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From Twitter 01-15-2010
Jan. 16th, 2010 02:04 amTweets copied by twittinesis.com
Jan. 16th, 2010
During the Middle Ages there was the feudal system. Although this is commonly referred to as a system of government, it really wasn't. In practice it was nothing more than the rule of the strong and rich over the weak and poor.
Consider France. French nobles taxed their subjects heavily. They bound peasants to their home villages or estates, forbidding them from moving someplace better. They took the best of what the peasants owned- and doubly so if a peasant died.
And then, because all of this was not enough to sustain their lifestyles, the ruling classes would go on armed raids of their own territories, looting, raping, and burning among their own subjects.
There was no law the subjects could appeal to. What courts of law there were were presided over by nobles and royalty, and were primarily concerned with lawsuits and squabbles between those same nobles and royalty. As many as not of those lawsuits were settled by the sword rather by any decision.
This state of affairs continued through western Europe for the better part of eight hundred years- longer in eastern Europe, less long in areas conquered by the Ottomans. During most of that time only two industries showed significant growth: military affairs and organized religion. The common people had nothing, built nothing, and created very little.
Several factors changed this, but the most significant of these was the rise of the rule of law rather than of force. The feudal system collapsed under repeated peasant revolt and the needs of the military to wage the royalty's never-ending wars. Gradually it was acknowledged that there had to be some things nobles and royalty could not do, for the sake of the system as a whole.
With the rule of law and the security and growing freedom of the individual, economies began to grow. People lived longer, better, and generally happier. The more the law was ignored or the people held in bondage (Spain, Russia), the poorer the country as a whole became; the more the law was upheld and the rights of the people respected, the wealthier that country and all within it became (England, the Netherlands). Even the absolute monarchs of the late Renaissance and Enlightenment periods could not wholly undermine the advances of the rule of law.
And so it is today: you will find greater wealth where the law is stronger and the ability of individual officials or wealthy men to override it weaker. Where strongmen, dictators, or thugs can break the law with impunity for their own gain, wealth flees and poverty grows.
And where there is anarchy- Somalia, Afghanistan, and Haiti even before the earthquake- you will find absolutely no freedom- nothing but suffering and fear. Freedom cannot survive without the rule of law to keep the powerful, the wealthy, and the prejudiced majority in check.
And so when someone says, in a comment on one of my posts, something like: Should all laws become useless as a result, so much the better! I have little use for most of them anyway.
... well, I get extremely angry, because either this person wants to rule over me like one of those feudal lords, or else s/he is a fool who believes we can do away with law without feudalism or worse returning. For, be certain of it, strip away the laws and the rich and powerful, who today struggle against those laws and who seek to bend them to their will, will instead enforce their will directly upon the weak and poor, with no effective check on their abuse.
The laws are VERY important- and we ignore any of them, even the bad ones, at peril of our lives, our property, and our freedom.
Consider France. French nobles taxed their subjects heavily. They bound peasants to their home villages or estates, forbidding them from moving someplace better. They took the best of what the peasants owned- and doubly so if a peasant died.
And then, because all of this was not enough to sustain their lifestyles, the ruling classes would go on armed raids of their own territories, looting, raping, and burning among their own subjects.
There was no law the subjects could appeal to. What courts of law there were were presided over by nobles and royalty, and were primarily concerned with lawsuits and squabbles between those same nobles and royalty. As many as not of those lawsuits were settled by the sword rather by any decision.
This state of affairs continued through western Europe for the better part of eight hundred years- longer in eastern Europe, less long in areas conquered by the Ottomans. During most of that time only two industries showed significant growth: military affairs and organized religion. The common people had nothing, built nothing, and created very little.
Several factors changed this, but the most significant of these was the rise of the rule of law rather than of force. The feudal system collapsed under repeated peasant revolt and the needs of the military to wage the royalty's never-ending wars. Gradually it was acknowledged that there had to be some things nobles and royalty could not do, for the sake of the system as a whole.
