Imagine a world without governments. Think back hundreds and thousands of years, early humans, sparse populations, no mail or even currencies, just people, living their lives and trying to get by. Somebody says to these non-citizens, "Hey, I've got a great idea. Let's form a government!" What justification would be offered to entice people into becoming citizens, giving a portion of their crops to a tax collector, limiting their freedoms, bowing to the will of a monarch or a their fellow citizens? Pretend for a moment that the citizens aren't conquered or forced into citizenship; they are voluntarily subjecting themselves to government. Why? Really think about this for a minute.
Your answer forms the essence of your underlying beliefs about the purpose of government. The reasons I come up with are, first and foremost, protection from harm, senseless violence, theft, and murder. Establishment of reasonable laws that allow the most people to enjoy continued life and freedom from harm so they can continue to produce, to be family members and community members, without fear of having all that they have earned and produced taken from them unjustly. Establishing and training an army to defend against invasion would also fall under protection from harm.
The second reason I imagine is enforcement of contracts, establishment of currency, and similar rules that allow people to trade safely and fairly. I call this facilitation of commerce. If I promise to give you seeds now in exchange for food later, and you don't provide them, I may never trade seeds again. Then the only people who can farm are the ones who have something to trade in hand, right now.
I don't think people formed governments to provide sustenance to their neediest neighbors - they can do that without government. Even if they don't want to find the needy neighbor themselves, churches and other charities handle gifts of kindness quite well. I imagine a group of villagers discussing government and, if the topic of welfare came up, I imagine five of them saying "hey, Joe only needs welfare because he's lazy. If he wants food, send him over and I'll put him to work, and Jimmie - poor, old childless widower Jimmie - he should of put somethin' back when he was younger, but what's done is done. We all take turns over there, bringing him food and slopping his hogs. We don't need no government to do that!" (I don't think governments formed to provide mail services, since such a thing was barely contemplated and only affordable to the very wealthy, not that I object to the postal service - by providing a consistent means of giving legal notice, it facilitates commerce. There are plenty of new government roles that fall under the facilitating commerce and protecting from harm.)
So given my belief that the number one most important function of the government is protecting us from harm, I am disgusted and outraged at the laxity of law enforcement, the non-punitive nature of prison, and the failure to prosecute or even investigate so many crimes. Similarly, I think that military aggression is a breach of governmental purpose, since it unnecessarily puts citizen soldiers in harms way (and I say this in global terms, without any particular meaning about any current military action by any nation). Citizens have every right to ask whether a military action, over an event that does not put citizens in direct risk of harm right now, is a defensive or offensive move.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Drowning in fine print
Contracts are everywhere. I am averaging multiple contracts per day. Is it realistic to expect consumers to read and understand so many contracts when the average person doesn't even read one book a year?
I just tried to purchase an item on Etsy (the artist/crafters-direct sales site). At checkout, I had to create an account and check a box saying that I agree with Etsy's terms and conditions. So I opened the terms and conditions. The main body is 26 sections 12 pages and over 4,000 words, with another 4 documents incorporated by reference, two of which were about as long as (or longer than) the actual terms and conditions.
I can't make the purchase without agreeing to the contract. I am not going to agree to a contract without reading it. I don't have time to read a 20+ page document to make a simple purchase. So no sale. I bet the seller would have preferred to have a sale.
The average adult supposedly reads 250-300 words per minute. The Etsy terms and conditions alone would take about 14 minutes. The T&C plus the other documents incorporated by reference total a staggering 12,422 words. At 300 words per minute, that is more than 40 minutes of reading, to buy a $15 tchotchke. I wish I were kidding. I wish this was rare. Nope. Ain't rare. Ain't reasonable, either. You can't even watch Better Off Ted without signing a contract. Come on. Doesn't the law already cover most of this stuff?
Instead of a traditional tv/cable box/vcr entertainment center, I have an entertainment computer. It can play regular and blu-ray DVDs, tune in television stations, and play web-based entertainment, including Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube. There is a small problem, though. Because the system is across the room (though on a large screen TV), we have our browser set to display text in "very large." Most TV websites are configured to use the exact font style and size that the designer specifies, without scaling. When we try to watch a show - say, on ABC.com (the absolute worst offender) - we have to agree to the terms and conditions. Except they're not legible from across the room when the web designer doesn't allow the text to scale to the browser settings. So we're supposed to agree to a binding contract that we cannot read. It is the equivalent of a 4-6 point font. If you printed a written contract that small, it would not be enforceable. Yet companies think that their web contracts will be enforceable because they look right on the designer's monitor!
