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Apple includes emoji of two men with a child and two women with a child. Let's see how that's worked out:

http://blog.jim.com/culture/ga...
http://blog.jim.com/culture/th...
https://winteryknight.com/2013...

I wrote in the rifle emoji thread that gays with children are far, far more likely to be raping said children than normal people with rifles are likely to use them to commit murder. The same holds true for any gun in general.

Apple includes emoji of two men with a child and two women with a child. Let's see how that's worked out:

http://blog.jim.com/culture/ga...
http://blog.jim.com/culture/th...
https://winteryknight.com/2013...

I wrote in the rifle emoji thread that gays with children are far, far more likely to be raping said children than normal people with rifles are likely to use them to commit murder. The same holds true for any gun in general.

So Apple doesn't like men with rifles? How about gay men with children?

http://blog.jim.com/culture/ga...
http://blog.jim.com/culture/th...
https://winteryknight.com/2013...

Gays with children are far, far more likely to be raping said children than normal people with rifles are likely to use them to commit murder.

And yes, Apple includes emoji of two gay men with a child.

So Apple doesn't like men with rifles? How about gay men with children?

http://blog.jim.com/culture/ga...
http://blog.jim.com/culture/th...
https://winteryknight.com/2013...

Gays with children are far, far more likely to be raping said children than normal people with rifles are likely to use them to commit murder.

And yes, Apple includes emoji of two gay men with a child.

Food for thought about the "old West, where everyone had a gun": http://jim.com/wild_west.htm

You might not agree with the author / his conclusions, but the "wild west" myth has a lot of myth to it. (Yes, many people were armed, but armed chaos certainly didn't prevail ...)

Aaron Swartz used "civil disobedience" to protest against copyright law. Unfortunately for him, "civil disobedience" is only used by those who believe they are above the law - by the powerful against the powerless. It rapidly became apparent that he was not one of the powerful, or rather, had been part of the privileged and powerful, but was no longer. And this is probably why he committed suicide.

Still not correct. Rights do not and cannot come from a piece of paper. The 2nd amendment applies to a compact (the constitution) between states that created an agent - the US federal government - and delegated certain powers to it (or so the myth goes, but anyone familiar with Lysander Spooner would know the glaring holes in that). It states that said agent may not infringe on an existing right. Politicians and the military have sworn to uphold this document; but as we know, they ignore it all the time. The right to bear arms is infringed all the time - the right to own full auto firearms is infringed in all sorts of ways, for example, and people are extorted for permits, fees, and taxes or forbidden to import/export certain firearms or arrested for various peaceful transport or displays of a firearm. These are all infringements imposed by people that swore not to do so.

I'm Allowed to Rob You!

No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority.

> freedom of religion should not include the right to be free from being insulted or offended.

Um no you can't restrict that. All you can do is restrict the offended people from trying forcibly prevent people from expressing thoughts that they find offensive.

Otherwise you are trying to control people's thoughts. Sorry, but no there is no way to do that.

http://jim.com/rights.html

I'd urge everyone to read this article that drives a stake in the "job creators and lower taxes' lie

You don't look at how high the highest tax bracket was, because due to all sorts of loopholes, very few people actually paid the 91% marginal rate. Instead, you look at what percentage of GDP the government seizes:

For the United States, I defined "high taxes" as the federal government taking more than 18.1% of GDP, for during the Reagan Revolution, the archetype of "voodoo economics" the largest portion of GDP taken by the federal government was slightly more than 18%. Alternatively, I defined "a high taxes period" as any period where the federal government took substantially and persistently more than 18% of GDP.

Average growth during high tax periods was 1.08%, average growth during normal times was 2.45%. Every high tax period was a long period of economic stagnation, malaise, or decline or else contained a long period of decline. Such events were rare during normal tax periods.(Source)

It becomes less and less nonsensical if you look at historical tax rates and the performance of our economy during those different times (or on the flip side, check out the results of the Chicago School of Economics implementing their ideas in South America a few decades ago).

Same old left-wing talking points.

First, you don't look at how high the highest tax bracket was, because due to all sorts of loopholes, virtually no one actually paid the 91% marginal rate. Instead, you look at what percentage of GDP the government seizes:

For the United States, I defined "high taxes" as the federal government taking more than 18.1% of GDP, for during the Reagan Revolution, the archetype of "voodoo economics" the largest portion of GDP taken by the federal government was slightly more than 18%. Alternatively, I defined "a high taxes period" as any period where the federal government took substantially and persistently more than 18% of GDP.

