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What If Manning Had Leaked To the New York Times?
New submitter minstrelmike points outs a two-page editorial in the NYTimes "about what would have been different legally, morally, and security-wise," had the military information released through WikiLeaks been published by the Times instead.
"'If Manning had delivered his material to The Times, WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein. In fact, you might not have heard of WikiLeaks. The group has had other middling scoops, but Manning put it on the map.' The writers also discusses what the Times would and would not have done, admitting they probably wouldn't have shared with other news outlets, but also admitting they would definitely have not shared everything."
He wanted it to get out.
Do you produce anything besides drivel?
Spin:
"heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein"
Reality:
http://www.collateralmurder.com/
"A full audio recording of the whistleblower is released today despite a court prohibition on such recordings"
Okay, I'll bite.
The end result of a journalist's work is a product (called a newspaper even if it's only rehashes of things we all know and it's posted digitally).
What's your job, and what's the end product?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
I thought Manning shopped it around to all the big existing media and they didn't want to know, it was only after Wikileaks picked it up that THEN they came back. And as to unedited, Wikileaks was working with the newspapers to get the redactions done until.. The Guardian in the UK started dropping unedited stuff? Don't know for sure, a lot of finger pointing, but 99% of it always appears to be at Wikileaks and from what appeared to be going on at the time, they were doing the best they could to release slowly and carefully to avoid putting people into danger (though as pointed out, anyone who wanted this data probably already had it).
Waiting for an amusing sig.
There is absolutely no way NYT would have touched Manning's cable archives. They would have feigned interest and then shopped him. Bill Keller knows this.
The OP is the biggest piece of self-serving balderdash I've read in weeks. It's nauseating, and teeming with distortions and outright lies about Manning and Wikileaks.
I wonder if they would have simply sat on them for a year, like they did with the NSA wiretapping matter just because the feds asked them to?
At this point, "Why didn't he leak to the Times?" is only slightly less risible than "Why didn't he just register his concerns with the chain of command?"
NYT to whistle blowers: "Give your leaks to us instead of lame ol' Wikileaks! *WE* will make money on.. err... I mean *WE* will keep your data safer!"
"If we'd been given the material by Manning, we wouldn't have done NEARLY as thorough a job as Wikileaks!"
I'll admit I didn't RTFA, as I don't have an account there :P
WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates
That's one whopper of a half truth.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Sadly news media like the New York Times are simply not free to publish. They are vulnerable to government and there can be no real recourse if government acts against them. Worse yet they are vulnerable to large and small business people. For example crime reporting does not encourage people to be out and about shopping, eating in restaurants, and simply being consumers. News media garner their money from advertizing and certain kinds of reporting simply generate ire from advertisers. The end result is the sing-song, happy faced, mild and gentle style of reporting that we so often are force fed. Conversely, hard hitting investigative reporting is expensive, is a legal mine field waiting to blow the legs off of a newspaper, and gets one in deep trouble with advertisers.
The results are a highly controlled news media. In many towns and cities if the public really was aware of what happens daily they would be at home hiding under their beds.
> WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein
The unredacted cables were published by accident, with Wikileaks and The Guardian being about equally neglectful. The op-eds claim of "[publishing] heedless of the risk" here is a lie.
I know that it is an op-ed, and therefore not the New York Times' opinion, but the New York Times still have a responsibility to do a basic fact check before posting it.
My bird disagrees. He says it's just more war mongering, lapdog press, like the Washington Post.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What If The New York Times Still Mattered?
If he'd leaked to NYT then nobody would have read the cables at all because the site is paywalled.
somebody forgot to take their laxatives this morning...
NYT journalist?
Here's some fucking news, you cannot tax an economy into prosperity, unemployment is increasing and the cost of fucking hamburgers is going up thanks to Obama and all the socialists elected and supported by the NYT. They do not report news, they spin and transcribe what the elitists in government tell them to say. That's all.
What I do is none of your fucking business.
Sure you can tax into prosperity... Tax pays for services needed for prosperity, like security (police, defense), libraries, transport and communication infrastructure, education, a legal system etc at a minimum. This obviously doesn't mean that "more tax is always better", but some level of tax is needed. Providing care for the elderly and children increases the workforce and thus prosperity, but also requires funding.
The society might also find that handling things like health together through the tax system has benefits - when looked at purely through the numbers, US clearly pays far more (as %GDP) than anyone else with not very good results.
What the fuck planet is this author from? The government would have gotten wind of it, after they likely reported it to the government, and they would have immediately handed it all over with a court gag order in place as well. Receiving stolen property is illegal. Receiving stolen government classified intel is probably more illegal. Publishing it online and in the paper is mega ultimate super-illegal so no, not a damn word of it would have gotten out. I can't believe Slashdot let this idiotic of a fantasy story through.
Unfortunately there's no, "you're an idiot" mod, so I'll leave you unmoderated and tell you directly. If Manning really did leak this information then yes, he's a hero. But he's not a traitor, and he deserves no punishment. He deserves what any hero does, but unfortunately he's getting what heroes too often get. Instead of praise and thanks for highlighting evil, and exposing dark secrets, he's getting punished for it. But that's to be expected, what evil organization actually likes being exposed as evil when they try and pretend otherwise?
People like to say, "oh, you broke the law, accept the consequences", but fuck that shit. If the law is wrong (and any law that forbids a person to revel wrong doing on the scale reveled by Manning, is wrong), then it is your duty to break it. And then to evade injustice. E.g. the mafia come and say, "we'll protect your shop from someone firebombing it", but if you reject their offer, you still have the right to defend your shop yourself from firebombing (which will come from the mafia). The mafia are the government, demanding you accept their laws or face the consequences they decided on.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein.
Either if the poster is a troll, has political motives or is just ignorant of the facts I cannot say. What I can say, is that, there are no unedited cables in the open the cables where edited to remove the names and only 3 names came out to the public, for reasons explained by the WikiLeaks team.
I think it's funny as hell as I drive my Mercedes-Benz MG550 to go pick up a copy of the NYT. I voted for Obama twice.
As an American and Global citizen I want to fucking hug Bradley Manning. I want to thank him repeatedly for the great service he has provided the entire world. He is a true hero in my eyes.
The rest goes on and basically says: "Too fucking bad that you have to rot in jail. Tough shit, you should have known better."
Then...
Again, thank you Manning; I personally put your accomplishments far higher than many of those who have received medals before you even though you deserve every punishment that is coming to you.
So says the guy without any skin in the game.
If he's such a hero to you, how about helping him out? How about sticking up for him or helping him or his family financially?
And as far as paying the consequences, most of the folks I've seen (famous) who used civil disobedience over blatant atrocious behavior would spend a token amount of time in jail and then get out due to plublic outrage and embarrassment of the people or government they exposed.
Also, his oaths do not force him to to keep quiet when illegal activities are going on.
The military was committing crimes, got exposed, and they're crucifying this guy with a conscious.
The New York times would censor anything that would piss off major politicians. They simply would not want to lose their access to these folks and as such would have buried any cables on the backpages and censored anything too embarrassing.
Be careful what you wish for.
We could always move the tax rates back to where they were when Reagan was in office.
It might actually pay for all of our military traipsing around the world.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
The law is not an absolute concept. It is a convention full of flaws. When someone breaks an unfair laws he does not "deserve" punishment, even if he does it knowing he will get it, and if in the end he does not get the punishment much for the better, although it seldom happens.
However, he's also a fucking traitor and deserves the punishment which is coming to him
- I suppose he is a 'traitor' in the same way that an SS soldier would have been in Nazi units designed to burn people alive in concentration camps, for releasing the real information about the atrocities for all the public to find out.
USA government kills civilian children on daily basis with bombs, that's part of the information released by Manning. I don't give a shit what the literal legality is of what he did, he is not a traitor, the US government is the traitor of the principles that the country was founded upon.
USA government, every single fucker in it that knew and authorised that knows and authorises murder of people on daily basis should be rotting in jail, Manning is a normal person that became part of a completely corrupt, oppressive, ridiculously blood thirsty system and he did not stand for it. By releasing this information he notifies the public what atrocities are done in their name under the pretence of 'protecting the Constitution', while in reality completely abandoning the Constitution and destroying every principle that the USA Republic was founded upon.
You can't handle the truth.
I feel the same way, except I believe the cables should have been edited for names of the innocent and so on.
They were. Wikileaks didn't release the unedited cables, and I doubt Manning would have been willing to leak them without assurance that they would redact dangerous information. The problem was that "respectable newspapers" (The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel) were involved in the redaction process, and The Guardian used the opportunity for a scoop. Maybe NYT is more trustworthy than The Guardian - I don't know - but it is deeply ironic that they are using this of all things as an example of being better "legally, morally, and security-wise" than Wikileaks when Wikileaks's only shortcoming was involving the likes of NYT in the first place.
Also wealth redistribution can be good for an economy. It is what made the USA the powerhouse it was. WW2 and the programs of the great depression moved lots of money into the hand of the new middle class, they spent that money thus driving the economy. A single rich person has only so many needs they will spend money on, taking that money and giving it to people who will spend it will improve the economy. Today we see the reverse with a shrinking middle class and a slowing economy as wealth accumulates in the hands of a small few.
These are just facts, they have nothing to do with the morality of such action.
This country was founded on the principals of voting only for landed gentry, slavery and theft of land from the natives.
I don't see how bombing brown children is outside the scope of the above.
Should we strive to do better? Yes, but lets not pretend this nation was founded by Saints.
But see, that changes as soon as you call that rich person a Job Creator. A Job Creator can spend infinite money creating jobs, whereas the middle class will waste in on pointless things like mortgages, new technology, and transportation.
We just think it's funny that you keep calling Obama a socialist. All it shows is that you have no clue what the word means. Obama is not a socialist. The American Socialist Party doesn't even think he's a socialist.
I don't like or support Obama, but not because of his economic stance. The fact is that he'd be able to get a lot more done to help the country on the economic front if the Republicans weren't bound and determined to block everything he attempts to do.
Technoli
The cognitive dissonance you display is staggering.
He's not a hero. He violated his contract with the US government. All claims to moral superiority on his part are void since he had no authorization to handle the materials in the first place and the indiscriminate nature of what he collected.
That being said I'd like to know who in the chain of command is going to be held responsible for the utter lack of operational security that made it possible for Manning to copy the files in the first place. Obviously nobody will because the higher ups are all going to have their asses covered by the Manning / Assange shitstorm that's been concocted to distract everyone.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Haha, it's funny because you're stupid.
A yes the mythical supply side economic system. One in which the rich hire poor people because they simply have too much profit in their companies. No matter how many folks are standing around getting paid to scratch their asses the "Job Creator" hires more and more workers as his revenue goes up or taxes go down.
These people must believe that the rich are no smarter than your average house cat.
Unless you are the one pretending that 'country was founded by saints', then I don't know who is saying that.
James Madison:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
Nobody says that USA was founded by saints. Personally I would not have ratified the Constitution that did not recognise all people as equals. However USA was founded on some principles in the first place (and by the way, limiting suffrage to land owners was one of those principles, and I completely agree with it, land owners were the ones paying taxes, but today it cannot be limited just to land owners, but it must be limited at the most to the people who are paying taxes)
People who are not paying taxes but instead are living off of a subsidy shouldn't be allowed to vote, that's my position. But that's a side issue.
We have here Bradley Manning, the man stands alone against the tyrannical oppressive regime, that clearly does NOT protect and defend the Constitution, it does NOT stand for actual individual rights, instead it abuses them.
The man must not be punished even though he broke the literal law! He must not be punished, unless as a society your stance is: we don't care what is done in our name and our principles be damned, if you just go against the literal law, you should be punished in the most crazy manner, so that any such transgressions by anybody else in the future are prevented at the root.
