Talk:Manifesto

= Introduction =

Excellent work
I launched into a criticism below without mentioning that I like the work anyway. I do. Btrower 17:41, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Liberty
Beyond being in the title, liberty is never mentioned again. Without security of the person, you have nothing. This is one of the reasons I made such a fuss in the forums about referring to classic documents where thoughtful, well educated people have addressed carefully and in detail the most important underpinnings of the things you need in a free society.

Arguably, the very fundament of liberty is security of the person. You would think, perhaps, that this would be a given, a tacit understanding. We don't, after all, enumerate a particular right to breath oxygen. However, despite things like 'habeus corpus' appearing in just about every declaration of human rights, including ours, we saw this right removed from people in recent years. Other parties have failed to really step up to the plate on this, but I think that we should make it a part of our platform that we will not only pay lip service to, but honor and enforce certain fundamental principles. Clearly, whatever mechanisms currently exist in Canada to protect habeus corpus and other fundamental rights, they are inadequate to accomplish the goal. This should be fixed through clear legislation that reinforces the sacrosanct nature of certain rights and freedoms.

This will likely draw fire, but I am serious. I think that we need to be realistic that in certain matters of genuine national security and military operations there needs to be some legal way to 'trump' things like habeus corpus if it is truly necessary. However, to ensure the otherwise primacy of habeus corpus and similar things, I would make it mandatory that violations of rights are strictly limited by law, require a warrant issued by a judge under civil authority, whether supported by a formal warrant or not are deemed to be truly warranted under the circumstances and the penalty for wrongfully asserting the right to suspend these privileges should be on a level with the crime of high treason. When I say 'strictly limited by law', what I mean is that the statutes should be limited in duration (like 24/48/72 hours), they should be specific to the particular right(s) being suspended, justified in each and when they expire anyone breaching those rights should be subject to severe criminal penalties. Extending such suspension warrants should have an even higher standard, still be limited in duration and the number of extensions should be limited as well. In the absence of a conviction or reasonable probable cause, rights to bail, representation and a trial, a person should go free. Due process in this way may well lead to the guilty going free. However it is the price we pay to ensure everyone's freedoms are protected.

Btrower 17:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Odemia Comments

 * "5 to 15" years really should set this properly. Fixed --Nuitari 05:06, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Spelling/grammar
I can't edit the page myself, but these are some mistakes I've noticed in the manifesto:

Under "Democracy, Civil Rights and Liberty" a paragraph begins "Canadian's." This should be "Canadians." In the intro, it could be argued that "Culture must be set free through Copyright and Patent reform" really shouldn't have copyright and patent capitalized. Very nitpicky, but w/e.

This is really pedantic of course, but if this is gonna be widely distributed and read, those should really be fixed.
 * Done. -- J S a g e r t 17:30, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Patents outside of software patents
Honestly, stick with software patents. You're claiming patents are bad in general without even addressing the other side.

> Medical patents lead to unnecessary deaths from diseases that would have been treatable were it not for patents, distorted research priorities, and unnecessarily high medical bills. Patents on genes and life, such as patented seeds, lead to unreasonable and harmful consequences.

Umm, medical patents are very necessary. In the short-term getting rid of medical patents will give greater access to treatment, but your claims look quite ridiculous in the long run. Where's the incentive to invest millions of $ in drug research if the efforts of your hard work can be copied by generic companies the next day? And of course generics will be able to sell for cheaper if they don't need to invest as much for R&D.

Also medical patents are not a quickly-evolving field like software patents. Long research times, long testing for safety, etc.etc.

By taking a stance against medical patents, you are alienating a big group of reasonable people, and for no good reason.

Hell medical patents don't even satisfy one of your stated rationale for opposition to patents.

"Larger companies are fighting feverishly to break records for the number of patents owned. They use these patents against smaller competitors in order to prevent them from accessing the larger market."
 * Not really, there aren't really smaller startup pharma companies. drug research is expensive.  Drug patents are used against generics who would otherwise be able to reverse-engineer.  Software patents, on the other hand, are used against small startups who independently invent the same thing.  Completely different.

Cypherpunks 19:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)