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Libertarians hate the state

1. Real libertarians don't "hate" the state. A person who hates the state would probably be better described as an anarchist.

ut their ideal society is one where a corporation can essentially have all of the power of the state, but without any representation.

2. A real libertarian does not want corporations to have the power of a state.

They will say, you are free to leave a corporation and do business with another. How is that different than, if you don't like the laws of a state, go to another state?

Well one big difference is that leaving a corporation doesn't force you to leave your home, family and friends, but leaving a country does.

This isn't hypothetical. Company towns in the past were owned by a corporation which provided essentially all government functions. Quite the libertarian paradise.

A society with only one employer is not a libertarian paradise.

I don;t think you really understand libertarianism. You seem to thinking of a caricature of libertarianism.

In the same way that it is a caricature to say that all liberals want to government to control everything and have everyone be dependent on welfare.

Did you try to discuss the point with "people", the situation reminds me an old caricature about the "Dreyfus Scandal" end of the 19th century.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...
(caption reads: A family Diner: "First of all let's not speak about the affair!" / "They did speak about it !" ...)

A strawman? Do you mean the character that has a diploma but no brain? Yes, it is rather apt. Perhaps you're not he in real life; I don't know you personally. It's possible you only play him on Slashdot. All I have to work from is what you've said here. And here on Slashdot, your line of argument consists entirely of four ad hominem attacks, two of which are directed at my charitable contributions (huh?), and one of which you lobbed, ironically, to accuse me of having a persecution complex. All because I criticized not evolutionary science itself, but the didactic and unimaginative way that we teach it. If your purpose was to caricature the insecure, hypersensitive, militant fundamentalist secular humanist (who is essentially the same person as the insecure, hypersensitive, militant fundamentalist Christian), you have done an admirable job.

To be a minion of the 1% is to make yourself a target of those who art the victims of the 1%. So the question is what makes you a minion. Public support of the 1%. Acting like a caricature of science fiction character a Ferengi ie Ferengi workers don't want to stop the exploitation, we want to find a way to become the exploiters. Crying about your wages but opposing raising the minimum wage which is about 10% of the tech wage. Working for the NSA/CIA/DOD seriously nothing can get more minion like than that ;D. Whilst of course that does not describe 'many' Google employees, their general privacy invasiveness for profit, still does leave them, well, acting minion like for their major share holders.

To be a minion of the 1% is in fact more evil than being the 1%, you empower them, you are their fist and boot, you are their inquisitor and in reality without you the 1% cease to exist (well they still exist but they go back to being minor con artists and targets of local police forces).

So to be an upstanding Atheist in your world, one must equally trash all religions all the time, regardless of the issue or region?

The issue here is that Christian fundamentalists have commandeered science curricula in publicly-funded schools to teach creationism. If we were talking about cartoonists in Norway caricaturing Mohammed and still bashing Christians, then you'd have an actual point.

Creationism is a concept, I might add, that both Judaism and Islam are proponents of, however, neither Jewish nor Muslim groups or schools are pushing creationist content to children in publicly-funded schools anywhere in this country (USA). It's Christian fundamentalists that are overstepping their bounds. Hence the desire to single them out.

Furthermore, Christians are the majority in this country and have enjoyed an historically unequal sway on government and policy, so you damn well better accept the fact that Christians will take more heat when overstepping their bounds as it affects more people.

34% is not "most of" but it is a substantial part of.

I didn't say "most of".

"Most of" tea party supporters indicated a republican and almost all of the tea party leadership is republican.

According to your own data, the majority don't pick Republican politicians as representative of their views.

I have no idea what the 'standard caricature of libertarians by Democrats and US liberals is' so I'll have to take your word for it. I came up with my own opinion after about ten minutes of reading the stance that the libertarian party takes on various issues of the day by reading this:

Well, what can I say: obviously you rush to judgment, and you're politically not very well informed.

"An October 2010 Washington Post canvass of 647 local Tea Party organizers asked "which national figure best represents your groups?" and got the following responses: no one 34%, Sarah Palin 14%, Glenn Beck 7%, Jim DeMint 6%, Ron Paul 6%, Michele Bachmann 4%.[60]"

Ergo, the largest part of Tea Party supporters do not associate with any political figure, which is what I was saying. (In 2010, not even Sarah Palin was a politician anymore.) I.e., you proved my point.