Without such law breaking we could in principle still have some actual remnants of slavery in a society, and now we do, the individuals are the slaves to be punished by the collective. Bradley Manning is an individual and the collective is collectively punishing him for being one and to ensure that others stay as the collective and never have any individual thoughts of their own.
You can't handle the truth.
Undo modding post...
Unless you show me an internal NYT document that can be clearly shown as having been written BEFORE the wikileaks thing that describes their policy on such matters, this is all revisionist history. How many times has the NYT published something they should have either a) confirmed or b) thought twice about because it would get someone killed?
Disenfranchising the poor is simply evil. Its only purpose is to ensure an underclass that can be continually exploited.
Almost all the people who think are leaches are most likely getting back SS money they paid or are the working poor. Hopefully when you retire you will stop voting. I know you need to feel superior to someone but dumping on the poor is not very classy.
I have no interest in your randian fantasies, take that drivel elsewhere.
Manning got caught violating his oath, he will be punished. If he had found actual interesting violations this would be reduced. As far as I can tell all he did was discover sad normal truths of war. Innocents will be accidentally killed, and diplomats will say bad things about each other.
Comeback without the strawman and total misunderstanding of systemic poverty and we can talk. Until then, fuck off.
He's not a hero. He violated his contract with the US government.
Those two are not mutually exclusive; in fact, I'd consider them quite strongly linked. The global bully who goes around kicking sand in others' faces is the US and has been for at least 35 years, possibly longer.
you stupid elitist pricks all have a big laugh about the EVIL CONSERVATIVE and you pat each other on the back to cheer on yet more and more government, more regulations, more taxation, theft and erosion of the civil society.
You know, it takes a truly exception level of delusion to think that it's the elite in this country who want more taxes on themselves, and the average working people who want to cut all benefit programs and social safety nets for the average working people.
Yes, I'm sure all the billionaire power-brokers in this country are all Democrats who just hate it when Republicans pass tax breaks and pro-corporate laws that benefit themselves greatly. "Oh no, please make me pay more taxes and take away these laws that allow me to lord over the poor like a God!" I can hear Donald Trump and the Koch brothers saying.
Tell me, what color is the sky in your world?
Your political party doesn't care about your rights and only represents corporate interests.
Not sure why mods thought this was flamebait initially. It sure looks like a reasonable contribution to the thread, regardless of whether anyone agrees or disagrees.
Well, the first thing that would happend is the in-house spooks would have leaked it to their station chief ...
AccountKiller
Sure you can tax into prosperity... Tax pays for services needed for prosperity, like security (police, defense), libraries, transport and communication infrastructure,
education, a legal system etc at a minimum. This obviously doesn't mean that "more tax is always better", but some level of tax is needed. Providing care for the elderly and children increases the workforce and thus prosperity, but also requires funding.
One of the clearest indications that political thought is an oxymoron is the idea that everything must come in only 2 flavors and nothing between, and that all lines must be straight lines.
Reality isn't that tidy. There is a point where too little taxes fail society and a point where too much tax crushes. There's also a spot in between. Or actually, more of a blob, since there are a lot of variables in the equation. The blob can be larger or smaller or even inside-out depending on whether your demands exceed supply.
We are the most spoiled generation in all human history. We have all - even the eldest - spent all, or nearly all of our lives expecting things to become cheaper every day. Sure, we howl about inflation, but the truth is, anything electronic has been chasing Moore's law for decades, and almost everything we do any more ties into something electronic, even if it's just just sitting down at the PC and figuring out when to plant the South 40.
Matters only got worse when offshoring became economically viable. We've come to expect that Lower Prices Every Day is a right, and not simply being in the right place at the right time. No 16th-century farmer expected next year to require less effort or money to survive than last year.
So we do foolish things like lower taxes right before a recession is due when we should have been saving the money for when the rains came and lowering taxes afterwards. And compound it, by fighting to keep the taxes low even as we embark on expensive campaigns.
There's almost always something that isn't really necessary in any budget, whether it's personal, corporate, or government. And tough times help provide incentive for getting rid of it. Still, historically, we are used to being able to prosper while paying far more tax than we have for the last 10 years. And, frankly, the last 10 years have mostly been pretty miserable, so I don't buy the whole "lower taxes = more prosperity" line. If it can't work in a period that long, I'll likely die before it works at all - if it ever does. Ergo, it's useless for my purposes.
The one thing that more government money can do that no one else can, is spend money when no one else dares to. Governments don't have to show a profit (and shouldn't!), nor do they have to be concerned over-much about daily expenses. They can keep on cranking regardless, and if it isn't very efficient, nonetheless, it keeps money in circulation instead of being hoarded. Hoarded money doesn't really do anyone any good. Not even the hoarders. Until you spend it, money is just potential.
Disenfranchising the poor is simply evil. Its only purpose is to ensure an underclass that can be continually exploited.
- using discrimination against a voting minority by setting up mobocracy, that always votes to steal from the few and give to themselves is what causes destruction of the economy that you are now observing. What is evil is to destroy the economy by doing this exact thing, because the people who will be most hurt by it will be those very 'disenfranchised' poor. The people who most benefit from the limitations placed upon government, because they are in most need of the free market economy that actually does raise all boats. The fact that they may not realise it does not negate it.
And yes, those who are no longer in the work force should not have the same bearing on the political system as those, who are actively working and paying into the system, correct. You have a major voting block of the older wealthier people, constantly voting themselves a subsidy from the young, poor people, and the government is the proxy for this discrimination and injustice and it's happy to oblige, because the politicians are the ones gaining the most. The retired would be much better served by a strong dollar and a healthy interest rate, as they are on fixed incomes and many have actual savings that they are eating into as well as the government does by inflation. Taxing the working to subsidise the retired is completely wrong of-course, and SS should have never existed in the first place, people shouldn't be paying higher and higher taxes to subsidise the currently retired and thus being denied the ability to save for their own retirement.
Anyway, you will learn in some not so distant future that there is no magic and that all subsidies and such obvious ponzi scams end, and they end badly.
As to Manning - it does not matter what secret oath to the dear leader system he might have given, the people OUTSIDE of that circle should not stand for it, they should be completely against their government destroying the very principles that their nation is founded upon.
By NOT standing against the government and for Manning, the people are signing their own jail sentence and a possible death warrant. The government that has no fear of the people but instead instills fear and hate into the people is the government that imprisons the people. As I said, USA was not founded on principles of blindly following orders.
In fact USA fought a war against a monarch that would have US people following his orders, the US people fought against that oppression and now it's time to recognise that their government is that same monarch, only with more weapons.
You can't handle the truth.
Because Troll and Flamebait are used since Slashdot has no "-1 conflicts with my ideology" moderation option.
I even address the fact that I was not supporting such a thing, but people still get upset if they see any remark that conflicts with their worldview.
He violated his contract with the US government.
- OMG and the US government has violated its contract with the entire USA, with all the people and all the States.
USA government was supposed to protect and defend the Constitution and the principles of individual rights, instead it's killing off individuals and is taking a long, stinking dump on the Constitution. It doesn't matter that somebody who signed up TO PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION is not following the orders of the system, that is clearly is violating its own oath to do the same.
He did not sign up to protect the government, he signed up to protect the Constitution.
Manning is doing his job, the rest of the government is not.
You can't handle the truth.
Without SS their will be old people begging in the streets. The simple fact is either through their own mistakes or by unfortunate circumstances many people will never have enough money to retire. When they can no longer work either we can help them or allow them to starve on the street. No amount of your ideology will change reality.
The free market does not raise all boats equally, that is a myth. Again, look at history not ideology.
Wikileaks was being actively supported by several media outlets at the time (which IIRC included the Associated Press). As such, they were acting agents of the press doing work that the papers themselves hadn't dared for decades.
However it was the Guardian's blunder that caused the real breech, IMO. There is no denying they bungled it.
A creationist can come onto here and "conflict with my ideology" and still sound like an idiot and get modded down appropriately. Some ideologies (namely those parroted by Fox "News" watchers) are stupid and deserve to be ridiculed.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
USA government kills civilian children on daily basis with bombs, that's part of the information released by Manning. I don't give a shit what the literal legality is of what he did, he is not a traitor
USA government, every single fucker in it that knew and authorised that knows and authorises murder of people on daily basis should be rotting in jail, Manning is a normal person that became part of a completely corrupt, oppressive, ridiculously blood thirsty system and he did not stand for it.
Thank you, roman_mir, for telling it like it is. I often rage at your comments, but it's good to see that we agree on some important things.
They made a deal with a London newspaper to redact, edit, and publish many of the documents.
The free market does not raise all boats equally, that is a myth. Again, look at history not ideology.
- oh, and the free market does not have to raise all boats equally.
But the free market raises all boats. Everybody has the ability to access many of the products and services that the free market creates, that never exited before, and the market allows this to happen at very accessible prices. If the government was much smaller and less intrusive, as it was prior to 1913, the people would have really been much better off, with shorter work weeks and shorter work days by now. The 19th century allowed the farmers gatherers to work much fewer hours as the century progressed, because the free market created the wealth and investments and tools to make people so much more productive. This century just proves how much of our productivity is stolen by the government regulations, taxes and inflation, that we did not see any reduction in working hours and instead we know people must work more than half a century ago to afford a worse quality of life.
Well, the free market was mauled by the government, the default on the dollar in 1971 really did it in. But hey, it's not true everywhere, at least in other parts of the world they started figuring out that the freer the entrepreneurs is the better the economy is in the long term. They didn't even lose the sight of this everywhere equally in USA
But hey, USA lost a lot since 1913, it lost sight of what is important from point of view of individual liberties and it completely forgot where wealth actually comes from (and it's not from gov't borrowing, printing, stealing and subsidising anybody)
You can't handle the truth.
I see a good point in what you are saying. As you the lackluster performance (average cost and outcome) of our health care system shows, prosperity is about getting good results from your efforts.
The viability of using govt to spend us into prosperity depends on how efficient they are at it. I would argue that things big tend to be not very good at efficiency. (Big govt and big medicine come to mind.) Seems like the Soviet Union among other things, was an experiment in this direction that didn't work out so well. Perhaps the problem is that the bigger an organization gets, the more disconnected it gets from it's purpose (or customer?). This doesn't say the govt is always bad, just that some skepticism should be applied when someone says that they will improve our overall situation by adding yet another program. This skepticism is sorely missing in most of the current crop of folks inside the beltway.
I'd like to see govt more focused on setting up an environment where the folks can bring themselves up in economic status by hard work. This is different than paying folks not to work. It is different than not holding the banking community responsible for their actions. It is different from not holding the medical community responsible for their current average cost to benefit ratio. Govt has many opportunities to do good, they just often choose to do otherwise.
As others have said, being hero and violating a contract with the mafia^W government are not mutually exclusive. Manning is a hero because he violated his contract exposing significant misdeeds and secrets that should never have been secret. He is a hero because he leaked information that has lead to the downfall over governments that were fundamentally undemocratic. He is a hero because in his position he saw a way to try and right a wrong, and he took that way.
You are worried about how Manning managed to leak all this embarrassing material, you should be more worried about why those in the chain of command who committed crimes (that have been exposed thanks to Manning) are not being prosecuted. Are you one of the ones who say the government can do no wrong? Or if they did, they must have a good reason? Defense of wrong doing is itself a problem that needs to be fixed.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
Stop with the ideology.
If we stop SS payments right now, people will be forced onto the street. That is a fact, unless you have some alterative for paying their bills.
For the most of human existence retirement did not exist. People worked until they died. That was it. There is no need to save for retirement when you die in the fields at 50 or in the mine at 45.
There exists a huge class of workers who literally could save every dime they don't spend on necessities and still not have enough to retire ever.