Average growth during high tax periods was 1.08%, average growth during normal times was 2.45%. Every high tax period was a long period of economic stagnation, malaise, or decline or else contained a long period of decline. Such events were rare during normal tax periods.(Source)

Second, if you look at that link, you'll notice that the nations in South America that adopted the policies of the Chicago School and kept them, are vastly better off, and closer to first-world status, such as Chile, than nations like Argentina, which are devolving into third-world status.

As Lysander Spooner details in his essay, "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority", contracts reached between individuals have no legitimate authority over other individuals. The practical conundrum this presents libertarians is rarely dealt with head-on.

Newt Gingrich's evocatively titled "Contract With America" struck a seductive chord with conservatives precisely because it seemed to present a proposal for a contract between Americans -- between individuals called "Americans" -- thereby establishing its legitimacy.

A far more powerful political force can sweep libertarians to victory if only they would ask themselves the following question:

"What would a natural individually sovereign American, in debt-free possession of his house, tools, land and weapons sufficient to defend and support his wife and raise his children to maturity, agree to if approached with 'a contract between Americans'?"

Answer that question honestly and libertarians will be on the road to victory. One thing is for certain: It is dishonest to claim that an individual sovereign, in a state of nature, would agree to respect the property rights agreed to by others if he, himself, were deprived of any land with which to support a wife and have a family. Yet that seems to be the contract offered by many so-called "libertarians" to the general public and the general public rightly rejects the transparently illegitimate proposal as placing the sanctity of property above the sanctity of life. Not only is this a loser's political strategy -- it is in naked violation of natural law. To win, libertarians must be more honest with themselves and others as to the natural interests of individual sovereigns.

I propose the following Contract Between Americans as the political platform that can, particularly in the present circumstances, sweep deep libertarian principles to political victory in the near term:

* Treat pollution as a criminal assault on the nation.

Pollution harms the national territory. Individuals that harm private property may be held criminally liable under some circumstances but if there is no intent to harm, it is usually up to civil courts to award monetary damages. Individuals that harm the national territory, however, must be held to a higher standard of discipline due to the greater harm. Mere tort law is insufficient as a remedy when what is at stake is the national ecology. If the choice is made to reduce regulation of private behavior because such regulations, although they prevent damage and are therefore quite economical, impinge on freedom, then those enjoying said freedom must, when abusing that freedom, suffer consequences sufficiently severe to serve as an effective self-regulating motive.

* Household bankruptcy protection is the median price of a home plus median capitalization of a job.

The origin of bankruptcy law is the recognition that a man’s homestead is as sacrosanct as his body since it is the means by which he sustains his body. A homestead entails not only a primary residence real estate holding but also the source of his other necessities. Hence personal bankruptcy protects “home and tools of the trade” from confiscation. Only a society that accepts slavery can accept confiscation of a man’s body for the use of others.

* Anyone or anything (including the government) can place money in escrow as a bid for any property right recognized by law, thereby establishing an in-place liquidation value for that property right.

Money differs from other property rights in terms of its liquidity—that is, its availability for trade upon demand. When money is “tied up in investments” that is simply another way of saying that the owner of the property right sees more value in the property right than do others with money ready to buy that property right. The more people who perceive a particular level of value in a property right, the more force must be brought to bear to protect it

So waste your mod points labeling me a troll for daring to call out your bullshit. but statistics as well as common sense shows that higher taxes on the wealthy increases employment and growth

You don't look at how high the highest tax bracket was, because due to all sorts of loopholes, virtually no one actually paid the 91% marginal rate. Instead, you look at what percentage of GDP the government seizes:

For the United States, I defined "high taxes" as the federal government taking more than 18.1% of GDP, for during the Reagan Revolution, the archetype of "voodoo economics" the largest portion of GDP taken by the federal government was slightly more than 18%. Alternatively, I defined "a high taxes period" as any period where the federal government took substantially and persistently more than 18% of GDP.

Average growth during high tax periods was 1.08%, average growth during normal times was 2.45%. Every high tax period was a long period of economic stagnation, malaise, or decline or else contained a long period of decline. Such events were rare during normal tax periods.(Source)

By the way, you'll notice that even the source you cited doesn't claim that high taxes hurts GDP or that lowering taxes helps the economy. In fact, it shows the opposite, demolishing the most important "conservative" talking point of all: that we are "over-taxed" and that such "over-taxing" hurts the economy or stifles growth.

