Author: VD

Z.King misses the heart of the matter:

Vox is not actually a commy, but the idea of anyone feeling entitled to the fruits of someone else’s labor is a commy/socialist idea.

But the entire point of my argument is that copyright is not property. In fact, I can use existing copyright law to demonstrate this concept, because if copyright were genuine property, it would not have a statute of limitations on it. Putting the abomination of the Kelo decision aside for the moment, must your children give up your house to the public after a fixed number of years? Your car? How about your savings?

This clear distinction between the intellectual property of copyright and real property is sufficient to prove that copyright is not property.

Now, sticking with an example that has already been discussed here, there is far more to a book than the copyrighted element. There is the physical material, the layout, the typeface, the cover art and the expense of printing… in fact, the text is usually one of the least expensive elements unless the author JK Rowlings or Stephen King. So, if copyright is not property and the other labor elements outweigh that of the copyright holder’s labor in the end product, how can anyone possibly claim that skepticism about the benefits of copyright for innovation derives from one strain of Marxianism or another in any way?

As others have asked, why is it that only some ideas – often the least important ones – that can be protected in this manner? Should we not have granted copyright to the inventor of the Internet? Is not Z. therefore robbing him by not paying him a royalty for the benefit of reading this blog post? If so, she can surely send him a penny each time she logs on in order to assuage her guilty conscience, lest we accuse her of being a thief, or worse, a Communist.

Andrew Stuttaford of National Review Online underlines the point of today’s column with these studies in legal ignorance:

“That’s right: they don’t particularly like the idea of the film, but they think that it should be made. That’s called freedom, or, as a number of EU governments prefer to call it, “provocation”.” – Andrew Stuttaford

“Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali rallies to Denmark’s defense, while faulting her own government: ‘I do not seek to offend religious sentiment, but I will not submit to tyranny. Demanding that people who do not accept Muhammad’s teachings should refrain from drawing him is not a request for respect but a demand for submission.’ In response, the Dutch prime minister has said that he does “not have much use” for Hirsi Ali’s views. Shame on him.” – Stuttaford again

“According to Dagens Nyheter, the Swedish security services (Säpo), in collusion with Foreign Minister Leila Freivalds, have forced the website SD-Kuriren offline for publishing the Jyllands-Posten cartoons (SD-Kuriren is the house organ of the hard-right Swedish Democrats).” – Stuttaford, quoting the Stockholm Spectator

“The EU’s foreign policy boss is setting out on a trip of the Middle East to discuss the cartoon saga. These comments, in an interview with Al Arabiya, suggest that free speech will take second place to a “respect” that “does not stop at countries’ borders and it includes all religions and specifically what concerns us here, our respect for the Islamic religion.” Meanwhile, a preacher in Mecca is rejecting apologies and demanding a trial. With “stiff penalties” to follow, of course.” – Once more, the irrepressible Mr. Stuttaford

The great irony here is that Andrew Stuttaford is British, and thus hails from a country which does not recognize American-style press freedom. As I demonstrated using Swiss law, most European countries ban public insults to officially-recognized religions – you can, for example, freely insult Scientologists in Germany since it is considered a cult, not a religion – and thus the Muslim call for trials and prosecutions of the offending media organizations is entirely reasonable in many, if not most of those countries.

It is a pity that these individuals so interested in protecting a non-existent press freedom in Europe are not equally exercised about the recent loss of genuine American press freedoms due to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill and the new violence against women act.

And Soup, as I noticed you’ve managed to restrain yourself elsewhere, please feel free to argue away with EP here on matters theological, at least until the column shows up in a few hours.

It’s a petty one and focuses on the most trivial aspect of a current event, but I felt it was something worth saying nevertheless.

I don’t actually have anything to say about this, Spacebunny and I just thought it was funny. Shades of a palace coup, perhaps?

Chris Naron brings an active debate to our attention. It’s pretty interesting, actually, if not unplagued by the same sort of thoughtless reactions that have infested the comments here of late. I did find it somewhat amusing that some conservatives were so quick to accuse me of leftism for not blindly accepting the Dear Leader’s assertion that Iran is not only Hitler, but an imminent threat to the existence of Israel the United States.

For the record, I have never stated that I believe Iran’s pursuit of nuclear power is peaceful. I don’t believe that at all. I merely believe that it is not only impractical, but impossible, to prevent any nation or organization with sufficient resources from acquiring nuclear weapons, because, as Carroll Quigley so astutely predicted several decades ago, this is part of the age-old pattern of the development and spread of military technology.