Even if you think they should try harder, or pull on their boot straps more or whatever fantasy you have, the reality is some people will never be able to save that kind of money. They just do not have the income to do so.
I don't know what sort of Communist society you live in, but in America people create jobs for people because they profit from it, not for charity. Jobs will be created when there is demand for those jobs (or the products that those jobs create). If there is no demand (for example, if there is no middle class to buy the products) then the rich people will not the create jobs. And they shouldn't. But, if all the rich people decide to stop creating jobs ("going Galt"), then there will still be demand and middle class or poor people will create the jobs themselves (because there is potential to make money - this is how small businesses are created).
It boggles my mind that all these Republicans think they have to worship rich people as gods or they will take all the jobs away. I don't thank my boss for giving me a job. My boss thanks me for being hardworking and productive by giving me bonuses and raises. My boss (who is a conservative) made a joke right after the election that he is going to have to fire people because his taxes were going to go up. I told him (lightheartedly of course) that if I did not already make him more money than I cost, then he should go ahead and fire me because I don't work for charity. Guess what? I am still working (he did not fire me).
Everyone pays taxes, they may not all pay income tax, but even the poor still pay property tax (through rent) and sales tax, and gas tax and sin taxes on alcohol. Maybe if you want them to pay more taxes you could pay higher wages Mr. Job Creator and bump them up a bracket or two.
HAHAHAHAHAHA, you actually fucking believe that?
Look at the life of the average person before 1913 and get back to me.
We did not get a shorter work week until after 1913. Labor regulation did that, not any magical market.
Go visit puerto rico, pay close attention to all the homeless and those who serve you the drinks with the umbrellas in them. Ask them how they are saving for their retirement.
All the economic freedom in the world does not mean shit when you have no money.
Free market capitalism is as removed from reality as ideal communism, and just as unworkable in practice with large groups of people. Social Security has zero contribution to our national debt -- if anything, Congress needs to stop looting it for purposes entirely unrelated to public welfare.
As for Bradley Manning, I wish we as a nation would grow a spine and stand up against the injustice against him, the injustice against other whistleblowers, and the injustices he helped expose. We need to drag the authoritarians kicking and screaming through an equitable process to make this happen, but it's something we would all be better off doing.
Paying federal taxes would qualify you for voting in federal elections.
Paying local taxes would qualify you for voting in local elections.
Getting a subsidy from a level of government would disqualify you from voting in elections at that government level.
Is this really difficult to grasp?
Allowing all people to vote in elections, where a large number of people are not personally feeling any pain and instead are getting a subsidy is the recipe for destruction. People vote themselves more and more subsidies to be paid for by those, who are paying taxes.
You can't handle the truth.
This is ridiculous. It wouldn't have made a bit of difference. Fact is the man leaked top secret information. Leaking it to WikiLeaks or a media outlet like the NYT makes no difference. The NYT would have made the info just as public getting it to our enemies so the same damage would have been done. The author is living in some fantasy world.
If we stop SS payments right now, people will be forced onto the street. That is a fact, unless you have some alterative for paying their bills.
- let's hope so. Let's force people onto the streets right now, because otherwise the system will force everybody into a sewer.
Yes, I have an alternative: stop SS and Medicare payments this very moment. Stop taking away people's money that are supposedly designated for those purposes. Get rid of all government provided monopoly protections (including copyrights and patents) regarding health care.
Stop SS payments right now to all who get them and then if they come back for a check, means test them. If they actually cannot afford to pay their actual bills, then transfer them to welfare, where they belong. SS is a welfare check, there is no fund of any kind, there is only a record with Treasury bonds in it.
Every dollar that is paid out in SS benefits is first taken from some schmuck as payroll tax and then the money is spent as a general tax. Then to pay the benefit, a Treasury bond is sold and that money is used to send out a check.
Eventually Treasury bonds must be bought back (and interest is paid on them as well in the interim), and so every dollar given in SS checks is 2+ dollars taken out in taxes.
Of-course in reality the USA gov't can't actually ever pay back all that debt (and my sig is the link to my JE, explaining that the 'debt ceiling' is really not about paying the interest on debt, which is only a couple of hundred billion and can be easily paid by USA from revenues, it is about the pure impossibility of handling SS and Medicare and other payments without getting into more debt).
You can't handle the truth.
he sent them to WikiLeaks rather than the Times....
So then why is welfare ok but not SS?
Do you think welfare should be used for this purpose? That being the retirements of those without another option.
Quite the opposite is the truth, USA had mostly free market in the first 124 years of existence, that's how it built itself and became largest manufacturer, exporter and creditor nation. It doesn't do any of those things anymore with this level of government.
USA does no longer manufacture and export, instead it prints money and imports. Of-course it is the largest debtor nation in history, and all of its debts are growing only to consume, not actually to do anything productive with any of that money. This will stop and it will stop violently in a very serious inflationary crisis.
And as to Bradley Manning: as I said, he WAS doing the job that he was hired to do. He was protecting and defending the Constitution.
His handlers that hired him didn't do their job, they spat on the Constitution that they swore to protect and defend, and now he is the one rotting in jail and clearly large percentage of the public thinks this is the right thing....
You can't handle the truth.
limiting suffrage to land owners was one of those principles, and I completely agree with it, land owners were the ones paying taxes, but today it cannot be limited just to land owners, but it must be limited at the most to the people who are paying taxes
To put it bluntly, fuck that. This would only give the wealthy elite another very powerful tool to disenfranchise less-wealthy voters.
Do I think people who don't own land should be able to vote? Yes. People who don't pay taxes? Yes. Convicted felons in prison? Yes. 16-year-olds? Yes. (In fact, I'm leaning towards not having an absolute age restriction at all.) Every citizen with a civic conscience, no matter how much I may agree or disagree with them, should be able to vote for the people that rule them.
Blah blah blah,, socialist this, communist that. You people really don't know what these words mean or have any grip on reality, do you?
"These people must believe that the rich are no smarter than your average house cat"
I have come to the conclusion that the rich, indeed, are not smarter than the average house cat.
The economy lives and dies by people spending money.
People without jobs and people with lower paychecks just cant do that.
But still, the "Job Creators" keep sending jobs to other countries, bolstering their economies, bleeding ours....
emt 377 emt 4
So then why is welfare ok but not SS?
Do you think welfare should be used for this purpose? That being the retirements of those without another option.
- because the program must stop, the ponzi scam must end.
There shouldn't be any payroll taxes (and Medicare taxes as well), but welfare should be funded out of general taxes.
It's the most sound concept, it provides a way for people to stop believing that they actually have anything real accrued for retirement, and so they will have to invest into their own retirement, and since many people will be refused an SS check in the interim, because they would no longer qualify, the overall taxes could be lowered.
Eventually more people would save for their own retirement and there would be fewer and fewer people on welfare, who expected SS as retirement. The entire problem of SS being viewed as a retirement plan was created by gov't, this concept didn't exist before, people saved on their own.
By making it look like a 'fund', people were led to believe that they are actually saving something.... But now they will be free of this delusion and so they will actually have to start thinking about their retirement in a real way.
The gov't will be denied this revenue stream as a pretence for a 'retirement fund' that never existed. This dependency problem is created by government. SS was originally introduced to help widows and orphans.
If SS STAYED THAT WAY (for widows and orphans), nobody would be actually complaining because it would be a very small thing, insignificant to the overall economy. Instead it became larger and larger and will never stop growing until the inevitable dollar collapse.
You can't handle the truth.
republicans just want to blow money on rich people and the military. They are not fiscally conservative so what is the alternative?
I think you misread some sarcasm there. Poe's law. It's weird living in a country where there are 2 parties and one defines itself by being factually wrong as much as possible. It makes it impossible to satire.
In fact, I'm leaning towards not having an absolute age restriction at all.
- perfect, that would completely keep up with your general principle: let's have 4 year old voting. Why not, what's the difference? In a world of huge number of people being subsidised by the gov't that steals from a minority to buy votes of a majority it makes perfect sense and there is really no difference between a 4 y.o. voter and a 40y.o. voter if both of them are living off of a subsidy that comes from stolen money.
You can't handle the truth.
If you can't take on their ideas in a thoughtful manner than you're just as stupid as they are.
And what are YOU going to do about this? Keep voting for the same scum each election? i am sooo tired of hearing people complain about this and yet do nothing. That's what the majority of people have been doing for a very long time. Look at the approval rating of congress then look at how long most of these scumbags have been in office. Until you and many other like-minded voters decide to get off their asses and actually DO something we will continue to have the government we deserve. It blew me away how Holder had such a difficult time saying it is unconstitutional for the government to kill an American citizen on American soil simply sitting in a cafe having breakfast who wasn't an immediate threat. Even code Pink and Van Jones agreed it was wrong and the government shouldn't have this kind of power. More people should be alarmed by this. The video of Holder being asked this over and over and his being evasive in his answers can be found online.
Like many conservative arguments, it's the kind of thing that seems like it's an absolutely perfect argument. Right up until you take a look at the world around you, and how things really are.
Because taking everything you've ever earned and giving it to someone that hasn't earned it is bad, therefore, therefore, any sort of taxation, and any sort of social welfare is bad. You always think in absolutes, and the world isn't like this.
Yes, there are some people who would never work if they didn't have to. But the bulk of the country is made up of people who feel that the incremental gain they get from the destitution of welfare is something that's worth working for. And that benefits everyone.
Summation: the world is not entirely full of people who are trying to take all of your hard-earned money. Also, taxes pay for the police forces that arrest that crackhead when he tries to steal your TV. Try to base your arguments on the actual circumstances in the world around you, rather than trying to base the circumstances of the world around you on your arguments.
let's have 4 year old voting.
Total hyperbole -- even so, I'll bite. Would it really be that bad? A 4-year-old that actually wants to vote is not someone I would underestimate, and it's possible that getting people involved in the political process sooner would make them care a little more and net us a smarter electorate in the end. It's true that kids are more vulnerable to suggestion and aggressive marketing, but that sort of drawback sticks with a significant fraction of the population into adulthood. If children were informed about their rights as voters, I don't see how it would hurt our nation.
Oh yes, because the problem is with the parties and not systemic issues built into the constitution and human psyche. Keep pretending that you're all rebellious and cool and fixing everything.
Thinking logically, I think that some of the issues that would preclude a 'blind dump' include:
1. Making sure it's paid attention to - places like the NYT probably get tinfoil and conspiracy stuff all the time. How do you even make sure they pay attention to the packet?
2. Confidentiality - If you want your identity protected, you probably want to make contact, otherwise if they can figure out who you are they are under no obligation to protect your identity. If you make some sort of contract, they can be. Though it gets complicated.... Illegal agreements are unenforceable, but if a news agency gets a reputation for NOT protecting their sources, they may not get that scoop in the future...
3. Use of information - If you just do a blind drop, the paper has full control. If you meet, you can work out specifics of presentation. You're going to have to let the paper get it's story, and a place like the NYT isn't going to anger it's readers by publishing details that will harm US troops and such, but there's some room for negotiation. What form said negotiations would take I don't know; I'm not an ideologically or revenge driven informant.
4. Payment. Of whatever form. Cash to the informant. Donation to the informant's pet charity. A billboard somewhere. Attribution. I don't know.
I don't read AC A human right
Total hyperbole -- even so, I'll bite. Would it really be that bad?
- do you even understand why there was any voting age limit in the first place? In 18th, 19th centuries by the time somebody turned 16 they already had a few years of working experience, they already participated in the economy, probably paid some land or sales or other form of taxes (like direct apportioned, which was an actual real way for gov't to collect taxes, it would first calculate how much spending it needed to do and then apportion the amount to the States to collect).
A 19th century 16 year old probably had 4 years of work experience at least. That would put him ahead of many 30 year olds today.
