's trying to create a new one that not even Schlafly
> would want if she thought about it for a moment. (Incidentally,
> it would knock the teeth out of the GPL.)
If RedHat decided to pull every occurance of 'fuck' from the comments of the Linux source, this would violate the GPL how?
While I wouldn't want to rent an edited video, I have no problem if others do and people supply that demand. They buy a copy of the movie for every copy they circulate so the creators are compensated the same, the modified copies are clearly marked so there is no attempt to deceive, in short there is no foul.
And as for Phyllis Schlafly joining the battle on our side, it is very encouraging. Her contributions are not very well known outside the hardcore conservative camp, but she has been tirelessly fighting for causes she believes in and winning more than her fair share of fights for decades. Agree or disagree with her, most who know much about her will concede she IS a high wattage thinker and so having a heavyweight like her on our side means just about every other serious thinker on the Right will read her column and give the ideas in it serious thought because they all know her and respect her opinions. And she is in a position to influence the innermost circles of the Republican power structure. Regardless of whether you consider it a good or bad thing, remember who controls Congress now.
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:2)
The GPL explicitly allows you to redistribute a bowdlerized Red Hat, as long as you send along complete sources. Most copyright licenses are not so liberal. If you were allowed to make any alterations you like and redistribute, regardless of license or lack of it, then you would also be free to redistribute Red Hat with private features but without sources, and ignore your obligations under the GPL.
Or is jmorris42 imagining that the law would be changed to allow copyright to be violated with impunity only where the violations involve erasing naughty words? How would you imagine wording such a law? (It's possible he doesn't really have any idea what he means.)
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:2)
> Red Hat, as long as you send along complete sources.
Thanks for restating my point..... and calling me obtuse (and possibly a troll even) while doing it. Perhaps you missed the original poster's parenthetical comment "(Incidentally,it would knock the teeth out of the GPL.) " which I was commenting on. Yes, I have read the GPL and most other licenses and EULAs. And for your information, there is no such thing as a copyright license. They are two entirely different beasties.
The big difference between a EULA and the GPL is that most EULAs attempt to create a one sided, unsigned contract which removes rights which exist by default and are almost certainly legally unenforcable. The GPL grants rights above and beyond those which copyright law provides. Big difference. Ignore the GPL all you want! You are still bound by copyright law which forbids all unauthorized redistribution. The clean flicks people are within the law. Copyright is NOT an absolute prohibition against any modification of a protected work. I can buy an art book, cut out the pictures and make a new work of art from the pieces. I can even sell it! What I can't do is make COPIES and sell those because the publisher was granted a monopoly by the federal government. (Which was supposed to be for a 'limited time' but that rant is for another time.)
I could buy books with dirty words/pics in them, use whiteout (tm) to blank out the words I objected to, remove the dirty pictures, etc and then resell the book 100% legally. Since you can't apply those sorts of edits to a DVD the clean flicks people buy a number of copies, replace the disc in the package with an edited version and rent them. Basically the same thing because what you are buying when you buy a DVD (note the word is BUY instead of LICENSE despite anything written on the package stating otherwise) is a bundle consisting of a box, a physical disc with bits on it and the right use those bits. Moving the bits from the original media to a working copy is legal within certain limits and I already explained how changing the bits is ok.
I actually do understand the issues fairly well, which is why I send money to the EFF whenever I can, 'cause we are so close to being totally hosed. I have followed these sort of things for years and these days I work in a public library, and everyone in this scene seems to be up to speed on IP (hate that term, see RMS's rant on the subject for why) issues. And nobody hates CIPA more than librarians do.
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:2)
I wrote that myself.
Copyright gives the author only limited control. Control of distribution and of public performance are two of the things it does grant to the author. The author exercises that control via licensing. The control is limited by Fair Use (except where that conflicts with the DMCA).
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) gives the purchaser extra rights, beyond Fair Use. It does not grant the right to distribute derived works or make public performances in violation of the license extended by the author.
jmorris42 writes further, "the clean flicks people buy a number of copies, replace the disc in the package with an edited version and rent them".
