Researcher makes the case for DDOS attacks.

[Snowhog]

And no reporting by the media of polling results until every polling precinct has closed.

[SteveRiley]

Agreed! Combine that with a single national primary. It is ridiculous that Iowa and New Hampshire have such outsize influence on the election, given their paltry and non-representative-of-the-nation population.

[bendy]

Coming from the U.K. my take on government is this:

1) Hold a general election where you vote in a small executive team. The competing teams lay out their policies and ideology, and whichever gets the most support gets to run the country.

2) However, instead of electing individual members of parliament who vote on laws proposed by the executive team, MPs are selected at random from across the general population - just like jury service. They serve a single term only.

That way, laws get approved or rejected by a representative cross section of society, by people who don't have to worry about re-election (and hence fund raising).

Laws are far too important to be decided by ambitious and corrupt career politicians.

[Feathers McGraw]

I love it when bullies get nasty surprises like that!

Over the Internet, you can never be sure that you're actually attacking the true source. It's highly likely that the attacker is using some third party -- no doubt by exploiting one or more vulnerabilities -- to conduct nefarious actions on your systems. If you attack the presumed source, you could be equally guilty of breaking the CFAA. I never advise to "attack back."

Two things to say to that: the first is that what's moral and what's legal should be the same thing, but often aren't, which is the whole reason for the debate in the first place! So, what I'm most interested in is whether you (all) think it can ever be morally right to attack back, because if so the law should be amended to allow for that. I understand that your advice is based on how things actually are though, and is still interesting, so thanks!

Here's the second. I think that if my server was compromised and being used to perform DDoS attacks on people and I didn't know about it, I think I'd rather find out because someone DDoSed me and I looked in the logs, than go on thinking it was secure. Obviously I'd rather someone just told me though!

[Snowhog]

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - The Definition of Morality

In the normative sense, morality should never be overridden, that is, no one should ever violate a moral prohibition or requirement for non-moral considerations.

[Feathers McGraw]

...no one should ever violate a moral prohibition or requirement for non-moral considerations.

But does "don't perform a DoS attack" always count as a moral prohibition? I'm not so sure that it does if you're DoSing back, for example.

I don't even think there are any moral absolutes, and prohibitions are absolute (never do X). "Never perform a DoS attack" would be a moral absolute...if you aren't saying it's a moral absolute, then there must be some situations where you think it would be moral to perform a DoS attack.

The tricky thing with law is that it often deals with absolutes, whereas the morality it is trying to uphold is not absolute.

An example... is it immoral for a young couple, one of whom is 10minutes older than 16 and one of whom is 10minutes younger, to have sex? I don't think so. Is it immoral for a 60 year old man to have sex with an underage girl? Yes. The law doesn't differentiate, both are statutory rape.

[GreyGeek]

To Salon's "Constitution" I would add
"ZZ Corporations are NOT people, and personhood for corporations, and their articles of incorporation, are forever abolished and forbidden. Instead, a 20 year charter shall be issued by the state or federal government specifying what areas of business the charter shall cover. Businesses or charitable organizations using funds from any source can NOT make any contributions of any kind (money, facilities, workers) directly or indirectly to any political candidate for office at any level, nor for any bills, policies, measures or executive orders being considered by state or federal legislative bodies, the president, SCOTUS or a federal office holders. Any business or charity officers found guilty of such abuses shall be stripped of their business holdings and offices and sentenced to no less than 10 years in prison per offense. Officers business shares shall be redistributed to the general public at large, for free, in a public drawing. Businesses, upon a second conviction, shall have their charter revoked and their assets seized and sold at public auction, with the proceeds being used for a period of time to support employees in their search for new employment.

Office holders at any level who are found guilty of receiving such business or 501C contributions shall be stripped of office, of all income and earnings made while serving, from what ever source, and sentenced to 10 years in prison for each offense. Corporations, not being people, shall not be subject to income taxes. Income to Officers and workers and interest on corporate savings accounts, here or abroad, shall be subject to income taxes and share holder's dividends to capital gains taxes. Office holders who have worked for businesses prior to holding office cannot vote on any bills affecting such businesses, nor can they work in such businesses for a period of six years after leaving office."

"ZZZ Conflict of Voter Interest. To prevent citizens receiving federal or state welfare from voting for politicians who would claim to continue or increase such welfare, thus introducing a conflict of interest, citizens who are receiving welfare from state or federal agencies shall not allowed to vote in state or federal elections until they are free from such aid for a period of six years (assuming Article ZZ become law) prior to any election for which measures to increase or remove such aid are on the ballot."


I'm reminded of the misquote in the Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, OK),
“This Is the Hard Core of Freedom”
by Elmer T. Peterson, pg. 12A, col. 4:

“A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent from of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, ..."

In 12 states in America one can "earn" twice as much on welfare than working a job paying a minimum wage. Why work?

Fifty years after Johnson declared "War on Poverty", the white flag of surrender has been raised. A full 1/3rd of all Americans, 109 million, are now getting checks in one for or another from the Federal government.

The Left claims that the poverty level has dropped from 30% in 1967 to 9% in 2010, or that it dropped from 26% in 1967 to 16% in 2012. Motherjones claims it hasn't budged in 40 years. The Atlantic monthly tells us that although the poverty rate, a creation of the Johnson administration, has dropped from 19% in 1964 to 15% today, you should just forget about the "poverty rate" because they "are lies, damn lies, and in this case, outdated economic statistics." It then goes on to explain why 16% is the real poverty rate number.

Do you qualify?
http://www.dhs.ri.gov/Portals/0/Uplo...%20DHS/FPL.pdf