You don't look at how high the marginal tax rates were, because due to all sorts of loopholes, virtually no one actually paid the 91% marginal rate. Instead, you look at what percentage of GDP the government takes:

Average growth during high tax periods was 1.08%, average growth during normal times was 2.45%. Every high tax period was a long period of economic stagnation, malaise, or decline or else contained a long period of decline. Such events were rare during normal tax periods.(Source)

Look at the post-war period. The period of greatest economic growth at all levels of society occurred during a time when the Democrats controlled the Presidency and at least one house of congress.

No, the periods of economic growth were normal-tax periods - periods where the federal government seized less than 18 percent of GDP. (Source)

Ronald Reagan declared class warfare against every member of the middle and working class, and now the right wing cries "class warfare" because that middle and working class is starting to figure it out.

Cutting taxes is not an act of aggression. The only people declaring "class war" are people who "think" they are entitled to other people's money, try to vote themselves rich, and use the power of the State to seize and redistribute other people's wealth.

In America since 1950, average growth during high tax periods where the government confiscated more than 18% of GDP was 1.08%. Average growth during normal tax periods was 2.45%. (Source)

But by buying 10 pairs of boots, he was keeping the boot-maker in employment

Broken window fallacy alert. By not buying those 10 pairs of boots, the $50 would've been spent on Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler's sausages. It would've ended up in the economy anyway, and with positive results instead of wet feet and continuation of crappy manufacturing.

If everything lasted for ever, the economy would grind to a halt, as no one would need to produce anything.

No. Part of the economy as it exists now - pushing useless, flimsy crap on people who don't need it - would grind to a halt, and the time and resources could be spent on better things.

Day in, day out, several commercials tell you that you are a worthless, ugly human being, in subtle or blunt ways - unless you buy that product that'll solve all your woes. It won't, your woes will still be there, and your money is gone - and you spend it again, because that product will break down or wear out.

But the law never granted everybody a right to copy anything they might want to copy.

It seems people these days have forgotten what natural law means... thinking of rights as gifts to be granted, rather than inherent properties of the nature of man. Look, before copyright was invented, not too long ago, everybody had that right. It didn't have to be granted by any law, it simply was. The true nature of copyright law, therefore, is that it took away a right from all the people.

What happens if, instead, the money was spent on infrastructure that directly benefits people in the state?

IF you've got them spending it on useful infrastructure spending, it's an enabler for other things. Unfortunately, I don't see ANYONE in government talking along those lines. The money getting spent right at the moment is being piffled away on banks (the cause of the current financial malaise- and in a manner that showed us they just simply ripped everyone off...) and on some pretty bad ideas overall- few good things being funded right at the moment.

Think more in terms of the "broken window" story in economics. In most cases, the government spending actually ends up being counter productive in the big picture sense of things. The heinous taxes end up costing other things down the line which reduces the amounts brought in (you didn't MAKE any jobs really doing it that way...) because people now do with less.

If we did more enabling work and less of the crap we're seeing right now, including with "healthcare reform" (We need reform, yes- just nothing of what got enacted into a bill to be signed by Obama...)- such as modernizing the grid, rolling out REAL broadband to everyone, overhauling the highway system, etc. you might have a point. While the work doesn't immediately produce jobs, it adds to the opportunities in the big-picture sense. It doesn't make jobs, but it fosters the conditions to MAKE them in other areas. Right now, we're seeing just spending to "make jobs" and doing the very thing discussed in the link I gave.

It's a dead loss.

No because what you said makes no sense.

Study Economics. I recommend Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt as a good starting point.

Again what are you trying to say. That's such a loaded statement it's going to explode in my face if I even try to decipher it. You do realize that income taxes are nearly the lowest they've been since the introduction of income taxes nearly 100 years ago. Manufacturing in the US boomed in a period when income taxes for the wealthy were above 60% and even near 90%. You also realize that before there was an income tax we received virtually all of our national income through tariffs.

You're ignoring the fact that during that time the US and Canada were the only two first world nations that hadn't been almost completely destroyed in a six year long war. They needed to rebuild their manufacturing base, and we were the source of all the machinery. The economies of North America prospered despite the taxes, because they were the only functional ones left in the world.

Enlighten us about what's so bad about minimum wages since Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stieglitz are too ignorant for you.

