http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

For years, John Mackey, the libertarian founder of Whole Foods (who I’ve met and talked with a few times) has–luckily for Whole Foods’s PR squad–kept his right-of-the-right views more or less under the radar.

Then, a week or so back, he posted a slam of universal healthcare coverage in the Wall Street Journal (a venerable paper that’s right-of-center-in-a-mostly-good-way, as opposed to the shrill Fox or leftist MSNBC, both of which treat politics like sports instead of stuff that actually matters).

But I, for one, am not going to boycott Whole Foods. I’m not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Why?

1. Whole Foods is a vast organization, with thousands of staff, many if not most of whom disagree with John’s idealistic, superior Libertarian views. We live in a democracy, with a lowercase “D.” We don’t have to hate those we disagree with–we just have to beat them at the polls, and in the halls of Congress.
2. John doesn’t own Whole Foods. It’s public.
3. Whole Foods, thanks to his leadership, has shown the way for thousands of green-minded companies. He and WFM have shown Wall Street that green can make green. For that, I am grateful–there is a reservoir of gratitude that will not be easily overcome by his anti-union views, by Whole Foods never having supported elephant over seven years even as I see them advertise in countless less-than-green publications and forums.

Now, suddenly, everyone and their mother has called for a boycott of Mr. Mackey’s Whole Foods. There’s a Facebook group with thousands of members. There’s been so much negative traffic and “I will boycott Whole Foods” messages on Twitter, Whole Foods hasn’t even tried to put out the fires as they have with past controversies (such as his taken-out-of-context comment, only last week, that Whole Foods “sells lots of junk”; or his infamous commenting on his own blog and anonymous tirades against Wild Oats, which he was trying to buy out, and later did). There’s been so many complaints from Whole Foods largely green-minded customers–the very ones who’ve made John rich (one of his homes is in Boulder, just two blocks from where I write this)–that yesterday they temporarily shut down the comments forum page on Whole Foods (not very democratic of ‘em, hey?)

1. The United States is not a democracy. It’s a constitutional democratic republic. Some may call it nitpicking but they are quite different political philosophies.

2. By advocating “beat[ing] them at the polls” rather then through a voluntary boycott Mr. Lewis is advocating aggression against those who disagree with him. Such an actions are destructive to society.

3. The readers of the Huffington Post are in great need of an economics lesson.

4. It’s funny that they demonize Mackey for his hardly radical position on healthcare yet seem to ignore the areas where he is also outspoken which they would likely agree with him on.

5. They are attacking a company which by many reports has one of the best health {care,insurance} plans around.

http://www.gnu.org/…

http://arstechnica.com/…

The bullying of the copyright industry in Sweden inspired the launch of the first political party whose platform is to reduce copyright restrictions: the Pirate Party. Its platform includes the prohibition of Digital Restrictions Management, legalization of noncommercial sharing of published works, and shortening of copyright for commercial use to a five-year period. Five years after publication, any published work would go into the public domain.

I support these changes, in general; but the specific combination chosen by the Swedish Pirate Party backfires ironically in the special case of free software. I’m sure that they did not intend to hurt free software, but that’s what would happen.

The GNU General Public License and other copyleft licenses use copyright law to defend freedom for every user. The GPL permits everyone to publish modified works, but only under the same license. Redistribution of the unmodified work must also preserve the license. And all redistributors must give users access to the software’s source code.

The highlighted statement is incorrect. As the Ars Technica states: “Copyleft is an important part of Stallman’s vision because it compels companies that use copyleft code to open their own source code when they might not have otherwise been willing to do so voluntarily.” A right, freedom, comes from within. It is negative. It can not place an obligation on another which has not been voluntarily entered into. There can not be a right to education or healthcare in that it is someone’s obligation to provide you with them. To claim such a thing is to claim to have the right over another’s labor meaning they are your slave. In the same way copyright, and therefore copyleft, are an affront to the liberty not only for the publisher but the user. Copyright makes the customer the slave to the producer and copyleft the producer the slave of another in the name of the consumer. Rather then advocating co-slavery, where the real master are those in positions within the government and their fascistic friends, let us advocate the emancipation of all those held under the thumb of organized violent institutions.

How would the Swedish Pirate Party’s platform affect copylefted free software? After five years, its source code would go into the public domain, and proprietary software developers would be able to include it in their programs. But what about the reverse case?

Proprietary software is restricted by EULAs, not just by copyright, and the users don’t have the source code. Even if copyright permits noncommercial sharing, the EULA may forbid it. In addition, the users, not having the source code, do not control what the program does when they run it. To run such a program is to surrender your freedom and give the developer control over you.

One can not surrender one’s freedom except in that case were they have aggressed against another. And then only to the extent to which is necessary to stop the aggression. The user gives up no freedom when voluntarily using closed source software. Stallman is looking to actually restrict user’s freedom by attempting to use copyright to force companies to work within his free software paradigm and restricting the marketplace. If FOSS is indeed a better way for all involved it will naturally become the dominant method of software development and distribution in the market naturally. There is no need to force it into being through threats and violence.

We also use copyright to partially deflect the danger of software patents.

More artificial monopoly privileges will not fix artificial monopoly privileges. Approach this problem from a true freedom oriented perspective and all these contradictions will disappear as will this endless tug of war for power over the State.

I could support a law that would make GPL-covered software’s source code available in the public domain after 5 years, provided it has the same effect on proprietary software’s source code. After all, copyleft is a means to an end (users’ freedom), not an end in itself. And I’d rather not be an advocate for a stronger copyright.

