Re: Give cheese to france?
On Sat, Mar 15, 2003 at 01:44:46PM +, Ken Brown wrote: Harmon Seaver wrote: Ah yes, forgot about that -- the fancy condo right smack in the downtown historic district used to be a while city block of historic buildings people wanted to save, and, in fact, there were developers with money who wanted to restore them, but the city, for some reason no one could figure out, condemned them, took the whole block with eminent domain, then razed the whole thing -- with no plan whatsoever in mind for what would replace it. Or so it seemed. Then they sold the whole block to this other developer for one dollar, and gave him a ton of TIF to build a big, very modern, condo which doesn't even remotely jive with the rest of the area. This same city council approved a zone change from church/residential to business with no knowledge, supposedly, of what or who the purchaser of the property would be -- the church said it had to be kept secret. Turns out it's a new Super Wallmart. Isn't it great the way fascism works? That's not fascism - that's old-fashioned public officials acting in their own interests. No, that's fascism -- fascism is the corporate welfare state, the military/industrial complex, prison/industrial complex, etc. And this is how it works on a smaller, more local scale. The first answer to it is democracy. Vote the buggers out. Impossible to do here, they're got a crooked little system set up with no accountability. They changed it decades ago from a ward system to a common council -- meaning that all the council is elected at large, everyone in the city votes for all 6 council members, there's no ward representation at all. This then means that the candidates with the most money win. A lot of people have spent a whole lot of time and effort to get decent people elected, but all that happens is that we end up with one or two good people on the council who are not only outvoted on every issue, but are also constantly browbeaten and humiliated to the point that they don't run again. It's pretty much hopeless. Probably the only way to change it at this point would be a court action on the grounds that it's an unconstitutional form of government -- which it clearly is, think how it would play out if the state legislature or US congress was elected at large. At any rate, unless some civic minded attorney decides to do it out of the goodness of his heart, it won't change, people here are too discouraged to bother trying anymore. The second is resistance. see above The third (not yet tried) is open government. Government should not be allowed to keep secrets from citizens, and the words commercial in confidence on a contract signed by government should invalidate it. Local governments are people we employ to fix the drains and clean the streets and make sure he schools stay open. No reason we should tolerate them doing deals behind our backs. Where is this happening? -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: Give cheese to france?
Harmon Seaver wrote: Ah yes, forgot about that -- the fancy condo right smack in the downtown historic district used to be a while city block of historic buildings people wanted to save, and, in fact, there were developers with money who wanted to restore them, but the city, for some reason no one could figure out, condemned them, took the whole block with eminent domain, then razed the whole thing -- with no plan whatsoever in mind for what would replace it. Or so it seemed. Then they sold the whole block to this other developer for one dollar, and gave him a ton of TIF to build a big, very modern, condo which doesn't even remotely jive with the rest of the area. This same city council approved a zone change from church/residential to business with no knowledge, supposedly, of what or who the purchaser of the property would be -- the church said it had to be kept secret. Turns out it's a new Super Wallmart. Isn't it great the way fascism works? That's not fascism - that's old-fashioned public officials acting in their own interests. The first answer to it is democracy. Vote the buggers out. The second is resistance. The third (not yet tried) is open government. Government should not be allowed to keep secrets from citizens, and the words commercial in confidence on a contract signed by government should invalidate it. Local governments are people we employ to fix the drains and clean the streets and make sure he schools stay open. No reason we should tolerate them doing deals behind our backs.
Re: Give cheese to france?
At 09:44 AM 03/14/2003 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: Marx was primarily an economist, and a lot of what he had to say bore listening to. I had to read that twice, because my reaction to reading Das Kapital was that it was not only spectacularly boring, but spectacularly clueless as well. The Labor Theory of Value has some glimmer of a clue behind it, but the value of something is the value to the user, though the seller's cost curves will be influenced by the labor that went into it.
Re: Give cheese to france?
James Donald wrote... On 11 Mar 2003 at 9:35, Tyler Durden wrote: Does it mean that such observations are invalid just because Marx predicted them? Actually, I didn't write that, though I quoted it. Marx was both untruthful, and spectacularly in error. Marx was primarily an economist, and a lot of what he had to say bore listening to. And there's a core there that I believe is probably correct. For instance, despite your examples, there are industries where consolidation is occuring, and in ways that closely resemble what Marx predicted. A good example is the silicon chip industry. How many top-line fabs still exist (ie, capable of 0.38um and below)? The cost of such fabs is now in the billions, so there are only a few companies that can afford it. Amongst piles of other things, Marx predicted exactly this. (Again, however, this doesn't mean I find Marx's predictions all that appealing, nor is communism-as-it-has-existed any system I'd want to live under again.) If commies actually believed what they said, if they still believed the prophecies, then they would still be working at labor organization, rather than at conspiracy. Well, here's where your rant sideswipes reality at its closest. Today's Marxists definitely seem, by and large, to be more interested in ideology and banner-waving than in helping, say, Haitian workers receive a living wage. When the commies of the world start drop-shipping rifles to striking miners in Bangladesh, then I'll be interested. Ever since Lenin, a core principle of communism has been to know the truth, and to lie about it. Pooey. Here's where you seem distinctly skewed in your thinking by the Soviets. The Chinese communists have a much more interesting history, The lying probably doesn't really get going in China until about 1960 or so. The Chinese communists (particularly prior to 1949) were an absolutely necessary force in China from the 1920s until the mid 50s. (And this is probably not because they were communist per se, but more that the Chinese communists represented an imminently Chinese clustering of ideals and pooled resources in reaction to a murderous occupation by the Japanese and collusion by Chiang Kai Shek.) The point is, Chinese communism didn't have lies as a core principal. The lies came much later. -TD _ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Re: Give cheese to france?