What about Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek? But to summarize: minimum wage laws are price controls on labor. Price controls artificially affect supply and demand. In this case, they artificially reduce demand. If McDonalds can afford to pay $20 per hour to staff the place during the evening, then they'll hire four people if the minimum wage is $5/hour (ignoring the hidden costs of employment for simplicity). If the minimum wage jumps to $6.50/hour, they'll cut back on staff, rather than lose money. Minimum wage laws are also contributing to the destruction of the Main Street mom-n-pop businesses in America. They can't afford to pay for minimum wage, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, employer tax contributions, etc. But Wal-Mart can.

40 years ago there were far fewer mega corporations than there are today. The amount of wealth and control these companies have on our economy is practically unprecedented in a generation. Yet 40 years ago wages were higher, families could live on a single income (many provided by a small business) and these pesky things like minimum wages did not cause all the problems you espouse. I agree large companies love the idea about mandatory health coverage, but it's because it enslaves the workers. Once you have health care you can basically never leave your job without fear you won't be able to enroll again, or that it will be so expensive it will bankrupt you.

40 years ago, total taxes were much lower. 40 years ago, government regulation of the economy was much lower. And as I've said before, the mega corporations love all of this regulation, because it weeds out the competition, and leaves only them behind. What we live in today is fascism. Now fascism does not mean rounding up Jews & gypsies and putting them in camps or the Gestapo arresting and executing anyone who passes out leaflets. Fascism, as described by Mussolini, is a system where there is a strong partnership between government and corporations to enrich themselves (presumably at the expense of the only group left, us). The USA has moved steadily toward that since 1913.

We live in one of the most laisse-faire capitalist periods in nearly 80 years. There is virtually unfettered free trade. Taxes are practically the lowest they've ever been. The largest sector of our economy Finance and Real Estate http://www.bea.gov/scb/pdf/2008/05%20May/0508_indy_acct.pdf is totally unregulated. What part of this needs to "return" to capitalism? These corporations already own the government, electing Obama does nothing for them that they haven't already gotten over the last 20 years. In fact they hated all this der

. Inflation of currency means the bankers' savings account shrink. Right?

No, the savings accounts belong to the depositors, not the banks. Inflation helps the banks because they get to lend out currency that was created out of thin air, and charge interest for it. If the banks could only lend out the deposits they held, then inflation would hurt banks like it hurts everyone else.

I guess I need to go read google.

Economics in One Lessonby Henry Hazlitt is a good place to start. See chapter 23 for a discussion of inflation.

Murray Rothbard also wrote a comprehensive explanation of money, credit, and how fractional reserve banking works. Look him up at mises.org.

-jcr

It is sometimes said that the Germans or the Japanese had a postwar advantage over the Americans because their old plants, having been destroyed completely by bombs during the war, they could replace them with the most modern plants and equipment and thus produce more efficiently and at lower costs than the Americans with their older and half-obsolete plants and equipment. But if this were really a clear net advantage, Americans could easily offset it by immediately wrecking their old plants, junking all the old equipment. In fact, all manufacturers in all countries could scrap all their old plants and equipment every year and erect new plants and install new equipment.

The simple truth is that there is an optimum rate of replacement, a best time for replacement. It would be an advantage for a manufacturer to have his factory and equipment destroyed by bombs only if the time had arrived when, through deterioration and obsolescence, his plant and equipment had already acquired a null or a negative value and the bombs fell just when he should have called in a wrecking crew or ordered new equipment anyway.

It is true that previous depreciation and obsolescence, if not adequately reflected in his books, may make the destruction of his property less of a disaster, on net balance, than it seems. It is also true that the existence of new plants and equipment speeds up the obsolescence of older plants and equipment. If the owners of the older plant and equipment try to keep using it longer than the period for which it would maximize their profit, then the manufacturers whose plants and equipment were destroyed (if we assume that they had both the will and capital to replace them with new plants and equipment) will reap a comparative advantage or, to speak more accurately, will reduce their comparative loss.

We are brought, in brief, to the conclusion that it is never an advantage to have oneâ(TM)s plants destroyed by shells or bombs unless those plants have already become valueless or acquired a negative value by depreciation and obsolescence.

In all this discussion, moreover, we have so far omitted a central consideration. Plants and equipment cannot be replaced by an individual (or a socialist government) unless he or it has acquired or can acquire the savings, the capital accumulation, to make the replacement. But war destroys accumulated capital.

