I don't need to serve in such a unit to hear female profanities.  I've known a few ocker-type women here in Oz who could make a dock worker blush.  In fact, the worst female profanity I ever heard was in the birthing suite when my son was being born.  Ughhh, let's just say that the midwife was writing some of it down between contractions cos she'd never heard the like before.  

Come to think of it, which I do, I'd never heard some of it before, either.

NO!  That is the slippery slope.  RIGHTS are absolute.  But they do end where another's start.  The problem with today's talking points is that we have lost sight of what a right is.  A right is not given to you by the government, nor does it impose a tax on anyone else.  You can exercise your rights and no one will be impacted.  That is a right.

A privilege does impose on others, and it also is given by the government.  The difference (and understanding it) is called freedom.

Rights are definitely not absolute. You only need a superficial understanding of history to realise that. Only 200 years ago you had the right to own slaves. 600 years ago many people had no right to move from where they lived without permission from their rulers. I could go on listing changes, but you should get the idea. Rights are only what the current population say they are. Nothing absolute about that at all.

You mistake rights with government actions.  Rights are absolute, but government can oppress you.  I do not have to look to history to understand that rights are not GIVEN by government, they can only be TAKEN by it,.  And have been throughout history.

Your slave example is not a "right" but privilege.  Since it restricts the rights of others, it cannot be a right.

You have always had the right to go where you want, but as I have said before, the government can "TAKE" your right if you allow them.  The governments of 600 years ago (or even today in some places) are taking that right.

LAWS are only what the current population (or government) says they are.  Rights are absolute.

Which brings you to the age old argument, is a right really a right if you can lose it?  The Constitution negates any such discussion in the US, rights are inalienable and recognized as above the laws of man.  Disreputable individuals over the years have made significant progress towards infringing upon those inalienable right, but they still exist in writing, regardless of our judges intelligence levels.

I know you can, I just don't happen to care.  I've been warned about my behavior once on this particular forum, my response was a relatively diplomatic refusal to cooperate, stating that I would understand why I got banned, but I was still going to call a certain retard for what I saw him as in the future.  I'd ban me, I don't know why someone else hasn't.

I'd enjoy the time saved, I've burned a couple hours on this thread now, it's a terrible addiction.

You're more a shock-jock, but that's ok as long as you have consideration for the TOS. [yep, I know you'll deny having them, but that's (I suspect) just you being a cute "bad boy"] .

I suspect that moohoo bastard GW has a similar view of me.  He's largely responsible for this disgustingly inflated karma count...

I've failed to work up the motivation in the few, relatively uninteresting political discussions over the last few months.  The commies getting their kiester handed to them has really tamped down the left wing.  That and I've been busy breaking shit.

To this day, and I have done a lot of looking, I've yet to find even a state level monopoly of any duration that was not in collusion with the government or government subsidized entities, or created via regulatory barriers to new entrants.  You have cable monopolies in places because your government created them, not because they form naturally in a free market. 

They're often given exclusive access rights to the existing utility system in order to encourage them to expand into the market.  Well meaning idiots and corrupt politicians pull these stunts regularly.  Our local electric coop here just recently partnered with a nearby wireless company to get a broadband canopy system set up in the area.  It works, it's often even a good idea in the beginning.  Ten years from now, if they still only let this one company utilize their infrastructure, there will still be no competition to them because they have artificially created a barrier to entry.

The other big one, particularly in regards to telecommunication networks, was the requirement to transmit other companies data at the cost of transmission, negating the viability of anyone, themselves included ever putting in new systems.  This is why the US was looking forwards to being dead last for broadband speeds among western civilization ten years ago.

I fear the consequences of power residing with politicians far more than a potential, very short lived monopoly.  This is especially true since they so often give us the more dangerous kind, ones that stick around to the bitter end when a portion of our infrastructure is collapsing around us.

This argument was done into the ground a few hundred years ago.  It's the whole point of natural law.  Your rights exist beyond the law of the day, they are something you're born with and are morally correct in defending.  Slaves were wrongfully imprisoned.  Despotic rulers denied their citizenry justice.  Rights are absolute, Law is subject to the whims of those in power.

Don't worry, sweetie, I'm sure I'd at least dislike you in the real world and might well find your company intolerable. But here in Brad's playpens, you're useful in a couple of entangled ways. In and around your amusing, sprawling rants you often make me think and occasionally have come close to persuading me to change my mind about something.

