gnosis
Joined 17 years ago
Joined 17 years ago
Lisp Flavoured Erlang:
The next Microsoft? That sounds like a nightmare.
No, thanks!
Actually, there mostly are no trials at all.
As the article states, "most drug-trafficking defendants plead guilty before trial"
One has to wonder if a "justice system" in which the majority of convicts have never even had a trial is worthy of the name.
Marijuana is effectively legal in the Netherlands. (Technically illegal, but "tolerated")
See "Three Felonies a Day"[1]
Also, note the following quote from the original article:
"most drug-trafficking defendants plead guilty before trial"
In fact, something like 90% or more of people accused of crimes in the US never get a trial, because they plead guilty. They plead guilty because prosecutors pile on so many charges that the defendants are afraid to risk life in jail if they happen to lose (in a judicial system that's usually stacked against them). Defending a case in Federal court is also incredibly expensive and traumatic. See the Aaron Swartz case for good examples of all of the above.
[1] - http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came%2E%2E%2E-- Stewart Brand [1] - spoken at the first Hackers' Conference, and reprinted in the May 1985 Whole Earth Review. The quotation is an elaboration from his book, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT, published in 1987.
I encourage everyone who cares about this to get politically involved at a level beyond merely voting for congress critters now and then.
There's a lot that you can do, from joining and supporting organizations like the EFF and the ACLU to getting involved in local politics, which is usually the level that can be most affected by relatively small numbers of individuals.
Case in point: Rand hated Libertarians.[1]
Some typical examples from the article:
- She called Libertarianism "a mockery of philosophy and ideology"
- She accused Libertarians of "slinging slogans and trying to ride on two bandwagons"
Later, she accuses them of entertaining "amateur political notions" and "rushing into politics in order to get publicity".
She says that Libertarians
- are based on "half-baked ideas, and in part on borrowed ideas".
- "spend their time denouncing me, while plagiarizing my ideas".
- "are perhaps the worst political group today, because they can do the most harm to capitalism, by making it disreputable."
- would "like to have an amoral political program"
The effects of protests might not be immediately obvious, and perhaps might never be publicly acknowledged. However, they can have a serious impact.
Here's one important example:
"Many people don't know it, but Nixon was considering using nuclear weapons in Vietnam. At that time, Nixon was also repeatedly saying that he didn't care what the American people thought about Vietnam, and that he was going to escalate the war anyway. However, according to a biography by a well-known historian, when Nixon saw hundreds of thousands of protesters on TV, he dropped his secret plan of nuking Vietnam."[1]
[1] - http://www.opednews.com/Diary/Why-Nixon-Didn-t-Nuke-Viet-by-...
If anyone has any experience with any of these and could comment on how they compare to mailinator, that would be very useful.
[1] - http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html
[2] - https://anonbox.net/
[3] - http://anonymouse.org/anonemail.html
[4] - http://trash-mail.com/
[5] - http://www.dispostable.com/
[6] - https://www.silentsender.com/