Letters to the Editor
Valkyrie607
Published Letters: 121 Editor's Choice: 3
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The Tragedy of the Commons
[Read the article: The grave Iranian threat to world peace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Interesting article Shooter linked to: if the author is correct, then the tragedy of the commons was a driving force in the impoverishment of the early Puritan community (some of my relatives!).
There was also a bit of sleight of hand there, since the sharing that is extolled to schoolchildren is generally the sharing between the Native Americans and the Puritans, not that amongst the Puritans. Though that doesn't detract from the author's point, it is sort of ironic that while the author is doing a takedown on sharing, he is silent about how sharing benefited the Puritans as well as hurt them.
In your previous post Shooter said something along the lines of "This (capitalism) is the best system for maximizing production and distributing resources effectively."
I can agree, and I think many others can too, that this is the main goal: getting the stuff we need made and figuring out how to get it to the people who need the stuff. However, even capitalism itself has evolved over the years and even now is practiced in many different ways. Who is to say that what we have now is the final version? That would contradict all of human experience. Are we not always learning from the past, making improvements, inventing new things? Change is not only possible, it's inevitable. The question is, do we want to meet change with resistance or flow with it?
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At&T's crazy idea
[Read the article: Lawbreaking telecoms still conniving to obtain immunity from Congress]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Glenn, I would be interested to see what you have to say about this.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/att-and-other-isps-may-be-getting-ready-to-filter/
http://www.slate.com/id/2182152
Apparently AT&T thinks it would be a good idea for them to start monitering internet content for copyright infringements. From the NYTimes article:
Internet civil rights organizations oppose network-level filtering, arguing that it amounts to Big Brother monitoring of free speech, and that such filtering could block the use of material that may fall under fair-use legal provisions — uses like parody, which enrich our culture.
Rick Cotton, the general counsel of NBC Universal, who has led the company’s fights against companies like YouTube for the last three years, clearly doesn’t have much tolerance for that line of thinking.
“The volume of peer-to-peer traffic online, dominated by copyrighted materials, is overwhelming. That clearly should not be an acceptable, continuing status,” he said. “The question is how we collectively collaborate to address this.”
Where on earth did this come from? What are the real prospects of such an insane plan getting off the ground?
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My favorite comic
[Read the article: Tom the Dancing Bug]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Endlessly creative, nearly ALWAYS funny...
Tom the Dancing Bug just can't be beat.
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BAD writing!
[Read the article: Kansas O'Flaherty ... Secret Agent]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"A file that could result in the planet exploding"...
It is to weep.
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Yes!
[Read the article: Did somebody say "recession"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Give me a rebate check--I will spend the HECK out of it!
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@uptoolate
[Read the article: The abortion doctor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You raise an interesting question. My mother used to work for a midwife, who was practicing illegally. Eventually, the laws changed, and midwifery is now legal in that state. But it always struck me as bizarre that my mom was breaking the law just by helping to deliver these babies.
I also have a close friend who once induced a miscarriage with an overdose of Vitamin C.
Myself, I've taken Plan B.
Indeed, medicalizing pregnancy and criminalizing abortion must have gone hand in hand. Both are very efficient ways of exercising control over women's bodies and lives. They both take knowledge that was once fairly common and render it remote, both figuratively and literally, when you consider the distance some women have to travel to get an abortion.
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Autonomy
[Read the article: The abortion doctor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We have as much control over our bodies as we believe we have.
Even if abortion is legal and free, a pregnant woman who doesn't view abortion as an option because her spouse/family would literally kill her doesn't have this autonomy we're talking about.
Laws against drugs, suicide, etc., are effective only inasmuch as people abide by them. People abide by laws they think are reasonable and/or strictly enforced. Failing the first of these, the law becomes a meaningless convention that's out of step with the more powerful regulator of behavior, cultural belief systems.
A woman who lives where abortion is illegal but chooses to get one anyway (in the face of serious risks to her health and life) has autonomy over her body, even though the law says otherwise.
None of us have total control over our bodies. We're all subject to the requirements of time, metabolism, sickness, other people's demands, etc. But this doesn't erase that valuable ideal, autonomy, from the equation.
We're all free only to the extent that we exercise our ability to shape our own lives.
Autonomy is an ideal, a blueprint, a potential. I believe in this ideal; I believe the government should put as few obstacles in the way of people realizing their potential for autonomy.
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Marines in the Green Mountain State
[Read the article: A bizarre turn on the investigative trail ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not exactly a secret that per capita, Vermont leads the nation in fatalities from the Iraq War. Most of them are in the National Guard, but I'm sure plenty of them are in the Marines.