When I take my car in for service, signing the front of the service contract means I agree to everything on the back of the contract. When I go to the doctor's office, same thing - I have to certify that I agree with their privacy policy, that I agree to assign insurance benefits to them, and a couple other contracts that they make me sign on a regular basis. They get pissy about "holding up the line" if I actually read the contracts before signing them, and they're shocked that I ask for a copy (I don't sign anything that I don't get a copy of). And then there's always some clause about my having received some notice, which I haven't received, and it's a problem to track down a copy for me. Oh, yes, the reaction I get when I insist on reading a contract before signing it, having a copy, asking questions - it is clear that 1) most people don't read the contract(s) and 2) most companies count on people not reading the contracts.
It is an insidious loop. Consumers don't read the contract, so companies develop their procedures around that - like presenting a contract to the consumer and allowing 5 seconds for the consumer to sign, any longer holds up the line or keeps an employee from returning to their important work (because dealing with a customer who is signing a contract isn't important) and then an average consumer tries to read the contract and gets socially slapped down for it, so he or she doesn't try to read contracts anymore.
Not me. I'm antisocial. If I sign a contract, I'm going to read it, and if that inconveniences the party requesting the contract - they should have considered the possibility that some people want to know what rights they're signing away. When I bought my first house with my first spouse, we sat down at closing and I read the mortgage contract. I read the purchase contract to make sure it was recorded correctly. I read every single thing I signed, and I reviewed the list of 360 payment amounts to make sure it gibed with what I THOUGHT I was signing. And every single person at the closing table made pointed jokes, then tapped their fingers, then told me I didn't need to read the contracts, then sighed deeply, then told me that NO ONE reads the contracts. Halfway through, my spouse picked up on the social cues for me to stop reading, and parroted the "I'm sure it's all correct, nobody reads it, just sign and move on" messages from the "professionals." (That's a big part of why I'm on my second spouse. I am more concerned with signing an accurate contract than with impressing the salespeople that I am "easy to get along with" when that means potentially signing away major rights, privileges, or dollars. That, and the fact that I'm a jackass who makes everybody uncomfortable by reading contracts and such.)
That's right, people who sign contracts without reading are not just taking huge risks, they are harming people who DO read contracts. Company lawyers get emboldened by the knowledge that consumers don't read the contract. So they put things into the contract that most consumers would not willingly agree to (like eBay's infamous "we are just a venue, if you get ripped of, tough tooties") and then they write 20-40 page contracts because, hey, nobody reads them anyway, so it isn't an inconvenience to the customer to deal with ENORMOUS long contracts.
So, no matter how responsible or persnickety (or whatever adjective YOU choose) you are about reading contracts, you have to share a world with the illiterates of the world (people who can read but don't read even when it's really important, may as well be illiterate so I'm lumping them in with people who actually can't read). How long would a company stay in business if they forced customers to sign a 20 page document before letting them buy something, if most customers actually read the contract? Stores would only be open on Sundays, because that would be the only day people had enough time to shop! Consumerism would die on the vine.
Now, the mortgage crisis has shown that a lot of people were swimming naked, contract-wise. I wonder if people are going to start paying more attention to what they're signing? If so, will they object to spending 40 minutes reading a contract for the privilege of buying something for less than $20? Will people hire lawyers to translate the terms and conditions on Twitter, or will they just say no? Maybe consumer contracts will go back to being sane, rational two-paragraph statements. Ah, I can dream.
I just tried to purchase an item on Etsy (the artist/crafters-direct sales site). At checkout, I had to create an account and check a box saying that I agree with Etsy's terms and conditions. So I opened the terms and conditions. The main body is 26 sections 12 pages and over 4,000 words, with another 4 documents incorporated by reference, two of which were about as long as (or longer than) the actual terms and conditions.
I can't make the purchase without agreeing to the contract. I am not going to agree to a contract without reading it. I don't have time to read a 20+ page document to make a simple purchase. So no sale. I bet the seller would have preferred to have a sale.
The average adult supposedly reads 250-300 words per minute. The Etsy terms and conditions alone would take about 14 minutes. The T&C plus the other documents incorporated by reference total a staggering 12,422 words. At 300 words per minute, that is more than 40 minutes of reading, to buy a $15 tchotchke. I wish I were kidding. I wish this was rare. Nope. Ain't rare. Ain't reasonable, either. You can't even watch Better Off Ted without signing a contract. Come on. Doesn't the law already cover most of this stuff?
Instead of a traditional tv/cable box/vcr entertainment center, I have an entertainment computer. It can play regular and blu-ray DVDs, tune in television stations, and play web-based entertainment, including Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube. There is a small problem, though. Because the system is across the room (though on a large screen TV), we have our browser set to display text in "very large." Most TV websites are configured to use the exact font style and size that the designer specifies, without scaling. When we try to watch a show - say, on ABC.com (the absolute worst offender) - we have to agree to the terms and conditions. Except they're not legible from across the room when the web designer doesn't allow the text to scale to the browser settings. So we're supposed to agree to a binding contract that we cannot read. It is the equivalent of a 4-6 point font. If you printed a written contract that small, it would not be enforceable. Yet companies think that their web contracts will be enforceable because they look right on the designer's monitor!