The difference between private property owners doing this, and the governemnt doing this is that 100% of private property owners are NOT going to agree on anything. This presumes the existence of significant amount of (at least potentially) competing private owners - then it is valid argument. However, there is the growing trend of mergers and consolidations, producing megacorporations and limiting the number of said owners. Some corporate entities have more money than many smaller countries. So said 100% of owners can easily be both owners of the megastore chains within 50 miles near you. Where you will go then, if smaller local shops were long ago erradicated by said stores (see eg. Walmart strategy)? The 100% assumption presupposes that the capitalists are like the state, a single entity with a single will, in which case it is obvious that simply replacing the will of the capitalists with the will of the people would be a vast improvement, rather than slavery terror and mass murder. It doesn't have to be 100.00%; significant amount is enough to cause rather large-scale inconvenience. This is especially dangerous in areas with high barrier to entry, preventing easy operative formation of new competing subjects. Forming of artificial barriers to entry - closed standards, firewalling of critical technologies with patents, etc. - is another dangerous trend; for many small subjects, interoperability is beneficial, while for one or a handful of big! subjects lack of interoperability (at least without paying obscene fees and signing NDAs) is a neat tool to squeeze the potential competition out of the market.
Re: Give cheese to france?
Tyler Durden wrote: Actually, I am dimly aware of this. From the little I've been able to glean, there is a very slow, steady progress in the 'science' of economics/econometrics. By the way, one piece of evidence that economics is maturing into a real science is that it is becoming usable by engineers; in particular, it has been applied to investment analysis and portfolio theory, resulting in significant improvements in investment performance.
Re: Give cheese to france?
At 10:19 PM -0600 on 3/9/03, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote: By the way, one piece of evidence that economics is maturing into a real science is that it is becoming usable by engineers; Well, finance, anyway, where it is possible to calculate some risk. You can't calculate prices, though. You discover them. Most economics is still about top-down design these days, and, as such, is hogwash. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Give cheese to france?
Comie fantasy. That theory is Marx's monopoly capitalism. Commies have been loudly announcing Marx's prophecies to be coming true, even though after 1910 they no longer took the prophecies seriously themselves. Open your eyes and look around yourself. Take any bigger, established market - news, radio, TV stations, retail chains are the first examples coming to my mind - take its top 80-90%, and count the number of players there. Do the same with the situation 10, 20, and 30 years ago. You will see the number of players is dramatically diminishing. The news announcements of high-profile mergers and acquisitions can be another clue for you. Does it mean that such observations are invalid just because Marx predicted them?
Re: Give cheese to france?
R. A. Hettinga wrote: By the way, one piece of evidence that economics is maturing into a real science is that it is becoming usable by engineers; Well, finance, anyway, where it is possible to calculate some risk. You can't calculate prices, though. You discover them. For commodities, if you could somehow discover the demand and supply curves and predict how they were going to move, you could in fact calculate what prices were going to be. The problem is that you can only observe exactly one point on the demand or supply curve -- where it crosses the other curve. You can't observe any other point until at least one of the two curves moves. It's conceivable (although I'm not aware of anyone even attempting this) that if you had some (perhaps probabilistic) model for both curves as a function of some exogenous variables, that you might get some useful predictive information about prices.