There may be, it is true, offsetting factors. Technological discoveries and advances during a war may, for example, increase individual or national productivity at this point or that, and there may eventually be a net increase in overall productivity. Postwar demand will never reproduce the precise pattern of prewar demand. But such complications should not divert us from recognizing the basic truth that the wanton destruction of anything of real value is always a net loss, a misfortune, or a disaster, and whatever the offsetting considerations in a particular instance, can never be, on net balance, a boon or a blessing.

So my argument is this, if these cars were soo obsolete that the owners were already going to replace them, why is the stimulus needed? Or if the owners have decided that the cost of a new car compared to the energy saved by the new car was not a sufficient reason to purchase at this time, why should the government redirect resources that provably better spent elsewhere? Or we can assume you think everyone is stupid and disregards logic therefore the government should run their lives...

The submitter needs a better understanding of economics. He considers only the first-order effects, a classic blunder which is thoroughly discussed in Henry Hazlitt's classic book Economics in One Lesson, a rigorous treatment in layman's language which I recommend to everyone. (Google turns up a free ebook version that seems to be complete.) I'll give two reasons why this reasoning is bad:

But now suppose the government offers a $5 rebate (funded by a tax on all 100 million Internet users) to anyone who buys anti-virus software. Everybody who would have bought the software before, will obviously still buy it now that the government rebate has effectively lowered the price to $35, and now, all the people who value the software between $35 and $40 will buy it as well. For each person who purchases the software at the new price of $35, the following is true:

* The person who bought the anti-virus software is better off -- they valued the software at at least $35, and they got it for $35. (Otherwise, they wouldn't have bought it.)
* The taxpayers who subsidized the purchase are better off. Each rebate cost the taxpayer one-hundred-millionth of $5. But when that user installed the anti-virus software, they conferred $10 worth of total benefit on all other Internet users in the US, so that benefits each Internet-using taxpayer one-hundred-millionth of $10. So they're ahead.

1) The $5 coupons that are given to people who would have purchased the software anyway doesn't benefit the taxpayers at all. Say the subsidy spurs 50% higher antivirus sales over the next year, which I think would be a pretty incredible success. In that case, taxpayers are paying $15 for each "new" antivirus user. For every three subsidies granted, two of them would have purchased the software anyway. Thus for every 3 subsidies ($15), taxpayers have a net benefit of only $10. It's a losing deal unless you make VERY generous assumptions about the increased adoption rate due to the subsidy (I think mine was pretty darn generous), or the value of the positive externality (for which $10 seems reasonable to me, but is still pretty subjective and unproven), or both.

Note that, if $35 antivirus sold 50% more than $40 antivirus, someone probably would have already done it and made a bunch of money... which leads me to my next point:

2) You assume that prices would stay at $40. That would almost certainly be inefficient, irrational behavior by the antivirus company/ies. This is Hazlitt's One Lesson: you can't just look at one facet of your policy and assume everything else stays the same. Basic economic theory suggests that antivirus software would rise in price by somewhere between $0 and $5, and probably closer to $5 if the amount of the subsidy is a small fraction of the original purchase price and if prices are not being driven down by efficient competition (which seems unlikely, since there is free antivirus software available but companies can still sell theirs for $40).

Let's use an example: 50 million people would pay $40 for the software, and 5 million would pay $35 but not $40. (Also, of the 50 million who would pay $40, only 40 million would pay $45.)

Anti-virus companies have determined that the optimal balance of revenue per sale and number of sales occurs when they have a price of $40. The extra 5 million people are not worth lowering the price, because they'd make less on each of the 50 million that would have bought it anyway. $35 * 55m $45 * 40m, so neither raising nor lowering the price will raise revenue.

Now consider the $5 coupon. The companies will make the same pricing calculation, whether explicitly or implicitly. They will determine that the new optimal price is now higher than $40, because consumers will still make their purchasing decisions based on how much they actually have to pay out of pocket. Now they can charge $45 and still get 50 million sales, not 40 milli

Unfortunately, economists seemed to have forgotten their Econ 101, and now think they can stop the bubble. I have no problem with them believing that, except that they're feeding their nonsense to idiot politicians!

You want a bit of inflation though, exactly because it encourages people to invest instead of sit on their money. If money is constantly being sucked out of the system for savings so does economic activity.

Please do some research into exactly what happens when you put your money in the bank. Far from being "sucked out of the system" as you claim, your money is in fact continuously circulating through the market. The static number in your bank account is simply a promise on the part of the bank. It's a common misconception that bank savings are not investments... but they are.

i bet this is what you were referring to. thanks for the lead, it's rather interesting!

