Positively Soviet. If the other guy doesn’t properly denounce the right things, he must be an anti-Party hack.
I really don’t buy this mote in god’s eye argument from any party, especially those that can’t defend their proclaimed godhood except by pointing at the next guy’s feats of clay. I also don’t waste time on argument by distraction, which is all you’ve contributed to the discussion so far. And pretty much all I ever see Libbies and TPers do. Having a completely unsupportable dogma for a platform, their only argument is shrieking about the dry rot in everyone else’s.
It’s ironic because you are denying him intellectual property rights. This agency, as I said already, is just a mechanics of enforcing those rights. The essence here is the question - does he have a right (in the spirit of previous cases) to that domain name and it is beyond disputable that he does. What seems to be the “scandal” is that he is going the right way about it.
newcomer, I’m having a hard time figuring out where you’re coming from. Are you a Ron Paul supporter? If so, are you not dismayed that he’s trying to seize the fruit of someone’s work without compensating them?
ETA:
It is? I don’t see how. He had years in which to stake his claim on those domains if he was interested; evidently he didn’t see the value. Someone else did, and they not only took the opportunity, they put work into it and added further value. How can it be consistent with a liberty philosophy to steal that from them, by whatever means?
It sounds like the current owners of the domains were willing to negotiate a deal. Paul, not getting the deal he wanted fair and square, is now trying to take the property for $0. I’m not a libertarian, but whether or not Paul is being ideologically consistent, he is being a complete prick.
The domains could easily be in the hands of someone completely anti-Paul and being used to disseminate nonsense and devaluation. But these Somebodies occupied the real estate and used it to promote and further RP’s goals and candidacy, coincidentally protecting it from misuse, something no one in Paul’s organization was bright enough to do.
And his response is to shit on them, copiously. If he retains any supporters after this act, they clearly value dogma and fantasy over any realistic interpretation of what Libertarianism might stand for. (And then will probably start shrieking about how awrful Obama is again, since they can’t talk about their own realities.)
What work? They took his name without his consent and registered a domain that - according to the current resolutions - belongs to him. I can do that with Obama.com in 5 minutes and it would be against current law. So, what work?
Actually, you can’t. Obama.com redirects to Barackobama.com. Obviously, Obama was smart enough to get control of the possible domains before anyone else.
For those who read the article but obviously did not understand let me clarify.
Asking for domain name to be handed over to Ron Paul is one thing. Totally different issue - that somehow got embedded into this debate, from what I can see - is the fact that the current owners are now bringing in the added value argument. They offered the mailing list for 250K and Ron refused. That is his to refuse for whatever reason and that is, I hope we can agree, entirely different transaction.
But let’s make it clear - asking for a domain name has nothing to do with the content (including servers, programs and such) and similar cases have been resolved in favour of people who had reasonable grounds for complaint. Do we really need to now argue that a significant number of people thought that RonPaul.com is indeed in control of Ron Paul?
Unless someone can show that along with handing over domain name Ron asked for everything else, the so called added value, I think it’s all BS.
But, of course I’m the one who’s disingenuous :rolleyes:
No? In a world of Libertarian ideals, where does RP have a right to a web domain name that he and his org didn’t see fit to claim ahead of someone who valued it enough to do so? Forcing them to hand it over seems pretty jackbooted to me.
Paying for something you may have a legal right to is not something “a good capitalist should do”. Also, the mere fact that the owners of ronpaul.com worked really hard has no effect on the value of the domain name. I don’t think that Paul is a Marxist, so I doubt he subscribes to the labor theory of value.
One of the legitimate functions of government in typical minarchist thought is the protection of property rights. This is clearly within the scope of a libertarian government’s powers.
To be clear, I wasn’t saying they ‘deserved’ to be rewarded because of the hardness of their work. The point is, they did in fact add value. If Paul were to buy the whole kit from them, or just the domain, they have established it with an online presence and traffic of generally pro-Paul ('til now, anyway) readers.
In all seriousness, I’m no libertarian but I think the poor schmucks who devoted a huge percentage of their lives to Ron Paul and have now found out what a hypocritical piece of shit he is deserve some sympathy.
This certainly isn’t as disgusting or cowardly as his his “No, I have no idea who wrote those articles that newspaper I made money off of and passed off as something I wrote nor have I any idea if the writer works for me to this day, this interview is over!” But it’s still pretty disgusting.
I’d have sympathy for Ron Paul in such an instance, though his views would obligate him to seek a market-based solution to the problem.
The reality is that the looniness his supporters have posted on ronpaul.com accurately reflects the looniness that is Ron Paul. His supporters represent him well.
The value was already there. They are the ones who cashed in from using his likeness for profit - ads + t-shirts and stuff. This is very simple - Ron Paul was Ron Paul before RonPaul.com was.
If they named their domain anything else there wouldn’t be traffic (or, value) to speak of. In fact, I’m sure - don’t have a cite - most of people genuinely believed Ron does own that domain name. They should at least have a full disclosure page (e.g. About) in which they make that distinction (as many other “fan” sites do) so I’d believe that they misled many people.
However, it is delightful to read many entries of so called 'Straight Dope" types throwing all the logic and reason out just so that can pile on Ron.
Doesn’t the US Code provision also allow arbitration?
They’ve spent years building a following and attracting the site’s traffic and presence. I think it’s somewhat instructive that Paul, of all people, didn’t think owning “his” domain name was worthwhile until now.
