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Rand Paul and Silicon Valley's Shifting Political Climate
SonicSpike sends this story from NY Magazine:
Rand Paul appears to be making a full-court press for the affections of Silicon Valley, and there are some signs that his efforts are paying off. At last week's Sun Valley conference, Paul had one-on-one meetings with Thiel and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. ... Next weekend, Paul will get to make his case yet again as the keynote speaker at Reboot, a San Francisco conference put on by a group called Lincoln Labs, which self-defines as "techies and politicos who believe in promoting liberty with technology." He'll likely say a version of what he's said before: that Silicon Valley's innovative potential can be best unlocked in an environment with minimal government intrusion in the forms of surveillance, corporate taxes, and regulation. “I see almost unlimited potential for us in Silicon Valley,” Paul has said, with "us" meaning libertarians.
Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues. But it seems more skeptical about taxes and business regulation than at any point in its recent history. Part of this is due to the rise of companies like Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators and trade unions, in confrontations that are being used by small-government conservatives as case studies in government control run amok.
Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues. But it seems more skeptical about taxes and business regulation than at any point in its recent history. Part of this is due to the rise of companies like Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators and trade unions, in confrontations that are being used by small-government conservatives as case studies in government control run amok.
How you see the world depends on where you are in it.
> Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators
Every Tesla vehicle comes with a minimum of $7,500 subsidy from the federal government plus a bunch of state government subsidies like $2,500 and single-driver privileges in HOV lanes in California. They are the last company that should be laying claim to libertarian ideals.
versus "government, please steal that guy's money and give it to me"
It's people like you who enable that mayhem.
The idea that small government is a substitute for good governance is a koch dream. Small government means less oversight. So your dollars go to companies like Shell who destroy ecologies and societies.
Things like regulatory capture happen because people don't pay enough attention to their government, not because it is too big. Money chases power wherever it is. At least with government the money has to put in some work to get what it wants instead of getting it served up on a platter.
Part of this is due to the rise of companies like Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators and trade unions, in confrontations that are being used by small-government conservatives as case studies in government control run amok.
http://insideevs.com/uaw-looks...
CEO Elon Musk says Tesla is union neutral, so that’s the automaker’s stance.
Then there's the whole "government run amok" thing... where it should really say "state government run amok." The protectionist policies adopted haven't been federal, they've been state level. Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey have outright bans; Georgia and Colorado have severe restrictions on selling; and Ohio and New York have legislation pending. Musk has said, if the states keep fucking with him, he will use the federal courts to deal with the issue.... so again, the problem isn't the federal government, it's the states.
With Uber, again the problem isn't unions, and it's not the federal government.. it's city governments.
Perhaps this should be a case study on smaller governments causing more problems than they should, and those that promote "small government" lying and trying to blame "big government" and unions.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Unless I managed to draw entirely the wrong impression from every budget spat I've been old enough to be conscious for, I'm pretty sure that 'defense' is not the area that tends to feel the loss of a given dollar until a fair few alternatives have been tried...
Yeah, sometimes it's giveaways to non-workers that lose funding.
yep. really disappointed in silicon valley nerds if the above article is true.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Is it a democracy?
No. Yo can vote for which party the corporations will tell what to do.
well according to the supreme court corporations = people and money = free speech so at least the "people" have their "free speech"
i could live a little longer in this prison
Every single day of life you and everyone else in this country has gained benefits and used services provided by the government. The social compact that this country has survived on, at least up till 1981, was that each generation invests in the future so that this country will provide a better life for future generations.
In 1981 that changed. You had elected someone who loudly proclaimed that people no longer had to invest in the future, and everything would smell like flowers and look like rainbows.
Since that time, there has been a large segment of the population who, while still gaining the benefits, and using the services of this country, have actively refused to live up to the basic responsibility of living in this country. They have acted like leeches, sucking the life out of this country, using up it's resources, and driving the future generations into massive debt. They can't be bothered to pay for the government they use, because they're greedy, self centered, egotistical, myopic assholes, who don't give a damn about this country... just about themselves. They are nothing more than thieves, stealing from the future to ad their pockets in the present day.