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Monday, March 10, 2003, at 07:55 PM, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote: R. A. Hettinga wrote: By the way, one piece of evidence that economics is maturing into a real science is that it is becoming usable by engineers; Well, finance, anyway, where it is possible to calculate some risk. You can't calculate prices, though. You discover them. For commodities, if you could somehow discover the demand and supply curves and predict how they were going to move, you could in fact calculate what prices were going to be. The problem is that you can only observe exactly one point on the demand or supply curve -- where it crosses the other curve. You can't observe any other point until at least one of the two curves moves. It's conceivable (although I'm not aware of anyone even attempting this) that if you had some (perhaps probabilistic) model for both curves as a function of some exogenous variables, that you might get some useful predictive information about prices. All markets involve versions of supply and demand curves. However, predicting the future of market prices is notoriously difficult. The problem is caused by a lot more than inability to see more than just the one point where the two curves intersect...that's just a statement of the market clearing price. Whether the price of GE stock, for example, may go up next week, or down, or follows a shape described after the fact by some complex equation is unknown for a LOT of reasons. (Friends of mine operate a medium-sized hedge fund, using as much knowledge as they can gather from tens of thousands of market values per day, using a whole panoply of buzzword math technologies (support vector machines, neural nets, Bayesian networks, agents, blah blah). They spent time with Doyne Farmer, formerly of Prediction and now at the Santa Fe Insitute. And yet they are only trying to gain a slight edge.) Commodity prices are close enough to being like stock prices that the prediction problems are comparable. (And predicting commodity prices is a popular regime for trying these techniques.) --Tim May
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Sat, Mar 08, 2003 at 02:44:44AM +0100, Anonymous wrote: But let's cut to the chase. Assume that all private grocery store owners want to exclude people from their stores. Now assume that 100% of them agree that effective Tuesday, only those people who have a receipt for a $100 or more donation to George W Bush (or Hillary Clinton, whatever) may enter their property to shop for groceries. Their right? Why not? Let me take your hypothetical and move it closer to home.* I take photographs and occasionally license them or sell prints. I post some general terms on my website: http://www.mccullagh.org/cgi-bin/photodownload.cgi?name=licensing-conditions Yes, I have the right to license (sell) my photos only to Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, or socialist Eurotrash, as Tim might call them. And these same folks have the right to shop elsewhere if they conclude my terms are onerous or objectionable. In fact, I've declined to do business with the Disclosure Project, a we've-seen-UFOs type of group, because I didn't want to support their cause. (http://www.mccullagh.org/theme/disclosure-project-ufo-may01.html) Many newspapers and magazines will choose not to do business with people who want to use their photographs for derogatory purposes. (http://www.politechbot.com/p-03181.html) And so on. This is a Good Thing. It's called voluntary transactions, and it's part of living in a free society. -Declan * Yes, all this assumes that intellectual property laws exist, but the arguments are true in general. I chose to switch the hypothetical since yours about grocery stores muddles things -- I can imagine complaints that somehow that should be different, as if people would starve without giving $$$ to Hillary.
Re: Give cheese to france?
-- James A. Donald: The difference between private property owners doing this, and the governemnt doing this is that 100% of private property owners are NOT going to agree on anything. On 9 Mar 2003 at 8:36, Thomas Shaddack wrote: This presumes the existence of significant amount of (at least potentially) competing private owners - then it is valid argument. However, there is the growing trend of mergers and consolidations, producing megacorporations and limiting the number of said owners. Comie fantasy. That theory is Marx's monopoly capitalism. Commies have been loudly announcing Marx's prophecies to be coming true, even though after 1910 they no longer took the prophecies seriously themselves. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG pn7EKC9aBTqrOyM4bzwtwFZtOdqAOmXvvbLxZrlA 4YfWL2n2mbdOvyx1+q5PrE3PPyZbwP/aYDT7In7J4
Re: Give cheese to france?
At 07:04 AM 3/11/03 +0100, Thomas Shaddack wrote: Comie fantasy. That theory is Marx's monopoly capitalism. Commies have been loudly announcing Marx's prophecies to be coming true, even though after 1910 they no longer took the prophecies seriously themselves. Open your eyes and look around yourself. Take any bigger, established market - news, radio, TV stations, retail chains are the first examples coming to my mind - take its top 80-90%, and count the number of players there. Do the same with the situation 10, 20, and 30 years ago. Actually there are a lot more heavy-duty news channels (FWIW) now than when there were 3 US broadcasters. But more importantly, there are optimal sizes for an organism (company) in a given environment. Buying things in bulk is cheaper, for instance; and some costs are amortized more widely. Its just physics/economics. For an animal, its things like heat loss vs. size, available calories, predation that influence optimal size. The merging of N companies into 1 can be more productive (efficient) than maintaining N companies. Its a simple fact. You might regret it or embrace it, depending on which side of the cash register you're on. (Ma and pa shops vs. Walmart: Ma und pa's perspective differs from the customer who evidently prefers Walmart) You will see the number of players is dramatically diminishing. The news announcements of high-profile mergers and acquisitions can be another clue for you. The dot-com bomb (and other tech/social 'bubbles') can be thought of as one of the paleobio radiation / contraction events in geological history. When things are good, plenty of plans are tried out. A few asteroids later, you are left with pruned innovation. NASDAQ's IPOs and delistings are the Burgess Shale of tech. (Modulo some irrational exuberance :-)
Re: Give cheese to france?