Yes the money is still in the system, however, you have not CREATED any jobs. You have only relocated jobs.

The problem with government "creating" jobs this way (aside from the fact that it's misleading and a good way to get votes by promising an ignorant public jobs that will not actually be created, just moved from elsewhere) is that government does not risk with it's own money. If you take money out of private enterprise you can pretty much guarantee that the money will not be used efficiently. Thus more jobs get "created" by leaving matters up to the free market rather than redistributing it for the government's perceived benefits.

If a small business owner fails he loses everything he fronted to create his business. There is very powerful incentive to succeed. If government fails they just pass on the blame to everything they possibly can and move on. The tax payers are out money that would have been used much more responsibly in the open market.

Government usually follows the path of "creating jobs" by "investing in infrastructure" because it's a good way to get the public to STFU. Most people are short-sighted. They will see the jobs as a results of the government spending. They see the metaphorical bridge that was built. They see the wages. What they don't see are all the jobs and wages that had to be taken away in the form of taxes to "create" those things.

There is no creation of jobs by government. Government is not a wealth generator. They are not sitting on some pile of magical capital that they can tap into. Every government dollar spent is capital taken out of the economy in the form of taxes. Every government job created is a job taken from somewhere else. Like the GP said, there is no net surplus of jobs as a result of government spending.

See Economics in 1 lesson - Chapter 4 - Public Works Mean Taxes for more info.

the war would probably make a lot of sense in strictly economic terms.

Ahh, yes, the old fallacy that destruction brings prosperity. As for your questions, see the two links in my original post.

Hoover tried big spending to fix a recession. That recession became a depression. When will politicians learn that increased govt spending and employment do not stimulate production and advance the economy, but in fact have the opposite effect? They are sacrificing the future for the present (the next 4 years). This is a clear sign of political pragmatism: help those who complain the loudest now, without regard for anyone else. Those other people who will be harmed by increased govt. spending - employers who could have had more employees (now working for the govt), producing goods that could have existed (supplanted with unnecessary bridges to nowhere), bought with the additional money that could have been in the pockets of consumers (now taxed to pay for these jobs) - will be the ones complaining tomorrow.

Hoover tried big spending to fix a recession. That recession became a depression. When will politicians learn that increased govt spending and employment do not stimulate production and advance the economy, but in fact have the opposite effect? They are sacrificing the future for the present (the next 4 years). This is a clear sign of political pragmatism: help those who complain the loudest now, without regard for anyone else. Those other people who will be harmed by increased govt. spending - employers who could have had more employees (now working for the govt), producing goods that could have existed (supplanted with unnecessary bridges to nowhere), bought with the additional money that could have been in the pockets of consumers (now taxed to pay for these jobs) - will be the ones complaining tomorrow.

Wow, you really trust government to do all that? Despite all the evidence to the contrary? As one intelligent person to another, please read something interesting.

You can think whatever you want. Bottom line is that I'm forced to give them my money or I face violence done to my person. There is nothing voluntary about the money I give them. I call that theft. The fact that you think some one of my age (26) is going to see any SS or Medicare money come back to me tells me you are clearly not in touch with the shit-storm that is coming. On top of that, they would never give me a handout because I will never need a handout.

But you are right about one thing. The problems we see today will not be fixed with charities. Charities from the private sector, nor from the government. There will always be some at some disadvantage. Giving them money only enables them to ignore the problem at hand. Same rule applies to your children, to your neighbors, to your city and to wall-street. The way you "force" people to solve their problems is by forcing them to accept the reality of their situation, not sparing them the lesson... If you wanted to give them education and education only I could see the value in that, but all to often they get things that allow them to coast through life.

I can see you and I will pretty much continue to disagree so fire away with the last word.

Theft if theft. I'm by no means rich, but I pay 28% of my income to the government and something tells me not even a whole 1% actually helps care for poor children... dropping bombs, invading countries, corporate bailouts, welfare to able bodies, spying on citizens...

Need I go on about the various horrors that the wealth I make for 2hours and 20minutes out of every day enables? Here is a novel thought, why don't they not take my money and I can give it directly to the poor children. Why does the government need a cut?

Here, please educate yourself

"the social contract that we (almost) all agree to"

This "social contract" is entirely fictitious. You can't find it explicitly written down anywhere, and you can't find anyone who has signed such a thing. I suggest that you read "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority", by Lysander Spooner, which does a pretty good job of tearing social contract theories to pieces.