With the rule of law and the security and growing freedom of the individual, economies began to grow. People lived longer, better, and generally happier. The more the law was ignored or the people held in bondage (Spain, Russia), the poorer the country as a whole became; the more the law was upheld and the rights of the people respected, the wealthier that country and all within it became (England, the Netherlands). Even the absolute monarchs of the late Renaissance and Enlightenment periods could not wholly undermine the advances of the rule of law.
And so it is today: you will find greater wealth where the law is stronger and the ability of individual officials or wealthy men to override it weaker. Where strongmen, dictators, or thugs can break the law with impunity for their own gain, wealth flees and poverty grows.
And where there is anarchy- Somalia, Afghanistan, and Haiti even before the earthquake- you will find absolutely no freedom- nothing but suffering and fear. Freedom cannot survive without the rule of law to keep the powerful, the wealthy, and the prejudiced majority in check.
And so when someone says, in a comment on one of my posts, something like: Should all laws become useless as a result, so much the better! I have little use for most of them anyway.
... well, I get extremely angry, because either this person wants to rule over me like one of those feudal lords, or else s/he is a fool who believes we can do away with law without feudalism or worse returning. For, be certain of it, strip away the laws and the rich and powerful, who today struggle against those laws and who seek to bend them to their will, will instead enforce their will directly upon the weak and poor, with no effective check on their abuse.
The laws are VERY important- and we ignore any of them, even the bad ones, at peril of our lives, our property, and our freedom.
During the Middle Ages there was the feudal system. Although this is commonly referred to as a system of government, it really wasn't. In practice it was nothing more than the rule of the strong and rich over the weak and poor.
Consider France. French nobles taxed their subjects heavily. They bound peasants to their home villages or estates, forbidding them from moving someplace better. They took the best of what the peasants owned- and doubly so if a peasant died.
And then, because all of this was not enough to sustain their lifestyles, the ruling classes would go on armed raids of their own territories, looting, raping, and burning among their own subjects.
There was no law the subjects could appeal to. What courts of law there were were presided over by nobles and royalty, and were primarily concerned with lawsuits and squabbles between those same nobles and royalty. As many as not of those lawsuits were settled by the sword rather by any decision.
This state of affairs continued through western Europe for the better part of eight hundred years- longer in eastern Europe, less long in areas conquered by the Ottomans. During most of that time only two industries showed significant growth: military affairs and organized religion. The common people had nothing, built nothing, and created very little.
Several factors changed this, but the most significant of these was the rise of the rule of law rather than of force. The feudal system collapsed under repeated peasant revolt and the needs of the military to wage the royalty's never-ending wars. Gradually it was acknowledged that there had to be some things nobles and royalty could not do, for the sake of the system as a whole.
With the rule of law and the security and growing freedom of the individual, economies began to grow. People lived longer, better, and generally happier. The more the law was ignored or the people held in bondage (Spain, Russia), the poorer the country as a whole became; the more the law was upheld and the rights of the people respected, the wealthier that country and all within it became (England, the Netherlands). Even the absolute monarchs of the late Renaissance and Enlightenment periods could not wholly undermine the advances of the rule of law.
And so it is today: you will find greater wealth where the law is stronger and the ability of individual officials or wealthy men to override it weaker. Where strongmen, dictators, or thugs can break the law with impunity for their own gain, wealth flees and poverty grows.
And where there is anarchy- Somalia, Afghanistan, and Haiti even before the earthquake- you will find absolutely no freedom- nothing but suffering and fear. Freedom cannot survive without the rule of law to keep the powerful, the wealthy, and the prejudiced majority in check.
And so when someone says, in a comment on one of my posts, something like: Should all laws become useless as a result, so much the better! I have little use for most of them anyway.
... well, I get extremely angry, because either this person wants to rule over me like one of those feudal lords, or else s/he is a fool who believes we can do away with law without feudalism or worse returning. For, be certain of it, strip away the laws and the rich and powerful, who today struggle against those laws and who seek to bend them to their will, will instead enforce their will directly upon the weak and poor, with no effective check on their abuse.