In the 1940's, during the war, millions of men were called up to fight, with hundreds of thousands paying the ultimate cost for this country. The top marginal tax rate was over 90%. Now, we are paying close to the lowest rates in 60 years, and there's no requirement to submit to a draft for military service... yet we still have a segment of the population who bitch and whine like little toddlers with shit in the diapers that taxes are too high. These people are THE problem in this country. They undermine everything that this country has ever done, and spit on the graves of those who gave their lives making this country a better place... all because they're greedy little bitches.
No one likes to pay taxes, but taxes are the cost of living in society. As for the ones stealing.... those are the worthless little bitches who don't support this country, even after using everything this country offers every day.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
...longer, better patents and copyrights, more EULAs.
This is really what we need, aspiring politicians appealing to plutocrats.
To be honest we still submit for a draft, it is selective service and it is compulsory for males. There is just not a draft to take use of it atm
When you cant win, ad hominem.
You mean give away to people currently down on their luck, or unable to find a job right now? Something that can happen to any one of us, and is a nail in the side of the economy, which needs a maximum amount of workers?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I read that as Paul had one-on-one meetings with Thief and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
We took a leading role in Iraq. Would have been better if we didn't.
The idea that economic policy and social policy are tied at the hip in the two mainstream parties is ridiculous. Someone who supports conservative economic policy but liberal social policies, in any other country, has a mainstream party to get behind. In the US, they're essentially an outcast who has to decide which is more important to them, their personal values or what they think is the best direction for the economy, because voting for third parties is viewed as a lost vote.
Politics in the US needs drastic reform away from the two party system.
How does Rand Paul have a liberal social policy? He's perfectly happy with letting states bar gays from marrying, eliminating abortion and birth control, making it difficult for minorities to vote, and allowing businesses to discriminate.
What part of that is liberal social policy?
Where the hell are people getting their news on Rand Paul?
"That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves."
And given the overwhelming historical association between "liber"tarian ideology and slavery, it's probably more accurate to just call it according to its real preoccupation: Moneytarianism.
No doubt such a viewpoint would find a receptive audience in some of the shallower minds and uglier spirits of Silicon Valley.
But the philosophical core of the region and the tech industry remains fundamentally progressive. That's why it remains the king despite decades of conservative "small government" states desperately trying and failing to replicate it on any remotely competitive scale.
longer, better patents and copyrights
Isn't "longer" and "better" a contradiction here?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
It's coming to Congress.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
You cannot get welfare if you are in that situation... But keep on thinking that.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
It is not stolen, without that money it would be very much harder for you to do your labor. What with no roads,reliable electric grid, phone service.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
T-shirts that got their wearers in trouble at conference.
Draper Labs: When you really want it there on time
Draper labs specializes in missile guidance systems, and the shirt had a picture of a launching missile. Some of their work as been space program supportive, but it would have been a lot cheaper without the military angle, and we'd have actually gotten to see the results in industry, not hidden away as Top Secret.
Lincoln Labs: When you care enough to send the very best
Lincoln Labs helped design the H Bomb: the shirt had a picture of a mushroom cloud. Lincoln remains up to its armpits in Reagan era "Star Wars defense" projects, It's amazing the billions that can go into research for "defense" that is far more effective as treaty violating offensive weapons. If you don't believe me, read up on Peter Hagelstein, one of the core developers of the nuclear bomb triggered X-Ray laser technology, one of the only technologies out of that amazing technology pork barrel that actually looked like it might work.
If you went to delude a bunch of technically sharp, politically naive people into burning billions of dollars on bad national politics, it sounds like just the sort of place to start.
I think its due to the nature of the voting system (winner take all, even if you don't poll a majority). But it also seems to be endemic to many democracies, they tend to gravitate to two party systems. The UK has Labor and the Conservatives, the Germans have Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats.