Mainly, though, I often get vicarious gratification when you stomp solidly on someone who is making weak arguments or failing to make an argument at all--even if the writer believes he or she is 'on your side.' Now that I think of it, in that regard you're almost like a good Democrat, except the only way I can imagine you involved in one of our traditional circular firing squads is taking potshots from a discrete balcony well away from the stage.

p.s. The natural law natter is not one of the areas where I've found you nearly persuasive. That claptrap is just theology in secular drag and in complete denial of the fact that rights of any sort are social constructions, not material facts like gravity or temperature.

A few years back, Verizon began to sell off ALL their above ground telephone lines (netting them around 7 billion U.S.D.) and then began buying up locally installed and run fiber optic installations as well as laying some of their own.

One of the arguments Verizon and others have levied in trying to restructure the internet for "fees" is that "they" have built the internet and need to recoup their losses...i.e., they are entitled to the right to charge fees because they own it.  Ironically, a lot of what they bought was what was developed by others long before they "built it".

They don't own the internet--though through extensive lobbying and legal action over the past decade they are trying to.

The internet was owned by the American people (here in the U.S.) and the government opened it to commerce--that does not automatically equate to, "the people no longer own it".

The strategy of many of these telcoms is to purchase a majority of the nets infrastructure and then say "it's ours". 

It isn't.  they are leased/granted the right to operate on it and to some extent set standards when their services are required to maintain/use it.  That doesn't equal, "It's ours".

Broadcast companies are restrained by government regulation because the U.S. airwaves are the property of the United States.  Companies lease its use but cannot autonomously dictate absolute terms for accessibility to it.  The internet should be no different but the precedent these businesses want established is that the internet is different so that you can't have access to it unless you buy their services first.

Imagine if private companies could purchase rights to operate the U.S. highway system..then they began requiring annual membership fees and then specific, road-by-road access fees each time you travelled "their" highway.  So you would have to pay "Company A" a monthly/annual fee, then pay the same company a "per use fee" and then, when you moved off their road to another company's, you would have to pay them their fees and have a membership with them as well. This is the telcoms vision of the future internet.

Essential services are vital services or services that are indispensable for a decent and dignified life. In particular, these collective servicesinclude: 

• drinking water and water purification
• sanitation and waste removal
• energy
• daily public transportation
• access to information and telecommunications media.

The required levels of service and expected use must be defined for each service and for each territory. Other services may become essential as economic and social development progresses. Thus, to support the development of regions involved, it must be possible to extend the list of services to include access to basic communications and communication services (radio, telephone, internet).

Can you pick which ones on this list that the greedy corporate pigs are in charge of?

Well, in Canada anyway.

In the US we have the right to a free press and public assembly--strong constitutional mandates.  What companies would like is for the internet to be seen as simply business and property and not those other things...and then they can gain control through commercial means.

The internet is as much a necessity for free press and public assembly as any newspaper or the public airwaves.  If it isn't then the shut down of the net in Iran and Egypt during their protests was just a "business matter" and shouldn't be tied to repression or human rights...yeah...ri-iiight.

We also have commerce laws that are supposed to insure fair access to markets by all and to allow for fair competition.

These things are what's really at stake in this issue.

I was simply commenting on the legal structure in my own country--not saying I believe you can "own" a magnetic wave in reality.  All "ownership" in this world is only substantive if it is recognized by others.  You can claim to own anything you want but claiming it and actually being able to own it ain't necessarily the same thing.

The companies buying infrastructure are aiming for the right to control internet protocols because...they "own" the infrastructure...that was my whole point.

True natural law as a moral principle would be "survival of the fittest" and then the companies would be quite just in excerising their ability to gain control through leveraging their wealth.  On the other hand, in a true "natural law" morality, I'd be quite justified in jamming their signals in my neighborhood and cutting their power lines running over my property.

Good quote is that "All governments are evil...democracy is just the least evil".  Better than rule by mob or sword and anarchy.  I'd say your philosophy has a lot in common with your typical Muslim extremist philosophy..."I am by nature proven right and since I can't get from you what I want, I will exercise my own justice till I receive it from you.".

You pursue absolute fairness on your own terms all you want--I am just concerned with practical reality.  Everyone wants to champion the way they would do things but every one of those ways means restricting how someone else out there would like to do things.  Life is always a compromise of ideas or violence without compromise.  Peace.

Churchill rules!

If we remove governments from the equation of people and corporations we have corporations controlling all goods and people without means forced to violence to recover them.

Hate government all you want but when we all live in a Mad Max world, most people will be willing to give an arm for one....unless you're one of those bike riding, spiky-do-ed punks with a crossbow and boy lover prowling for gas and victims.

'Churchill rules'

I suppose it's where you live in the world ... was a complete arse to us down here