As to what you are suggesting, you are not talking about people being productive in the economy and being taxed to pay for some level of government, you are talking about people who are living off of productivity of others, you are saying: lets have them vote.
So I can predict, with 100% certainty the outcome of this, because I don't even have to predict it, it is right in front of us: people vote to give themselves a bigger share of the pie and it doesn't matter to them who pays.
Those who pay are a voting minority in a system that subsidises consumption and taxes production.
You are literally designing that already exists, you are just taking it to its logical extreme. I am sure your proposal would fly really well pretty much with everybody in government, especially in the White House.
Of-course since you are actually willing to entertain the thought of a 4 year old voting in a serious manner, I have to conclude that you are mentally retarded unfortunately or have never dealt with 4 year olds. While you are at it, why don't you also legislate that 4 year old should be able to vote on what they would be eating, when they would be sleeping, how much money their parents should be spending on toys, what they should be learning (if anything), what they should be doing with all of their free time.
Hey, you know what, it's not at all different from what the 30 year olds expect from their governments when they vote, maybe you are not fully retarded, just again, in a very good lockstep with the times.
You can't handle the truth.
Republicans are on the record as vowing to block anything the Obama attempts to do.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/26/democrats-gop-plot-obstruct-obama
And yes, Obamacare is so socialist that it is virtually identical to a health care plan the the Republicans came up with several years back.
Obama is not trying to take away your guns or your Second Amendment rights. If you had been paying attention, you would have realized that he's trying to take away your Fourth Amendment rights.
Technoli
This is what this is about. The Times really didn't like Jullian Assage.
I think its because they are titled, old newspaper snobs who think its not only their duty, but their right to decide what the people get and do not get to hear. They are pissed that things like wikileaks exist in the first place and the old order of newsmedia is being shaken up.
The NYT thinks the people OWE the Times news stories, and they should just for them over, as if they are a perennial authority figure on everything news related.
Again with the leaks, they think it was their sole right to censor the government cables of what and what should not be shown to the public.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/opinion/keller-wikileaks-a-postscript.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/28/julian-assange-press-wikileaks-documentary_n_1116599.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/26/new-york-times-assange-wikileaks_n_814434.html
So althought it was not wikileaks who outed Manning, but a hacker named Adrian Lamo, who Bradley Manning bragged to about leaking the docs.
So what got Bradley Manning caught was ultimately his own big mouth.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/03/adrian-lamo-bradley-manning-q-and-a
This article is nothing more than some weasel words to get potential informats to go back to the news media instead of new media, for all the wrong reasons. I wreaks of typical news trickery, and self-promotion.
All claims to moral superiority on his part are void since he had no authorization to handle the materials
So, morality consists of doing what you are authorized to do.
Thanks for clearing that up. Thousands of years of philosophising reduced to "shut up and obey orders".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
If you think wealth redistribution is a good thing let's personalize it for a moment. Let's say you go to work every day. You save for a year to buy a new flat screen TV. Your neighbor sits at home and smokes crack all day. He doesn't think it's fair that you have a flat screen TV and he doesn't. So he breaks into your house (while you're at work of course) and takes yours. He likes his new TV and hey you can always save for another year and go buy another one. Two days later he's out of crack and sells your TV for 10% of what you paid to buy more crack. That's the reality of wealth redistribution.
(a) If you have to save an year to buy a TV you would be at the receiving end of a wealth redistribution.
(b) Ditto for not being able to afford a home insurance that would cover burglaries.
(c) Maybe if your neighbor was not so poor he would have seen some future for his life and never got into drugs. Maybe some part of that wealth redistribution could pay for his rehab and actually become a productive tax-paying citizen.
The reason these people who are poor do not have weath is because they have not earned wealth making wise choices. The reason the ones that do have wealth have it is because they've earned it.
Wait, is that crack you're smoking?
Do you choose to born to a poor uneducated family who lives in a ghetto?
How have you earned the few million dollars you inherit when your grandparents or parents die?
A further consequence of course is that you're not very likely to go to work everyday if it means that everything you earn is just going to be taken from you.
So you mean like slavery? Like what the poor people get trapped into (like your crack-smoking neighbor)?
Sounds to me you have no clue. Go buy one.. though I suspect you may have to save a few years to afford one. And be careful your neighbor doesn't steal it when you finally get it.
So then what stops welfare from turning into that?
We have lots of people who either cannot or will not save for retirement. Most fall into that latter category. Your solution will grow welfare into the same size that SS is now.
The average wage is simply not enough to raise a family and save for retirement.
Commenting on having no clue: Way to read too far into it.
My comment is saying that we spend waaaaay too much money being the world's police.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
So then what stops welfare from turning into that?
- the economy that would actually not be as burdened by the government if government stopped stealing all that money from it.
Government should not the economy, but government is becoming a larger and larger size of the economy (from POV of ratio), and of-course gov't doesn't produce anything, so it gets the money from borrowing, taxing and printing.
By the way, there was a reason that SS was turned into welfare, rather than handling people who couldn't take care of themselves with welfare, it's the stigma attached to welfare and the trick that SS supposed 'fund' provides - removes the stigma.
Do not get me wrong: I am against all forms of welfare as well, but as it goes, as the solutions go, as the actual practical solutions require, people who cannot take care of themselves in any way should be placed on welfare. I hope to see in the next 5 years all welfare schemes disappearing. I don't gov't to pretend it's a 'charity', do you understand? Read this comment - that's what I think role of government is.
But as a solution for SS, a way to get people off of it and to get them to save for retirement again, they should be means tested and those who can live without SS should stop getting SS checks.
There shouldn't be a transfer of income from young poor individuals to elderly wealthy ones. There shouldn't be government involved in any ponzi scheme that is designed to extract money from people and to get more power for the politicians by buying votes with other people's money.
As to 'average wage' being too low - that's a problem that the government created. Since 1971, since the moment that Nixon defaulted on the dollar, the businesses started moving production abroad, and this means that USA lost huge amount of productivity and that's why the average wages are falling while top level earnings are going up in the global inflationary environment.
It's the INFLATION that is destroying savings, investments, productivity, inflation is moving investments elsewhere. USA population is fed this nonsense about them being 'more productive than ever'.
How the hell are people in USA 'more productive than ever' if the real unemployment levels are going up all the time (if you take into account people who are discouraged from job searching, who are on disability, because their UI ran out, who are working as part time employees (and more are coming with ACA), you'll find that real unemployment in USA is close to 20%). What is all this 'productivity' nonsense?
The people who are still truly productive in USA live in USA but they produce elsewhere, look at Apple. They are overly productive, they built an extremely productive company. Are they the average American? Not even close. An average American has no savings or is eating through his savings just to stay ahead of the inflation that the Fed is creating.
You want an ACTUAL WELFARE PLAN FOR AMERICA?
End the Fed and IRS.
You can't handle the truth.
Layoff on the damn ideology, makes it hard to talk to you.
These socialist scumbags steal my money that I need to care for my family
And our hearts would bleed for you if "taking care of your family" involved feeding, sheltering, educating them, or putting clothes on their backs. But since those evil socialists are arguing for progressive taxation, they're really only taking money from millionaires. So,
a) You have an income of less than $100,000/year and are confused about who the socialist scumbags are stealing from.
b) You have an income of more than $100,000/year and you're in the top 15% of America and roughly in the "upper-middle class". You are not struggling to feed your family. You may be struggling to afford the McMansion you bought in 2006, but that's a luxury you're suffering for, not basic care.
Now, if all that taxation did go away, you would indeed have more money in your paycheck. Initially. Of course, hiring blackwater to police your home owner's association to keep the disenfranchised gangs of baby-boomers from stepping on your grass might be expensive. And it's not going to be cheap to filter your HVAC intakes when the paper-mill opens next door. And those Mandarin classes aren't going to pay for themselves.
You know what your problem is? You can't differentiate between ideology and principles.
Principles are the real law that can make society work, ideology is just a way to get something for yourself and screw the rest of the society.
You can't handle the truth.
No, ideology is something you choose to believe even when reality conflicts with that. Principles are often tenants of an ideology. I am only interested in what works for the most and reduces harm, I do not care about anything else. If that means crack should be legal, fine, if it means we need to pay taxes to buy needles for junkies to keep them from clogging up the ER, fine. Ideology is for children.
Go read a history book and you will find yourself very guilty of that.
If you pay closer attention, you'll sort this one out... The problem is the parties and the systemic issues which they've build to subvert the constitution and manipulate the human psyche. You're almost there!
where is sue? sue is idle.
The constitution is and always has been a flawed legal document. It was amended before it even took effect to fix some of the flaws; it has been repeatedly amended since. It has too much bolt-on shit that's ineffective and poorly works around the framework it provides, and needs to be torn down and rewritten.
Gun crimes are committed by both legal and illegal gun owners--legal gun owners with your psychological profile are the likely to commit gun crimes, while those with more reservation and less paranoia are less likely. Legal gun owners with your mentality also commit more "justifiable homicide" because of a pattern of zero tolerance--of immediately and fatally employing a firearm where it would be legally and even barely justifiable, more concerned with "he had it coming, I was protecting myself" than trying to stay human. The strict, mechanical decision process of "there is a threat, I must eliminate it by any force" is inhuman.
Socialism is a good thing... in moderation. Socialist programs support and balance an economy, whereas pure socialism and pure capitalism both concentrate wealth and power into the hands of a few.
Further, context is important: Extremely small economies--for example, colonies of less than 100 people--benefit from full scale socialism because any other economy is infeasible; but as the colony grows, these economies quickly fail. This is because a family unit is inherently socialistic, and a small community must be socially tight-knit to survive. Larger, socially disconnected communities (nations of hundreds, thousands, millions) quickly lose such motivation because they lose sight of the need, and then lose the need outright; thus capitalism comes into play. As nations get quite large, capitalism fails; thus regulations must come into play to retain the benefits offered by capitalism.
Political parties promise the world, while economic theorists are used to back up assertions about capitalism and socialism and how we'd be much better off in a feel-good socialist utopia or a freedom-driven capitalist free market. The truth is all systems can be exploited; on a small scale exploitation is impossible because the risk is unmanageable (exploit your power in a colony of 50 people barely trying to survive as is and you'll probably collapse the economy, then you die with everyone else--if they don't hang you first and get on with their lives), but on a large scale it's too easy.
Micro-managing an economy is simply impossible on a large scale: socialism works, but only when you absolutely understand the needs and constraints of the entire economic system on all levels; you can't, and so capitalism allows for these details to work themselves out (i.e. delegation).
Capitalism is ripe for exploit and stagnation, however, and so minor socialist practices--regulations, tax incentives, etc--are put in place to guide the system. Excessive or improper use of these practices is destructive to the economy, but so is not employing them at all.
There is a balance. Nobody seeks it. Those in power seek more power, or seek to push ideals they believe will universally solve all problems; they won't.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
It is not possible to separate roman_mir from his religion. You could ask him a question about Java programming and he would invariably end up telling you how either it is great because of ron paul, or terrible because of "socialist" American government. The real travesty here is that there are enough other paullowers on slashdot that his karma has been restored and he now can reply as fast as he can type.
It is also a tragedy that someone who grew up in Russia has absolutely no idea whatsoever of what socialism actually is.
Reduces harm. Yes, that's what we are so great at legislating: reduction of harm. What is that really, it means removing risk.
Yes, let's have government trying to remove risk.
Why, we could have a great economy and a great society "that works and reduces harm" if only government reduces our risks. If only government reduced risk to lending money to the banks with FDIC, then the potential bank customers would perceive lending money to the banks as being risk free and wouldn't care how the banks handle the accounts, what's the difference? Government will take care of the losses. And it does.