The laws are VERY important- and we ignore any of them, even the bad ones, at peril of our lives, our property, and our freedom.
Consider France. French nobles taxed their subjects heavily. They bound peasants to their home villages or estates, forbidding them from moving someplace better. They took the best of what the peasants owned- and doubly so if a peasant died.
And then, because all of this was not enough to sustain their lifestyles, the ruling classes would go on armed raids of their own territories, looting, raping, and burning among their own subjects.
There was no law the subjects could appeal to. What courts of law there were were presided over by nobles and royalty, and were primarily concerned with lawsuits and squabbles between those same nobles and royalty. As many as not of those lawsuits were settled by the sword rather by any decision.
This state of affairs continued through western Europe for the better part of eight hundred years- longer in eastern Europe, less long in areas conquered by the Ottomans. During most of that time only two industries showed significant growth: military affairs and organized religion. The common people had nothing, built nothing, and created very little.
Several factors changed this, but the most significant of these was the rise of the rule of law rather than of force. The feudal system collapsed under repeated peasant revolt and the needs of the military to wage the royalty's never-ending wars. Gradually it was acknowledged that there had to be some things nobles and royalty could not do, for the sake of the system as a whole.
With the rule of law and the security and growing freedom of the individual, economies began to grow. People lived longer, better, and generally happier. The more the law was ignored or the people held in bondage (Spain, Russia), the poorer the country as a whole became; the more the law was upheld and the rights of the people respected, the wealthier that country and all within it became (England, the Netherlands). Even the absolute monarchs of the late Renaissance and Enlightenment periods could not wholly undermine the advances of the rule of law.
And so it is today: you will find greater wealth where the law is stronger and the ability of individual officials or wealthy men to override it weaker. Where strongmen, dictators, or thugs can break the law with impunity for their own gain, wealth flees and poverty grows.
And where there is anarchy- Somalia, Afghanistan, and Haiti even before the earthquake- you will find absolutely no freedom- nothing but suffering and fear. Freedom cannot survive without the rule of law to keep the powerful, the wealthy, and the prejudiced majority in check.
And so when someone says, in a comment on one of my posts, something like: Should all laws become useless as a result, so much the better! I have little use for most of them anyway.
... well, I get extremely angry, because either this person wants to rule over me like one of those feudal lords, or else s/he is a fool who believes we can do away with law without feudalism or worse returning. For, be certain of it, strip away the laws and the rich and powerful, who today struggle against those laws and who seek to bend them to their will, will instead enforce their will directly upon the weak and poor, with no effective check on their abuse.
The laws are VERY important- and we ignore any of them, even the bad ones, at peril of our lives, our property, and our freedom.
So I got Trojaned today.
Jan. 16th, 2010 11:22 pmStill don't know how.
But I had a close brush with the Ctrl Center virus- close, as in the thing had actually begun installing itself and was already throwing up fake virus-software warnings, one of which I made the mistake of clicking. They offered to "update my registry" for only, oh, $59.95 for one year- or (oh bargain of bargains!) $79.95 for two years.
Thankfully, about five weeks ago I spent most of a day grabbing the free version of AVG Anti-Virus so I'd be PCI compliant for WLP's credit card processing. I'd previously had Defender Pro 5-in-1, but their 2009 update pretty much made the computer unusable- interrupting EVERYTHING, bar none, for virus scans and defrags that slowed the machine to a crawl. I'd uninstalled that and, for pretty near all of 2009, had no virus protection aside from being on dialup in an increasingly broadband world.
And I figure dialup, plus AVG Anti-Virus, saved me today. Ctrl Center never got a chance to fully load, never (so far as I can find) attacked my startup menu or loadup task file (which is what it does- it locks you out of your computer until you pony up the cash or, more sensibly, hand the machine over to someone who will charge you a $100 You Absolute Idiot fee)... indeed, one virus scan, destroy, and reboot later, there doesn't appear to be any trace of the thing left on this machine.
