[Linux-bruxelles] A Petition Against the Persecution of Microsoft (US Version)

[Laurent Lardinois]

Pour ceux qui n'etait pas au courant ....
Une petition pour defendre ces pauvres
malheureux de MicroSoft.... les arguments
sont a mourrir de rire ;-)

http://www.moraldefense.com
http://www.moraldefense.com/Campaigns/Microsoft/default.htm

Activism:
      >The Microsoft Petition
      Join over 20,000 people who have taken a principled stand against
antitrust and the breakup of Microsoft-sign the online petition.
      >CMDC Calls on Court to Reverse Ruling in Microsoft Antitrust Case
      The Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism filed an amicus curiae
(friend of the court) brief with the United States Court of Appeals, DC
Circuit, in support of Microsoft in its ongoing antitrust battle with the
Department of Justice.


      Fellow Americans:

      The Declaration of Independence proclaims that the government's
fundamental purpose is to protect the rights of the individual, and that
each individual has an inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.
Throughout America's history, this noble idea has protected the individual's
right to pursue his own happiness by applying his energy to productive work,
trading the products of his effort on a free market and rising as far as his
abilities carry him.

      Over the past century, however, this freedom has been under attack,
and one notorious avenue of this attack has been the antitrust laws. Under
the guise of "protecting the public," these laws have allowed envious
competitors and power-hungry officials to attack successful businessmen for
the crime of being successful. It has led to the ugly spectacle of the
creative geniuses of the business world--the men who have made this country
great--being branded as oppressive tyrants, whose hard-won business empires
must be broken to pieces and subjected to the control of government
regulators.

      The Justice Department's current suit against Microsoft is the latest
example of this trend. It is based on envy for the productive ability of
Microsoft and its founder, Bill Gates. The result of this suit, if
successful, will be to deprive Mr. Gates of his right to control his own
company, and to deprive the company of its ownership and control of its own
products.

      The Justice Department's case--and indeed the entire edifice of
antitrust law--is based on the bizarrely inverted notion that the productive
actions of individuals in the free market can somehow constitute "force,"
while the coercive actions of government regulators can somehow secure
"freedom."

      The truth is that the only kind of "monopoly" that can form in a free
market is one based on offering better products at lower prices, since under
a free market even monopolies must obey the law of supply and demand.
Harmful, coercive monopolies are the result, not of the operation of the
free market, but of government regulations, subsidies, and privileges which
close off entry to competitors. No business can outlaw its competitors--only
the government can.

      We hold that Microsoft has a right to its own property; that it has
the authority, therefore, to bundle its properties--including Windows 95 and
Internet Explorer--in whatever combination it chooses, not by anyone's
permission, but by absolute right. We hold that to abridge this right is to
attack every innovator's right to the products of his effort, and to
overthrow the foundations of a free market and of a free society.

      We do not want to live in a country where achievement is resented and
attacked, where every innovator and entrepreneur has to fear persecution
from dictatorial regulators and judges, enforcing undefined laws at the
bidding of jealous competitors. We realize that our lives and well-being
depend on the existence of a free market, in which innovators and
entrepreneurs are free to rise as far as their ability can carry them,
without being held down by arbitrary and unjust government regulations.

      As concerned citizens, we ask that the Justice Department's case
against Microsoft be dismissed. We call for a national debate over the arbit
rary and unjust provisions of the antitrust laws and for an end to the
practice of persecuting businessmen for their success.


      Signed,



      C'est fort non ?


Laurent Lardinois
IT Consultant - DS Improve
http://www.dsimprove.com