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Comment Re:Let them sell cake (Score 1) 886

It doesn't matter how the fuck the government wants to tax individuals vs. businesses. You can comply with the law or suffer the consequences of not doing so.

So you would punish a gay owned & operated photography-for-hire that refused to take on a job photographing the next Westboro Baptist Church anti-gay protest? You would punish that business if it were owned by Muslims and refused to photograph a gay or Jewish wedding?

Being a law does not make something right. It was the law that blacks sat at the back of the bus. So by your reasoning Rosa Parks should have 'suffered the consequences'?

You really should try thinking farther than your knees can jerk.

Strat

Comment Re:Let them sell cake (Score 1) 886

Correct me if I am wrong, but do they not get to deduct the cost of running the business from taxable income?

They also on average generate far more in taxes than the average working individual. Do you generate 100's of thousands in taxable income on an hourly wage job? They also foot the costs of both employer and employee. Do you pay the full costs of labor (both the employer portion and employee's portion)?

If you lose your job, you are likely to be eligible to collect unemployment benefits. The owner of a sole proprietorship does not receive unemployment benefits if the business fails.

As to your muslim example, if he operates a business selling hardware he will experience legal trouble if he refuses to deal with people who want to buy hardware for use in a non-halaal butchery.

Muslim cabbies have refused on religious freedom grounds to take fares who carried alcohol or were accompanied by guide dogs.

I've noticed that no Muslim businesses have been targeted in this manner. Why don't they attempt to force a Muslim business to participate in a gay wedding, for example? Note that in the Middle East, with the equally-notable exception of Israel, killing/stoning to death of gays is common practice.

The other side of the coin, however, is work-to-order. Should a muslim/xtian/jew photographer experience legal troubles in advertising "I choose what work I will take on"?

IMHO, no, they should not. However Christian photographers for hire have found themselves in legal trouble for refusing to take on photography jobs for gay weddings. Should a gay-owned/run photography business be forced to take on work from the Westboro Baptist Church?

It seems many here want the knife to only cut one way.

Strat

Comment Re:Let them sell cake (Score 1) 886

A sole proprietorship is a business...

Then they shouldn't get the tax relaxations that businesses get.

Income to sole proprietorships is treated as individual income, no different than any working stiff, for tax purposes. They pay individual income tax rates.

The government classifies and treats them as private citizens. Why don't they have the same religious freedom to not participate in another private individual's religious ceremonies/activities/practices as a private citizen does?.

Should a Muslim who operates a shop be compelled against his religious beliefs to participate in another religion's religious ceremonies/activities/practices that conflict with and violate their own religious beliefs?

This road does not end in a good place. For anyone of any beliefs, or even of no beliefs.

Strat

Comment Re:In Other News (Score 1) 188

House Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) caught up in gay sex scandal according to anonymous government sources.

Future Testimony, House of Representatives-Government Oversight Committee

"I don't know, maybe some rogue extremist US intelligence operatives were taking a Predator out for a stroll one night and decided to fire a couple Hellfires at some US Representatives they disagreed with!

What, at this point, does it matter?"

Strat

Comment Re:Randian Dumbfuckery (Score 1) 318

"The Government prevented competition".

But why? Because their corporate masters didn't want competition. ( and the voting public isn't paying enough attention )
Why do they have corporate masters? Because we allow corporations influence in the political arena, through campaign contributions.
Why do we allow corporations to make campaign contributions? Because the camel's nose got under the tent with the "corporations are people", and the line keeps getting pushed a bit further over time.

"Corporations are people" has zero to do with it. That SCOTUS ruling did not exist in the 1930s (as your example started with H. Hoover). Government is corrupt because it's made up of corruptible humans. And guess what? The more power and control over more things you give them, the more corrupt they will become.

Government is a necessary evil, and is a dangerous and deadly entity that can easily spin out of control if not tightly reined-in and allowed only the very minimum amount of power and resources to do what we decide to have done.

"regulatory capture"

The mechanism is above.

Which I already debunked above. Regarding the "corporations are people" meme, that's hogwash as well. It tells me you have no clue what the case was actually about. People have a right to organize, pool their resources, and buy advertising, etc and promote their views. People do not give up their right to participate in elections by being part of an organization like a corporation or PAC.

"blind trust"

There should not be blind trust in government. Or in anything.

Except that your statements regarding your views reflects the opposite. The cognitive dissonance is startling.

"Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce."

Do you see that Conservatism generates just as much police state?

No. I see Progressives who claim to be conservatives/Republicans. Heck, even a so-called "conservative" like John McCain has proudly stated he was a "Progressive" Republican. RINOs.

Herbert Hoover ( FBI surveillance ).

Sorry, that was J. Edgar Hoover, who was initially put in place by President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat and vocal Progressive who also racially segregated the military which had not been officially segregated prior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

Immediately after getting his LL.M degree, Hoover was hired by the Justice Department to work in the War Emergency Division. He soon became the head of the Division's Alien Enemy Bureau, authorized by President Wilson at the beginning of World War I to arrest and jail disloyal foreigners without trial.[12] He received additional authority from the 1917 Espionage Act. Out of a list of 1,400 suspicious Germans living in the U.S., the Bureau arrested 98 and designated 1,172 as arrestable.[18]

In August 1919 Hoover became head of the Bureau of Investigation's new General Intelligence Divisionâ"also known as the Radical Division because its goal was to monitor and disrupt the work of domestic radicals.

Nixon ( watergate )

Except the Watergate "Plumbers" were election campaign operatives, not members of the FBI or other TLA.

McCarthy ( I should not need to explain )

McCarthy was destroyed because he overreached, not because he was wrong. There were and are communists in the US government. Alger Hiss and others are examples.

