To be fair, it's not so different from the way we operate in every other situation.
e.g. championing free and fair elections and decrying other people's failures while passing a seemingly endless stream of poll-tax-esque disenfranchisement legislation here at home, in the name of combating voter fraud problems we've never actually seen manifest.
or decrying the "crony capitalism" of Taiwan and then China, while regulatory capture leaves us looking just as bad.
or decrying the income inequality in banana republics as evidence of corruption and social injustice, while deregulating and tax-cutting our way to the top of that list.
I find it interesting that line three of your post decries regulatory capture, while line four decries deregulation. I think it points to how much of a problem we actually have - we don't want complete deregulation, but the regulations we do end up getting often end up just making it worse. It's pretty disheartening.
Point three is very much about deregulation in industries enjoying regulatory capture.
Wall Street is quick to decry regulations that bar it from doing what it wants. But it's just as quick to protect those regulations that keep competitors out. The regulatory problem really is just one of capture.
"Business-crippling regulations" are up there with Reagan's Welfare Queen, Ohio's voter fraud and Tax Cuts' job-creating stimulus credentials. That is: long accepted as political fact despite a complete lack of evidence of their existence and a continually growing pile of evidence against.
I'm not dogmatic about these kinds of things - I will support anything that has a strong body of evidence supporting it (with the caveat that rights don't get violated). Regulations are not sacrosanct - there are bad ones and good ones, and sometimes deregulation kills the bad ones, in which case it should be supported. Sometimes it's just regulatory capture in action, as you said, in which case it needs to be stopped.
It's sad, but members of an industry are usually the most qualified people to be in a regulatory agency for that industry. Their expertise makes them good for the job, but the conflict of interest is easy to see. The solution is not.
You forgot torture, executing people with out trial, executing minors and the mentally retarded, holding political prisoners, and using the military against the populace.
I hope you do not exclude the US from these. You know...
* Torture -> Guantanamo and other similar (worse) bases all over the world
* executing people with out trial -> police officers firing at will or over-using tazers to drunk people until they die (not to mention that carrying a gun is legal for civilians too).
* executing minors and the mentally retarded -> no health care for poor people who can't afford it, maybe they should be executed
* using the military against the populace -> firing chemicals, flash grenades and plastic bullets at OWS protesters
* holding political prisoners -> or just capturing them on behalf of their government and then just handing them over
"executing minors and the mentally retarded -> no health care for poor people who can't afford it, maybe they should be executed"
I'm not necessarily against "health care for all", but those two things are not at all the same
If society does not decide to levy taxes in order to provide health care for some people, it is not at all the same as deliberately killing those people. Not at all. Please don't use such extreme rhetoric.
Reminds me of the quote by Orwell:
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side.
I hope they realize how damaging their own in house legislature like SOPA is damaging to their international efforts. They already look a bit more suspect with SOPA on the table and were it ever to pass they'd have the credibility of China.
Yes. The hypocrisy has me questioning her authenticity. Has she had a change of heart or is she just playing a game to increase popularity and gain votes?
She made this exact same speech before wikileaks (January 2010) [1]. She's making this exact same speech after wikileaks. The hymn sheet doesn't change. [2] By standing up and demanding that other countries behave morally she suggests that we make this demand because we do. Do you think Pinochet did not stand and make these same speeches? Or Hu Jintao? Or Saddam Hussein? Or Thatcher? Or Assad?
Are you imagining she would stand up and tell the truth? Have you been paying attention? If you were to ask her, would she say that flying military aircraft into our airspace would be an act of war, even as we fly ours into Iran's? The list is endless.
Of course not. SOPA is common-sense legislation designed to protect the creative people in our society. It has nothing to do with Internet restrictions or censorship.
</sarcasm>
Great news, I guess this means that Wikileaks will be free to receive donations and disseminate news of interest to citizens.
At least now we know the real reasons the US wants to restrict internet access, it's not copyright as we had long suspected but to "threaten basic freedoms and human rights and also international commerce and the free flow of information."
"THE HAGUE — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other international leaders urged countries and private businesses on Thursday to fight increasing efforts to restrict access to the Internet by repressive governments and even some democratic ones. "
Some democratic ones.... like the United States and Australia, right?
(cough cough SOPA cough cough DHS cough)
Yes sir, freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable search, and "innocent until proven guilty", that's how we do it in the Land of the Free.