Charles Anthony

Let me be clear: I believe our pollution problems are a direct result of Statesmen giving special privilege to multi-national corporations and creating "public" space. Without the bloated distortions created by Statesmen and their supporters (both the gullible and the profiteering), most of our commercial choices would be vastly different. Unfortunately, we can not go back in time. Nevertheless, looking to the State to solve the problem of pollution is like looking for an advertizing contract to end a sponsorship scandal. Before you get all cryptic on me -- my spider senses tell me you are trying to sneak The One And Only Scooby Dooby Doo Theory into this -- I will simply say that I agree. With enough time, I can see modern States going bankrupt, our environment going down the drain and people finding more honorable ways of socializing because the luxuries of hiding one's responsibility behind a State will no longer be affordable.

Fine. I believe it is immoral to force somebody ELSE to pay for defending YOUR property. This is in the Moral and Religious Issues section, no? I am starting to wonder why too given that I seem to be surrounded by many people who are afraid of defining right and wrong. Can I quote you on that? You certainly have said this elsewhere yet you have not convinced me of the virtues of State violence. Your statement is also a misrepresentation. You are actually describing what we have now. I am suggesting the opposite. Nota Bene your reference to ALL property rights. You want to talk about fantasy beliefs? I am going to let you in on a little secret: on the international stage, you live in anarchy. Locally, you do too. The only difference is that you have to work around the State to enjoy your freedom. Once you step outside of the borders of your State, what laws govern you? We can quibble about whether we share a glass that is half-empty or half-full all we want. I want to quibble about who is sucking it dry. Irrelevant. People are denied the right to self-defense of body and property by the State. As such, generations of people are raised in a culture of clueless dependence on "government" to satisfy their needs before looking to themselves or to their neighbors. Copyright laws are an example of precisely that.

This is one point (among others) that you fail to realize: the cost of enforcing YOUR intellectual property rights is borne by the tax-payer.I realize that the tax-payer is forced to pay for tons and tons of other State decreed obligations. Your moral defense seems nothing more than "The Law says so." -- correct me if I am wrong. If I am right, let me remind you that some places still have The Law telling shop owners to have a hitch by their entrances to which horses may be attached.

It keeps government French language teachers employed.

Cheers. I think I should likewise be more careful with my wording. I am lost. Are we choosing or are we being forced? -- and so the definition of consumerism loosens and loosens... As they say: "You are what you eat." Yes, if it is relevant and contains answers to problems that should be considered.Simple. The problems with evironmental pollution have a hope of being solved by selling off all public lands and denying government authority.

You clearly do not know the difference between moral and legal. I challenge you to define stealing in such a way that makes it immoral and does not make YOUR copyright laws theft from the tax-payer.

Excellent website!

-- because somebody might be jealous of God. Such a jealousy would be impossible to overcome. It would be easier to deny the existance of God and thus, one's jealousy would be limited to physically attainable goals. Spelling error reported.

Excessive use of quotes.

something that should be taken personally? Do you understand the meaning of the word "if"? I did not accuse you personally of anything. I do not know you and you do not know me. Why take anything personal? I would say that is worth a lot.

I think it was a stupid campaign promise but that is what people wanted to hear.

I am not joking. [Granted, I understand that I throw sarcasm around too often but I am not this time. Maybe I should start using those smilie-thingies.] However, be realistic: we are discussing what is commonly (but not necessarily) a public service. Would you want me to hijack this thread with how a Universally Respected Private Property Rights World would deal with garbage? I could. The term "consumption" is used loosely. What exactly do you mean? What is "forced upon us"??? I am forced to eat and breathe too! Oh! Woe is me! I can not wait until I figure out a way around living happily without having to consume anything. Unless you are equating free-enterprise with an entire lack of government interference, I have no interest in defending your free-enterprise. If we are talking about consumption as the be-all-and-end-all of a public service, hell! we should promote having the recycling company not only process my junk but also come into my kitchen, do my dishes and sweep my floors. My analogy of the hole-digging is with reference to public services and not to free-enterprise. In my example, the hole represents a service and not a purpose nor a means to generate profit in a free world. I realize that I may have found a better analogy but my point is that we are doing work that is unnecessary given that there is an alternative: reduce garbage. The way we handle garbage as a public service stops people from being held directly accountable for their pollution. I promote reducing garbage because its disposal affects other people. People do not deserve the freedom to pollute other people's property.

The tax-payer could say it. How about we make a compromise by having the State do both: recycling and charge people directly for their trash? If you say NO, I do not trust your motives concerning the environment. Reducing waste is better than recycling waste. This is where I object to our culture of the recycling business. Most recycling programs are politically convenient make-shift civil servant jobs. It is analogous to paying a person to dig a hole and paying a second person to back-fill the same hole and a third person to re-dig the hole and so on and so on and so on and leave the tax-payer with the bill.