Bush II ( Patriot act )

Another Progressive Republican. Progressives have completely subsumed the Democratic Party and have almost done the same to the Republican Party.

Why do you think that nothing much changes no matter if the (R)s or the (D)s are in power? Progressives in both Parties is why.

Strat

Comment Re:Randian Dumbfuckery (Score 1) 318

The FCC also heavily regulated the telecom industry. We had no innovation for decades

We also had no competition for decades. It had nothing to do with regulation, it was because Ma Bell was the only game in town (FSVO "town" approaching "manifest destiny").

Gee, how was Ma Bell able to maintain a monopoly and keep anyone else from competing?

Oh, that's right! The FUCKING GOVERNMENT prevented competition!

And yes, there *will* be regulatory capture. Shit, practically every federal regulatory agency/dept./bureau suffers from it!

I've got a morbid curiosity to see just how the government through it's short-sightedness and desire to monitor everyone/everything causes an internet 'Deep Horizon'-scale disaster.

"You like your internet anonymity, you can keep your internet anonymity!"

You know it's coming.

And you know what?

It's just this kind of blind trust that government will make everything better you display that will help complete the transformation of the US into a soft-fascism surveillance/police state.

Strat

Comment Re:The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (Score 1) 417

This solution has been brought to you by the book, "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. In the book it takes place on the moon, so water is even more difficult to get, but the solutions are essentially the same.

You mean we should drop multi-ton cannisters of (water? almonds?) on Sacramento at orbital speeds resulting in kinetic energy releases rivaling nuclear weapons?

Probably the best thing that could happen to California at this point.

Strat

Comment Re:Climate Engineering (Score 1) 573

Present day economists...

Who are the same school of economists that didn't see the either the 1930s Depression or the current US economic crisis coming.

...do not agree on any such thing, unless you only follow a very specific school of economists and dismiss everyone else.

Yeah, the school of economics and economists that was correctly screaming warnings both times and were ignored and/or attacked/destroyed by those economically/politically/ideologically invested in the status quo and their economic/political/ideological fellow-travelers.

Strat

Comment Re:They're from the government and they're gonna h (Score 1) 130

Call me crazy, but I'd much rather trust corporations than government. Corporations have to answer to shareholders, and to a lesser extent, their customers

If there were real competition in residential Internet service, those corporations would have to answer to their customers. With the local duopolies, they only have to answer to their shareholders.

So, yes, you are crazy.

And guess who created and who maintains those monopolies with their own monopoly on the use of deadly force and/or imprisonment?

Better have that sanity-checker of yours recalibrated.

Strat

Government

To Avoid NSA Interception, Cisco Will Ship To Decoy Addresses 296

An anonymous reader writes with this news snipped from The Register: Cisco will ship boxes to vacant addresses in a bid to foil the NSA, security chief John Stewart says. The dead drop shipments help to foil a Snowden-revealed operation whereby the NSA would intercept networking kit and install backdoors before boxen reached customers. The interception campaign was revealed last May. Speaking at a Cisco Live press panel in Melbourne today, Stewart says the Borg will ship to fake identities for its most sensitive customers, in the hope that the NSA's interceptions are targeted. 'We ship [boxes] to an address that has nothing to do with the customer, and then you have no idea who, ultimately, it is going to,' Stewart says.
Transportation

Uber Shut Down In Multiple Countries Following Raids 366

wired_parrot (768394) writes "Worldwide raids were carried out against Uber offices in Germany, France and South Korea. In Germany, the raids followed a court ruling banning Uber from operating without a license. In Paris, raids followed an investigation into deceptive practices. And in South Korea, 30 people, including Uber's CEO, were charged with running an illegal taxi service."

Comment Easy To Enforce A Bitcoin Ban In CA (Score 1) 224

Just mandate that any/all electronic devices capable of mining or transferring Bitcoins be licensed & registered, with regular inspections and tamper-evident seals on the case/housing of the devices, and California-approved software installed to monitor and report any Bitcoin mining or transfers.

As a bonus, California can also use the inspections and monitoring software to detect and prevent all manner of criminal acts.

See? Easy! /s

Strat

Comment Re:Regulation (Score 1) 367

Bullets. Guns aren't worth much if there isn't ammunition, and ammunition has been getting very expensive. Plus, most bullets don't last forever, intentionally. This way you can start shutting down suppliers and really make shooting impractical. You'll be stuck with muskets if you can still buy the gun powder. I'm just waiting for battery technology to reach the point that we can have usable homemade gauss rifles.

Oh goody!

Then we can have the government try to regulate "'weapons-grade' batteries and similar energy storage devices".

I can almost hear the sound-bites; You can't sell that #DEVICE (phone, tablet, whatever) with a battery that lasts more than X-hours, as it could be turned into a weapon! Every one of those #DEVICEs on the streets is a potential dead cop!

And so in 10 years, even though battery tech is certain to make large leaps, we would still need to charge our mobile devices daily.

I don't think many in government and the powerful will be satisfied until electricity and ferrous metals/alloys are heavily restricted and regulated and/or considered as contraband, and the masses are reduced to Bronze Age tech & weapons for the most part while the powerful elites enjoy modern tech in "gated communities" taken to extreme.

Strat

Comment Re:But can it protect users against the Stingray? (Score 1) 59

If the Stingray is a threat to you, then I hope you're convicted of the criminal activities that make it so.

'Criminal activities that make it so' like civil rights protests and political demonstrations and gatherings?

You must share the government's views on what it would like to consider 'criminal' (basically anything it doesn't like, makes it look bad, limits government power, or interferes with the ability to confiscate and redistribute wealth as it sees fit).

Strat

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