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Senate approves Syria, anti-BDS[*] bill
The Senate passed legislation on Thursday breaking with President Trump's Syria policy. Senators voted 77-23 to send the legislation to the House that includes a provision warning Trump against a "precipitous" withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan. It also asks the administration to certify that certain conditions have been met "for the enduring defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS before initiating any significant withdrawal of United States forces from Syria or Afghanistan."
[...] In addition to the Syria amendment, the bill also included sanctions against the Syrian government, increased support for Israel and Jordan and a provision that would let states penalize businesses that take part in boycotts or divestments of Israel.
Both the Syria amendment and the anti-BDS provisions sparked division among Democrats. [...] Democrats had raised First Amendment concerns about the anti-BDS provision, which splintered most of the party's 2020 contenders and caucus leadership. "While I do not support the BDS movement, we must defend every American's constitutional right to engage in political activity. It is clear to me that this bill would violate Americans' First Amendment rights," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement last week.
[*] BDS: boycott, divestment and sanctions.
Also at NYT.
See also: Is the Anti-BDS Bill Constitutional? Yes, But...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday February 07 2019, @11:49PM (4 children)
The problem with this is that other existing economic systems have the same rule. Most of the time everyone works for some authoritarian figure doing what that figure wants. The exceptions that I know of are hunter-gatherers, where people are only occasionally subject to the whims of an authority figure.
So you can't pin that one on capitalist systems. It goes back through the middle ages at least to the later Roman empire, and probably back to Egypt, where the word taxes (in Egyptian, of course) was created to describe labor conscripted by the state. I've never encountered an actual libertarian system. (Except the Yik, who fell apart socially under the stress of a famine. Somalia might be another example, but it sounds more like gang warfare with everyone subservient to some gang leader.)
This is why I'm a minarchist rather than a libertarian. Some social rules seem to be necessary.
P.S.: Another exception is the period of the homestead act, where lots of "free land" was being created. But during that period there were a large number of songs about bondage to financial agencies. (See, e.g., "The Banks are made of Marble".) There were also lots of violently suppressed labor uprisings. So I doubt that it was actually an exception, but suspect rather that people have been given a "hagiographic" story of what it was like.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday February 08 2019, @02:01AM (3 children)
The point is that the free speech and elections and such are there to try to create the illusion that you're a free citizen able to do whatever you like, while the economic system keeps you not-much-less-imprisoned than you were under feudalism. And arguably more imprisoned: Depending on the exact time and place, medieval peasants had more days off (thanks to the Catholic Church declaring all those "Saint So-and-So's Day") and lower taxes than we do today.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday February 08 2019, @04:55AM
Days when you must attend church aren't exactly "days off", and in any case this cannot be tied to capitalism. It's blaming the wrong target. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to blame it, but in each case there's always the question "what alternatives are any better, and what are their drawbacks".
I tend to blame many problems on the centralization of power, and claim that the decisions should be made close to the place where they will be acted on, so that feedback is reasonably possible. But that has it's own problems, of course. I keep hoping that we'll develop an AI like the Collegatarch of Allan Dean Foster's "I Inside", but we're a bit of a distance from that technologically, and a huge distance from that socially.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday February 08 2019, @05:21PM (1 child)
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government [richardlangworth.com] I'll take what we have now as opposed to those others that have been tried. Perhaps a new system could be created that is even better, but it's no easy thing to create a new form of government.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday February 08 2019, @05:36PM
Democracy is not the same thing as capitalism. Pretending that they are the same thing is one of those nice little tricks used to convince you that what you're getting now is the best possible deal you could get.
And in many parts of the world, capitalism is paired not with democracy, but ruthless and brutal dictatorship, in many cases with those ruthless and brutal dictators installed and backed by the supposedly enlightened United States.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.