When I take my car in for service, signing the front of the service contract means I agree to everything on the back of the contract. When I go to the doctor's office, same thing - I have to certify that I agree with their privacy policy, that I agree to assign insurance benefits to them, and a couple other contracts that they make me sign on a regular basis. They get pissy about "holding up the line" if I actually read the contracts before signing them, and they're shocked that I ask for a copy (I don't sign anything that I don't get a copy of). And then there's always some clause about my having received some notice, which I haven't received, and it's a problem to track down a copy for me. Oh, yes, the reaction I get when I insist on reading a contract before signing it, having a copy, asking questions - it is clear that 1) most people don't read the contract(s) and 2) most companies count on people not reading the contracts.
It is an insidious loop. Consumers don't read the contract, so companies develop their procedures around that - like presenting a contract to the consumer and allowing 5 seconds for the consumer to sign, any longer holds up the line or keeps an employee from returning to their important work (because dealing with a customer who is signing a contract isn't important) and then an average consumer tries to read the contract and gets socially slapped down for it, so he or she doesn't try to read contracts anymore.
Not me. I'm antisocial. If I sign a contract, I'm going to read it, and if that inconveniences the party requesting the contract - they should have considered the possibility that some people want to know what rights they're signing away. When I bought my first house with my first spouse, we sat down at closing and I read the mortgage contract. I read the purchase contract to make sure it was recorded correctly. I read every single thing I signed, and I reviewed the list of 360 payment amounts to make sure it gibed with what I THOUGHT I was signing. And every single person at the closing table made pointed jokes, then tapped their fingers, then told me I didn't need to read the contracts, then sighed deeply, then told me that NO ONE reads the contracts. Halfway through, my spouse picked up on the social cues for me to stop reading, and parroted the "I'm sure it's all correct, nobody reads it, just sign and move on" messages from the "professionals." (That's a big part of why I'm on my second spouse. I am more concerned with signing an accurate contract than with impressing the salespeople that I am "easy to get along with" when that means potentially signing away major rights, privileges, or dollars. That, and the fact that I'm a jackass who makes everybody uncomfortable by reading contracts and such.)
That's right, people who sign contracts without reading are not just taking huge risks, they are harming people who DO read contracts. Company lawyers get emboldened by the knowledge that consumers don't read the contract. So they put things into the contract that most consumers would not willingly agree to (like eBay's infamous "we are just a venue, if you get ripped of, tough tooties") and then they write 20-40 page contracts because, hey, nobody reads them anyway, so it isn't an inconvenience to the customer to deal with ENORMOUS long contracts.
So, no matter how responsible or persnickety (or whatever adjective YOU choose) you are about reading contracts, you have to share a world with the illiterates of the world (people who can read but don't read even when it's really important, may as well be illiterate so I'm lumping them in with people who actually can't read). How long would a company stay in business if they forced customers to sign a 20 page document before letting them buy something, if most customers actually read the contract? Stores would only be open on Sundays, because that would be the only day people had enough time to shop! Consumerism would die on the vine.
Now, the mortgage crisis has shown that a lot of people were swimming naked, contract-wise. I wonder if people are going to start paying more attention to what they're signing? If so, will they object to spending 40 minutes reading a contract for the privilege of buying something for less than $20? Will people hire lawyers to translate the terms and conditions on Twitter, or will they just say no? Maybe consumer contracts will go back to being sane, rational two-paragraph statements. Ah, I can dream.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Cover the children's ears, folks, it's a controversial idea
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/04/obama.schools/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Cnn reports:
Okay, I'm probably preaching to the choir, but, seriously? What has happened to America - and particularly to conservative Americans - that we can no longer tolerate having our children exposed to anything but the parents' own ideas?
Fer crying out loud, President Obama is OUR president. All of us. When libs were faulting Bush for Iraq, right wingers did plenty of hand-wringing about the importance of honoring the President, but when the vote is on the other foot, parents are upset at the idea that their children might actually hear a message from the President? Please, please tell me this is a joke. The President is the leader of our nation and he deserves our respect - not necessarily our agreement or affection, but at least the courtesy we would extend to a slightly batty elderly relative - out of respect for our nation. And if we can humor crazy Aunt Edna, then I think we're capable of treating the office of the Presidency - and, by extension, the person who holds that office - with enough respect to recognize his right to believe as he believes, even when we disagree with him. In doing so, we teach our children a little something about behaving appropriately and honoring our nation - all the more so when we teach our children to respect the President we may not like.