I do not know what is more painful: the nitter-nattering or the horrendous use of the quotations! Check out these threads: NEW RULE! - Trim Your Posts, Please take the time to remove the bulk of the post your quotingTrim Your Posts and Quotes, Don't just hit "Reply" Using the [ Quote ] Feature:, Avoid using more too many quotes!

Let me play the devil's advocate again. You could shop around too: refuse them as clients. -- an excuse for not spending enough "quantity" time.

Are you trying to hijack your own thread again instead of defending your point? I do not see how an election can help measure the effectiveness of government. We seem to have them all of the time. You say: and set up a scary scary Harper spin. Can you explain how elections measure government effectiveness? It is not like voter turn out is rising much, is it? I am comfortable sitting back and letting Canada become a loose federation of regions because I associate big government with ineffective government.

No. Indeed. I am hearing impaired and the plexi-glass thingies in the theater do not cut it. I also have to go to the washroom a lot and I like to stop the movie intermittently instead of holding it. Next relevant question? I would not. Many films are artistic compromises of the final work. The director finishes his product and the producer sends it back to cut parts out.

No. It is a justification for paying for your own defence. Correct. Your misinterpretation is invalid and worth very little. Very early??? When is that? Copyright is a very new thing and history is very old. Like Mr. BlueBlood asked before: Thankfully we have the internet to learn many different accounts of history. Otherwise, we would be stuck following history books written exclusively by people who tell us to toe the party line and when to start reading history. What you call it is irrelevant. Who you force to pay for protecting your "property" is where the issue of morality lies. In our current State of affairs, not everybody can be right.

bump

Here is a very good thread: Sir Henry Pellatt -- Toronto's leading Industrialist dies a Pauper

drawn from the Hollywood muscles Canada -- Movie piracy thread If you repeatedly leave your barn door open, you should be responsible for closing it after yourself -- nobody else. Incidentally, as noted elsewhere before most of the pirating consists of inside jobs. They are either employees of the theaters or people at the distribution level. I have recently encountered a person who buys and sells pirated movies in Montreal. For its unverifiably anecdotal value, he confirms that most of the products are copies of pre-release promotional items while a minority are actual handheld recordings. Consumer demand for sitting in a cramped (and deliberately cold, I might add!) movie theater and listening to other people crunch pop-corn and chortle down soda is changing. The movie theater industry is like modern day furriers. You still find a few people trying to make a living selling mink coats but I can not, for the life of me, imagine that market prospering in years to come. Maybe we should have government outlaw imitation fur. Certainly, we should outlaw any piece of clothing that looks like any other piece of clothing -- we would not want to put the fashion designers out of business. I have a suggestion: the photoplay industry should stop releasing their own movies on video format. They are the architects of their own undoing. It is not like they made the movie-going experience much better. Try to imagine a refrigerator manufacturing company inventing a robotic gadget that goes to the market, does your groceries, brings them home, cooks your meals, cleans and puts away your dishes and finally brushes your teeth. Now, try to imagine that same company complaining that people are not buying their refrigerators anymore because somebody else invented the deep-freezer. That is the movie industry. I think it is asking for even more trouble too. I believe the biggest thing that is hitting the theaters is the movie industry itself. Ever since DVDs came out with extra clips and subtitles, I stopped going to theaters. I can not imagine the demand for theaters going up. I would rather wait a year to see that wonderful blockbuster if it meant I was able to get the closed captioning. You would also want the tax-payer to fund the enforcement and protection of your "product" instead of incurring the cost yourself. The movie theaters would have to pay extra to frisk people. Naturally, they would want to brush that expense off to the tax-payer. You can make a little difference by voicing your opinion. You might convince a second person who might also convince a third and they will each tell two friends and so on and so on until everybody has bouncing and behaving hair. That is better than voting. Ultimately, Hollywood movies are all the same. An original or innovative movie is rare. It is a fool who thinks you can keep churning out the exact same Hollywood movies over and over and over again and expect the consumer to keep coming back for more. Eventually, people grow up and kids have better things to do these days with their hard earned cash. Kids are also substituting away from movie theaters and choosing other forms of entertainment, for example: video games and computers. Funny how it is only pirating that is blamed for the decrease in movie industry profits. Go figure. The Hollywood movie industry is playing less of a roll in the whole entertainment industry and pirating is a complete red-herring.

moved

Is it really just a question of gaining political power? Which ones: federal, provincial, municipal, parent-teacher associations, etc. etc. What about the development of regional separatist parties from elections?

How do you measure that in Canada?

The Opening Post and this discussion is not addressing any Federal Politics with respect to Canada.