Does it mean that such observations are invalid just because Marx predicted them? Good point. And also, just because someone points out that it looks like Marx's predictions may be coming true, it doesn't mean that that person believes this is desirable. -TD From: Thomas Shaddack [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Give cheese to france? Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 07:04:11 +0100 (CET) Comie fantasy. That theory is Marx's monopoly capitalism. Commies have been loudly announcing Marx's prophecies to be coming true, even though after 1910 they no longer took the prophecies seriously themselves. Open your eyes and look around yourself. Take any bigger, established market - news, radio, TV stations, retail chains are the first examples coming to my mind - take its top 80-90%, and count the number of players there. Do the same with the situation 10, 20, and 30 years ago. You will see the number of players is dramatically diminishing. The news announcements of high-profile mergers and acquisitions can be another clue for you. Does it mean that such observations are invalid just because Marx predicted them? _ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Sat, 08 Mar 2003 09:00:48 -0800, you wrote: -- On 8 Mar 2003 at 2:44, Anonymous wrote: But let's cut to the chase. Assume that all private grocery store owners want to exclude people from their stores. Now assume that 100% of them agree that effective Tuesday, only those people who have a receipt for a $100 or more donation to George W Bush (or Hillary Clinton, whatever) may enter their property to shop for groceries. The difference between private property owners doing this, and the governemnt doing this is that 100% of private property owners are NOT going to agree on anything. The 100% assumption presupposes that the capitalists are like the state, a single entity with a single will, in which case it is obvious that simply replacing the will of the capitalists with the will of the people would be a vast improvement, rather than slavery terror and mass murder. You are exactly right! Now comes the question: If the mall has the right, but can't join with all malls to solidify the uniformity of the prohibition, then a property right will be interfered with, either the right of one mall to prohibit, or the right of malls to agree to prohibit. Else the power of monopoly (all malls unified) has part of the effect of the government's monopoly.
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 11:20:39AM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: First of all, stating one perhaps should have the right to wear whatever T-shirt you want in a mall The better way to frame the question: May a private property owner legally exclude people from it? Seems to me the answer should be, as a general rule, yes. -Declan
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 07:44:44PM -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: On Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 11:20:39AM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: First of all, stating one perhaps should have the right to wear whatever T-shirt you want in a mall The better way to frame the question: May a private property owner legally exclude people from it? Seems to me the answer should be, as a general rule, yes. Absolutely yes, except for the fact that malls have invited the public in, so once you've done that, it's pretty hard to exclude some portion of it. Plus the whole other issue of whether the malls aren't partially owned by the public. If they've used eminent domain and TIF money, they're not privately owned, at least until they finish paying it off. And from a moral standpoint, if they did indeed use eminent domain to take property from private owners, they don't have any basis for complaining about anything. It would probably be best for society as a whole if the corporate execs involved in such activities were taken out and lynched. There's also the issue of corporations not having any civil rights in the first place, so I'm not even sure they really have, or should have, property rights, in the same way that individuals do. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: Give cheese to france?
Harmon Seaver wrote: The better way to frame the question: May a private property owner legally exclude people from it? Seems to me the answer should be, as a general rule, yes Absolutely yes, except for the fact that malls have invited the public in, Are you saying that if I invite people to a party, I cannot then throw them off my property when and if they become abusive or offensive? so once you've done that, it's pretty hard to exclude some portion of it. No, it's not hard at all. Sir, I'll have to ask you to leave the premises. That's all it takes. Plus the whole other issue of whether the malls aren't partially owned by the public. There is no public, only individuals who sometimes, temporarily and in limited ways, work together. If they've used eminent domain then they are accomplices to armed robbery, and the property seized should be returned to its rightful owners, who may then exclude anyone they damn well please. It would probably be best for society as a whole Forget about society; only actual, individual people live, think, suffer, enjoy, have rights, etc. There's also the issue of corporations not having any civil rights in the first place Their owners certainly have property rights. These rights stem from their nature as human beings (or from God, if you are so inclined); they are not granted by nor subject to the approval of any government.
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Fri, 7 Mar 2003 19:44:44 -0500, you wrote: On Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 11:20:39AM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: First of all, stating one perhaps should have the right to wear whatever T-shirt you want in a mall The better way to frame the question: May a private property owner legally exclude people from it? Seems to me the answer should be, as a general rule, yes. -Declan Black people? Members of the Armed Forces? School teachers? Government employees? NRA members? Attorneys? (Well, OK, screw them, regardless.) But let's cut to the chase. Assume that all private grocery store owners want to exclude people from their stores. Now assume that 100% of them agree that effective Tuesday, only those people who have a receipt for a $100 or more donation to George W Bush (or Hillary Clinton, whatever) may enter their property to shop for groceries. Their right? Why not?
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Fri, 7 Mar 2003 09:15:52 -0800, you wrote: On Friday, March 7, 2003, at 06:21 AM, An Metet wrote: I've been hearing liberals bleat about the actions of the cops and mall security. Their civil rights were violated! They have free speech! The mall is a public accomodation! Property rights don't trump personal rights! These fuckards really need to learn what private property is. The Net was partly financed by taxpayers, therefore the government has the right to stop hate speech on the Net and force encryption keys to be escrowed. You are kidding, right? You actually do know, right, that if the mall was fully owned and totally operated by the state, they'd either have to prohibit all political messages on T-shirts, or none, right? Roads are paid for by the public, so searches of vehicles are permitted. Where did you get that? Did your tin foil hat fall off again? Magazines are delivered using trucks which travel on government-financed roads and over government-built bridges. This makes is legal for government to have a say in what these magazines print. That clackity clack sound is your train running off the tracks. Homeowners get various subsidies from government, therefore their houses are subject to inspection by government. No, they are subject to inspection under building codes during construction whether you get a subsidy or not. The confusion by many of the recent posters here shows why statism has taken such a foothold in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. Up the meds, Tim. --Tim May Whose motto should be So little time, so many windmills. Join the boycott against Delta Airlines for their support of the Big Brotherish CAPPS II citizen-unit tracking program. http://www.boycottdelta.org http://boycottdelta.org/images/deltaeyebanner.gif With our help, Delta Airlines may be joining United and US Air in the bankruptcy scrap heap.