We could even have medical care for people if government removed risk from having to pay for it outselves. We don't have to bother trying to live a healthier life style, we don't have to bother thinking about our actual budget and expenses and retirement and medical care and a rainy day fund in case we lose employment for some time. It will work great in the long run for government to take care of all of these risks.
We don't have to think, the government will guarantee our student loans, house loans, car loans, any loans. We don't have to think, the government will remove harm and risk. The government will take care of us, it will give us everything risk free. Risk free food and risk free bonds.
---
You see, without actual principles, you are bound to spend time thinking how to apply some amount of government in any particular situation. The principles of free market remove all of this uncertainty and moral hazard, which is what you are truly proposing - moral hazard.
You think you are proposing something that 'works most of the time and reduces harm' and in reality you are guaranteeing to achieve the exact opposite: maximum harm.
You know what bonds are? Used to be called: risk free return. With all this inflation that the government is creating and thus killing all investment and business what you really have is: return free risk.
Return free risk is what you get in bonds now and it used to be known as 'risk free return'.
You are proposing: harm free life, what you are going to get is: life free harm.
You can't handle the truth.
They're still just as brave as they were when they lead the way on the Watergate scandal.
Oh, wait...
Sorry I am done now. You need to look into some psychiatric help.
Putting your ideology over the lives of actual people just proves your really do need help.
If you cannot afford such treatment let me know and I will try to assist.
Some things are not worth dealing with.
For instance there is no point in arguing with someone who claims the earth is flat. Nor is there a need to go talk to the bum on the corner screaming about the aliens.
As always, once you have nothing else to say, you continue with ad-hominem. Good luck there with all your 'harm free life' ideas.
You can't handle the truth.
Not necessarily:
Side A: "The sky is blue."
Side B: "No, the sky is green."
Side A: "No, really, the sky is blue, look."
Side B: "I think the sky is really green, so it must be green."
Side A: "No it isn't. Use this camera, point it at the sky, and see what color the camera says the sky is."
Side B: "I still think it's green."
Side A: "See, as described by John Tyndall in 1859, the small particles in the air scatter the blue light more than the red light. This was later quantified by Lord Rayleigh when he determined exactly how large the effect is."
Side B: "Well, that's all well and good, but I still think it's green."
Now, is Side A being stupid because they stop taking Side B's arguments seriously at that point?
I am officially gone from
Do you have any sources on when and where socialism works and when it doesn't?
Technoli
No, I am being serious.
When you cannot even have a conversation without spewing your ideology you have a problem and need help. It is not healthy to be so obsessed.
This is not an attack, this is one human trying to help another who is clearly suffering.
No one said harm free. Harm reduction is something you should learn about before criticizing.
Manual redistribution can in theory work, but only if the redistribution is done in a way that everyone understands the full implications and the way the money is applied is not sidetracked by political considerations and corruption. If you artificially buoy the standard of living in a country based on redistribution, eventually, everything will be redistributed and/or the rich will have departed for greener pastures. Then the standard of living will fail dramatically.
There is the strange idea that rich people's money sits in the Scrooge McDuck vault and they do nothing other than swim in it. I hear what people are saying about "trickle down" and supply side, but the investments of most rich people are either in their own companies, which a good number of them founded, or in stocks or other bank issues. All of that money has to be reinvested in something productive so that it keeps up with inflation.
Additionally, there is a benefit to giving resources to people who already have their basic needs met. If you only ensure enough money to provide basic needs, then no one will go beyond that. For much of his life, Mozart was sponsored by the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, someone who could afford to have an orchestra in his employ. Extravagant? Yes. Did it produce nothing? Certainly not. Many of the proponents of the Enlightenment were quite wealthy, and those who weren't had patrons.
I agree that we need to see what we can do to help meet people's needs. On the other hand, I don't consider the fact that there exist rich individuals to automatically signal that as the reason that other people have no jobs or a lower standard of living. The amount of money in people's hands is not the issue. Productivity is the issue. If you don't have productivity backing it, you can raise the minimum wage to a million dollars a year, and in the end, a loaf of bread will cost a few thousand dollars because handing people money doesn't make them better off unless they get more money than someone else does. Redistribution doesn't inherently increase productivity, it just shuffles around fiat currency.
I agree with you on considering the size of the area being governed. That is rarely considered, when people choose an economic model, even though it should be.
testing out my trending skills
Because here we have yet another slashdot post of an issue that is completely germane to the Internet and technology world and culture yet there isn't a Conservative here who hasn't used it as an opportunity to troll the ideological 'talking points' that roll out of the Republican echo chamber.
Obama is a socialist... in spite of the Dims having the same economic policy as the Gips since 1992.
The New York Times is liberal propaganda... as if there is such thing as a liberal mainstream media.
Taxes are going up... sure, for the poor, whom conservatives universally condemn as parasites while corporations paid nothing, at all!
All of which is OT. Oh, that's Internet talk for Off Topic! I didn't want the guys in the boiler room to be confused. ;p
Thank you. People need to quit bitching about Obama and go do something! Show us some of that good ole conservative self reliance. IME successful people are going to be successful regardless of whether it happens to be government or big business trying to claw at their money.
All that maybe true, but you still have yet to make a argument, all you do is support fear and call names.
Doesnt that just make you worse?
Good to know you're doing just peachy then. See from all your ramblings, I got confused and thought you were complaining about how much your life sucks, despite your greatest efforts...
Way to miss the forest for the trees.
Redistribution works by increasing the velocity of a given set of money. Sure too much can cause problems, and no not just that some people have more than other is not an issue. The problems only occur when demand is severely limited by too much wealth in the hands of too few.
The investments of the rich are not idle, but they do not magically lead to more jobs when they have more capital. Only demand can cause hiring. A lack of supply can restrict it, but that is not where we are right now. At this moment in time investments have low returns, I have money that could be invested sitting as cash (actual paper money, not in a bank) since the returns are just not worth it. From the economists point of view that is pretty bad, giving it to someone poorer would be one way to create some demand. Doing that would mean more opportunities to invest in companies that meet that new demand.
We have stifled demand and this is the result. I am only looking at one historical solution.
A minimum income like Milton Friedman proposed would I believe be the ideal solution. People would still work, for the extra money to improve their situation, and we would prevent a total loss of demand. Also I would be willing to then take more risk with my money since I would not have to worry about ending up in the poor house.
I am betting c) unemployed and paying $0 in income taxes... taking full use of the safety net.
One thing conservatives cannot legitimately do is complain about how they are at the very bottom because of President Leftist, then argue that President Leftist is taking all their money, since they just said they did not have any.
not only are we known as stupid around the world but we have been upgraded to fat and stupid. thanks for proving this stereotype of Americans to be true. ps: I am assuming your fat.
Let me tell you about this new religion I'm starting...
As many other intelligent posters have and will mention, the New Whore Times would have rolled over for the gov't (the Bush-Obama Administration) and never have published, as they have repeatedly demonstrated in times past.
lol, that's my new favorite place to refer to Libertarians. "You're free to do whatever you want there! Freedom in action man!"
It's usually moot. If your size-of-area is so small that pure socialism or pure capitalism works, there's no room for error and nothing else probably has come to mind. I mean, do you think they could be anything but socialists on Gilligan's Island? Capitalism between the six of them won't work.
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The military was committing crimes, got exposed, and they're crucifying this guy with a conscious.
That does not excuse:
1. His NOT using the chain of command and alternative reporting channels. They exist, I know, I've used them and it worked.
2. Indiscriminate release of information that actually had nothing to do with said crimes(and it wasn't just stuff done by the military, just stuff the military knew about).
3. Not using proper whistle-blower legislation that provides outside military channels to report this stuff.
I don't read AC A human right
You see, what you've failed to do here is propose a mechanism for change or alternative that would work. You've merely suggested that "everyone who votes is wrong" in a kind of roundabout way. There's no point for me to come into agreement with you about, which is counterproductive to a debate. Given the system as it stands, there is a most rational course of action with regards to voting.
I'd love to see real reform, but saying "Ha, I know something is wrong here, so I'm not participating" is a petulant immature attitude, and makes no progress on that front.
So you believe that I 'spew ideology' and your comments have no ideology in them? I profess principles, and you have ideology:
Your words:
Putting your ideology over the lives of actual people just proves your really do need help.
- this is ideology, ideology of taking from a minority and subsidising a majority unless you found a fountain of free wealth to pay for all of your 'help' that you want to administer.
Your type of ideology is exactly what is driving the system, it's at the helm and it's driving at an ever increasing speed towards a real economic and societal cliff. We are going to go over that cliff, and it's not the minor insignificant bump in the road that the government was just crying a couple of weeks ago, it's not the so called 'fiscal cliff', it's the real deal. The one that will destroy the value of US dollars and dollar denominated assets.
When the wagon goes over that cliff, it will take down all of the people you are supposedly interested in helping. You cannot help people by legislating that they should have more of something that they did not work for.
If your ideology takes a non-trivial number of people and puts them in the wagon and then forces those, who are pulling the wagon to pull ever harder, while saying that they are not doing their 'fair share', then you are going to have more and more people in the wagon, and the wagon will go the road of least resistance, and that will be downwards towards the edge of the cliff, and this is happening right now. Your ideology will cause massive suffering as the same type of ideology has already done in the past multiple times. That you can't recognise it and that you are expecting to achieve a different result by doing the same thing again that was done many times before shows that you are the one with a psychiatric problem.
You can't handle the truth.
the person who turned over Watergate evidence remained anonymous.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Does it matter? Once you scale up past a few dozen people, the point becomes moot. You're on Feudalism or regulated Enterprise. Feudalism works where open markets won't, sometimes--if resources are too scarce for anything but socialism, but the whole thing is too big for socialism to work, you get feudalism. Feudalism has advantages: it has incentive, it has structured management (i.e. the landlord wants a tithe; he doesn't care who produces what or how much or how, as long as the tithe is paid), hell the landlord even protects the land and the serfs from invaders (because he has incentive--that's his wealth).
In other words: the scope is so small as to be uninteresting. Like a full review on when chewing gum solves engine problems.
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I could bring a few, mainly specific governments. I will list a few you can look up the details on wikipedia.
Socialist systems that didn't work (not always due to their socialist policies but nevertheless): USSR, North VIetnam, DDR, Greece
Governments with many socialist policies that seem to work well for them: Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, China.
Bear in mind this is a complex issue, the difference between the way things are done in these different countries is massive. It is not possible to compare for example the policies of China and Finland in any meaningful way as their situations are too different. The countries that have had failures with socialist systems usually had their problems as a result of things that had nothing to do with socialism, also the countries that had success with socialist policies often had other advantages from the start and can't point purely at socialism for their success. Cuba is a nice example of both. Socialism has given them a fairly good national system in terms of wealth equality, education, medicine. On the other hand they are still a very poor country, they have a lot of enemies (well at least one major one). One nice way to compare different systems is through statistics.
A nice tool for this is google public data explorer. Things like literacy. life expectancy, child mortality, teachers per capita, doctors per capita, poverty etc. can be compared across different systems and the results can be surprising. On the other hand it is difficult to deduce causation from those statistics.
One of the strongest arguments in favour of socialist policies I have ever heard was from a TED video which showed that statistically economic inequality (unfair distribution of wealth) is a very strong indicator for almost every form of social of social problem, to such a degree that if all the rich people in an inequal country were to give 90% of their wealth to a trust to support the poorest in society, even those rich people would be better off.
And what are YOU going to do about this? Keep voting for the same scum each election? i am sooo tired of hearing people complain about this and yet do nothing. That's what the majority of people have been doing for a very long time. Look at the approval rating of congress then look at how long most of these scumbags have been in office. Until you and many other like-minded voters decide to get off their asses and actually DO something we will continue to have the government we deserve.
