705 karma · joined November 26, 2016
What's less understandable are the calls of "We live in a globalized world, that's just how things work now!" when Western nations try the same.
It saddens me I have to explicitly tag this as sarcasm.
'Fair' is irrelevant, an excuse at best - they will do whatever is advantageous. They didn't roll back protections for any of their other industries, and they won't for this one, either.
This goes both ways - shouldn't we decline Monsanto's products, because they've shown they value profit over safety, and corporate control over farmer independence?
Suppose they do build a hack-proof voting terminal - how can you tell that's what you're voting on, and not a compromised machine with identical appearance? De-cap all the chips and put them under an electron-microscope?
...
But China can play a strong defense. The country has broad latitude, under special rules it negotiated with the World Trade Organization, to maintain restrictions within its market."
Yet when the president of China called for the US not to pursue protectionist policies, saying something along the lines of "we must work together in this global world", our journalists obediently parroted his words, without mentioning how extremely protectionist China is.
Heh. It used to be sold as the 'melting pot'.
“allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.”
It's okay if private near-monopolies collude to do the same, though.
"Gives us the data on these 8 people, or we'll get a warrant for it."
vs.
"Gives us the data on these 8 people, or we'll get a warrant to confiscate all your servers, computers, laptops, and phones."
And getting a warrant is not as large a barrier as people like to believe: https://www.popehat.com/2014/07/15/warrants-bulwark-of-liber...
I think they're more worried that immigrants won't love whites as much as other whites do.
Yet another wonderful law funded by the IP lobby. Buying instead of pirating is rapidly becoming indefensible, when the profits are used to buy laws like this.
When corporations bribe politicians to strip you of your rights, they should be considered hostile.
That many?
And I wouldn't call what happened here 'civil' - at best, the civility was one-sided: they get to raid his home, hold him captive, and force him to answer, but he doesn't get to do anything.
Or maybe not. Maybe those responsible will be held accountable, and face jail-time for effectively holding someone prisoner, breaking into their home, and stealing their belongings, albeit with the dubious stamp of approval of a judge.
I wouldn't hold my breath.
"Any time I would question the process, they would threaten me with contempt of court proceedings," says Lackman."
I asked in the other thread, but it got buried - can someone versed with Canadian law comment on if this is how it's supposed to work? Were these just empty threats, or can you really be charged with contempt of court if you don't answer, and if you don't have the right to counsel on those questions?
So whites are at most ~27% of the L.A. population? Even within the US, there are fewer and fewer places where whites are the majority.
Edit: I was curious, so I checked wikipedia, which says L.A. was 86.3% percent white in 1940, and 28.7% in 2010 - a huge change in a single lifetime. Imagine in how many other places in the West whites might become minority in another 70 years.
"Any time I would question the process, they would threaten me with contempt of court proceedings," says Lackman."
This sounds utterly insane - can someone familiar with Canadian law comment - is this how it's supposed to work?
Wouldn't it be more fair, even necessary, to just say "he doesn't want pronoun choice to be enforced, and doesn't think biological sex and gender are distinct"? Why distort his views by condensing them to 'anti-trans'?
It's not law anywhere else in the world, but many people share it, myself included.
Do not confuse law with ideals - after all, google acting as a censor is perfectly legal even in the 'free speech extremist' US.
A quick (and biased) search turns up:
"His employers have warned that, while they support his right to academic freedom and free speech, he could run afoul of the Ontario Human Rights code and his faculty responsibilities should he refuse to use alternative pronouns when requested."
Now I'm sure there's more to the issue, but that's kind of my point - increasingly, not ceding to every demand by group X is labelled as being 'anti-X', and ending any discussion.
'Culture' is a broad term, and encompasses the legal and government systems as well. When you say death of a culture, you probably have in mind things like traditional food, music, and clothes.
What about things like legal and social equality of the sexes, worker's rights, the right to free speech or a fair trial, socialized medicine, the educational institutions supporting all of this, and a police and legal system where corruption is rare? They're just as much a part of culture.
Different countries have different amounts of these cultural characteristics. Many lives, far more than one or a thousand, were lost fighting for them, or lost due to their absence, and few would throw them away as carelessly as you.
That it would get hacked is so obvious I struggle not to see the design itself as malicious.
> It sounds like she wants targeted spying to be cheaper, and restricted by the judicial system.
The cheaper that spying is, the more spying gets done - this has been repeatedly shown in many countries, even supposedly free ones, so lets not pretend this will result in the government saving a few bucks on security. It will result in (continued) data collection on a massive scale, the kind that is increasingly being hampered by encryption. Does 'Snowden' ring a bell?
> ..wasn't pointing out the harms of pervasive spying.. ..she should expose her metadata..
While I agree that the argument "if she thinks it's okay she should let folks spy on her" is weak (it's always possible to find someone crazy/sold-out enough to do whatever is being pushed), that's not actually the argument, except in the most literal reading.
The argument is twofold. First, pointing out that there are harms and she's aware of them, despite not addressing them, because she refuses to disclose her communications. Second, that the spying will be used asymmetrically - you, dear citizen, will have all your communications recorded, stored indefinitely, and subject to discovery when some prosecutor or large corporation decides to do away with you. But try and find out which corporations are sponsoring which politicians, who owns them, and what kind of deals those politicians are making in your name, and you'll meet a stone wall of silence - just like in the TTIP negotiations.
But the OP put it more concisely and humorously.
> There are stronger arguments, such as asserting our right to privacy
I don't think this is a stronger argument. In fact, I don't think this is an argument at all. First of all, it's circular - the law shouldn't strip us of our right to privacy, because the law gives us the right to privacy. Second, it won't convince anyone, it's just pointing out the status quo - sure we have a right to privacy, but so what? What harm will come of losing it?
But legal authorities would never abuse their power (without you even knowing about it, unlike in other cases of abuse).