Fundamentally there is no difference between what Stallman advocates and what the stricter copyright people advocate. It is an argument over degrees and not kind. It is an argument that will never be resolved so long as the conversation is held within this intellectual property box. As long as Stallman and those who agree with him can do sue companies for GPL violation (and win)… the RIAA can restrict individual’s access to things they purchase and the game console companies the same. Freedom on all sides would allow the market place to find the best solutions for all those involved without all the unproductive fighting for control and as Eric S. Raymond pointed out… the fear it creates.

A real analysis of the FOSS community I believe would show that FOSS works without copyright. Through voluntary means software stays more or less open as the original author desired. Projects which are slow to change or allow outside participation are forked or replaced and the best method for the community wins out. Those companies which fail to release modifications to the source which they’ve used in their products are ostracized often leading to the code’s publication. If the general customers of their products are displeased with the lack of openness or product flexibility they will take their business elsewhere. They will succeed or fail in the market as everyone else. Artificially sustaining FOSS through monopoly privileges is economically and therefore socially regressive and destructive. It has no place in a free society.

For more information regarding intellectual property monopoly:

• Against Intellectual Property by Stephan Kinsella (book)
• Against Intellectual Property: Property Rights – Tangible and Intangible by Stephan Kinsella (article from Journal of Libertarian Studies)
• The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights by Roderick T. Long
• The Case Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine
• Against Intellectual Property by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine

https://docs.google.com/View?id=dhbvr2gz_18gk9wt8gt

Note: the below was created from OCRing screencaps of a Flash based chatroom. Excuse the mistakes.

Xaq Fixx 3:39 pm
Alright… Question 1:
Political Identified Profile field, when will it return

Lee Doren
As soon as I get confirmation to add it back—it was my intention to add at asap Friday, but then it was unclear what my authority was to do so
The only reason why it was removed was so I could add something else asap
Like an open-ended political affiliation
Read More…

Yes… because the government protects us from cholera or Somalia is free from aggression or even  international intervention. Perhaps the video could have gone into how the standard of living has risen faster than just about all other African nations in the mentioned time period? Or how the expectation they imply that a third world nation without any capital infrastructure would suddenly advance in 15 years beyond what is economically possible? Especially given the fact that the UN continuously fucks with the country? As does the Ethiopian government and others.

A 15 minute lesson in capital theory would go a real long way for state worshipers.

And as if Beck was a libertarian… even a consequentalist libertarian.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

The rightwing attacked Stewart for his cool and well-thought-out position that Truman was a war criminal for his atomic bombings.

So here Stewart is, cravenly retracting his wonderful moment of truth and logical consistency. He bends over backwards to make himself look respectable, to laugh off his “stupid” condemnation of Truman’s murderous actions.

Of course Truman was a war criminal. Beyond Hiroshima and Nagasaki was Operation Keelhaul, whereby Truman helped Stalin round up millions of expatriates and subject them to Soviet slavery (and in many cases death). Then there was his undeclared war of aggression in Korea, where he targeted civilians with napalm and deliberately destroyed dams to flood villages filled with helpless people.

Truman is one of my litmus tests for the left. For all their problems, leftists who at least are antiwar enough, and nonpartisan enough, to recognize that Truman, domestic dictator, architect of the Cold War and butcher of millions and destroyer of cities, is not any more admirable than the relatively less criminal George W. Bush, tend to get my respect. Those who defend Truman’s acts of mass barbarism represent all the worst “liberal” ideals of the 20th century. On the other hand, those, like Stewart, who seem to have the instinctual desire to speak the truth, only to backtrack and defend one of history’s greatest murderers, are perhaps even more obnoxious than the latter group.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/…

Krystian Zimerman, the great Polish concert pianist, is usually a man of few words. He doesn’t, as a rule, talk to the audience during performances. He says little or nothing in the press between his all-too-rare concert tours – not even about his habit of travelling everywhere with his own Steinway grand piano. He rarely grants them the pleasure of an encore.

So he triggered more than the usual rumble of discomfort when he raised his voice in the closing stages of a recital at Los Angeles’ Disney Hall on Sunday night and announced he would no longer perform in the United States in protest against Washington’s military policies.

“Get your hands off my country,” Zimerman told the stunned crowd in a denunciation of US plans to install a missile defence shield on Polish soil. Some people cheered, others yelled at him to shut up and keep playing. A few dozen walked out, some of them shouting obscenities.

“Yes,” Zimerman responded with derision, “some people when they hear the word military start marching.”

According to Mark Swed, the Los Angeles Times’s veteran classical music critic who witnessed the incident, Zimerman hesitated before deciding to speak up. He was about to strike up the first notes of the final piece on his programme, Karol Szymanowski’s Variations on a Polish Folk Theme, when he “sat silently at the piano for a moment, almost began to play, but then turned to the audience”.

Swed said he delivered his tirade “in a quiet but angry voice that did not project well”.

Zimerman appears to have been upset by Barack Obama’s decision, announced this month, to maintain the Bush-era policy of installing a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Obama insisted the shield was part of a defensive posture against Iran, not Russia, and that he intended to remove it as soon as the threat from Iran subsided. But many Poles have accused the US of wanting to mount a military occupation of their country, and fear the shield could make them a target of Russian aggression.

Zimerman, though, has developed something of a track record – especially since the 9/11 attacks. In 2006 he announced he would not return to the United States until George Bush was out of office. The same year, at Baltimore’s Shriver Hall, he prefaced his performance of Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata with a denunciation of America’s prison at Guantánamo Bay.

At least some of his opprobrium appears to be personal. Shortly after 9/11, his piano was confiscated by customs officials at New York’s JFK airport, who thought the glue smelled funny. They subsequently destroyed the instrument.

For several years he chose to travel with just the mechanical insides of his own piano and install them – he is a master piano repairer, as well as player – inside a Steinway shell he borrowed from the company in New York. In 2006 he tried to travel with his own piano again, only to have it held up in customs for five days and disrupt his performance schedule.