Could you be any less specific and answer, or rather not answer, any more generally?

I accused you of being a partisan, and by repeating the standard caricature of libertarians by Democrats and US liberals, you proved it.

You don't like what I say and therefore I'm wrong is not a very convincing argument.

You're a partisan, not anybody interested in a debate.

34% is not "most of" but it is a substantial part of. "Most of" tea party supporters indicated a republican and almost all of the tea party leadership is republican.

I have no idea what the 'standard caricature of libertarians by Democrats and US liberals is' so I'll have to take your word for it. I came up with my own opinion after about ten minutes of reading the stance that the libertarian party takes on various issues of the day by reading this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

So no, I am not partisan. I am a registered independent and always have been. Unfortunately there is no one that I think is worth voting for at all at this point as the vast majority make up a single pseudo party and the rest are infeasible and / or unrealistic.

"An October 2010 Washington Post canvass of 647 local Tea Party organizers asked "which national figure best represents your groups?" and got the following responses: no one 34%, Sarah Palin 14%, Glenn Beck 7%, Jim DeMint 6%, Ron Paul 6%, Michele Bachmann 4%.[60]"

Ergo, the largest part of Tea Party supporters do not associate with any political figure, which is what I was saying. (In 2010, not even Sarah Palin was a politician anymore.) I.e., you proved my point.

Could you be any less specific and answer, or rather not answer, any more generally?

I accused you of being a partisan, and by repeating the standard caricature of libertarians by Democrats and US liberals, you proved it.

You don't like what I say and therefore I'm wrong is not a very convincing argument.

You're a partisan, not anybody interested in a debate.

The New Way Things Work
by David Macaulay

It's a phenomenal book that not only tells the history of some older technologies, but shows how they work in kid-friendly caricatures. My favorite book for sharing technology to kids.

I'm just tired of hearing about how sure people are that I'm wrong and they're right based on "faith".

Everyone does this with every ideology. I have democrat friends who are convinced Im off my rocker in some of the political beliefs I have, while my conservative friends would say the same regarding the democrats.

The key is not to get all bent out of shape that each group is convinced that the other is deeply and fundamentally wrong; its to recognize that fact and accept, and if it must be discussed, to do so in a way that doesnt assume that the other person is a caricature of what they believe.

Best quote I've ever read, "Religion is like a penis. It's fine to have one and it's fine to be proud of it, but please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around... and PLEASE don't try to shove it down my child's throat."

Quotes like that sound witty and clever, but Id remark that it would be an odd religion indeed where you on the one hand professed that your eternal fate was on the line, but on the other that its much too controversial to bother your friends with.

Penn famously remarked on how glad he as a fairly committed atheist was that a christian cared enough to try to proselytize him: how much would that person have had to either hate or be apathetic towards Penn, in order NOT to tell him of the eternal danger they perceived?

However, once you stop equating the supernatural with religion,

You cannot stop equating the supernatural and religion. They are one in the same no matter what you want to believe.

You are talking in absolutes and creating a dichotomy that doesn't exist. I think you are also failing to understand both religion and science. Maybe you are a student. You are also holding a childish caricature of what is often attributed to the supernatural (e.g. "purple fish in your head")

Religion has nothing to do with the supernatural. It is a social construct. Religion has, however, created a mythos, fables of sort, to help define how one should live. Sometimes it relates to the supernatural. That certainly isn't one and the same.

Regardless, I won't be discussing religion with you nor is it relevant to this thread...

it begins to make sense that there are invisible laws that govern that natural law is incapable of evaluating.

There is absolutely no reasoning behind that assertion other than to make people feel better about holding beliefs that all evidence contradicts. It is complete nonsense. Spurious reasoning and pseudo-insightfulness is not an argument.

First, I hold no beliefs and only speak from experience, insight, and education. The same with those who came before me. So what does that say about your ability to reason? It means what you just said was nonsense (i.e. not applicable). That's a failure of reasoning and comprehension on your part. You shouldn't be so quick to dismiss thousands of years of thought; that's naively dangerous.

Neither does evidence contradict the supernatural, quite the contrary. This is a thread on the topic of cosmology, which is a subset of metaphysical philosophy which sets out to explain both the natural and supernatural.

