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I love these short pieces on stupid legislation in the land of the free. Makes me so happy I don't live there. Who in their right mind would even propose such
by hmottestad 14y ago
I love these short pieces on stupid legislation in the land of the free.
Makes me so happy I don't live there.
Who in their right mind would even propose such legislation. What kind of immoral, capitalistic people are in charge in the US.
- Gravityloss 14y agoThese things have happened elsewhere. In Finland in 2011, a district attorney prosecuted animal farm videographers that had taken video in 2007 and 2009. Most of the claims did not hold in court.
- unclebucknasty 14y agoYes, but if legislation lije this passes in the U.S., these claims will hold in court here.
- jrockway 14y agoYes, I'm sure the Supreme Court will uphold prior restraint laws. The problem is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt as we wait for the case to make it there.
- wnight 14y agoIf we jailed the supporters of the bill for knowingly trying to pass unconstitutional law it might even happen less. But unless we do that they'll just have passed another corrupt law by the time this one gets overturned.
- ptaipale 14y agoThough they were not prosecuted for just taking video. The claim that did hold was for a felony that roughly translates to breaking and entering. For some other claims (like defamation in case of claiming that farm A does what was filmed at farm X), it was not possible to prove who did what, so it fell apart. Some indecent farming was exposed, which is good. On the other hand, I understand that people are not entirely comfortable about groups of masked men appearing on their premises at night, premises near which their families live.
- xradionut 14y ago"What kind of immoral, capitalistic people are in charge in the US."? Darwinist capitalistic people. It's the invisible hand of evolution in action.
- vanderZwan 14y agoThat's satire, right? You're mocking Friedman, right? Because at this point I honestly can't tell any more in discussions on this topic.
- aaronblohowiak 14y agoI think you, like many people, are conflating Darwin with Malthus.
- xradionut 14y agoNot really, I'm mixing a sci-fi meme with my observations of much of the "fk you elite". I've had the opportunity to live alongside and work with. Many of them truly believe that their gaming of the system, luck and hard work is either divine or a product of "dog eat dog" evolution-style aka "hussle". I've got shocking stories of outrageous actions, but the long term economic trends/facts are sobering.
- crusso 14y agoI love how people try to blame Capitalism for the problems caused by Statism and Cronyism.
- king_jester 14y agoOK, I'll bite. How exactly is the state in fault here? Private businesses and farms in the agriculture and livestock industry cheap out on labor and labor practices on purposes to make extra profit. I am aware of federal and state subsidies for such businesses, but even without such subsidies you will see this kind of skimping on labor costs and facilities that encourage this kind of cruelty.
- ianstallings 14y agoSomewhere long ago before my time society "decided" that the merchant class was above all others. And we have suffered ever since.
- mercurial 14y ago> What kind of immoral, capitalistic people are in charge in the US. People who know where the funding for the next electoral campaign vote comes from. It's a free market: as a voter, you're the product, the corporations are the customers.
- locopati 14y agoYou say this as if treating elections and voting as a market should be acceptable.
- mercurial 14y agoI don't. I'm just calling a spade a spade. Not to say this is the case with all lawmakers, but corporations have much more influence over politics than they ought to, especially in the US (or so it seems as a European)
- InclinedPlane 14y agoNewsflash: it's extraordinarily unlikely that you live in a country with stronger protection of freedom of speech than the US. In fact, if you live in Europe you almost certainly don't.
- hmottestad 14y agoAny references?
- dagw 14y agoReferences to what? The fact that Europe has lots of laws restricting free speech?
- hmottestad 14y agoEurope has almost no laws. We are not like the US. The EU does enforce a bunch of laws. So does the EEA. So I would like a good example of a law from a european country that is not the UK or eastern europe.
- ubernostrum 14y agoTry publishing information about a criminal trial, or about an auction of WWII memorabilia, in "almost no laws" places like France or Germany, and let me know how it goes.
- sergiosgc 14y agoCriminal trials, in much of Europe, are protected by privacy of justice laws, until the proceedings are complete. Then, the information is free. I view that as a good thing, as it prevents mob justice on the media. Let the courts decide, on their own timing, we can analyse the result later; instead of condemning someone in the public view, only to find out later she is an innocent with a forever tarnished reputation.
- locusm 14y ago"What kind of immoral, capitalistic people are in charge in the US?" The Lesters of course. http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_t...
- hmottestad 14y agoYes. I saw that one just yesterday :D He makes great points, but his presentation makes me feel like I've walked into an appliance store and the salesman is trying to convince me to buy the most expensive fridge in the shop.
- unclebucknasty 14y agoFunny. That TED Talk is sponsored by Goldman Sachs.
- jasonlotito 14y ago> Who in their right mind would even propose such legislation. The Swiss. They lost.
- sultezdukes 14y agoWho's this - the ghost of Hugo Chavez gracing us with his presence? What kind of immoral, capitalistic people are in charge in the US The kind of people that don't throw you in jail if you just deny something in public, like in Germany, France, Canada.
- nullymcnull 14y agoCanada jailing people for 'just denying something'? Do tell.
- gyardley 14y agoHe's probably referring to the Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel. If I recall he spent quite a bit of time in jail in Canada for publishing his stuff, although I'm not sure his convictions stuck on appeal. After Zundel was finally deported to Germany (he was never a Canadian citizen), the Germans locked him up pretty promptly.
- rayiner 14y agoThere are 300m people in the US and any one of them can propose a law.
- hmottestad 14y agoIn this case: "But a dozen or so state legislatures have had a different reaction: They proposed or enacted bills that would make it illegal to covertly videotape livestock farms..."
- sophistroll 14y agoRidiculous. Are you implying I have the same legislative power as the agriculture lobbies?
- rayiner 14y agoI'm saying you don't need a lobby when you have millions of farmers who identify politically and culturally with big agriculture and part time state legislators who are often farmers themselves. My wife grew up in Iowa farm country. You don't need a lobby to convince these people that animal rights activists are terrorists.
- wnight 14y agoOh I see. When someone threatens your wallet it's now socially acceptable to cry "terrorist". You're a perfect example of what the OP was talking about. Justifying every abomination.
- rayiner 14y agoI'm not justifying anything. I'm explaining. People in farm country: 1) constantly feel threatened due to the fickle nature of farming and thus are culturally very tight (even to the point of embracing agribusiness as "one of them"; 2) are insular and fairly culturally homogenous (my wife went to a high school with a graduating class of 60 people); 3) have a very different relationship with animals than people on the coasts. Animal rights activism is so outside the mainstream of their experience, that it doesn't take a huge lobby to convince them that these video tapers are one step away from blowing up farms. More broadly, they perceive the movement, like movements to control farm pollution, in terms of their own experience. Not as a cool cost-benefit calculation, but an existential threat to their way of life. That is not to say that they support animal cruelty per se. They react badly to what they perceive to be external threats. They rally around their own. They are really no different than any other group of people in this regard (see, e.g., how Hacker Newsers rally around their own any time people propose regulating tech companies; note the complete lack of moral outrage at Intel, AMD, Hewlett-Packard, etc, in the recent article about how these companies poisoned Palo Alto).