Re: Give cheese to france?
-- On 8 Mar 2003 at 2:44, Anonymous wrote: But let's cut to the chase. Assume that all private grocery store owners want to exclude people from their stores. Now assume that 100% of them agree that effective Tuesday, only those people who have a receipt for a $100 or more donation to George W Bush (or Hillary Clinton, whatever) may enter their property to shop for groceries. The difference between private property owners doing this, and the governemnt doing this is that 100% of private property owners are NOT going to agree on anything. The 100% assumption presupposes that the capitalists are like the state, a single entity with a single will, in which case it is obvious that simply replacing the will of the capitalists with the will of the people would be a vast improvement, rather than slavery terror and mass murder. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG HgEdYNVKv2tU/toXy+I4n7ghSLCNWUPXGAeW1QBT 4k9jI77S/WhRm+irKmtf3wrOpbIQpPsFLWh2y5bwz
Re: Give cheese to france?
Read some of the sources. Few of you social democrats here have done so. Poo-poo on such sources. I can't believe that someone supposedly trined in physics really believes such sources to be of a huge amount of value. I know I'll take heat for the following statement (deservedly--I admit it's a huge bias), but as a physicist myself, any political or social science is for me highly suspect if it does not rely upon mathemtical expressions and can not make quantifiable predictions. And for the most part, we've never seen that. What I mean is that we can state all the political and economic theories we want, but in the end I doubt they have much relevance to reality. So I've never really gone out of my way to dig deeply into such sources. Social theories always seem quaint to me...they may have some real relevance at the time of conception, but technology (for one) takes such wild turns that many ideas which seem obvious at one point are almost useless a few years later. Like, imagine what even the most brilliant of late medieaval philosophers might have said about the future of fortifications. Many of such statements may have been insightful and correct at the time they were formulated, but they also probably could not have taken into consideration the existence and implications of gunpowder, which would wipe out the notion of a fortification (in the castle sense) just about completely. Strong crypto is one form of gunpowder from the late 20th century. And while we can gesticulate about the probable implications, in the end I doubt anything that is said now will hold much relevance to the world as it will stand 30 years from now. So right now the only really valid philosophy is coding itself, and the generation of apps and structures based on this new gunpowder (which like gunpowder can't be put back in the can). This will (along with many other technologies) change the world into something we probably can't even imagine right now. And the only people who will be seen as having been correct in any sense will be those that developed technologies that will be used in the future. What we SAY will seem quaint and irrelevant. (Hey! Where's my flying car and domestic robot?) -TD _ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
Re: Give cheese to france?
At 12:56 PM 03/06/2003 -0600, Harmon Seaver wrote: Are you sure there weren't TIFs involved in building the mall? The mall here in Oshkosh (now defunct, turned into offices) was build with city money, the newest upscale condo being built downtown is mostly TIF money, likewise the newest big low rent housing development. There's worse state involvement than that - an appalling number of malls get eminent domain support from towns to force nearby landowners to sell them the land. Costco's management recently rejected a shareholder proposal that would have forbidden Costco to use eminent domain when building new stores. But even without that, most malls are owned by corporations, which only exist because the State calls them into existence, and in return for that favor it's legitimate for the state to place arbitrary restrictions on what they can do. (That's a political assertion, not a legal assertion - from a legal standpoint, the Pruneyard decision probably supports the guys with the shirts.) Malls that are owned by private individuals or partnerships ought to be a different case, and apparently there have been some courts which have decided that Pruneyard applies to malls with public walkways outside the stores, but doesn't apply to the insides of big-box stores. The guys with the shirts were interviewed on several TV shows last night - apparently the guards approached them while they were eating in the food court, and started off by demanding that they take off the shirts or else leave. The guys with the shirts may have just been abbreviating their descriptions, but they appear to have forgotten the magic words for this sort of situation, which are Get your manager and optionally Who's the manager from the mall company? (since mall rent-a-cops are often from a rent-a-cop agency rather than direct mall employees.) One thing that came out on The O'Reilly show was that, while the rent-a-cops' behavior seems bizarre and jingoistic, apparently there's some context to it - a couple months ago, there was a group of people who did an antiwar protest inside the mall, carrying picket signs and yelling a lot, so the guards may have assumed that these guys were part of the same thing. ~ Later updates - On Wednesday, about 100 people did a protest march at the mall protesting the arrest. Mall management has asked that police drop charges.
