Personally, I think Google is backing Medium as a way to get all of the "creative/literary nonfiction" writers off of Google+ so they can appeal to the Fecebook/Shitter demographic.

I'd rather hire Duke Togo. :)

Notice what I said about political will? The US government hasn't had the balls to enforce existing antitrust statutes since they went after Microsoft in the late 1990s. IMHO, any corporation that's "too big to fail" should be an antitrust target. Also, Comcast, because fuck those clowns. :)

The only natural right people have is the right to a life that's solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. At least, that's what Thomas Hobbes thought, but he had survived a nasty civil war. Funny thing about rights: they don't seem to exist until enough people agree that they do, and choose to honor them. That suggests they're an artifact of consensus reality, rather than physical reality.

Otherwise, an atheist living in Saudi Arabia could invoke the right to freedom of religion and not get beheaded for not worshiping the demon Allah. Better to be an atheist living in the US, where you're still free to reject the demon Yahweh and his weakling of an only begotten son.

I'll support small government if and only if it has the authority and political will to dissolve corporations for malfeasance. A small government that doesn't crack down on corporations is just privatizing tyranny.

Seriously. It would fit right in there, and Bennett would probably find a more appreciative audience.

Corporations are not people. Corporations are property. The government has the authority to tax property.

Instead, government serves the corporations.

And yes, governments do have the right to tax you.

They have the authority, granted by law, but not the right. Only individual people have rights.

I'm a New Yorker. I don't work for free.

You can't refute my points, so you call me crazy? Nice ad hominem.

Like you wouldn't believe. I'm still not sure if it's a prerequisite for being a software developer, or an occupational hazard.

So what?

A Few Good Men is a drama, not a documentary. Those men with rifles that you hero-worship? They aren't making the world safe for democracy. They're making it safe for capitalism, which will happily throw individual rights under a bus the second they impinge on quarterly profits.