Let's take a moment to describe what the supernatural is...

I will use the word you just used, "belief". If I believe something will happen, the likelihood of it occurring has been increased beyond measure. It's a paradox. Belief itself is power and has the ability to bend natural law. Science is beginning to recognize this in theory.

Take another example... for instance, higher thought itself is independent of a singular mind and is transcendental. I would attribute this to the supernatural. What about you? It certainly doesn't involve natural law.

Science is only one method of reason and measurement

Another statement complete void of meaning. Name one other method- one that isn't purely begging the question.

Sure... Poetry, Philosophy, Art-- all higher schools of thought and reasoning that science derives its pursuits from.

What you are doing by holding the science of natural law as some supreme form of thought is dismissing its very origin. You are divorcing it from all beauty and higher purpose.

Let's take poetic symbolism as an example of a predecessor, as it is regarded as the highest form of thought and consciousness:

"the sound of stars" or "the grinding of cosmos". Only until recently did science recognize that stars emit sound and is actually a useful way to deduce their internal composition.

Same applies to the work of Newton and Einstein.

What we attribute to being of the supernatural is the occurrence of the improbable and impossible.

Bolded for emphasis. We call it "impossible" because it can't actually happen, like the supernatural. The improbable is not supernatural. Rolling 10 sixes in a row on an unweighted die is improbable but not supernatural. Things considered supernatural are not improbable- they are impossible. That is why they are labelled supernatural.

Take your 10 sixes and roll them again a billion times. Would you say that was impossible or improbable? Can you fu

They sound great, but are not at all practical to implement. Reality is far more complex and riddled with exceptions that broad Libertarian theories never seem to account for.

You're putting up a caricature of libertarian views and merely waving your hands. Contrary to your caricature, libertarians aren't against all government regulation. We simply recognize that government regulation comes at a high cost, and is frequently used by corporate and other special interests to enrich themselves. Therefore, government regulation and interference needs to be clearly justified and such policies should only remain in effect for as long as they are provably and substantially beneficial to society as a whole.

For housing, automobiles, and health care, it is quite clear that they have not become cheaper along with other goods or services. It is also quite clear why: in large part, powerful special interests lobby government to keep prices and profits high. Society would benefit from reducing many (though not all) laws and regulations in these areas.

And when challenged, the usual Libertarian responds with the typical Darwinian propaganda, something I choose to reject on moral grounds.

Libertarianism has nothing to do with Social Darwinism, libertarianism has to do with liberty. In fact, many libertarians favor some kind of basic income or negative income tax, in place of the complex and degrading set of welfare "benefits" and social engineering policies progressives and "liberals" advocate.

And you are right that these are moral issues, and it is morally wrong to make people's lives worse in order to support big corporations and special interests by tax dollars, which is what the policies you seem to favor amount to.

Lol, you're completely full of shit. And you are a caricature of yourself. "If factual information...the product cannot be any good, can it?" is exactly the laughable attempt at sophistry I am mocking, you couldn't have made a more hilarious comment.

No, Gay is not an insult for homosexual people. It's a description. You are a complete idiot, please stop posting on the Internet.

Do you really not see the difference between Frodo Baggins and Dagny Taggart? Frodo is a fantastical character - he's a short-statured member of a race of hairy-footed little men who live in hills, have eleventy-first birthday parties and possess a strange resistance to magic. ...

Dagny Taggart is a fantastical caricature - she's a human, but not as we know it Jim. Everything she ever wanted sort of just happened to her, and she just does random insane shit because that's what the author needs her to do in order to move the plot along.

This. The Lord of the Rings was very much a Romantic work, in the capital-R sense. Not escapism, but something that reflects on the way the world should be and how we respond to challenge. Game of Thrones rejects Romanticism outright, and damns it--it has this sort of Victorian-esque sense of both rejection of and yearning for that Romanticism. There's a reason for that beheading in Game of Thrones, and that Resurrection in LOTR.

LOTR is best before you "grow up," or after you really grow up.

I find it interesting when people insist on taking Atlas Shrugged so literally. Perhaps it's because the core ideology of the 'hero' characters is so ruthlessly fundamental, people find it abrasive and just toss it aside as a work of fantasy as justification for disliking some of the more extreme ideas in there.