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Thursday 06 March 2003 22:21, Tim May wrote: snip Tim's message, all of which I agree with * * Except I think he made a typo: he wrote shooing but I suspect he meant shooting. Ditto, completely. Tim, you bring the matches and I'll get the gas. (Now, when I find myself in complete agreement with Tim, is it time to adjust my meds? grin) Really, some of you statist bastards need to look at the success of societies which respect and protect private property and compare with the success of those which do not. You can measure success by almost any criteria and get the same result. You'd think that watching statist nations self-destruct for more years than most of you have been alive would provide a clue, but I guess statist bastards' rock-like skulls and flabby, underdeveloped minds are clue-proof. In the meantime, you stupid, statist bastards can keep hiding behind your remailers when you post your anti-property or anti-American screeds. You'd better --- after all, hundreds, even thousands, of protesters have been shot dead right in the street for protesting. -- Steve FurlongComputer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel Guns will get you through times of no duct tape better than duct tape will get you through times of no guns. -- Ron Kuby
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Thu, 6 Mar 2003 19:21:52 -0800, you wrote: On Thursday, March 6, 2003, at 02:11 PM, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Besides, the publicity has been great. I was told that after it made news, 150 women wearing the same T-shirts showed up at the mall. The security guards locked themselves in their offices. Probably messed their pants, too. If people didn't leave my property when told to, and the actual police would not expel them, then I would consider it morally justified to start shooing those 150 bitches. Sometimes people don't understand anything except bullets. My defense would be that it was my property, they were trespassing, and the police refused to do their job. Stupid defense, and if you found a judge stupid enough to allow it, I'd be surprised. If you proved the elements above, you are still guilty of murder. You'd be the bitch in prison over that one. No state in the US allows lethal force for trespassing. Do it the way you said and you go down for murder one. Frankly, many of you on this list really need to be doused with gasoline and then lit. Maybe YOU need them to be doused; others are unlike to think they need dousing. I'm ashamed to be on the same list with you statists and fascists. The Eurotrash nitwits are the worst. It's as if they were born in Communist countries and never shook their early training...which, come to think of it, is probably likely. Take a day off, go for a walk.
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 04:06:28PM -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: At 12:56 PM 03/06/2003 -0600, Harmon Seaver wrote: Are you sure there weren't TIFs involved in building the mall? The mall here in Oshkosh (now defunct, turned into offices) was build with city money, the newest upscale condo being built downtown is mostly TIF money, likewise the newest big low rent housing development. There's worse state involvement than that - an appalling number of malls get eminent domain support from towns to force nearby landowners to sell them the land. Costco's management recently rejected a shareholder proposal that would have forbidden Costco to use eminent domain when building new stores. Ah yes, forgot about that -- the fancy condo right smack in the downtown historic district used to be a while city block of historic buildings people wanted to save, and, in fact, there were developers with money who wanted to restore them, but the city, for some reason no one could figure out, condemned them, took the whole block with eminent domain, then razed the whole thing -- with no plan whatsoever in mind for what would replace it. Or so it seemed. Then they sold the whole block to this other developer for one dollar, and gave him a ton of TIF to build a big, very modern, condo which doesn't even remotely jive with the rest of the area. This same city council approved a zone change from church/residential to business with no knowledge, supposedly, of what or who the purchaser of the property would be -- the church said it had to be kept secret. Turns out it's a new Super Wallmart. Isn't it great the way fascism works? But even without that, most malls are owned by corporations, which only exist because the State calls them into existence, and in return for that favor it's legitimate for the state to place arbitrary restrictions on what they can do. All corporate charters should require yearly re-approval, reviewed by a board of citizens, all elected. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Thursday, March 6, 2003, at 02:11 PM, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Besides, the publicity has been great. I was told that after it made news, 150 women wearing the same T-shirts showed up at the mall. The security guards locked themselves in their offices. Probably messed their pants, too. If people didn't leave my property when told to, and the actual police would not expel them, then I would consider it morally justified to start shooing those 150 bitches. Sometimes people don't understand anything except bullets. My defense would be that it was my property, they were trespassing, and the police refused to do their job. Frankly, many of you on this list really need to be doused with gasoline and then lit. I'm ashamed to be on the same list with you statists and fascists. The Eurotrash nitwits are the worst. It's as if they were born in Communist countries and never shook their early training...which, come to think of it, is probably likely. --Tim May
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Friday, March 7, 2003, at 06:21 AM, An Metet wrote: I've been hearing liberals bleat about the actions of the cops and mall security. Their civil rights were violated! They have free speech! The mall is a public accomodation! Property rights don't trump personal rights! These fuckards really need to learn what private property is. The Net was partly financed by taxpayers, therefore the government has the right to stop hate speech on the Net and force encryption keys to be escrowed. Roads are paid for by the public, so searches of vehicles are permitted. Magazines are delivered using trucks which travel on government-financed roads and over government-built bridges. This makes is legal for government to have a say in what these magazines print. Homeowners get various subsidies from government, therefore their houses are subject to inspection by government. The confusion by many of the recent posters here shows why statism has taken such a foothold in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. --Tim May Join the boycott against Delta Airlines for their support of the Big Brotherish CAPPS II citizen-unit tracking program. http://www.boycottdelta.org http://boycottdelta.org/images/deltaeyebanner.gif With our help, Delta Airlines may be joining United and US Air in the bankruptcy scrap heap.