But even in countries with larger third parties, they're seldom major parts of government. I think the current coalition government in the UK is one of the few times the Liberal Democrats have been in government. In Germany the FDP has mostly been a kingmaker rather than a majority party capable of forming its own government.
We just started using ranked choice voting for elections in Minneapolis, which in theory eliminates the "lost vote" problem by allowing you to make third parties your first choice but still vote "defensively" by making some other candidate a secondary choice.
So far it doesn't seem to have led to a lot of radical change in outcomes other than making the election results take a couple of extra days due to the calculations involved when there's a dozen candidates.
I'll take the lower taxes with fewer regulations for everyone vs. what we have now which is a lot of regulations (that benefit only the big business players) and the corporate welfare that arrives monthly in the form of checks, subsidies, and tax breaks again only for the big boys and the political supporters.
Silicon valley doesn't care about longer copyrights - their industry hasn't existed long enough to benefit. That's more a music/movie industry thing.
The stores you mention are failing because they sell to the middle class. They are a barometer of the health of our middle class.
It has a lot to do with government.
Over the past few decades, unions have lost much power, the tax laws have been written to favor the wealthy, business regulation has been reduced, and add in offshoring (tax breaks there) and automation, and we are seeing the middle class get eroded.
The wealth disparity in this country is destroying it and businesses - at least big business - do not care because the USA is only maybe half of their revenue. They do not care if we go broke because foreign markets are growing to compensate. That is why corp profits are at record level while we are stagnate here.
Do not let the policy makers fool you - we ARE recovered. There is NO economic recovery because this is all there is.
The Valley has long had a handful of superrich libertarian types. Thiel is one of the better known, and is really more of a Wall Street type who now makes investments in the Valley. He made his money in hedge funds, not in technology. He's been involved with various Republican and Libertarian causes since the '80s.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Someone who supports conservative economic policy but liberal social policies, in any other country, has a mainstream party to get behind.
In some kind of relative sense, yes, but there is no mainstream party in most of the west that supports policies like Rand Paul's. In most of Europe, the "economically conservative but socially liberal" parties have economic policies to he left of the Democrats, including support for national healthcare.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Greed is a disease more deadly than heroin, hardening your heart and turning you into a right-wing monster, driven to amassing ever more power and lucre until you feel absolutely justified in bending society itself to your warped, dystopian world view. Rockefeller, Walton, Koch, Ellison, Zuckerberg; all the same fuckers.
For specifically the Liberal Democrats it is the only time they have been in government. However if you see the Liberal Democrats as the successors to the old Liberal party and they themselves to the Wigs then they have been in government many many times in the past. It was just a long gap from the 1930's to 2010.
Pretty much the most insightful post on this topic as of yet.
Objectivitism (i.e. Aynd Rand) is basically a pipe dream similar to Communism. Human nature dictates that those with power will always try to exploit the weak. The basic tenants of good government is to balance this equation in favor of the common good.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
The idea that the largest most powerful entity to ever exist on this planet is only ever just trying to be benevolent and good, but is in danger because some people think it is too large is laughable. The corruption and regulatory capture you speak of are only possible BECAUSE the modern US government is an enormous leviathan.
The idea that libertarians would instantly reduce the government to nothing if they took power is laughable. Over 100 years if progressive bullshit have given us this opressive monster, it'll take more than just a few libertarians gaining power to turn our government into something reasonable again.
But, according to this article, it is a pipe dream that appeals to Silicon Valley.
Which is no surprise, when you think about some of the people in Silicon Valley.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Actually it peaked in the 40s, direct rate, not % of GDP:
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history
Also % compared to GDP is a relativly useless stat because we give away a lot of the things we produce for free, without counting them as part of the GDP, artificially raising the percentage. If we were to take into account all the food and other items we give away free the GDP would be much higher and the percentage therefore much lower.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
It's almost like there's this sort of happy medium built into the system where the Federal government represents the small government that doesn't intrude while more local governments (States and Municipalities) which offer more representation to their constituents can serve the role of the larger government.