I think the fact it is so fantastical and that most of the characters are extremely one-dimensional caricatures is almost the point. Seems to me the storyline is just a set piece for Rand to really get at the core of her political philosophy and prod at the really difficult dilemmas in the debate on where a society should lie on the scale between communism/socialism and capitalism.

The book takes the ideal of purely meritocratic capitalism to its extreme and there are some cold, inhuman edges to this which I personally find too much. But the core ideas that entitlement should not be expected by any section of society and that capitalism should ultimately benefit the individual and wider society in fair proportion to the individual's skill level and work ethic I am completely behind.

One idea this book exposed me to that I had not really considered before was it's possible to critically analyse communism and reason that it is, fundamentally, immoral. I think many if not most people lucky enough to live in a free market capitalist society would agree that communism/socialism seem very definitely wrong, but you can't really knock the principles behind them (sharing, equality, etc etc) from a moral standpoint. The amazing revelation for me from this book was that indeed you can, and should, fight against these types of ideas which curtail individual choice and freedom, which after all is the ultimate source of happiness for the vast, vast majority of people.

First, I don't see why Ayn is expected to not create fantastical characters in a work of fiction. Nobody would read it if it were just a mirror image of society.

Do you really not see the difference between Frodo Baggins and Dagny Taggart? Frodo is a fantastical character - he's a short-statured member of a race of hairy-footed little men who live in hills, have eleventy-first birthday parties and possess a strange resistance to magic. But despite all this, he's understandable as a person: he hopes and struggles, he gives up and sometimes he wins. The actions he takes are ones we could see ourselves taking, if we happened to be in his fantastical situation and under the stresses he's under.

Dagny Taggart is a fantastical caricature - she's a human, but not as we know it Jim. Everything she ever wanted sort of just happened to her, and she just does random insane shit because that's what the author needs her to do in order to move the plot along. It's really hard for an actual human being to identify with her, because she's the barest sketch of one.

How do you know that you're talking to a far-right winger? They'll often use a phrase like "your God and personal Savior Obama." Democrats don't talk that way. Leftists don't talk that way. Moderates who voted for Obama sure as hell don't see Obama in that light. Only the far right does, as a caricature, a straw-man that doesn't exist.

Gotta agree with sibling... most school districts are far more enamored with stomping out all hallmarks of what most of us refer to as the real world.

Can't have harsh terminology, can't have depicted violence... hell, they can't even stand to have some wayward little boy kissing a girl, or pointing a finger at a classmate while saying "bang".

With all the zero tolerance BS going around? I can almost assure you that the censorship isn't coming from some drooling caricature of the "Right Wing" (cue ominous music), but more a result of overly-anxious officials scouring the libraries to expunge anything that could remotely intrude on what they assert is the "best" way to teach a child.

So where would you fit the typical psuedo celebrity whose public image is an imaginary work created by public relations (PR=B$) specialist who crafted it to market and promote crappy products. Are they a person or an imaginary caricature of a person.

Oddly enough to in order to gain copyright protections in court for those fake caricature of psuedo celebrities, the public relations types would have to prove what kind of narcissistic arse holes the typical pseudo celebrity really is versus the crafted public image (of course destroying the value of the crafted image). So thing many a psuedo celebrity has managed to do on their own, when their ego starts make them ignore their public relations handlers.

You regularly get mod-bombed because you're a fucking idiot who is presenting the most inane and stupid ideas, and you expect people to treat those ideas (and yourself) as if they had the same validity as actual sane (even if wrong) ideas.

A lot of people with different opinions get modded up on /. even if those opinions go against the 'group-think'. You, however, are either a troll, or just stupidly crazy (shaken too much as a baby?). Either way, you're opinions are not presented in a manner that justifies giving them anything but contempt.

Maybe if instead of sucking on the NSAs hypothetical cock/cunt so much, with such "oh yes, I love Big Brother", and your shit about "Al Qaida" being at war with the USA (and being so successful, that they have had one attack in the USA in the last 200 years, unlike the Christian fundamentalists who have had at least three that i can think of), and thus justifying bombing weddings, funerals, and anyone who looks at the drone funny, you just stuck to non-political subjects, you'd get on better. (I've seen +5 posts of yours, so it is possible.)

You are a caricature.