It blew me away how Holder had such a difficult time saying it is unconstitutional for the government to kill an American citizen on American soil simply sitting in a cafe having breakfast who wasn't an immediate threat. Even code Pink and Van Jones agreed it was wrong and the government shouldn't have this kind of power. More people should be alarmed by this. The video of Holder being asked this over and over and his being evasive in his answers can be found online.
This is the truth. I propose we go one step further though, and keep up a running dialogue with our reps in the national scene. Contact them via twitter, email and facebook. Let them know exactly what you feel. That's how a republic is supposed to work, and in this day and age of instant communication there is no reason not to let them know what is right and wrong. And if they don't listen, then let them know in no uncertain terms they can start applying for unemployment benefits, because you are voting them out of office for not doing what the people wanted.
21st Century Renaissance Man
Sounds familiar. It probably would have went down like this.
Happy people make bad consumers.
I think a true minimum income that you can meet all your needs on is probably the stuff of post-scarcity fantasies. Perhaps not impossible, but demand and supply are independent variables, and there are other considerations about how it is managed. Much like the minimum wage, it will either be ineffective enough to have to be constantly adjusted for inflation, or it will be so effective that it becomes a major cause of inflation.
Free market capitalism is as removed from reality as ideal communism, and just as unworkable in practice with large groups of people. Social Security has zero contribution to our national debt -- if anything, Congress needs to stop looting it for purposes entirely unrelated to public welfare.
>
This is truth. Last I looked it up, the US government had stolen 3 trillion dollars from SS, in the form of low interest loans (which means that the effective interest rate is probably negative). That $3T is never going to be put back into it. If it was in there would social security be insolvent now? Probably not.
21st Century Renaissance Man
Bread and circuses?
21st Century Renaissance Man
I profess principles, and you have ideology:
Your claim of your statements not being ideology might be true, but only in so much as what you are saying is theology more so than ideology. What you repeat every 3-5 minutes on here - now that your karma is positive - is your religious dogma more so than any kind of legitimate philosophical ideology. You have no qualms about spouting things that are outright lies if they support your dogma. You have no problem contradicting yourself in short windows of time if everything you say is coming from your dogma.
There are cardinals meeting in the Vatican today who are less theologically entrenched than you.
...second time today that I've seen someone do this. It isn't the Times. That's a London newspaper. It's the New York Times. Shortening the name after the first referral only works if nothing else already has that name....and ultimately, a real Journalist would not need this pointed out to them.
I feel the same way, except I believe the cables should have been edited for names of the innocent and so on.
You could have made that shorter by just saying "I believe it should have happened exactly like it did"
"Ha, I know something is wrong here, so I'm not participating" is a prudent and efficient attitude, but I think you are, perhaps, selling the idea a bit short. It would look more like, "Ha! I know something is wrong here and I cannot fix it, so I'm not participating."
It may be petulant, but it is far from immature. One need not jump from a cliff to understand the impact of landing. Similarly; the fact of some people choosing to jump from that cliff to the left, while others prefer to jump to the right does not make the act of jumping off of the cliff a rational course of action.
where is sue? sue is idle.
Look: 60% of potential voters don't vote in major non-presidential elections. The effect of not voting is just for people to say "look, Americans don't care, we can get away with anything"
Most Job Creators aren't necessarily a single rich person creating jobs. Very often they are a large group of people who decide to hire a few more people to help out. And even a poor person who pays for child care or who spends money at a discount store is also a job creator. Economies are complex chaotic systems.
Poor people getting trapped would require that they are actually working for a living, which, in the US, is more often than not, not the case...
Of-course since you are actually willing to entertain the thought of a 4 year old voting in a serious manner, I have to conclude that you are mentally retarded unfortunately or have never dealt with 4 year olds.
If you don't want me to have a serious discussion about the subjects you bring up, you don't have to tell me twice. It destroys any shred of credibility you might have in future discussions, but I suspect that's something you've gotten used to.
Give it a year or two and everyone will move on without Mr. Manning. He will be forgotten until he is up for parole, actually released, commits suicide, or killed.
It's funny to me that the NYT posted this at all, because they're engaging in a counterfactual about what could have happened if they had done their fucking jobs.
Bradley Manning tried to get in touch with a number of traditional media outlets, the NYT included, before giving up on traditional outlets and just dumping the files to Wikileaks. He discussed this, and many other things, in a statement he read at his pre-trial hearing. The Times tries to blame their failure on Bradley, but the ball was in their court and they chose not to follow up on it.
to the people who are paying taxes
the wealthy elite
I do hope you don't think these groups are very well aligned. Certainly most of the wealthy elite are taxpayers, but the converse is far from the truth.
I'd be the first to admit that morals can conflict. But it's just that; a conflict. It is, by itself, immoral to break your word. It is also, sometimes, immoral to keep your word, when you have promised foolishly. In such a dilemma, an ethics and moral courage are questioned, as they must choose which principle to break.
But in the end the fact will remain that you spoke foolishly and were compelled to break faith by a stronger moral injunction.
The simplest, most straight-forward answer is that it's better designed to achieve it's goal. Both programs are primarily used to fight poverty; to, as you put it, keep people from "[being] forced onto the street".
But one of them is funded by regressive payroll taxes, and provides benefits on the basis of age. The other one is funded by a progressive income tax and provides benefits on the basis of need.
I know which one might be worth supporting, and it isn't the first one.
No, ideology is something you choose to believe even when reality conflicts with that.
I am only interested in what works for the most and reduces harm, I do not care about anything else.
And that, my friend, is an ideology. Your ideology. That normative standard is nothing that can be derived from reality. I believe the parent might disagree with it. I would only agree for a very specific definition of 'works for the most'. Ideology is the lens we see the world through. For a healthy person, it's an autofocusing lens, continually changing your perceptions of the world, and being changed by them.
Ideology is for children. In fact, the point of a lot of education is to give them a decent one. Is accepting progress 'natural'? Is demanding rationality 'normal'? Is compassion for the downtrodden 'admirable'? Each of these judgments depends on ideology. I hope our kids will be taught to answer yes to each of these, and maintain that ideology throughout their lives.
It is also a tragedy that someone who grew up in Russia has absolutely no idea whatsoever of what socialism actually is.
I think it's a tragedy that someone raised anywhere doesn't know what socialism is. I doubt growing up in an authoritarian country is likely to improve your chances of understanding it.
While I agree with your general point, I'm not sure public libraries are truly necessary for prosperity, particularly these days. I'm an avid reader, and haven't been in a library in years. If government stopped wasting (a very tiny fraction of) my money on public libraries, I'd be able to afford (a fractional part of) an extra book to read!
I'm confused. How exactly did WW2 move money (or more usefully, wealth, as inflation/deflation happened a lot in that period of time) into the hands of the middle class? By destroying large amounts of infrastructure, property and capital? By killing off a sizable number of said middle class?
Wars are inherently destructive. Claiming they help the economy is the fallacy of the broken window.
No matter how many folks are standing around getting paid to scratch their asses the "Job Creator" hires more and more workers as his revenue goes up or taxes go down.
These people must believe that the rich are no smarter than your average house cat.
Not really. The truly stupid people think demand is completely inflexible.
Or rather, I hope you concluded they are about as self-interested as said housecat. Until housecats prove as adroit at maximizing personal income and success, I'm going to maintain the 'Job Creators' are much smarter.
How much more wealthy and successful could a cat get? And nothing to worry about.
emt 377 emt 4
People are most creative in find ways to be wealthier and more successful. Another way they're smarter than cats; if I was a cat, I'd want a pet Roomba to chase around. :)
Uh, duh. I was lambasting a stupid concept, not endorsing it. Poe's law is more powerful that I could imagine.
But in the end the fact will remain that you spoke foolishly and were compelled to break faith by a stronger moral injunction
If you break your word because the other side has failed to hold up their end of the bargain?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I get what you're going after... I just disagree. If absolutely everyone abstained from voting, it is just as unlikely that anything would change any more than if there was 100% voter turnout. Though; Neither your point nor mine have any direct bearing on the machinations of a two party system which has perfected the art of undercutting itself while also promoting itself... A system which emphasizes the importance of 'being' right while demeaning any attempt at figuring out how to actually 'do' what is right. A system which is designed (or has evolved) to exist as a stalemate.
There is a South Park episode which parodies this topic quite effectively... When a "vote" has to benefit either a giant douche or a turd sandwich; I'd rather just find something productive to do.
I can't speak for the 60% voter apathy which you referenced, but can expound on personal electoral antipathy at length!
Have a good day!
where is sue? sue is idle.
We just think it's funny that you keep calling Obama a socialist. All it shows is that you have no clue what the word means. Obama is not a socialist. The American Socialist Party doesn't even think he's a socialist.
I don't like or support Obama, but not because of his economic stance. The fact is that he'd be able to get a lot more done to help the country on the economic front if the Republicans weren't bound and determined to block everything he attempts to do.
===
I guess you are saying that the expression "Bite your nose to spite your face" applies to the Republicans. They are truly not in the majority, if you count the election day popular vote, but are there because of gerrymandering. The USA has millions of baby boomers, and some are in retirement, others are just entering. These BBs were in the war, protecting the nation, and now the republicans are saying "Its their tough luck that they were drafted into fighting to save our nation. We owe them nothing!"
At some time, you have to look after your citizens, young and old. If it means you don't upgrade your car every three years, or buy that 55 inch 3D TV, or the new toy, so be it. Take care of your retired seniors that cannot pay and have to choose between medicine or food.
Obama reaches out to people with understanding. Not everything is corporate profits.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Socialism is a good thing... in moderation.
Really? Then give me two-thirds of your money and shut the fsck up until we tell you it's ok to describe socialism as anything but "greatness".
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
I don't know what sort of Communist society you live in, but in America people create jobs for people because they profit from it, not for charity. Jobs will be created when there is demand for those jobs (or the products that those jobs create). If there is no demand (for example, if there is no middle class to buy the products) then the rich people will not the create jobs. And they shouldn't. But, if all the rich people decide to stop creating jobs ("going Galt"), then there will still be demand and middle class or poor people will create the jobs themselves (because there is potential to make money - this is how small businesses are created).
It boggles my mind that all these Republicans think they have to worship rich people as gods or they will take all the jobs away. I don't thank my boss for giving me a job. My boss thanks me for being hardworking and productive by giving me bonuses and raises. My boss (who is a conservative) made a joke right after the election that he is going to have to fire people because his taxes were going to go up. I told him (lightheartedly of course) that if I did not already make him more money than I cost, then he should go ahead and fire me because I don't work for charity. Guess what? I am still working (he did not fire me).
===
When you take actions to keep the rich corporations that way, ever rich, then the poor get poorer. And poor people, at some point, can't buy the goods and services to sustain the wealthy. As proof, look at Walmart. They grew to 34000+ stores by purchasing foreign goods, and killing local jobs. They killed small businesses and created new jobs at minimum wage, which means that these Walmart employees are not able to take that vacation, to easily buy the new 55 inch TV, and most of all, took away from their communities, all discretionary income. Now these communities suffer from not being able to raise taxes to cover infrastructure repairs due to the populations inability to pay, and the people, mostly baby boomers are entering retirement, are needing what I get in Canada. Canada is a very democratic capitalistic country, with a social safety net to ensure that I will be able to live out my life without fear of starvation, without having to choose between medication or food, and with very affordable access to medicare. I worked for 50 years in Canada, as did most of the Americans that did the same for their richest country in the world, and I am better off.
Canada is not communist, Canada respects and cares for its citizens. The Republicans, according to their latest proposals, want to kill all social safety nets, want to wash their hands of responsibility to look after grandparents, or parents, and just keep the status quo. The Republicans last pronouncement was to kill social safety nets, but not one word about closing tax loopholes.