Renting counts as public performance, which is also restricted under copyright. If they're allowed to make public performances of private versions without permission, then exploiters will also be allowed to redistribute private versions of GPLed programs without permission (i.e. without sources).
Under the UCC the video stores are free to do whatever they need to to make the physical disc they bought do what the seller promised. (That's what makes shrink-wrap licenses wastepaper.) Selling a modified copy of it, however, is not something the UCC allows. Play the disc, decrypt the disc, hang it from your rear-view mirror, yes. Sell a copy, no. Not even if you pulp the original. Rent out an unauthorized hack job, no. Stores pay for a license to public performance, and the terms are right there.
jmorris42 writes, I actually do understand the issues fairly well ...
Wishful thinking makes a poor substitute for real thinking.
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:2)
My bad, didn't reread the thread very well.
> Renting counts as public performance, which is also
> restricted under copyright.
You, and Jack Valenti can scream that until you are blue, but the courts already ruled against you. If you OWN a thing, you can rent/lend/etc that thing. The movie studios wanted royalties from rentals, The RIAA tried to stop 2nd hand CDs and Nintendo wanted to stop cartridge rentals. All lost.
All these issues were settled years ago in court. Trust me on this one, librarians KNOW about the laws which regulate the lending of copyrighted materials.
> If they're allowed to make public performances of private
> versions without permission, then exploiters will also be
> allowed to redistribute private versions of GPLed programs
> without permission.
Hmm. After pondering it a bit I can see one way someone could try to use clean flicks legal theory. EvilCo buys 1000 copys of RedHat. They modify it and replace the CDs in the boxes with their version and resell those RedHat boxes. Would be interesting to see how that one would play out in court.
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:1)
What if the unedited copy of that same video is simply unavailable at yourlocal MallWart? Firms like this, Blockbuster too, have the buying power, and therefore the clout, to force movie distributors to produce versions they deem "clean" for sale in their shops. MallWart and Blockbuster are notorious for this, in particular MallWart, who also does it with music CDs. So what do you do when the only versions available are censored by shops, not by the government or Hollywood?
People listen to them, not you (Score:1)
Don't put Oliver North and Poindexter in the same category. North may have screwed up there, but he's not an unapologetic, militant, anti-freedom ass like Poindexter. Having North come out in favor of our side would bring a lot of conservatives because they respect him (though none respect what he did in Iran-Contra).
It never ceases to amaze me how similtaneously zealous and impotent the slashdot crowd is. With all of the wealth, intellectual and financial, represented here, the EFF could be made into a lobbying machine unto itself in the IP wars. When powerful conservative icons come out in favor of what amounts to the exact position most espouse here, what's the reaction? Cool, welcome aboard? NO!! It's fuck off, NAZI punk mofo! And you people wonder why john q citizen dismisses the majority of you as beanie-wearing, coke rimmed-glass, nassle-voiced math nerds who are pissed because they never got a dance partner at the prom.
My God, you people by and large have no diplomacy whatsoever. Rather than welcome potential allies, if only as an alliance of convenience, you take the hard way which is to go it alone. It's just another form of unilateralism, but it's probably the most idiotic form. In a democratic republic you can't win that way unless you happen to wield a lot of firepower (most of you nerds probably can't even handle a
And see therein lays the problem. Y'all are stuck between a rock (being too stupid to form alliances with like-minded people on such issues) and a hard place (going it alone which means in the long run either getting stomped in the court of public opinion or by 80,000 federal agents and around 3M military and national guard personnel). Welcome to reality people, the only viable option is to make Schlafly a part of the war against the RIAA and MPAA.
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:2)
> mail and say, "You and I disagree about many issues, but we're
> on the same wavelength here. Thanks!" Take help where you can
> find it, folks.
This part is spot on. I hit sites like drudgereport and follow the links off to columnists of all stripes. Just when you think you can predict what one will say about an issue one of em will shock you. Few intelligent people are 100% in one of the three major camps (Classical Liberal/Conservative, Libertarian or Modern Liberal/Socialist/Labor).
