you mean you're a hopeless idealist who think things have to be perfect?

i'm glad you agree we need to get rid of corruption

but i'm mystified how you think the country's obvious success has nothing to do with democracy, however imperfectly implemented

i've been commenting on slashdot for years. there's always this steady drip of comments from grammar (punctuation?) nazis like yourself. do you see me changing or caring?

if you don't like the formatting of my comment, don't read it. i don't owe you anything. you're not paying me

this is an informal comment board, not a doctoral thesis. get over yourself

yes, exactly

and that's exactly the next step with a weakened government: corporation owned armies abusing you with no recourse for your rights

oh, i'm making that up? it's science fiction?

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

By the early 1890s, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency employed more agents than there were members of the standing army of the United States of America.

During the labor strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businessmen hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate unions, supply guards, keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, as well as recruiting goon squads to intimidate workers. One such confrontation was the Homestead Strike of 1892, in which Pinkerton agents were called in to reinforce the strikebreaking measures of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie.[citation needed] The ensuing battle between Pinkerton agents and striking workers led to the deaths of seven Pinkerton agents and nine steelworkers.[4] The Pinkertons were also used as guards in coal, iron, and lumber disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia as well as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. The organization was pejoratively called the "Pinks" by its opponents.

now remember dick cheney and his adventure with blackwater

weaken the government and blackwater expands exponentially, and corporate goons are now stepping on your throat: "get back to work slave, i mean citizen. if you have a problem with our enforcement activities, please see the corporation owned courts, or attempt to fight our legion of well-funded lawyers when you can barely get enough to eat, because we've let 'the market decide' your salary"

you look around the world at kleptocracies, warlords, mafias... you really fucking believe government has a monopoly on force?

if there is no government army, it's not suddenly peace and happiness, it's fucking hell

where do you morons come from with your bullshit unexamined beliefs?

What "leading climate researchers" said this? Citations needed. Did you hear this on Fox News, or are you just making it up?

Rising CO2 levels and climate change are politically controversial only because the fossil carbon industry hired a bunch of PR firms to sow public doubt. Who needs science, when industry PR is gospel?

Nope. But a truly collective effort is done by everyone, even people who would rather not.

Nope. Just because something is worthwhile doing as a collective effort, doesn't mean that people will volunteer their own resources for the benefit of others. Would you spend your own money to repair a decrepit public bridge, or even a simple pothole?

Proof positive that what I say is true -- people want more stuff but don't want to pay for it, and they direct their politicians such. You were just advocating that people volunteer contributions for everyone else's benefit rather than force everyone to contribute; now you're complaining that you have to contribute to pay off the debt your parents accumulated. Turns out most people don't like others taking advantage of them.

Wonder what would happen if debt and its interest payments had to be paid off by the people on who's behalf the money was spent?

Obviously, did you expect that people are stupid? I support higher taxes (and more services), but I'm not willing to volunteer that money if other people won't. A collective effort is nearly worthless if it is just a couple people. Some things may be worth doing as a volunteer, other things it is best to insist be done as a collective. And in no case would I give that money to some sleazy looking guy outside a store.

we have competing ambulance services here in the usa too

but they will take you to a further away hospital they have financial agreements with (fuck your actual health emergency)

and if you don't have insurance you get a life destroying huge bill (because health insurance is a "choice")

agreed (with the european part, fuck your grammar demands)

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

you really can't conceive of the simple obvious fact that running all that fiber is fucking expensive?

oh, EUR, euro

you guys understand the concept of a natural monopoly so much better than americans

in the usa we believe letting a rent seeking parasite siphon more money for shoddier service, and buying off our government to keep the arrangement, such as with healthcare, is "capitalism." and anyone who suggests dealing with natural monopolies as they should be dealt with: government control or heavily regulated, as you describe, is "evil socialism"

propagandized morons

Easy to say, when you don't have to choose between doing what you love for a morally dubious master vs getting a crap job. And it's not even as if most of the results couldn't be used just as well for good as for evil.

additionally, no one wants their roads constantly dug up by various companies all the time, or the poles by their house an ugly rats nest of various cables

better: one cable, fractionally leased

as tech improves and one cable means much more bandwidth, government progressively upgrades the single cable, and has more bandwidth to lease

i see that as a half measure but i still approve, it is an improvement over the status quo elsewhere. how expensive is your cable bill?