And the failure of economic liberalism is that they believe they can game the system, make money/labor/energy appear out of thin air, and yet don't understand the simple fallacy of the broken window, which Bastiat explained in 1850.
If you've never read Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt, now is a good time to do so, and perhaps you'll wake up and smell the coffee. Written in 1948, it has yet to be refuted, so Keynesians/etc just ignore it... and pretend they can make a free lunch.

As a famous economist said, in the long run we're all dead. Increased efficiency 10 years down the line is all well and good but that doesn't help the people that need the services now

>An otherwise smart and intelligent programmer friend of mine once suggested that
>if we could experience the minds of others directly we'd never have any arguments.

100 years ago Zamenhof said something similarly naive: that if only the peoples of the world had a common language (Esperanto) there would no longer be any misunderstandings and thus no more war. I am still an Esperantist, but not from any silly idea about ending conflict. As long as people are different, there will be conflicting interests. Even if we were all genetic clones, different memes would still fight each other using our bodies.

The evolutionarily stable solution a consistent set of rights:
http://www.jim.com/rights.html

Twice now you've cited a Singularity site. I'm a big Singularity believer, so I just glanced at it:

"Why does the Singularity matter? The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence was created in the belief that the Singularity represents a tremendous opportunity to accomplish good. The Singularity may offer a new opportunity to solve fundamental problems, not just by creating new technologies, but by increasing the intelligence with which we solve problems. For the first time, there is the possibility of humans using technology to become, not only healthier and wealthier and longer-lived, but smarter. At last it will be possible for our intelligence to grow along with our technology. We believe a world that realizes these possibilities is a better world, one of the best possible futures for humanity."

This is a gross underestimation of The Singularity, at least of Vernor Vinge's version. It's not something that you can harness. If I could meet Vinge (himself a libertarian) in person, I would ask him one question: under what circumstances does a transcending society become a God or a Perversion? My guess is that the difference is the presence of (and respect for) a proper constitution, which delegates limited powers to a minimal government that exists only to protect rights.

A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker's shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.

Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace a window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as a part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.

The glazier's gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor's loss of business. No new "employment" has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.

Please refer to this article.

At least until /. picks up on The erotic adventures of Buffy and Evil Willow

We are taught in school that the political spectrum is from "left" to "right", and that our government should reside in the middle for a good society. But this is false doctrine meant to mislead us into sleeping, like Rip Van Winkle, through the institution of an oppressive government. The actual spectrum goes from anarchy to totalitarianism. No matter what form of totalitarianism, Fascist right or Communist left, it is oppressive, unliveable and at odds with basic human needs. We need to live in a government as close to anarchy as possible that still guarantees our basic rights. Frederick Bastiat, wrote in "The Law" during the early 1800's that the proper purpose of the law is to protect life, liberty and property, because the law is the collective organization of the individual's right to protect his own life, liberty and property. He further states, "These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?" During the Bush Sr. years we were asked if we'd give up the right of protection from illegal search and seizure by our government to assist them in the "War on Drugs". I immediately replied, "yes!" But as I deliberated upon the consequences I realized that the ill-conceived war was nothing more than a sham to eliminate the rights that our Founding Fathers had at one time lived without and deemed sacred and precious enough that they guaranteed them to us in perpetuity. Jon would have us to believe that there is a "Right to be free from calamity". This is not so! We live in a temporal world full of chaos, uncertainty and calamity. But we grow from this. We learn what we are made of and how to make our lives better. Who learns the lessons of life faster, the child whose parents shield it from every mis-step and fall or those that learn from minor bumps that balance is required for walking... The "Right of Liberty" is necessary for life. The "Right to be free from calamity" destroys our ability to learn from life. What is life if it's not growth... It's death... eternal death. Give me liberty or give me death, because without it, I have no life!

AN -- without

ARCHOS -- Leader, chief

So anarchy does not mean "no rules"; it means "no rulers".

David Friedman, the son of economist Milton Friedman, is probably the most widely known and published "anarchocapitalist", although he tends to argue just as much on utilitarian grounds as moral ones, if not more so. The 19th century lawyer and abolitonist Lysander Spooner can be read as a mixed bag of capitalist and socialist individualism. James Donald has a decent collection of writings on the subject, including Spooner, Frederic Bastiat and more.