re: give cheese to France
Actually shooting 150 visitors would be hell on business. Damn, your pesky tenants will probably object strenuously if you simply shooed 150 potential (opinionated) customers. Stalin the Chinese tried the shooting route, the fallout wasn't cool. Fortunately the market apparently has responses to censorship (homocidal or otherwise). jay
Re: Give cheese to france?
I'm ashamed to be on the same list with you statists and fascists. Lot's I don't get here. First of all, stating one perhaps should have the right to wear whatever T-shirt you want in a mall isn't necessarily statist. There are, possibly, non-state-originating arguments in favor of such a notion. More than that, there CERTAINLY are ways in which such a right could be enforced sans state. More than that, what's all this about dousing hating, and whatever about supposed statists and fascists, just because they wrote something on the friggin internet? If I believe that George W. should be king and Lord of all who gives a crap unless I actually try to DO something about it? Talk is cheap. Even laws are cheap...I don't get too worked up over fascistic laws and violation of the constitution or watever until someone actually starts trying to restrict my 'rights' (whatever the hell that actually means). -TD From: Tim May [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Give cheese to france? Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 19:21:52 -0800 On Thursday, March 6, 2003, at 02:11 PM, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Besides, the publicity has been great. I was told that after it made news, 150 women wearing the same T-shirts showed up at the mall. The security guards locked themselves in their offices. Probably messed their pants, too. If people didn't leave my property when told to, and the actual police would not expel them, then I would consider it morally justified to start shooing those 150 bitches. Sometimes people don't understand anything except bullets. My defense would be that it was my property, they were trespassing, and the police refused to do their job. Frankly, many of you on this list really need to be doused with gasoline and then lit. I'm ashamed to be on the same list with you statists and fascists. The Eurotrash nitwits are the worst. It's as if they were born in Communist countries and never shook their early training...which, come to think of it, is probably likely. --Tim May I'm ashamed to be on the same list with you statists and fascists. _ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 10:58:06PM +0100, Anonymous wrote: On Wed, 05 Mar 2003 09:58:31 -0800, you wrote: At 11:03 PM 3/4/03 -0500, Steve Furlong wrote: From the article, New York Civil Liberties Union President Stephen Gottlieb says, We believe, most of us, in the Bill of Rights, and we believe that protects the freedom to speak. How is Constitutionally- protected freedom of speech imperiled when an agent of a private corporation asks someone to leave because his speech is offensive? Steve is right. Free speech is tested by wearing Fuck the Army t-shirts [1] in public places, not Peace while in some private store. Not too fast. What about nonobvious involvement of the state? Don't prematurely assume this is private, non-state conduct. What connections exist, if any, which link the state to that mall? For example, was the construction of the mall, or the awarding of the permit, or the environmental exceptions made, etc., such that the state has a sufficient role in the existence of the mall Given the amount of projects that are done hereabouts with TIF (tax incremental financing) funds, I'd say the odds are pretty good most malls and even large housing units are not actually private property. At least until they're paid off in full. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 10:33:11AM -0800, Major Variola (ret) wrote: At 10:58 PM 3/5/03 +0100, Anonymous wrote: On Wed, 05 Mar 2003 09:58:31 -0800, you wrote: Steve is right. Free speech is tested by wearing Fuck the Army t-shirts [1] in public places, not Peace while in some private store. Not too fast. What about nonobvious involvement of the state? Don't prematurely assume this is private, non-state conduct. What connections exist, if any, which link the state to that mall? For example, was the construction of the mall, or the awarding of the permit, or the environmental exceptions made, etc., such that the state has a sufficient role in the existence of the mall so as to implicate by that link the fourteenth amendment's extention of the first amendment to that operation of that mall? Some research should be done to determine the Yes, you are correct. For instance, there was a case last year of a govt-sponsored arena tossing lesbians for kissing, whereas intersex kissing was permitted. The arena wisely caved and brownosed rather than face a lawsuit. However malls generally don't take state money, the flow is in the other direction. My house's yard, the whole neighborhood was approved, licensed, regulated, zoned by all kinds of bureaushits, and pinks would say I receive benefits by virtue of using roads (etc) but that doesn't mean some random taxpayer can plant a sign on my lawn. The only state involvement here was the Police observing someone refusing to leave private property when asked. Having observed that, which defines trespass, the cop enforced trespass law. It doesn't matter why the trespasser was asked to leave. Are you sure there weren't TIFs involved in building the mall? The mall here in Oshkosh (now defunct, turned into offices) was build with city money, the newest upscale condo being built downtown is mostly TIF money, likewise the newest big low rent housing development. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: Give cheese to france?