Morgan won’t answer a simple question:

I’m hardly going to take the bait you’ve dangled and offer up any ten points to just please you and your Amen Chorus.

See Morgan write. See Morgan evade. The usual pattern. This is why she remains, intellectually speaking, a featherweight. If one wishes to be taken seriously, one cannot argue that I am attacking an extremist, straw version of an ideology by asserting that one’s own version on the ideology is different and then refuse to define that version. To do as she has done is a tacit admission of either intellectual cowardice or intellectual incompetence. I assume the former, but the latter is always possible.

To summarize the discussion to date:

VOX: Feminism is bad.

MOTL: You can’t say that because there are many different kinds of feminism. Never mind that there is a recognized canon which is taught in major universities across the country, my feminism is different.

VOX: Fine, so what is your feminism?

MOTL: I’m not telling!

I’m amazed that she doesn’t find this even a little bit embarrassing. I’d abandon my column in a heartbeat if I was ever reduced to that sort of pathetic evasion. And before she attempts to sidetrack the issue by claiming that I am avoiding what wasn’t even a direct question, I will point out that women have always worked. 29.6 percent of the workforce was female in 1950, prior to “liberation”, the difference is that married women, especially married middle-class and upper-middle class white women, did not work.

Since the workforce is now 46.6 percent female – an additional 48 million women – this has suppressed wages to the point that Moglie’s husband can no longer earn enough to provide her with the sort of insurance that would serve as an adequate safety net. The great irony of feminism is that through its advocacy of work for women, it has effectively removed the choice to stay at home for lower class, and to a certain extent, lower middle-class women.

This is not debatable, it is merely the operation of the iron law of supply and demand. And as Camille Paglia points out, the sole concern of feminist leaders from the very start has been the white, female upper-middle class.

As for Morgan’s bizarre attempt to muddy the issue with Christian denominations, I merely ask this: what is the feminist analogy to the belief in the birth, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ – not to mention the Bible – in which the failure to the orthodox view makes it clear to all that the self-professed Christian is not a Christian at all?

It is a simple matter to define Christianity as well as the differences between Southern Baptists, Catholics and Methodists. Given that feminism has been around for significantly less time and that many of its leaders are still alive, it should be even easier to provide equally clear definitions for feminism and its various strains.

Someone who knows a lot more than I do about making money raises an issue:

I can whip up a mean steak, but I still like to go to restaurants. Because I enjoy it. I enjoy getting out of the house with family, friends, who ever.

Every single Mavs game is on TV. It wasnt that long ago that some people in the sports business thought that having games on TV would reduce attendance. After all, why go to the game when you can watch it for free on TV ? Then someone decided to do some research and as it turns out, the more games you broadcast on TV, the more people who go to your games.

Isn’t it interesting how copyright holders so often shoot themselves in the foot in “protection” of what they assume to be their interests? It’s particularly interesting in light of Baen Books’ experience, which proved that giving out free text versions of its authors’ older books actually increased their sales.

Since bookstores increasingly carry a smaller number of titles and keep them on the shelves for a shorter period of time, the conventional book-selling model is becoming less and less beneficial to copyright holders. Increasing it from life plus 70 years to infinity isn’t going to put a single additional dollar into the pockets of the creators, so my guess is that it will not be too long before it is conclusively proven that the benefit of copyright to the creator is as nebulous as the once-credited benefit of public stadiums to the taxpayers.

The text is not the whole of the book experience, just as a meal is not the whole of the restaurant experience. Defenders of copyright are in the position of needing to explain the existence of restaurants, since according to their theory, the easy availability of better, cheaper food at home should all but eliminate any demand for eating out.

Here’s something I’ve never quite understood about the working woman vs housewife issue. The classic feminist argument is that women who stay at home won’t be satisfied and fulfilled, because they are stifled and oppressed by being limited to their roles as wives and mothers. So, in order to find themselves, and presumably, satisfaction, they recommend that women go out and spend over a third of the day doing something that they enjoy so little that someone has to offer them money in order to get them to do it.

Meanwhile, the first thing that a wealthy and successful man does when he can afford to do so is vacate the office! True, he’s probably not cleaning any bathrooms, but then, the average woman’s distaste for cleaning bathrooms is clearly not so great that anyone has to give her money to get her to do it. At least, not in the case of women with clean bathrooms….