> one of the most insidious and dangerous intellectual crutches
> many people use is this false dichotomy of "good" or "bad"
> people or ideas. No person, and precious few ideas, are wholly
> good or bad - most are some sort of compromise.
Uh huh. NO good or evil, just shades of grey. Bullcrap. Agreed that most evil people have a few qualities we could all agree are admirable, but that doesn't make them any less evil on balance. Hell, we can all probably agree that Hitler & Stalin were gonzo super achievers. But what they choose to achive was undeniably wicked and they were EVIL men. Grow a pair and learn to discriminate between good and evil and have the courage of your conviction to state your call and stand by it.. Discrimination isn't a bad thing either, depends what it's used for.
While most people and ideas are in grey areas, some can only be called grey by people with a busted moral compass. Nazism, Communism, and the KKK are examples of ideas which are evil. Osama Bin Laden is evil. Any definition of the word 'evil' which excludes any of those people/ideas is a word devoid of any meaning. Others are more debatable. Lincoln for example has both detractors and defenders who are all reasonable people.
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:2)
You mean "Facism" and "Toltaranism" and "Racism", don't you? Or "Nazi Germany" and "USSR" and "KKK" as "organizations" that are evil...
Evil is harming others to aid yourself. Good is the inverse. Nazis harmed the jews (and others) and hardly sacraficed of their own nation, while a few individuals sacraficed themselves for their nation, and thus were good. The USSR had a similar duality.
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:2)
No, otherwise I'd have said that. Nazism was an idea (set of related ideas actually) that was and always will be evil. Go study it a bit if you don't want to take my word for it. (unless you are in Germany, then you are SOL since they are busy erasing it from their history books so it can happen again.....)
Facism is a related idea, but different. Most implementations certainly qualify as evil. Racism may or may not be evil, depends to what extent you carry it I suppose. Usually not very smart, but stupid != evil. The KKK on the other hand certainly crossed the line into evil.
> Evil is harming others to aid yourself. Good is the inverse.
Wrong again. Harming others is evil. Even if it doesn't aid anybody. And the inverse is not good. And no, valiant Germans who died for their country in WWII were not good. Glorious service in the name of evil makes one evil. Since your sig brands you as an RPG gamer I'll put in terms you might better understand. A brave and valiant SS stormtrooper would be Lawful Evil. Hitler began as Lawful Evil and ended up Chaotic Evil (Insane). A generic german soldier was Neutral Evil. Get it?
Harming yourself to help others may or may not make you good. It might also make you stupid. Helping yourself while helping others is the greatest good though. Henry Ford helped far more people while making himself filthy rich than 10,000 do-gooders working in soup kitchens on their day off.
Re:With Friends Like These... (Score:2)
What was Nazism, exactly--and why is it evil? ("because I say so" or "because the Germans used it to kill a lot of people" aren't acceptable answers.)
Wrong again. Harming others is evil. Even if it doesn't aid anybody.
Use a broader definition of "harm" than simple "physical injury." Here's a few samples:
* A man who throws himself in front of a train to push another out of the train's way has just committed a good act.
* A man who pushes someone else into the train's way to save themselves has committed an evil act.
* Giving your lunch to someone who's hungry and hasn't eaten in four days is a good act.
* Stealing someone else's lunch because you don't want to pay for your own is an evil act.
And no, valiant Germans who died for their country in WWII were not good. Glorious service in the name of evil makes one evil. Since your sig brands you as an RPG gamer I'll put in terms you might better understand. A brave and valiant SS stormtrooper would be Lawful Evil. Hitler began as Lawful Evil and ended up Chaotic Evil (Insane). A generic german soldier was Neutral Evil. Get it?
Bullocks. My sig also brands me as a Christian, and religion has more to say about Good and Evil than a glorified wargame.
A brave German infantryman who sacraficed himself so his comrades could escape, or who took on extra guard duty to aid weaker soldiers, is probably a Good Person--as long as they didn't take part in the Very Very Bad things that the Germans did.
"Lawful" and "Chaotic" are, despite RPGing's wargaming baggage, hardly on par with Good or Evil. They're barely even real concepts.