(I hope.)
The thing is, though... I haven't opened any dodgy attachments. I've been browsing pretty much entirely legit and trusted sites. The only place I can think of this could have come from is deviantArt, where I've been trying like hell to catch up on a year and a half of artwork from hundreds of artists I was following at some point or other. And despite this, this weasel-worm Trojian came that close to causing me massive grief and, possibly, a trip to Houston to get the damn thing working again.
(And I am getting towards looking for a new machine- this one was a fan donation/gift, and it's served very well, but it's still a 2006-era cheap-end Dell, and it's beginning to show its age. Especially the fan on the power supply, which makes bad-bearing whines at deafening volumes at unpredictable times, the only cure for which is a cold reboot.)
Anyway... in the VERY near future I'm getting some store-bought antivirus software. (Sorry, AVG, I like you, but I just don't have the pipe to download your better big brother.)
And if you get an unfamiliar warning message from the control bar on your machine... DON'T click it, DON'T restart your computer, and DO get AVG (free download) or whatever antivirus software you have working on it ASAP.
But I had a close brush with the Ctrl Center virus- close, as in the thing had actually begun installing itself and was already throwing up fake virus-software warnings, one of which I made the mistake of clicking. They offered to "update my registry" for only, oh, $59.95 for one year- or (oh bargain of bargains!) $79.95 for two years.
Thankfully, about five weeks ago I spent most of a day grabbing the free version of AVG Anti-Virus so I'd be PCI compliant for WLP's credit card processing. I'd previously had Defender Pro 5-in-1, but their 2009 update pretty much made the computer unusable- interrupting EVERYTHING, bar none, for virus scans and defrags that slowed the machine to a crawl. I'd uninstalled that and, for pretty near all of 2009, had no virus protection aside from being on dialup in an increasingly broadband world.
And I figure dialup, plus AVG Anti-Virus, saved me today. Ctrl Center never got a chance to fully load, never (so far as I can find) attacked my startup menu or loadup task file (which is what it does- it locks you out of your computer until you pony up the cash or, more sensibly, hand the machine over to someone who will charge you a $100 You Absolute Idiot fee)... indeed, one virus scan, destroy, and reboot later, there doesn't appear to be any trace of the thing left on this machine.
(I hope.)
The thing is, though... I haven't opened any dodgy attachments. I've been browsing pretty much entirely legit and trusted sites. The only place I can think of this could have come from is deviantArt, where I've been trying like hell to catch up on a year and a half of artwork from hundreds of artists I was following at some point or other. And despite this, this weasel-worm Trojian came that close to causing me massive grief and, possibly, a trip to Houston to get the damn thing working again.
(And I am getting towards looking for a new machine- this one was a fan donation/gift, and it's served very well, but it's still a 2006-era cheap-end Dell, and it's beginning to show its age. Especially the fan on the power supply, which makes bad-bearing whines at deafening volumes at unpredictable times, the only cure for which is a cold reboot.)
Anyway... in the VERY near future I'm getting some store-bought antivirus software. (Sorry, AVG, I like you, but I just don't have the pipe to download your better big brother.)
And if you get an unfamiliar warning message from the control bar on your machine... DON'T click it, DON'T restart your computer, and DO get AVG (free download) or whatever antivirus software you have working on it ASAP.
So I got Trojaned today.
Jan. 16th, 2010 11:22 pmStill don't know how.
But I had a close brush with the Ctrl Center virus- close, as in the thing had actually begun installing itself and was already throwing up fake virus-software warnings, one of which I made the mistake of clicking. They offered to "update my registry" for only, oh, $59.95 for one year- or (oh bargain of bargains!) $79.95 for two years.
