Euro Envy
Hey,
EuroUnion: Try this experiment.
“Insist” in one hand.
in the other.
See which one fills up quicker.
Posted by Oink
10/01/2005 at 10:09 AM
OCM. Sadly the pirate stations have long gone but it’s a nice idea.
Skipper, I agree with you, the EU can get stuffed. It’s a bit like the situation with GPS satellite data. The USA put up the satellites and the USA retains control (quite right too, the US taxpayer paid for it after all). The EUroweenies have developed a rival and no doubt they will give full access to all the rogue states like China et al. for the right price.
My only quibble with the article is they fail to acknowlege the part played by Tim Berners-Lee in popularising the Internet. If it wasn’t for his work with web browsers the Internet would remain the province of academics and techno nerds!
LBJ—Thoughtful post! (You sure you belong here?
)
Reminds me of drug companies; they spend $Billions developing one drug that works, out of a million flops (& they get their ass sued off for those) and people demand that the company give it away.
MY FADED CRIMSON 
Posted by Oink
10/01/2005 at 12:04 PM
Doesn’t the EU need permission from Al Gore
Posted by piccalo
10/01/2005 at 01:27 PM
As far as I am concerned, the entire EU and UN may go to hell, or to socialist nirvana, whichever is nearest. The only differences between the two are functional, after all.
This is only a power grab, chaps. “Fair access to the entire world” and “government regulation” will simply translate out to a cybernetic version of the existing (albeit dilapidated) propaganda machinery we know as the “old media,” and anyone who does not toe the “general line” of politically-correct ideology will be stifled on the spot. Bet on it.
Do you want to see the entire web resembling online booby hatches like BowelMov.Argh and Dickheads Unlimited? That is precisely what you will come to see, if someone does not put these EU and UN johnny-come-latelies in their places.
Not a chance!!
Posted by Paul "No Fear" Weir
10/01/2005 at 04:37 PM
Let them build their own, then. It might look something like this.
This has nothing to do with internet operation. It is about who rules.
City bureaucrats want to control every activity within the city and annex adjacent land. Similarly international bureaucrats want to control every activity on Earth. It is their nature; if they wished to be in other work they wouldn’t be doing what they do.
The US should not be surprised. No nation signs more treaties, joins more organizations, and commits itself to more schemes and agreements. When the consequences go against us we are unhappy.
Well if you don’t like the consequences then maybe you should stop the causes.
In todays news Japan has told us that if we do not send in our 22% of the UN dues they reluctantly can’t send their share either. Though the Japanese intend it as a warning to us - it looks like an blessing to me.
Posted by KenS
10/01/2005 at 06:29 PM
KenS—Good stuff. We are in a class by ourselves economically and militarily; nobody even in second place. (And this despite our government parasite taking 50%+)
Naturally we will be envied and hated. Generally, we draw the line where between ‘isolation’ and getting involved in every moonbat scheme?
Posted by Oink
10/01/2005 at 06:45 PM
StinKerr: They’ve upgraded to 2.1 http://www.atatan.com/~s-ito/amp/yakinori.html
Posted by Oink
10/01/2005 at 07:11 PM
Thanks for the good words Oink.
My real point is that most people don’t want ANY government telling them what to do. But they know that some organization is necessary. So they suppress their true wish and accept government.
That creates bureaucracy. But bureaucrats are people too. So they don’t really want to be constrained either. Thus they hate those who try to limit government - to them that is the same as saying they themselves should not be free.
If you want the US to be your government then discourage treaties and binding international agreements. If you want something like the UN to rule then abandon the US government. There can never be peace between national independence and world government - it is one or the other.
The individual man cannot be free of government but he can want one and not another.
That does not mean our government should not cooperate with other nations on a case by case basis. Just reserve your right, and theirs, to end it.
The flap about Bolton at the UN illustrates. At least half the editorials and columns said he shouldn’t be appointed because he didn’t think much of the UN and would mess up the club. Very few reflected that the US is a member of the UN not a servant.