Harming yourself to help others may or may not make you good. It might also make you stupid. Helping yourself while helping others is the greatest good though. Henry Ford helped far more people while making himself filthy rich than 10,000 do-gooders working in soup kitchens on their day off.
There's a differnece between DOING good and BEING good. I am qualified to judge actions as Good or Evil, and it is accetpable for me to react to someone based on their actions--but I do not have the knowledge to judge anyone, even Hilter or the 9-11 hijackers or the heroes who die every day, as "good" or "evil." And neither do you.
To give of yourself for the benefit of others is most certainly the essence of "Goodness." If you think you have a better objective definition, by all means try and spit it out. (Subjective Defintions and Simple Definitons, such as "my enemies are evil" or "harming people is evil", are fairly useless.)
Way off topic discussion of morality...... (Score:2)
I certainly don't intend to mentor you on basic elements of 20th Century history which, if you didn't get it as part of your schooling, Google can supply.
> To give of yourself for the benefit of others is most certainly
> the essence of "Goodness." If you think you have a better
> objective definition, by all means try and spit it out.
No, the word you just defined is Altruism. And I'm a devoted follower of RAH on that subject.
: Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root
: of all evil.
:
: If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine
: your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you
: still want to do it, wallow in it!
:
: From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long
: (Time Enough for Love (C) 1973 Robert A. Heinlein)
>
> Hilter or the 9-11 hijackers or the heroes who die every
> day, as "good" or "evil." And neither do you
That is where we differ. Given a chance I'd be more than willing to 'judge' Hitler or Atta straight to Hell with a
> A brave German infantryman who sacraficed himself so his
> comrades could escape, or who took on extra guard duty to aid
> weaker soldiers, is probably a Good Person--as long as they
> didn't take part in the Very Very Bad things that the Germans
> did.
Wrong. They can be 'good' only if they didn't KNOW what the Reich was doing. It isn't enough to just be lucky enough not to be assigned to guard a death camp. If you KNOW they exist and continue to serve, you crossed the line and are damned near as wicked and evil as the most feared SS monster. All that evil requires is that good men do nothing. You should defect or rebel, if you continue to serve once you have knowledge of the evil your country is doing you join the ranks of the damned as far as I'm concerned. Harsh? Yes, but life isn't easy.
Making moral choices when the cost is low confers little karma, it is doing the right thing when you know it is going to cost that matters. Most of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence died or ended up destitute by the end of the war but there were few regrets because they knew they were right.
> "Lawful" and "Chaotic" are, despite RPGing's wargaming
> baggage, hardly on par with Good or Evil. They're barely
> even real concepts.
Law/Chaos is on a par with Good/Evil, just a different quality being measured; it is very useful to put a 2nd dimension on the moral question. Just like the Pournelle Axes chart of political thought is so much more useful than the left/right one dimensional chart; even if it illustrates some wierd associations that are hard to understand. (Google is your friend if you want more info.)
> Use a broader definition of "harm" than simple "physical
> injury." Here's a few samples:
>
> * A man who throws himself in front of a train to push
> another out of the train's way has just committed a good act.
Perhaps, but I fail to see the big win in a straight up trade of one life for another. Would I trade my life for a stranger? Probably not. Would I RISK my butt for one? Probably. For a spouse/child/friend/etc? I'd like to think so, thankfully haven't faced that test.
> * A man who pushes someone else into the train's way to save
> themselves has committed an evil act.
Agreed.
> * Giving your lunch to someone who's hungry and hasn't eaten
> in four days is a good act.
No real problem here either. But better still to trade with him. He still gets to eat that way and retains his honor. Man does not live by bread alone.
In case you haven't guessed yet, I'm a Libertarian. I have found that the non-initiation of force principle is a very reliable way to assess the Rightness or Wrongness of a situation.
Re:Way off topic discussion of morality...... (Score:1)
No they didn't. See snopes.com [snopes.com] for a refutation.
