I'm sure a $2K flight ticket really influenced everyone involved this deal when there was $16B at stake.

I see I pissed off someone who likes shit pizza.

I was going to say they just re-invented Pizza Hut pizza, but then I saw the part about it being edible. At least they don't have to worry about Pizza Hut suing for patent infringement.

They're not. Libertarians don't like Conservative Christians' religious infringement on freedom to do anything, and Conservative Christians wished Libertarians shared their desires for a Christian theocracy. Both camps tolerate each other because they both hate liberals and think all the world's problems are due to liberals.

They're one of the extreme right wings. Don't forget Conservative Christians.

What rules don't they play by? It's well known the USPS financial situation is caused by the pension funding madness hoisted on them. Private companies are great for performing well-defined jobs like hauling payloads into space, figuring out the makeup of a galaxy a few gazillion light years away, not so much.

You're so right, well, except for issues like wages, the environment, foreign policy, social programs, separation of church and state, education, taxation, gun rights, and abortion in which they're polar opposites. So, actually, the only thing they're the same on is surveillance.

Slashdot, will the beta site still support the $rtbl, that flag that you fucked me and several others over with years ago when you didn't like how the community moderated a particular comment?

The only reason it often sounds left wing to non-listeners is because conservative media won't spend 20 minutes exhaustively covering a subject like a frog species in South America or the history of the AK-47 (and not once mention school shootings or gun control). To compare it to MSNBC is laughable. MSNBC is just an inept left wing copy of Fox News. You clearly haven't listened to NPR to any extent if you think it sounds like MSNBC.

But again, this was very much a function of the state of technology and the limitations of travel and communications at the time. The feedback cycle today can be instantaneous, across the country. And while state representatives live closer to those they represent, that's not a function of state power. Members of Congress live near those they represent. We could have no recognition of states or any state governments and still have federal government representatives distributed across the US, representing people.

State and local government does lend itself to backwardness, which is probably why conservatives gravitate to it. The founders should be admired for the country they created, however if you brought them back today they wouldn't know what a computer is, what a semi automatic weapon was and why somebody shot up a movie theater with one, why all the homosexuals aren't in prison, and why there are so many free slaves walking around.

Fair enough. There are extremists in every camp that don't represent the mainstream. What public figures and politicians are an accurate representation of what is considered mainstream libertarian thought?

If they would stop there, it would be great. It's when they get into the libertarian utopia stuff where there are no regulations and corporations can do no wrong is that things go off the rails rather quickly.

I've always been puzzled when people say what the "Founders intended". The Founders lived in a time when it took days to get from one populated area to another, on horseback. They were wealthy land owners upset with being pushed around by a monarchy thousands of miles away. They did a fine job in creating a new country, but they created it for the times they were in and the technology they had. There's nothing sacred about the laws or structure they enacted. Undoubtedly some of the motivation behind a structure with states having power was due to the realities of a sparsely populated country and frontier, and recent bad experiences with a monarchy. There's certainly nothing magical about state and local government. Both can be just as wasteful and abusive as federal government, especially, as we've seen, when it comes to personal liberties and civil rights.

Jeans and a shirt is a good analogy. It's comfortable and it just works. I'm almost middle aged and I wear jeans and a shirt because that's what I've always worn outside of work, not to look young and cool. It's basically the same reason I use an iPhone. It just works, reliably. It seems the Android guys are continually worried about OS upgrades, shiny new phone models, and what Apple is or isn't doing. iPhone users meanwhile are just using their phones.