Memo to Google and other Alphabet companies
Dear Google folks,
You don't make the world better by cramming speech and ideas you don't like in the closet.
Your job is not to pass judgment on the worth of any idea.
Your job is to provide access to all ideas so people can make their own choices.
Even if the choices are ideas you don't approve. Especially if you don't approve. People have the right to make up their own mind. Deny that and you deny freedom.
Don't be evil.
You don't make the world better by cramming speech and ideas you don't like in the closet.
Your job is not to pass judgment on the worth of any idea.
Your job is to provide access to all ideas so people can make their own choices.
Even if the choices are ideas you don't approve. Especially if you don't approve. People have the right to make up their own mind. Deny that and you deny freedom.
Don't be evil.
Comments
Approval voting
Fargo Considers Whether to Turn Local Elections into a Voting System of Likes (and Dislikes)
“Measure 1 would introduce "approval voting" to the city, meaning voters wouldn't have to abandon independent and third-party choices.”““It's called "approval voting," and residents of Fargo (population: 120,000) are being asked in a ballot initiative if they'd like to be the first municipality in the United States to try it.
Rather than simply voting for one candidate, voters in this system are asked to approve or oppose each person on the ballot. The votes are all tallied, and the candidate with the most approval votes is declared the winner. Much like Maine's ranked-choice instant runoff voting system, this approach doesn't lock voters into supporting a single candidate. It thus allows voters to support third-party and independent candidates if they like them, without having to "throw their vote away" or spoil the chances of a major-party candidate they also support.
Approval voting is a pet project of The Center for Election Science, and the group has been involved in the education campaign in Fargo running up to the election. Polls show that support for this change is high, twice that of those who oppose the change. But more than a third of those polled say that they are undecided, so the center has some work ahead.””
— Scott Shackford
NeoNote — What has Trump done that is so bad?
❝❝I'm not a Trump fan. I don't trust him and I don't like him.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
That being said, when some of us said we didn't like Obama, we were told to sit down and shut up. Obama won, and it was his ball game.
That alone should raise people's hackles.
Right after Trump was elected, there was the woman's march thing. I asked a very progressive group just what was it that Trump had said or done that presented such a threat to women in particular. The only real answer I got was something about woman's reproductive rights. That's when I pointed out that Trump supported Planned Parenthood.
One year later, the same group was talking about supporting the next woman's march. I asked what Trump had done in the previous year that was a particular threat to women. I got something vague about the judges he appointed. I asked how that was different than a liberal President appointing liberal judges.
The complaints about Trump not being legitimately elected are mostly recycled from Bush the Younger. The complaints about Trump being a danger to world peace and being totally incompetent are being recycled from Goldwater and Reagan. I know, I went back and checked. Progressive will complain about Trump tweeting from the toilet, but they can't tell you what he has done that they find repulsive. Except judicial appointments, of course.
We've reached the point where we're told that Trump is E-V-I-L, but they can't say why. And meanwhile with overwhelming bad news coverage, he still has an approval rating of more than 50%.
I don't like him. I don't trust him. I think he is going to make some very bad decisions that will be very bad for the country. But meanwhile, he's screwing up the established government traditions and driving the technocrats crazy. He's disrupting things that need to be disrupted. He's changing government. I have to give the man credit for that.❞❞
Rights do not emanate
☆ Government should be governed
Wednesday - 28Jun2017 Filed in: Liberty
Last week I took on the press. This week I take on the politicos.
Government exists for one reason and one reason only. Government exists to protect freedom. Not to govern, but to protect.
That's a different way of looking at things, isn't it?
Take education. There is not one blessed thing in the Constitution about the Federal government controlling or influencing education. Which means under the Tenth Admendment, it isn't allowed to do so.
Marriage? Not one thing.
Approving of medicines and medical devices? Not one thing.
Yet our legislatures and our President think that it is within government's power.
There were 115 Public Laws passed by Congress in 2016. Do you know what they are? I don't. And by the way, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
I know that under Obama, there were more than 21,000 regulations added to the Federal Register. That's not pages, that's actual regulations. I don't know what more than a fraction of those are.
Do you think we might have just a little bit too much government?
According to politicos, every problem has a government solution. Including the problems caused by government. Yes, the Official® Solution to government power is More Government. More law! More rules! More technocrats!
Less liberty.
That's how it really works. Every time government acts, you are less free. Every time that government acts, it costs you money. Every time that government acts, government grows.
Every time. Every single time.
And when someone comes along and says government should be smaller, why, that is a Threat to the American Way of Life!
Except, when did more government become the American Way of Life?
Shouldn't we have smaller government?
Shouldn't we have more freedom?
Shouldn't we have more personal responsibility?
Your choice.
Government exists for one reason and one reason only. Government exists to protect freedom. Not to govern, but to protect.
That's a different way of looking at things, isn't it?
Take education. There is not one blessed thing in the Constitution about the Federal government controlling or influencing education. Which means under the Tenth Admendment, it isn't allowed to do so.
Marriage? Not one thing.
Approving of medicines and medical devices? Not one thing.
Yet our legislatures and our President think that it is within government's power.
There were 115 Public Laws passed by Congress in 2016. Do you know what they are? I don't. And by the way, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
I know that under Obama, there were more than 21,000 regulations added to the Federal Register. That's not pages, that's actual regulations. I don't know what more than a fraction of those are.
Do you think we might have just a little bit too much government?
According to politicos, every problem has a government solution. Including the problems caused by government. Yes, the Official® Solution to government power is More Government. More law! More rules! More technocrats!
Less liberty.
That's how it really works. Every time government acts, you are less free. Every time that government acts, it costs you money. Every time that government acts, government grows.
Every time. Every single time.
And when someone comes along and says government should be smaller, why, that is a Threat to the American Way of Life!
Except, when did more government become the American Way of Life?
Shouldn't we have smaller government?
Shouldn't we have more freedom?
Shouldn't we have more personal responsibility?
Your choice.