Do you really think any of the sides actually want that? Even the small government party does not mind intruding if it fits their beliefs.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
LOL...still butthurt about Ronald Reagan? Look, the Cold War is over, your side lost. Get over it already. "You had elected someone who loudly proclaimed that people no longer had to invest in the future, and everything would smell like flowers and look like rainbows." [citation needed]
Used benefits and services provided by the government? A hell of a lot of people get nothing from the government, and never had a check other than a refund check their entire lives. Yeah, we're not talking about stuff like police and highways. It's bizarre seeing a radical leftist talk about WWII deaths...you mean all the racists who joined up so they could murder Japanese? What's with the patriotic "this country" angle? Don't you people despise and hate America, even to the point of pretending not to understand what people mean when they say Americans, saying "oh I thought you meant Brazil was in America and therefore they're Americans too.
I think you really need to step back and stop dehumanizing other people because they disagree with you. It dehumanizes yourself most of all.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
You and I have fairly different ideas of sane. Supporting people who think rape is OK, as God intended it is not sane in social issues, at least in my opinion.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
The problem is that government spends the money on things that make our lives harder. Interstate Highway System plus Streetcar Scandal, anyone? We could have had rail instead of roads, but roads sold cars so we got roads and now we're still paying for that in both lives and ecological impact. We don't have a reliable electrical grid; It is not a grid — in most locations, it is star-wired and not grid-wired at all. And today's phone service is internet service, and we have the worst broadband penetration in the developed world.
This government has demonstrated time and again its inability to spend our money responsibly. The primary examples you cite are all places where it is falling on its ass.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The government didn't build those things - they merely paid for them. Companies designed and built those things. Congress doesn't pass laws because it gets an idea in its head and does it. It's for one of exactly two reasons:
1) Companies (i.e. their lobbyists) convinced lawmakers that passing a law to let them do X is in their best interest and BTW, here's that campaign contribution that has absolutely nothing to do with your legislative agenda. But if you pass this we'll be able to make a lot of money....
2) Recognition that what they did in #1 was wrong and now need to fix it, or companies that abused the power they were given so much that there's only one organization that can fix it - the government.
It is impossible to have socialism at the state government level because states are not permitted to levy tariffs or control immigration.
You can't have socialism without both of those. If a state were to offer free healthcare paid for by taxes, then the unemployed who need healthcare would just travel to that state, while employers would move to other states where taxes are lower. That doesn't mean that single-payer healthcare can't work - just that it can't work in the context of a US state. In a country like Canada you can't just move there for six months to have your cancer fixed, and anybody from outside of Canada selling goods there is subject to tariffs which are intended to help ensure that the cost basis for producing those goods is somewhat comparable.
I've heard the whole laboratory for experimentation argument about the role of the federal/state governments, but it really only allows for experimentation on fairly minor things and for the most part is just a race for the bottom. Look at what companies do when they negotiate their taxes while threatening to move operations.
How many comments have you made in this thread? Seriously, give it a break, people are allowed to disagree. You sound like a person who would be a lot happier in another country, one that shares your values. America sounds like it's just not for you. Luckily, we live in a globalized world and borders don't mean what they once did. Perhaps Venezuela or Bolivia would be a better fit.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
yep
i could live a little longer in this prison
Once he comes out for legalizing drugs, he'll be back to being a libertarian again. That's really the only difference at this point.
The idea that libertarians would instantly reduce the government to nothing if they took power is laughable.
Why is it laughable? Republicans literally shut down the government twice now. Have you already forgotten Oct 1 through 17, 2013 when house republican majority refused to vote on a bipartisan bill because they didn't want to fund Obamacare?
It's not paranoia when that is indeed what happened.
I doubt he'll be willing.
If your theory was correct wouldnt Mass be experiencing a mass exodus of bushiness, and not the growth of GDP it is seeing??
