[MD] Sin Part 1

[Case]

[Platt]
Your "horror" was overwhelmingly approved twice by "we the people." 
Then you conveniently forget that the growth in federal debt ended the 
Cold War, and Reaganomics led to a surplus in later years.

[Case]
Or perhaps the end of the Cold War was hastened by Russia's nine year war in
Afghanistan. So does that mean we are almost half way to the point where the
last super power stood before it decided to fold and cash in for good?

[Platt]
I have no problem with waterboarding to elicit information that will 
save lives.  

[Case]
And five years later you would still deny him the right to know the charges
against him. You would continue to interrogate him without benefit of
council. You have such disregard for individual rights you would take them
away from a man's completely for five years? If you agree that the
government has the right to do that to That Man it has the right to do it to
you. I do not think the constitution grants it that right. I certainly
didn't sign up for that. 

[Platt]
As for enslavement, keep in mind taxes are a form of slavery in that you are
forced at the point of a gun to turn over to others the product of your
work.

[Case]
No one is forced at gun point to pay taxes. In fact no one has to pay taxes
at all. You pay taxes on what you own and what you earn. Owning and earning
are fruits of the capitalist system. Taxes are your ante into the game. If
you don't want to ante up don't play. There are plenty of wide open spaces
left for now. Take a hike if you really want to walk the walk.

If you want to exercise your property rights you must do your civil duty.
That is the deal and no one is forces a free man to play. The Amish don't
play. I am willing to bet there are people living in the woods within 50
miles of your house right now. And if there are not you could make camp
yourself. But if you want to participate in the system, taxes are the
ticket.
     
[Platt]
Conservatives criticize the court when it fails to do its duty in protecting
individual rights, like the abominable decision to allow government to take
private property and hand it to private developers in order to raise the tax
base.

[Case]
What they said was the states have the right to determine this. It should be
a decision made closer to the people it effects. Several states have amended
their laws to reflect public attitudes on the matter. The court was
protecting individual and state rights as opposed to federal rights. 

[Platt]
I'm in favor of laws that free people from the heavy hand of religious 
and barbaric secular laws. So you favor such laws?   

[Case]
I am in favor of letting people establish their own laws. If it is a law
affecting me, I would like to be let in on the deal. I pay my taxes after
all.

[Platt]
Again I remind you that for the founders the rights to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness came from God, not government. Today, we know
those rights come from intellect, not government. (See Pirsig) 

[Case]
Yet, in violation of the constitution you would allow the your government to
take them away from That Man. Funny his god made him the same deal and see
how it's worked out for him. Your rights as a citizen of this country are
granted in the constitution. It was written by intellectuals. You seem to
distain both.

[Platt] 
A few bad apples and you condemn the whole barrel. Your life depends on
corporations from the food you eat to the computer you use to attack
corporations.

[Case]
Since my government grants the same rights to corporations as it grants to
That Man I would have to say no. I would want That Man to have more rights
that a legal construct. Lot's more. I grant you that Capitalism does work
well. But I don't think that is the reason why.

Consider this. In the 1500's one of the sins a That Man could be tortured to
confess was Usury. We are not talking about loan sharking we are talking
about very reasonable rates. In fact any rate was too much. It could be
argued that this was just another way to mess with Jews. But it was also
true that usury was considered evil and damned in the Christian Bible, the
Koran and everyone from Shakespeare to Dickens.

It is still not used in Islamic banking. At Islamic banks they do not charge
interest. The bank loans you money for a share of your profit. With
mortgages the bank buys a house and sells it to you for a profit. 


One reason usury has been condemned is certain place and at certain times is
that people wanted a stabile economy. Lending at interest requires growth
and surplus. To allowing debt allows That Man to consume more that he
produces and there just isn't that much to go around.

But what my ancestors thought was sin, is now the foundation of my country's
economic system. It works fine though. In fact you hold it in the highest
esteem. 

But the defense of capitalism on moral and pragmatic grounds is starting to
fray at the edges.  While capitalism is great and moral for distributing
scares goods, how does it manage if goods can be manufactured and
distributed for free? Right now the force of government is being employed by
economic interests to enforce scarcity. 

Take satellite television for example. At this moment satellites are
directing all kinds of signals at you in digital and analogue. There are
bouncing through your body. You can buy equipment to receive them off the
shelf. But we have corporations who make money by preventing you from
accessing these signals right out of the air. They encrypt their signals and
even if you can figure out how to decrypt the signal the corporation can
send armed police officers into your home if they catch you doing it.

This same principle applies in variations to every form of digital
information. Napster and RIAA are the stuff of modern legend. It is as
though a corporation manufactured cars, gassed them up and left them on the
street with the keys in them and expected the government to cover the
security costs of stopping people from driving off in them.

But you say, "Oh my god who is going to produce music and movies. Who is
going to maintain the satellites if no one pays?"

I say that is kind of a problem for capitalism isn't it? 

Capitalists invented the term intellectual property rights. They claim we
can fence in ideas. That we can charge people to think our ideas. We are now
granting patents on life forms. There is something wrong with these
concepts. This is essentially allowing a social level entity to claim a
whole species; all those present and all their descendants.

Our founding fathers were aware of the some of these difficulties and
addressed them specifically in the constitution. 

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective
Writings and Discoveries."

There are two qualifications on this "right". The purpose must be to promote
the progress of science and arts and the protection offered is of limited
term. Both of these stipulations get eroded every time Mickey Mouse is
threatened with falling into the Public Domain. Steamboat Willie may have
outlived Uncle Walt but keeping him in private hands is not stimulating
Disney's ability to create.

Jack Vallenti of the Motion Picture Academy has argued that 'limited times'
for copyrights should be limited to forever minus one day.

Every time congress extends copyright terms it robs the public of knowledge
and the right to expand upon past works. Lawrence Lessig's books on this and
his Creative Commons offers options.

This failure of capitalism has even pissed off the librarian's and placed
them in the court with the government. It is a sad state of affairs when the
force of the government is used justify restraining the ideals of Public
Library. Gulag Libros at taxpayer expense?

Now I could say something like, here is an economic system born in sin and
currently aimed at killing libraries but that would be harsh. I think I will
retreat to what I said at the outset, "The defense of capitalism on moral
and pragmatic grounds is starting to fray at the edges." 

[Platt]
I pray you never need the products of the drug companies.

[Case]
In all seriousness, I wish you good health as well, my friend.