This reminds me of the fable of the king and his general, wherein the general convinces the conquest-hungry king that even if they do go out and conquer the world, success will be crowned by their ability to sit peacefully in the sun and drink wine, exactly as they are doing already.

So, don’t expect to find much personal fulfillment in anything you wouldn’t do if someone wasn’t paying you money to do it. This would seem to be pretty obvious, and yet it has apparently escaped the attention of three generations of women pining to join the workforce.

Morgan sabotages her own argument:

Wow. It takes a big man to advocate hitting women. It takes an even bigger one to kick a dead one.

Yes, most men are afraid to openly advocate hitting women. I’m not. If a woman offers sufficient provocation, then deck her, with no more thought than you’d give a man who offered similar offense. This equality is exactly what women have been demanding… of course, once a rational mind points out the obvious consequence, women like Morgan don’t like it. Hey, you’ve come a long way, baby.

Gamma Males, take note of how this typical female tactic of attempted browbeating intended to inspire fear of social rejection simply doesn’t work with men who don’t buy into it. There’s nothing behind it, so why do you always fall for it?

However, for those of you howling with glee, may I propose you put your convictions into practice? If you truly object to women in the workplace, then you should begin making a concerted effort to boycott business that employ them, especially at executive levels.

Why bother? Is she talking about executive assistants or sales executives… or perhaps she has forgotten the Glass Ceiling. It cracks me up how Carly Fiorina is STILL trumpeted as some kind of feminist success story.

In fact, just avoid working women all together. If you suffer a heart attack or and need an ambulance, refuse treatment if the paramedic or driver is a woman. (You might want to make sure your family knows of your plans so they can do this on your behalf, should you be incapacitated.) If you are fortunate enough to have male attendants and male drivers on your way to the hospital, once your there make sure you only consent to treatment from male doctors, male nurses, male radiologists, anesthesiologists and pharmacists. And make sure you refuse drugs developed with the help of female researchers. Make sure, while you’re at it that you refuse treatment for your minor children – emergency or otherwise – from female pediatricians. And if your favorite hunting dog gets hit by a car and a female veterinarian is your only option, shoot the dog. Puppies are a dime a dozen.

If you’re seeking to have a written work published, *make sure* the publishing company knows what you think of working women up front. Ask that your writings only be reviewed by men, as any woman who rejects them will obviously have done so due to their feminist agenda.

Don’t watch television shows or movies. Those programs are full of working mothers.

I’m cool with all that, as long as men have the ability to hire whoever they want without women running to Big Daddy Government to make those mean nasty men give them jobs. Speaking of which, just how many men work for Mary Kay? What’s that I smell, an equal opportunity lawsuit? It seems Morgan hasn’t been paying attention to the television industry, which has been in panic mode of late because men in that all-important 18-35 demographic increasingly refuse to watch television. They prefer electronic games, which are created by men for men, with almost no female interference.

And of course, Morgan provides a wonderful explanation of how women can be relied upon to abuse positions of power, as she knows perfectly well that most women editors will NOT judge a work based on its potential financial benefit to the publisher, they will instead shoot it down simply because they don’t like the political views of the author. Since four of my five editors have been women, it would be interesting to know how many of them would have rejected that which they deemed acceptable if they had only been aware that I am a Thought Criminal.

But it’s heartening to know that Morgan is, like me, pro-discrimination, formerly known as the Constitutional right to free association.

Wendy McElroy on the late, unlamented Betty Friedan:

Friedan’s assessment of the housewife may well have been instrumental in the decades-long devaluation of women who chose that option. She wrote, “Housewives are mindless and thing-hungry…Housework is peculiarly suited to the capabilities of feeble-minded girls; it can hardly use the abilities of a woman of average or normal human intelligence.”

That pretty much sums up why working women feel superior to homemakers, and why homemakers used to feel the need to apologize for or somehow dress up their occupation. Because, of course, it requires so much more ability and intelligence to arrange pretty pictures in a Powerpoint demonstration or work out UPS charges and send the same three invoice forms out to your company’s client base.

And as for the smart ones… like we really need more lawyers generating income by interfering with the productive classes. Or more high-priced consultants getting paid in order to give the executives cover for their screw-ups.

Friedan was a Marxist, a myth-maker and a moron. I’ll urinate on her grave if I ever happen to stumble across it. She was one of the most ruinous public figures of the 20th century and it’s truly a shame her mother wasn’t an abortionette like the vast majority of her followers.