At 12:56 PM 3/6/03 -0600, Harmon Seaver wrote:
On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 10:33:11AM -0800, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
However malls generally don't take state money, the flow is in the
other direction. My house's yard, the whole neighborhood was
approved, licensed, regulated, zoned by all kinds of
bureaushits,
and pinks would say I receive benefits by virtue of using roads (etc)
but that doesn't
mean some random taxpayer can plant a sign on my lawn.
Are you sure there weren't TIFs involved in building the mall? The
mall here
in Oshkosh (now defunct, turned into offices) was build with city
money, the
newest upscale condo being built downtown is mostly TIF money, likewise
the
newest big low rent housing development.
While I'd personally love to screw over the Crossroads pinheads, I'm
also wary
of letting the creeping socialism make everything public. The solution
is to stop
creeping socialism (such as the tax-subsidies others have implied for
Crossroads,
or the documented government funding of arenas) so the line
is clear. The risk is unlawful taking otherwise.
Meanwhile, I'm disinclined to start applying GNU-license-virulence
to what is public and what is not, because of the depth and breadth of
the financial tentacles.
Besides, the publicity has been great. I was told that after it made
news, 150 women wearing
the same T-shirts showed up at the mall. The security guards locked
themselves in their offices.
Probably messed their pants, too.
---
\{conspiracy} Funny that that area of upstate NY is where Ritter lives,
and was quieted recently. \{endconspiracy}
Re: Give cheese to france?
At 11:03 PM 3/4/03 -0500, Steve Furlong wrote: From the article, New York Civil Liberties Union President Stephen Gottlieb says, We believe, most of us, in the Bill of Rights, and we believe that protects the freedom to speak. How is Constitutionally- protected freedom of speech imperiled when an agent of a private corporation asks someone to leave because his speech is offensive? Steve is right. Free speech is tested by wearing Fuck the Army t-shirts [1] in public places, not Peace while in some private store. [1] Literally, it was so tested; the legal readers will know what I'm talking about. Enforcement of the Court's ban on coercive monotheist nationalist allegiances will be another test case, of whether the constitution + courts can keep demobcracy and the American taliban at bay. Linking both issues, I imagine there will be some *CLU [2] cases about messages in public schools with garments as the medium. [2] with apologies to Liskov
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Wed, 05 Mar 2003 09:58:31 -0800, you wrote: At 11:03 PM 3/4/03 -0500, Steve Furlong wrote: From the article, New York Civil Liberties Union President Stephen Gottlieb says, We believe, most of us, in the Bill of Rights, and we believe that protects the freedom to speak. How is Constitutionally- protected freedom of speech imperiled when an agent of a private corporation asks someone to leave because his speech is offensive? Steve is right. Free speech is tested by wearing Fuck the Army t-shirts [1] in public places, not Peace while in some private store. Not too fast. What about nonobvious involvement of the state? Don't prematurely assume this is private, non-state conduct. What connections exist, if any, which link the state to that mall? For example, was the construction of the mall, or the awarding of the permit, or the environmental exceptions made, etc., such that the state has a sufficient role in the existence of the mall so as to implicate by that link the fourteenth amendment's extention of the first amendment to that operation of that mall? Some research should be done to determine the depth of state involvement in that mall before everyone goes running off down the private mall path. The state need not occupy the space, or staff and direct the security service or anything else there. The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), embedded in our constitutional law the principle that the action inhibited by the first section [Equal Protection Clause] of the Fourteenth Amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of the States. That Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful. Chief Justice Vinson in Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 13 (1948). It was language in the opinion in the Civil Rights Cases, supra, that phrased the broad test of state responsibility under the Fourteenth Amendment, predicting its consequence upon State action of every kind . . . which denies . . . [365 U.S. 715, 722] the equal protection of the laws. At p. 11. And only two Terms ago, some 75 years later, the same concept of state responsibility was interpreted as necessarily following upon state participation through any arrangement, management, funds or property. Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 4 (1958). It is clear, as it always has been since the Civil Rights Cases, supra, that Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject-matter of the amendment, at p. 11, and that private conduct abridging individual rights does no violence to the Equal Protection Clause unless to some significant extent the State in any of its manifestations has been found to have become involved in it. Because the virtue of the right to equal protection of the laws could lie only in the breadth of its application, its constitutional assurance was reserved in terms whose imprecision was necessary if the right were to be enjoyed in the variety of individual-state relationships which the Amendment was designed to embrace. For the same reason, to fashion and apply a precise formula for recognition of state responsibility under the Equal Protection Clause is an impossible task which This Court has never attempted. Kotch v. Pilot Comm'rs, 330 U.S. 552, 556 . Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance. U.S. Supreme Court BURTON v. WILMINGTON PKG. AUTH., 365 U.S. 715 (1961) 365 U.S. 715 BURTON v. WILMINGTON PARKING AUTHORITY ET AL. APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF DELAWARE. No. 164. Argued February 21, 23, 1961. Decided April 17, 1961.