Within our free society - the free society that ultra-right-wing and ultra-left-wing conservatives claim to value - there is room for difference of opinion. You might believe that Ben & Jerry's is the best ice cream ever made, and I would argue that homemade, fresh, natural ice cream is the best ever made. It's okay - we can agree to disagree. When we teach our children to recognize and respect disparate (and sometimes wrong) points of view, we raise good citizens. When we stick our fingers in the kids' ears and yell "lalalala I can't hear you," we fail to teach our children the important lessons of maturity. When our kids are exposed to bad ideas, we can teach them the all-important ability to measure each claim on its own merits, a skill that will protect them when exposed to truly bone-head ideas like street racing, playing russian roulette, becoming young parents, and all manner of dangerous youthful inclinations.
Listen up, American extremists (lefties AND righties!), it is possible for children to see or hear an idea without accepting it at face value. That is why nature gave parents the ability to talk and gave children the ability to listen, understand, and consider. If your children are exposed to ideas that run counter to your beliefs, then talk to the kids about it. Explain why you believe differently. Explain why you hope they will grow up agreeing with you on the topic. If you are right, your kids will probably recognize that you are right and they will probably agree with you.
Yep, that's right folks, children can watch people kiss or discuss sex on TV and still think "hmm, that's not right for me at my age;" they can watch their peers get high and say "I think that's a bad idea, and I'm not going to join in;" they can listen to the President and think "I respect our nation's ideals, I respect the office of the Presidency, and I am still going to fight overly liberal policies that I believe are detrimental to the future of our nation." Parents have the ability - and the responsibility - to help children recognize differences of opinion, different religions, different cultures, and different values and make the best decisions that the child can make.
Cnn reports:
The White House said the address, set for Tuesday, and accompanying suggested lesson plans are simply meant to encourage students to study hard and stay in school.
Many conservative parents aren't buying it. They're convinced the president
is going to use the opportunity to press a partisan political agenda on
impressionable young minds.
"Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really
upsets me," suburban Colorado mother Shanneen Barron told CNN Denver affiliate
KMGH. "I'm an American. They are Americans, and I don't feel that's OK. I feel
very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now."
Okay, I'm probably preaching to the choir, but, seriously? What has happened to America - and particularly to conservative Americans - that we can no longer tolerate having our children exposed to anything but the parents' own ideas?
Fer crying out loud, President Obama is OUR president. All of us. When libs were faulting Bush for Iraq, right wingers did plenty of hand-wringing about the importance of honoring the President, but when the vote is on the other foot, parents are upset at the idea that their children might actually hear a message from the President? Please, please tell me this is a joke. The President is the leader of our nation and he deserves our respect - not necessarily our agreement or affection, but at least the courtesy we would extend to a slightly batty elderly relative - out of respect for our nation. And if we can humor crazy Aunt Edna, then I think we're capable of treating the office of the Presidency - and, by extension, the person who holds that office - with enough respect to recognize his right to believe as he believes, even when we disagree with him. In doing so, we teach our children a little something about behaving appropriately and honoring our nation - all the more so when we teach our children to respect the President we may not like.
Within our free society - the free society that ultra-right-wing and ultra-left-wing conservatives claim to value - there is room for difference of opinion. You might believe that Ben & Jerry's is the best ice cream ever made, and I would argue that homemade, fresh, natural ice cream is the best ever made. It's okay - we can agree to disagree. When we teach our children to recognize and respect disparate (and sometimes wrong) points of view, we raise good citizens. When we stick our fingers in the kids' ears and yell "lalalala I can't hear you," we fail to teach our children the important lessons of maturity. When our kids are exposed to bad ideas, we can teach them the all-important ability to measure each claim on its own merits, a skill that will protect them when exposed to truly bone-head ideas like street racing, playing russian roulette, becoming young parents, and all manner of dangerous youthful inclinations.
Listen up, American extremists (lefties AND righties!), it is possible for children to see or hear an idea without accepting it at face value. That is why nature gave parents the ability to talk and gave children the ability to listen, understand, and consider. If your children are exposed to ideas that run counter to your beliefs, then talk to the kids about it. Explain why you believe differently. Explain why you hope they will grow up agreeing with you on the topic. If you are right, your kids will probably recognize that you are right and they will probably agree with you.
Yep, that's right folks, children can watch people kiss or discuss sex on TV and still think "hmm, that's not right for me at my age;" they can watch their peers get high and say "I think that's a bad idea, and I'm not going to join in;" they can listen to the President and think "I respect our nation's ideals, I respect the office of the Presidency, and I am still going to fight overly liberal policies that I believe are detrimental to the future of our nation." Parents have the ability - and the responsibility - to help children recognize differences of opinion, different religions, different cultures, and different values and make the best decisions that the child can make.
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