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Yeah, Sears is run by a rabid Randian: http://www.businessweek.com/ar...
because they would still want what they still want. They would replace the losses in social services with more military, because no one wants to be seen as anti military.. Playing politics with a government shut down is not the same as actually wanting to have real reductions in government.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Most of what you lay claim on being bad big government is actually bad small government.. Why do we have the worst broadband penetration, because the government is not making the companies do anything, any thing at all, not even compete. As for everything else that is state level issues, which we paid for with federal monies. they way to fix them is not with less regulation, as the lack of regulation is what allowed them to happen in the first place.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I stooped as soon as that site claimed that the taxes I paid are not coming from me, but from the business owner. As in medicare that is taken directly from my pay.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I find it interesting that the OP says "In the 1940's, during the war... The top marginal tax rate was over 90%."
It's a bit disingenuous not to say "The top marginal tax rate was *raised* to over 90%.". Before the WWII only a handful of percent of Americans actually paid federal income tax. During the war they created laws to establish income tax withholding because they needed their money sooner, *and* restructured the income tax brackets so that millions more Americans paid federal income taxes, as well as skyrocketed the top tier rates to up to 90%, while there were also 5% state tax rates plus the 5% Victory Tax. In fact it was so harsh that the first year of withholding around 60% of taxes were "forgiven" because due to the withholding versus the previous practice of paying your income taxes quarterly over the following year meant that people were effectively paying two years' worth of taxes at once. Businesses also had to scramble to put together means of calculating taxes for withholding and a process for managing the withheld funds. FDR also campaigned for a 100% top bracket, that during times of war no American should be able to keep more than $25,000. That's in 1942 dollars, would be like $350,000 in today dollars.
Now... after the war... even a decade after the war... did things return to "normal"? No? Hmm.
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
Most of what you lay claim on being bad big government is actually bad small government.
Bullshit. Parts of the government are trying to fix the problem, while other parts are trying to prevent it from being fixed. How is that a problem with not enough government?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ten why don't you and the rest of the libertarians move to Somalia and live out your utopia?
keep your "benefits". I'll keep the wages I earned from my labor.
No, you wont keep those wages. Where will you keep them? In the bank, so they are insured from loss? Sorry, you don't want that benefit. In your house? Are you prepared to defend yourself from 20 men with guns who want your money? Because that's what will happen. You've relinquished your benefit to have the police defend you, or to have them prosecute your attackers after the fact as a deterrent to the next person. Assuming you survive, you've relinquished your rights to use the legal system to attempt to recover your damages.
And are you prepared to put out any house fires yourself since you dont want the fire department funded? Are you planning to clearcut your own roadways so you can go somewhere beside your house to earn your money? How will you convince your neighbors to allow you to have a road that goes through their property. Remember, they are happy to pay their taxes for public roads, so they have no interest in cooperating with you so that you can have your own non-public road.
What you desire is a world more wild than the tv depictions of the wild wild west. You will quickly find that, without paying taxes, you better be prepared to essentially live on an island by yourself, and just pray you dont get outnumbered and outgunned by a group of people wanting to take that island from you. If you thought people wanting to take your money in the form of taxes was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
In a "free market", people can still come and bulldoze your house. Who is going to stop them?
Amazing to see that people are still falling for Reagan's "welfare queen" fantasy.
That government ended in 1865 because allowing the more local governments broad authority resulted in many states creating a class of people who were subhuman.
The parts trying to fix the problem are those adding regulations to ensure they dont happen, the ones trying to prevent it are the ones trying to remove regulations so it can happen again. Which do you think is big government and which do you think is small government?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Which is why the libertarian dream is to derive all the benefits of living in a country where public money is invested in the future while avoiding any of the responsibility or cost themselves. Silicon valley would be NOTHING if not for public investment to build off of.
That doesn't matter because I still stand a better chance in a free market than trying to fight the entire fucking US armed forces if the US government decides it wants my property.