I feel sorry for the American seniors who slaved all their lives, have no discretionary income, and yet cant live without fear from unexpected medical billhttp://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/03/12/137239/what-if-manning-had-leaked-to-the-new-york-times#s or high inflation. Your comments make me sad.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
===
When you take actions to keep the rich corporations that way, ever rich, then the poor get poorer. And poor people, at some point, can't buy the goods and services to sustain the wealthy. As proof, look at Walmart. They grew to 34000+ stores by purchasing foreign goods, and killing local jobs. They killed small businesses and created new jobs at minimum wage, which means that these Walmart employees are not able to take that vacation, to easily buy the new 55 inch TV, and most of all, took away from their communities, all discretionary income. Now these communities suffer from not being able to raise taxes to cover infrastructure repairs due to the populations inability to pay, and the people, mostly baby boomers are entering retirement, are needing what I get in Canada. Canada is a very democratic capitalistic country, with a social safety net to ensure that I will be able to live out my life without fear of starvation, without having to choose between medication or food, and with very affordable access to medicare. I worked for 50 years in Canada, as did most of the Americans that did the same for their richest country in the world, and I am better off.
Canada is not communist, Canada respects and cares for its citizens. The Republicans, according to their latest proposals, want to kill all social safety nets, want to wash their hands of responsibility to look after grandparents, or parents, and just keep the status quo. The Republicans last pronouncement was to kill social safety nets, but not one word about closing tax loopholes.
I feel sorry for the American seniors who slaved all their lives, have no discretionary income, and yet cant live without fear from unexpected medical bills or high inflation. Your comments make me sad.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
What would you do instead? Let Rockerfeller continue to use his railroads to block oil competitors, buy out Microsoft and IBM, take control of Monsanto, gain a crippling hold over all shipping for the farming industry so he can permanently shut down any farm that doesn't follow his policies, and rule the world by dictate?
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And the summary of the Times article suggests that.
And the Times, "left wing"? What Americans know of socialism is identical to what "good Germans" knew of Jews in the late thirties.
mark
What would you do instead? Let Rockerfeller continue to use his railroads to block oil competitors, buy out Microsoft and IBM, take control of Monsanto, gain a crippling hold over all shipping for the farming industry so he can permanently shut down any farm that doesn't follow his policies, and rule the world by dictate?
By "Rockefeller" I assume you mean the J.D. Rockefeller who died in 1937.
I don't mean to alarm you but if you think it's 1937 you probably ought to know that tomorrow Jack Benny and Fred Allen will start a feud that lasts 12 years. Later on in December Japan will occupy Nanking, even after Chiang Kai-shek destroyed the dikes along the Yellow River. Joe Medwick of the St. Louis Cardinals was baseball's MVP. You might also want to know that War Admiral won the Triple Crown in horse racing in case you wish to place a bet.
What would I do?
I would welcome you to 2013 where your loosely associated academic tidbits of perfunctory bullshit from 76 years ago have absolutely no context today. Get a sense of humor would you! My original reply on 12:26 PM March 13th, 2013 was a freakin' joke!
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
Well, welcome to 2013 where it's Goldman Sachs, Monsanto, and such; and where 'Perfunctory Bullshit from 76 years ago' doesn't happen because we have... well, socialist laws that tell businesses what they can and can't do. Notably, the Government dictates to the businesses how they're allowed to conduct certain business. We call these "Anti-Trust Laws" and they control who can own what and how--you can't buy up all your little competitors because the Government says that would be bad economy, you can't use your economic advantage in one sector to invade another sector.
Socialism is the hammer and sickle. Capitalism is the nails. What we need are the hammer and nails.
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Socialism is the hammer and sickle. Capitalism is the nails. What we need are the hammer and nails.
I'm assuming this is so you can hammer your own nails, in the lid of your own coffin, as you are forced to give 2/3 or more of your wealth to the state. Well I guess you could rest in peace knowing that everyone else paid the same amount for their nails and hammer as you did!
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
We have direct socialized infrastructure for roads, as well as socialized power--Nuclear power plants are propped up by government subsidies, always have been. They're a Government function pretending to be private enterprise, by way of the Government giving money to private enterprise on a smoke-and-mirrors type dance. Would you like to move to capitalism, where the private enterprise fixing the roads won't allow you to pass without paying a toll? They have to get the money to fix roads and turn a profit somehow. Also your town is useless and stupid, so no roads for you rednecks.
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We have direct socialized infrastructure for roads, as well as socialized power--Nuclear power plants are propped up by government subsidies, always have been. They're a Government function pretending to be private enterprise, by way of the Government giving money to private enterprise on a smoke-and-mirrors type dance. Would you like to move to capitalism, where the private enterprise fixing the roads won't allow you to pass without paying a toll? They have to get the money to fix roads and turn a profit somehow.
You seem to confuse "public" with "socialized" ... a lot actually
Also your town is useless and stupid, so no roads for you rednecks.
It's your story. Tell it like you want.
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
No, the law is how we force the deviants to be part of the norm so that nobody gets upset, even when those deviations are not wrong but simply misunderstood.
Case in point: driving and drinking ages. Nobody can prove conclusively than every specific 15 year old in the country can't safely drive, and nobody can prove that every specific {insert local drinking age here} year old can safely consume alcohol.
We've just set up arbitrary numbers that make most people comfortable. As comfort changes, so do the numbers. It has very little to do with right and wrong, and a lot to do with keeping people feeling like someone's in charge.
PS I believe in both driving and drinking ages, as do many people, but believing the law is about 'right and wrong' is wilful ignorance.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
It's not really a confusion; it's domain-specific vocabulary. If the government takes your money for $economic_pursuit_A, it's "Public Infrastructure". Unless socialism. For example, "Public communications infrastructure"--the Government control of telecommunications--and "public utilities"--the government control of electricity and water--are accepted terms; however in both cases, private enterprise also exists in other models: private businesses provide electricity, gas, and even water service in some municipalities. All a "Public" utility such as roads, phones, Internet, power, or water is is a socialized economic function--the government decides what the market needs, hires workers, etc.
Semantics. It's not very "capitalist" "Free Market" "lazze faire" whatever to have the Government control your utilities, rather than private enterprise. Those utilities "belong to the taxpayers," they are "The Peoples'", etc. Socialized, socialism.
We need some of it. We don't need all of it.
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It's not really a confusion; it's domain-specific vocabulary.
Since you admit it is specific to a particular domain then shall "We" get specific?
If the government takes your money for $economic_pursuit_A, it's "Public Infrastructure".
False. If the government takes your money you are in a political system such as a monarchy or a socialist state because either you never actually had a right to the money because it belongs to the crown/state or you belong to the crown/state ... or both. It would be the Crown's/State's Infrastructure.
Unless socialism. For example, "Public communications infrastructure"--the Government control of telecommunications--and "public utilities"--the government control of electricity and water--are accepted terms; however in both cases, private enterprise also exists in other models: private businesses provide electricity, gas, and even water service in some municipalities. All a "Public" utility such as roads, phones, Internet, power, or water is is a socialized economic function--the government decides what the market needs, hires workers, etc.
Right. In socialism the government controls everything. Period. No representation. No vote. No rights. Only privileges which can be rescinded without due process. If you, or anyone else, dislike the process ... well ... as they used to say in the former Soviet Union. Toughski Shitski.
Semantics. It's not very "capitalist" "Free Market" "lazze faire" whatever to have the Government control your utilities, rather than private enterprise. Those utilities "belong to the taxpayers," they are "The Peoples'", etc. Socialized, socialism.
"Semantics" ... meaning. Yes, let's discuss meaning. Socialism is a political system, controlled by a few, where it's subjects have little, or no, opportunity for due process, representation, or individual rights. In other words it means no freedom. So you are right ... it's not very capitalist. In Capitalism, which is not itself a political system, at least one has the opportunity to grow and profit from one's own efforts when paired with a political system that emphasizes individual freedoms over that off the state.
We need some of it. We don't need all of it.
Still no!
But you keep straying from the original topic of this /. article. It was "What If Manning Had Leaked To the New York Times"!
It doesn't matter because in both Socialist countries, and countries such as the U.S., he would have been brought up on charges. I would dare say at least in the U.S. he will have his day in court. In Socialist flagship countries such as China and the DPRK he wouldn't even have the right to shut the fuck up!
Now go back to reading your "Pol Pot for Dummies" book.
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
False. If the government takes your money you are in a political system such as a monarchy or a socialist state because either you never actually had a right to the money because it belongs to the crown/state or you belong to the crown/state ... or both. It would be the Crown's/State's Infrastructure.
Try not paying your taxes and not going to court. The IRS sends OIG to your house. With guns.
Right. In socialism the government controls everything. Period. No representation. No vote. No rights.
Actually that system is called 'totalitarianism' and 'authoritarianism', and is an administrative system whereas socialism is an economic system. You can have a totalitarian dictator in a free market capitalist state. As long as your glorious leader has no qualms with your business operations, you can do what you want; when he does, his all-mighty decree immediately bans that action, or simply jails those responsible for offending his sensibilities.
This is actually a common form of government. Socialist leaders ostensibly claim concern for the people they govern; while authoritarian leaders do not need to. Therefor, evil dictators generally do whatever the hell they want and leave everyone else to do "anything that doesn't offend me." Their religious beliefs, their egomania, or other personal issues are the law of the land; beyond that, the economic influence is nil.
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False. If the government takes your money you are in a political system such as a monarchy or a socialist state because either you never actually had a right to the money because it belongs to the crown/state or you belong to the crown/state ... or both. It would be the Crown's/State's Infrastructure.
Try not paying your taxes and not going to court. The IRS sends OIG to your house. With guns.
Comparing one system where citizens have due process versus one, such as socialism, where one does not to evading taxes is pretty disingenuous! Try the same scenario in a socialist country like China or DPRK and not only will the state come in with guns drawn ... but they may very well shoot you and imprison your family as well. I think most would rather have laws and rules, as well as penalties for violating them, drawn by someone they've elected to represent them than by socialist party power brokers who have no regard for individual freedoms and rights.
Right. In socialism the government controls everything. Period. No representation. No vote. No rights.
Actually that system is called 'totalitarianism' and 'authoritarianism', and is an administrative system whereas socialism is an economic system. You can have a totalitarian dictator in a free market capitalist state. As long as your glorious leader has no qualms with your business operations, you can do what you want; when he does, his all-mighty decree immediately bans that action, or simply jails those responsible for offending his sensibilities.
This is actually a common form of government. Socialist leaders ostensibly claim concern for the people they govern; while authoritarian leaders do not need to. Therefor, evil dictators generally do whatever the hell they want and leave everyone else to do "anything that doesn't offend me." Their religious beliefs, their egomania, or other personal issues are the law of the land; beyond that, the economic influence is nil.
One cannot have a free market economy in a socialist state. By the very definition of socialism free markets cannot exist because socialism does not allow it to exist.
LOL. Economic influence is nil? Like they never manipulate currency to gain unfair advantage in world markets. Like they never starve their population while the "Dear Leader" buys expensive jewelry, cars, and a Western education.
At least be honest!
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
One cannot have a free market economy in a socialist state. By the very definition of socialism free markets cannot exist because socialism does not allow it to exist.
You respond to my discussion about socialism vs authoritarianism by pretending I wrote "Socialist" instead of "Authoritarian".
Let's simplify: Republicans are Authoritarian Capitalists. Democrats are Libertarian Socialists. That means Republicans are more for free market capitalism, but more for social control--for arresting people and jailing them for shit like sex and drugs, for offending their puritin values, etc. Democrats are more for more government control of the economy, but the more liberal democrats tend to be hippies who want drugs legalized (and want free everything for everyone).