Posted by KenS
10/01/2005 at 07:42 PM
They want to tax it too. Not that we don’t have some homegrown moneygrabbers who want to do the same. That’s what’s behind this scheme. The Euros and the UN want to tax us. Not for the first time. (See ChIraq’s plan of a few monts ago)
More room will be made as the load increases and language/alphabet charachter problems are being overcome as we speak. There is a vast international pool of talent working on this.
As I said before, let them build their own. The Chinese are already walling off their portion and keeping their citizens from free access. That’s up to them, I suppose.
This
must be stopped in its tracks.
You’re correct, Lyndon, that Tim Berners-Lee doesn’t get enough recognition for his idea and work. The first I heard of him was when he got his knighthood. (Al Gore is still grumbling about that.)
It’s particularly notable because he made it copyright and patent free.
I remember the early days of bulletin boards and relays (a message was sent literally from computer to computer by phone lines until it reached its destination). DARPANET was running at the time but there was no public access to it. The US Postal Service even got into the act for a short time with an email service which would route emails between offices and then print them out for delivery. I don’t know if it lasted as long as the pony express.
I’m sure that there are a lot of unsung heroes who’s ideas we use daily without a thought or acknowledgement. Bureaucrats are perfectly willing to muck up the works now with taxes and their version of content and access control.
‘em, I like it the way it is and will fight them tooth and nail to keep it free and open.
Holey
Oink, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a pentode VT. I don’t even want to think about what it would take to build one of today’s PCs with VTs. If, indeed, it could be done. Maybe every big city would have one. Maybe.
Good points, KenS. We see a similar battle from time to time inside the country between the federal government and the sovereignty of the states as well as between state and local authorities. See the recent mess in Louisiana and N’Awlins.
Even with the Constitution we still have jurisdictional disputes. Any kind of international government would be even worse with petty factionalism looking for a way to screw somebody else.
Of course, if I was King of the World it would be a much better place…
StinK: The last line of your #15 was one of Hayek’s insights concerning the appeal of Socialism. Everybody has a plan/idea, so wonderful that if everybody was forced to conform to it, the world would be a better place. (My plan is to force everyone to learn one second language, never mind which one) Sooo, each person is convinced, naturally, that after the Revolution, it will be their own personal agenda that is implemented.
Another of Hayek’s insights that opened my eyes: It’s not an accident that, under Communism, monsters such as Stalin and Mao rise to the top. Since people won’t conform to this nonsense on their own, the man with the least scruples about employing brutal force will be the most effective in enforcing some semblance of conformity.
Posted by Oink
10/01/2005 at 09:23 PM
Brutality is much easier to deploy the farther one is away from it. Saying “shoot him” is easy to segue into “shoot them all” when one is far removed from the scene.
Like the fellow said; “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic”. He’d be the one to know.
Oh, and the world would indeed be a better place if I was running it ... if only better for me.
I’m sure that’s the attitude of many would be “leaders”.
StinK: Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc. had one thing in common: human beings existed only as abstractions to conform with their ideology. I know most about Hitler; he had not one human being that he was close, honest, & intimate with.
“The lesson taught by this kind of experience, when put into words, always appears under the dowdy guise of perennial commonplaces,” : “That man is a reality, mankind an abstraction; that men cannot be treated as units in operations of political arithmetic...; that the end justifies the means only within very narrow limits; that ethics is not a function of social utility, and charity not a petty-bourgeois sentiment but the gravitational force which keeps civilization in its orbit.”
--Arthur Koestler “The God That Failed”Posted by Oink
10/01/2005 at 10:52 PM
Well done, Oink. Koestler should be required reading. Three great novels: Darkness at Noon, The Age of Longing, Scum of the Earth. They will richly reward any who read them, especially Darkness at Noon. And for those who wish a better understanding of the Euroweenies, especially France, Scum of the Earth should give you an entirely new perspective.
The main difference between Hell and Socialist Nirvana, is that the heat in Hell is supplied at no extra cost.
LC RP
10/01/2005 at 11:52 AM