Mormons != Christian (Score:1)
Orrin Hatch is a Mormon, not a Christian. Or maybe somewhat "Christian." But hardly "very Christian."
Study Mormonism a bit. It's pretty off-the-wall stuff and has very little to do with mainstream Christianity.
Don't sound so surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, get used to it. The only political pressure that I've seen being brought to bear against the RIAA has been from conservative politicians. Funny, but "let's go back to how things used to be when this country was just starting out," has a great deal of resonance with conservatives. Interesting how that works.
Moreover the Senators from Disney and Hollywood are all, well, Democrats. You aren't going to get any help from there, friends.
The fact that someone like Schlafly is signing on with us actually happens to be great news. Before long, with any luck, conservatives will realize that a major political issue amoung young urban professionals happens to be copyright. Hell, we create more press in a day on this one political issue than most other interest groups our size do in a year. Once we get the conservatives to sign on, then we'll start getting some major traction on our issues.
So, welcome aboard, Schlafly.
Exactly (Score:1)
The Bible-beating, screaming-from-the-pulpit, social conservative is a very small minority among Conservatism these days. The fact of the matter is that they are the best allies to have here because of their strength in Congress and anti-government -as-the-solution views on most issues. The best the left would offer is an all or nothing deal. Either have too little IP protection or have some convoluted "compromise" that still leaves us half fucked. Notice that most of the calls to repeal the DMCA are not from the left, but the right and libertarian sides?
It isn't because they're not receiving a lot of campaign money either. Most conservatives are opposed to such blatant handouts to corporations. So look at Schlafly as a useful temporary ally if nothing more.
Uh oh! Did I just suggest that conservatives are usually good people and not inherently racist, filthy and nasty sexist homophobes? No doubt, some enlightened leftist will mod me down to -70 and put my name on the hit list of "fascists" to kill.
Totally agree (Score:1)
Re:Where the fuck do these asswipes come form? (Score:2)
If only... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, but... (Score:2)
+1 interesting: here's another one, apparently somebody prominent in the editorial circle, coming out against the likes of the DMCA.
+1 underrated: like another poster here said, a good summation of all things that have been discussed over slashdot. It seems that she's been doing her reading.
Re:I agree, but... (Score:2)
From your website (link intentionally NOT included so your ISP's server won't feel the wrath of the Slashdot effect) I gather you live in the US. That being said, I find your lack of political awareness both
Phyllis Schlafly is, simultaneously, one of the most rabid right-wing fundamentalist "family values"/anti-abortionist/anti-feminist commentators on the American political landscape AND one of the most powerful intellects that exists on the far right. If you proceed from her (IMHO extremely flawed) first principles to her conclusions you will be amazed at just how clearly thought out and logical her positions are. My only disputes with Mrs. Schlafly are in the matter of her starting points.
That being said, I seriously doubt that she is merely parroting something she has read on the web, especially on Slashdot, when she recites the "litany of evils" committed in the name of "defense of Intellectual Property Rights." Whether her position is based on her ongoing feud with Disney, whom she considers one of the WORST enemies of "family values" or not, I cannot say. Based on my knowledge of her past writings I can feel confident saying that the position she has taken in her column is based upon her independent research into the issue, it is logically consistent with her political, moral and ethical principles, and it is sincere.
Given the way that the Bush White House has seemed all too ready to roll over for the big corporations that are the major movers and shakers behind the "Brave New Intellectual Property World" as it is embodied in the CTEA, DMCA, CBDTPA and SSSCA, having Phyllis Schlafly in our camp is almost like having our agent pre-infiltrated into the "enemy camp." I welcome her support because, as an earlier poster said, it makes it rather obvious that our opposition to expanded IPR isn't just a left-wing nut case issue.
Schlafly filed in Eldred vs Ashcroft (Score:3, Informative)
Is this a backdoor way to censor? (Score:1)
I'd love to know what Jello Biafra and his crew at Alternative Tentacles...
http://www.alternativetentacles.com
Frankly, I do not trust the likes of Schlafly, Falwell, Gore etc because, given their past, I cannot help but think their using this as a lever to impose still more censorship.