Thankfully, about five weeks ago I spent most of a day grabbing the free version of AVG Anti-Virus so I'd be PCI compliant for WLP's credit card processing. I'd previously had Defender Pro 5-in-1, but their 2009 update pretty much made the computer unusable- interrupting EVERYTHING, bar none, for virus scans and defrags that slowed the machine to a crawl. I'd uninstalled that and, for pretty near all of 2009, had no virus protection aside from being on dialup in an increasingly broadband world.
And I figure dialup, plus AVG Anti-Virus, saved me today. Ctrl Center never got a chance to fully load, never (so far as I can find) attacked my startup menu or loadup task file (which is what it does- it locks you out of your computer until you pony up the cash or, more sensibly, hand the machine over to someone who will charge you a $100 You Absolute Idiot fee)... indeed, one virus scan, destroy, and reboot later, there doesn't appear to be any trace of the thing left on this machine.
(I hope.)
The thing is, though... I haven't opened any dodgy attachments. I've been browsing pretty much entirely legit and trusted sites. The only place I can think of this could have come from is deviantArt, where I've been trying like hell to catch up on a year and a half of artwork from hundreds of artists I was following at some point or other. And despite this, this weasel-worm Trojian came that close to causing me massive grief and, possibly, a trip to Houston to get the damn thing working again.
(And I am getting towards looking for a new machine- this one was a fan donation/gift, and it's served very well, but it's still a 2006-era cheap-end Dell, and it's beginning to show its age. Especially the fan on the power supply, which makes bad-bearing whines at deafening volumes at unpredictable times, the only cure for which is a cold reboot.)
Anyway... in the VERY near future I'm getting some store-bought antivirus software. (Sorry, AVG, I like you, but I just don't have the pipe to download your better big brother.)
And if you get an unfamiliar warning message from the control bar on your machine... DON'T click it, DON'T restart your computer, and DO get AVG (free download) or whatever antivirus software you have working on it ASAP.
But I had a close brush with the Ctrl Center virus- close, as in the thing had actually begun installing itself and was already throwing up fake virus-software warnings, one of which I made the mistake of clicking. They offered to "update my registry" for only, oh, $59.95 for one year- or (oh bargain of bargains!) $79.95 for two years.
Thankfully, about five weeks ago I spent most of a day grabbing the free version of AVG Anti-Virus so I'd be PCI compliant for WLP's credit card processing. I'd previously had Defender Pro 5-in-1, but their 2009 update pretty much made the computer unusable- interrupting EVERYTHING, bar none, for virus scans and defrags that slowed the machine to a crawl. I'd uninstalled that and, for pretty near all of 2009, had no virus protection aside from being on dialup in an increasingly broadband world.
And I figure dialup, plus AVG Anti-Virus, saved me today. Ctrl Center never got a chance to fully load, never (so far as I can find) attacked my startup menu or loadup task file (which is what it does- it locks you out of your computer until you pony up the cash or, more sensibly, hand the machine over to someone who will charge you a $100 You Absolute Idiot fee)... indeed, one virus scan, destroy, and reboot later, there doesn't appear to be any trace of the thing left on this machine.
(I hope.)
The thing is, though... I haven't opened any dodgy attachments. I've been browsing pretty much entirely legit and trusted sites. The only place I can think of this could have come from is deviantArt, where I've been trying like hell to catch up on a year and a half of artwork from hundreds of artists I was following at some point or other. And despite this, this weasel-worm Trojian came that close to causing me massive grief and, possibly, a trip to Houston to get the damn thing working again.
(And I am getting towards looking for a new machine- this one was a fan donation/gift, and it's served very well, but it's still a 2006-era cheap-end Dell, and it's beginning to show its age. Especially the fan on the power supply, which makes bad-bearing whines at deafening volumes at unpredictable times, the only cure for which is a cold reboot.)
Anyway... in the VERY near future I'm getting some store-bought antivirus software. (Sorry, AVG, I like you, but I just don't have the pipe to download your better big brother.)
And if you get an unfamiliar warning message from the control bar on your machine... DON'T click it, DON'T restart your computer, and DO get AVG (free download) or whatever antivirus software you have working on it ASAP.