Well banning someone's IP address is a violation of human rights. But a lot of other forums do it. But I don't think that this one does. Andrea Borman.
As a final note, banning anyone from accessing a server is not a violation of human rights. If it was a shutdown of the Internet in a country or a DNS redirect, that is different and it has been done on the TLD level, specifically in countries that have horrendous human rights records. This includes, apparently, North Korea, China, Egypt, Iran, and Libya. The Internet has become weaponized by nation states, just like they weaponize all technology. This is best expressed through the dissection of the Stuxnet virus.
However, here is an idea for you. What if you paid for the server costs of this website? And all of the costs that go with it? You are paying an arm and a leg to keep this service going. Now you have your own server, and maybe your own business interests on it. Whether you are leasing servers, own a datacenter, or own a computer, it is actually the right of the person who is paying for the right to either make that server private or open to the public to exercise his or her property rights on that device.
For example, if I determine that someone should not be using my property, searching through my property, or entering my property, in my country, I am protected, under the Constitution of my country, in this area. The right to own property is the western cornerstone of the Enlightenment that ended feudalism, lords, and kings. To protect my property, or simply exercise my right to use it in a way in which I please, is a fundamental human right. Your demand that it is your human right to use my resources is a fallacious argument. It has no basis in our world history, except in nations, states, and people that seized the property of their owners. We know what countries those are and have been. We need not go into that.
But, for example, under the United States codified federal law, some state laws, and even international law, it would be illegal to access this website, if I banned your IP address. You would be accessing a computer system, remotely, without the consent of the administrator of that server. In a traditional sense, you would be trespassing. It would be the same, were I to demand that I can always use your websites. These demands would violate your rights. In some cases, a right to privacy, and in many cases, a right to property.
However, this argument is simple for small people, and small business, but not on a macro-level. Not on a large level, a national level, or international level. When it comes to oligarchy vs. democracy/republic, we have a real problem with the assertion of property rights by large, international corporations. This is being discussed at the highest levels of academia, at places like Cambridge University, Harvard, and many other prominent universities. While large corporations seem to demand property rights, they are also create entrance barriers into their own system. If you know about history, think about the plebeians in Roman times.
"the unequal distribution of income in an oligarchic society supports the oligarchic institutions and may keep them in place even when the become significantly costly to society"
"When taxes in democracy are high and the distortions caused by entry barriers are low, an oligarchic society
achieves greater efficiency. Nevertheless, because comparative advantage in entreprenuership shifts away from the incumbents, the inefficiency created by entry barriers in oligarchy deteriorates over time."
The Form of Property Rights: Oligarchic vs. Democratic Societies I would like you to think, Andrea, how difficult and costly it would be, for us to start our own business, with a few employees, and some office space. In my country, it would cost around $10,000 (conservative estimate), just to hire one employee. For us to incorporate, and split the ownership of our company 50/50, it would cost us even more. We would also find ourselves needing accounting services. Today, when a business wants to expand, it needs what is called an angel investor. Essentially, an angel investor is a rich person or group, who will loan a considerably large amount of money for a company to expand its business.
The person who made Facebook possible, at first, was indeed, Mark Zuckerberg's friend, Eduardo Saverin. When it was a small website in colleges, he helped Mark put up checks for the server costs. He became the CFO of the company, briefly, and ended up suing Facebook, when his shares of the company were diluted. It was Sean Parker, the founder of the file sharing service Napster, who learned about Facebook, and became an angel investor. He put up huge amounts of money for them to expand their operations, hire employees, and pay for office space. Another well-known one is the owner of Dropbox.com. How do people reach these gentleman? I wish I knew. But in today's economic climate, it is one of the few ways to grow a successful, internationally recognized business. The oligarchic system has made it this way, to avoid competition. You see, what would happen if someone made a better site than Facebook, that everyone liked? Well, Facebook would do anything to make sure that this other website was not used as much, especially by not competing with that company at all. Maybe there would be a patent lawsuit (like how Apple has sued Samsung over and over), maybe there would be a buy-out (like Facebook bought Instagram for photos). Maybe there would be a non-compete clause in every employee's employment contract, and in every contract with other businesses. Like Facebook must now compete with Google+, they do not have enough money to shutdown a Google website. So in that area, two major, international corporations, are actually competing.
But eventually, oligarchy cannot sustain itself. As it becomes more difficult for people to save and invest money, and as the value of their human capital is increasingly lowered, even though they produce more and more, the economy breaks. Oligarchy is convenient for multi-national corporations, but not for 99% of the world. I urge you to look up the difference, and to find out how certain austerity measures in your own country may be being pushed into law by corporations. Why would they want to do that? Well certainly, if they could provide health insurance, and not the State, they would be able to sell a service that has
unlimited demand. Because demand drives prices, you would think the high demand for a good or service would increase production and efficiency, making it cheaper. But when there is unlimited demand, this is not the case. The price can be set to anything, and people are still forced to buy. Even when subsidies are put in place to lower the cost, in areas like healthcare and education, where it is essential to the very basic needs of human life, there is unlimited demand. And this would support an oligarchy for all time. "For whoever controls trade controls the world."
I urge you to consider the ramifications of your assertions versus mine. The right of individuals to be able to keep their own property secure must not be infringed. At any time, we could decide that we do not want anyone from a certain place not to use this website. We would never do that, because as a principle that goes back hundreds of years, it is bad for business and bad for pleasure. It is the reason that segregation in the United States was doomed to fail.
Some would prefer to keep healthcare and education away from the masses, because it leaves them docile, complacent, and conformist. Without education, they could never process these ideas and understand them. Without healthcare, they would be at the behest of the "company man" or "company store" to provide for their needs. In the 20th century, we lost nearly 100 million people in world wars, fighting over a concept known as freedom (liberty). In my country, liberty is defined as no one infringing on my rights, or bothering me (menacing). As a result, I assuredly cannot violate the liberty of another. I am promised the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not by the government, but by the natural laws of God. The government here was designed to be a small, but astute entity, that would do nothing more than protect my liberty. But I am reminded, time and again, how flawed this concept was. How Enlightening was the Enlightenment, when women were considered property, and could not vote, and whereas blacks were treated as slaves.
We must make an effort to improve ourselves, but also come together to improve our world. The founders of my country predicted a civil war, that killed nearly a million people, sixty years before it happened. In all countries of the world, we have a story to tell, but we must adopt a common interest in protecting the welfare of the people, and not large conglomerates, who, more often than not, assert that they have the same rights as a living, breathing human being. This is more than a sickness: it is a curse on mankind. Just as other eras had their issues, this is the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about.
So I hope you see the issue from my perspective. We fought your country once, because your King George, if I am not mistaken, forget about the Magna Carta his ancient relatives had signed... As cooler heads prevailed, our people are friends again. Why, then, is war considered good? And children brought to life after 9-11-01, well God bless them, for all they know is war, and it has a very real chance of becoming institutionalized as normal. If history is allowed to repeat itself again, but this time with nuclear weapons, we will never destroy this planet. We sill simply destroy ourselves. So when I see posts from you endlessly ranting about issues, you may be surprised that I do take them seriously.
You should know that I am opposed to your complaints if they are for complaints sake. I urge you to try a different method of using my sites, or I may be forced to take action again... you simply do not end it with talking about human rights and software, and being negative in general. It is actually very sad to see after so long. I urge you to live a positive life, for it is far too short for endless complaints like these.