Monarchies, dictatorships, and the like can be capitalistic economically. Democracies can be socialistic in nature--Germany just before WW2 was quickly becoming a Socialist Democratic state, which is what Hitler reversed (he deduced that people were becoming Social Democrats because of the Jewish run media, so decided to exterminate the Jews and implement fascism). America is becoming a Socialist Democratic state as well--one where we ostensibly have Due Process, Rights, etc, but are spiraling toward bigger government with more government services such as socialized healthcare and socialized economic bounding (i.e. "bail-outs" because "big businesses can't fail, it hurts jobs", among other stupid shit like the government purchasing 400,000 pounds of CANE SUGAR to KEEP SUGAR PRICES HIGH because "we need to support the sugar industry" ugh... at the cost of tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in GDP economic activity).
You don't understand systems of government and systems of economics. At all.
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You respond to my discussion about socialism vs authoritarianism by pretending I wrote "Socialist" instead of "Authoritarian".
Actually I responded to this specific point in your comment with a joke before you took off on a tangent, "Socialism is a good thing... in moderation" posted on 12:56 PM March 12th, 2013.
I also could have swore you were the one who just wrote, "Let's simplify: Republicans are Authoritarian Capitalists. Democrats are Libertarian Socialists.". There was no pretending. You wrote it.
Since we're simplifying maybe if you acknowledged that one who practices "socialism" is a "socialist" and one who practices "capitalism" is a "capitalist" we would be able to get somewhere, but then again I doubt you even want to see the forest through those trees.
Since we're simplifying let's consider that your stated position, "Socialism is a good thing... in moderation" is a lot like saying, "Taking 2/3 of your wealth and restricting basic freedoms is a moderation we can live with." I'm sorry ... I prefer to keep the wealth I create and maintain the freedoms I have based on a government "By the People, For the People" instead of "From the People, In spite of the People".
You don't understand systems of government and systems of economics. At all.
Like I said before. It's your story tell it anyway you want.
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
Someone who advocates socialism as a complete system is a socialist. That much is pretty much clear: you join the socialist party, you say the Government should control and dictate all economic behaviors.
Someone who advocates capitalism is a capitalist. That much is pretty clear: you join the capitalists party (I guess there really is none--the Libertarians sometimes pretend theirs is, but it's not really), you advocate the removal of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, you advocate that businesses should do whatever they want, non-interference, laisse faire.
The problem is (we agree that Socialism doesn't work, so we'll ignore this completely) that capitalism doesn't work. Free market capitalism means Microsoft doesn't abuse its monopoly and Disney doesn't own everything... because John D. Rockerfeller got there first and bought Carnegie Steel (nice try, Andy, but you're the smaller giant). John D. Rockerfeller's estate, now in the hands of people several generations down the line, later acquired Disney, IBM, Microsoft, Ford, Chrysler, GM, General Foods, Kraft, Monsanto, all the farm land, the New York Stock Exchange, the banks, etc. If you want to eat, you do business with the surviving estate of John D. Rockerfeller. Rockerfeller everything.
And I'm wrong. Roads cost too much money and are uncontrollable; Rockerfeller Rail would have sponsored mass transit. For a constant fee. Ford wouldn't be a thing because cars wouldn't be a thing because rail is the only thing and Rockerfeller Rail owns rail.
To avert this, we had anti-trust laws; but anti-trust laws didn't exactly do it. The Government laid roads and continues to maintain them with Taxpayer money. Now mass transit kind of fails and the railroads barely exist; those that do exist are largely subsidized by government. Now, if you ask any socialist, they'll tell you that public transit and rail are a good thing, and the Government should step in and take over all rail, build rail lines, and just raise taxes to pay for it. You know, socialism applied specifically to rail transit just as socialism has been applied to road transit.
While we're at it, how about we also put the socialist hat on and have the Government take over all US airline companies and control air travel? Sea travel? The government controls water; why not Government phone, Government electricity? While we're doing power and utilities, why not Government gas, and thus Government oil, and Government mining for Government coal?
That's socialism.
However, what private enterprise could maintain roads? How would we feel about private enterprise maintaining roads? What would be the downsides? Do we instead want the Government to maintain the roads? We have socialist road infrastructure, and socialist public school, and semi-socialist farms and universities. Some of this is good, some is bad. You call it "Public Infrastructure," but it's really just "Applied Socialism in moderation". The Government has taken away a market and chosen to run it itself, with money it takes away from the people, and with restrictions on the people running in that market. Like the Post Office.
Notice this is all economics, not really so much individual rights, authoritarianism, democracy, due process, elections, etc. This is a matter of infrastructure and of business, not of established individual rights. We, as a people, could vote to have the Government throw out the banks, the auto makers, and the utility companies, so that we have socialized Internet, phone, energy, gas, healthcare, roads, banking, and so on. Some would be by fee (like water, energy, etc) and some would be by tax (like roads). We would still be a free, democratic people with individual rights and due process and all; just with a socialist economic system. Too much socialism, really.
We could vote it back away, too... but the transition would be hard, and people abhor change.
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Notice this is all economics, not really so much individual rights, authoritarianism, democracy, due process, elections, etc. This is a matter of infrastructure and of business, not of established individual rights.
Pardon me as I quote the relevant part of your argument. You're not exactly pithy.
There is the rub. Socialism doesn't exist without the political component. So the " individual rights, authoritarianism, democracy, due process, elections, etc" is a central part of socialism. The socialist state oppresses individual rights by using authoritarianism to manipulate and control elections, due process, and prohibit democracy. Usually by force.
The state has no power to address economics without those central parts being under the thumb of the state. Capitalism has no such political component.
Considering that we go back to your comment that "Socialism is a good thing... in moderation". No amount of oppression by state controlled anything, even if in moderation, can remotely be considered "a good thing".
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
There is the rub. Socialism doesn't exist without the political component.
The theory exists without the political component. The practice exists ... when you're on Gilligan's Island and can't survive in any other form (yeah, full-scale socialism is the only viable way for a group to survive when there's all of 6 of you and resources are extremely low... once you're bigger than a classroom full of school children, not so much). Trying to quantify that the practice can't exist without the political component is short-sighted in two ways: First off the practice doesn't exist in any meaningful way; and second, in the extreme situations where such practices do exist (a few people stranded on a remote island), the natural leader is essentially elected--when he becomes bad for the group, he is swiftly removed. It seems that, perhaps, socialism *only* exists with strong democratic rights... though it only exists in effectively meaningless situations.
The state has no power to address economics without those central parts being under the thumb of the state. Capitalism has no such political component.
You mean like the Police, the US. Department of Agricultural; the Federal Food and Drug Administration; the Federal Aviation Administration; the Federal Communications Commission; the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Administration; Congress; etc?
I'm going to show up at your house and steal your truck (no, your little shotgun won't help; I'll watch from 2 miles away with binoculars and steal it when you're preoccupied elsewhere out with your buddy tailgating in HIS truck, I'm not dumb), and when the police show up I'll tell them I'm being oppressed and they can't tromp on my rights because they're part of a socialist empire of regulations funded by money stolen by the government.
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There is the rub. Socialism doesn't exist without the political component.
The theory exists without the political component. The practice exists ... when you're on Gilligan's Island and can't survive in any other form (yeah, full-scale socialism is the only viable way for a group to survive when there's all of 6 of you and resources are extremely low... once you're bigger than a classroom full of school children, not so much). Trying to quantify that the practice can't exist without the political component is short-sighted in two ways: First off the practice doesn't exist in any meaningful way; and second, in the extreme situations where such practices do exist (a few people stranded on a remote island), the natural leader is essentially elected--when he becomes bad for the group, he is swiftly removed. It seems that, perhaps, socialism *only* exists with strong democratic rights... though it only exists in effectively meaningless situations.
When you're trapped on an island with 5 other people or you emerge from your classroom let me know. Until then enjoy your fantasy world.
The state has no power to address economics without those central parts being under the thumb of the state. Capitalism has no such political component.
You mean like the Police, the US. Department of Agricultural; the Federal Food and Drug Administration; the Federal Aviation Administration; the Federal Communications Commission; the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Administration; Congress; etc?
Yes just like those. Those institutions are not beyond reproach such as those that exist in a socialist state.
I'm going to show up at your house and steal your truck (no, your little shotgun won't help; I'll watch from 2 miles away with binoculars and steal it when you're preoccupied elsewhere out with your buddy tailgating in HIS truck, I'm not dumb), and when the police show up I'll tell them I'm being oppressed and they can't tromp on my rights because they're part of a socialist empire of regulations funded by money stolen by the government.
I wonder if that will still work for you when Bubba bends you over the bunk in the cell block after the po po locks you up? I suppose you'd be fine giving up 2/3's of your colon since Bubba needs some love too! All for the greater good huh?
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
Those organizations are not beyond reproach, nor are the 'po po' as you put it. In fact modern police are militarized assholes and the modern prison system is effectively a source of slave labor for private enterprise, essentially an economic subsidy by which American jobs are undermined by locking up Americans and forcing them to work for a quarter an hour doing a job that would normally be filled by an un-incarcerated American at $15/hr. This is vastly less capital-intensive for businesses, hence why it's a 'subsidy'.
I'm sure you don't want to abolish the police and prison systems, though. Just as well, the number of government economic functions we have are in some cases overreach and in other cases not enough; we need to trim the overreach and prop up the ones doing not enough--without giving them more powers they're not supposed to have in the process.
Healthcare is one of the best examples, because it's so tricky to get right. Socialized healthcare systems are either expensive or ineffective (or both); privatized healthcare systems tend to develop into a web of terrible, terrible problems. Some measure of insurance regulation has kept our systems from spiraling out of control into a mess of rent-seeking behavior, but it's still fugly; and then there's the litigation machine that attacks doctors for not being perfect (and often for not making any mistakes, just not magically curing the incurable). Further, even in a healthy private system, a baseline of public healthcare additionally provides great benefits to the economy: it reduces the spread of disease and the incidence of crippling injury (i.e. an untreated sprain, something that simple, can disable you for life), providing a bigger and more stable labor base and reducing sickness among the upper class (who can pay for healthcare, but are always getting infected by diseases that fester among the poor); yet a full-scale public health system is, again, expensive and/or ineffective.
One of the best ways to handle public healthcare services is to assess operating fees and indicate that healthcare providers must provide a baseline of X% service to the public. Let doctors roll into the location they're at, so a private practice taking in $10M/year has to supply 1% of $10M or $0.1M, while a $100B hospital has to supply $1B of public service. Specify that the service supplied has to be actual cost (so a $150k heart surgery that the hospital spends all of $5000 on after salaries, equipment, medications, etc. cuts in by $5000), and that a baseline of general healthcare services (vaccination, bone and sprain sets, etc) must be supplied and all else is elective. Thus it's not any better for the hospital to supply 1 chemo treatment to waste $1B than it is to give 100 million cold vaccinations at $10 each total cost.
Why is this one of the best ways? Because it satisfies the need for a baseline public healthcare system to keep the labor force viable and to prevent the spread of debilitating disease; but it imposes as little government fuckery on the healthcare industry as possible. The business already has to do accounting (you can't run a business without doing this, your business will fail even if the government stays out of it); we're just asking to see a certain set of pages out of their books. The hospitals and doctors are being told to be hospitals and doctors, nothing more. Taxes aren't levied. Business is adjusted, the market decides how. The whole thing becomes a cost of entry into a certain market (like paying for the lease on the building and land), with a minimal of actual regulation and dictation of how to be a hospital or a doctor.
Instead, we have Obamacare, which is Romneycare, which is a cash cow for insurance providers (and even then, the insurance providers hate it because it's expensive as hell for them to comply with) and bad for taxpayers and consumers. Canada, England, etc have their own iffy systems. Germany seems to do okay. Canada gets by because it's a private healthcare system: Canada
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Kind of sums it up for you!
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.