We have hundreds of millions of people in this country with a wide range of ideas about what the best way to spend money is. Our government is not a monoculture, it is not a dictatorship, it is a complicated mess of competing interests, priorities, and philosophies. Nobody gets all the solutions they want because there is more then one person involved and they do not agree on pretty much everything.
It should also be noted that when you look at those services were we are 'falling on our ass', our country is still doing better then the vast majority of the world in pretty much all of those categories. Our electrical grid has incredible uptime, almost everyone has power every day unless a storm or other disaster comes through and then we expect it to be up within hours, and we have power ALL DAY. Pretty much every home has running water and sewer, phone and internet service is available almost everywhere.
Yeah, there are countries that are doing better, but we are still doing pretty damn good compared to how most of the world lives. Our infrastructure is dependable, so dependable we bitch and moan about small issues like congestion and short blackouts. That is luxury, that is money that, while it could have been spent better, was still spent well enough that we take significant luxury infrastructure for granted.
The idea that libertarians would instantly reduce the government to nothing if they took power is laughable.
Why is it laughable? Republicans literally shut down the government twice now. Have you already forgotten Oct 1 through 17, 2013 when house republican majority refused to vote on a bipartisan bill because they didn't want to fund Obamacare?
It's not paranoia when that is indeed what happened.
Yes, most people have. If you didn't work for the government or were on welfare then the shutdown was hardly noticeable to the public.
The idea that small government is a substitute for good governance
Small is the opposite of big. Good governance is the opposite of bad governance. To imply small government is the opposite of good governance is absurd.
In fact, you are more likely to get better governance when the government isn't a huge monolith where the left hand is unaware of the right-hand.
is a koch dream.
Ah yes, the "Koch brothers run everything in government so let's make the government bigger" conspiracy.
You can't bulldoze, but there are other options:
http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/...
And under what circumstances can a government (other than Israel's) bulldoze a house?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Except the highest earners also benefit the most from the country. That 'net' assistance of the lower earners goes strait back into the pockets of the high earners, and per-capita they get a lot more of it then the working poor.
I'm not disappointed. This is what I expect from those sociopaths. Don't be fooled by their clothes or trendy offices.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
In a truly free market, I can hire someone to throw you out of your house if you refuse to sell it.
caused by Hoover and FDR with their 'Great Society'
Great Society was an LBJ thing. You're off by 30 years.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Generally speaking, the highest earners provide the greatest benefit to the country.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
You can vote for a different government. The fact that people aren't coming to bulldoze your house right now, is because people have voted for a government that does not allow it. It's not because of your personal fighting prowess.
Power is always gonna exist. All you are actually asking for is a change from one person, one vote, to one dollar, one vote.
Simply harping on about "misogyny" and "racism" betrays the intellectual bankruptcy of your critique.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Welfare hasn't existed since the mid 90s. Bill Clinton signed the law that abolished it. Secondly, unemployment doesn't last forever. So even if people were doing that, which no one has proved more than a small minority is doing, it's not like they could live on it for more than a year or so.
I just find it fascinating that left leaning people always proclaim how they are such fans of diversity and inclusion, yet revile any thoughts that might stand in opposition to their own.
God forbid people be open minded towards new ideas, or even old ones.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
In most of Europe, the "economically conservative but socially liberal" parties have economic policies to he left of the Democrats,
Not in terms of tax progressivity. American has managed to export Reaganomics to the world. "Socialist" France, to take but one example, has a much lower top marginal tax and higher income concentration than America had in our golden era -- 1950s and 1960s. Details here.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
No, you really don't. It does not take the entire armed forces to handle a single citizen or even a small group. The resources needed are well within what can be fielded by a medium sized corporation or street gang. However in a state, the government stops those types of entities from taking your property, the government is far more likely to be protecting your property rights then taking them, but people take that protection for granted and fail to realize that without the police one's chances of holding on to property are vastly reduced.
You are correct, I was talking about New Deal. Of-course Great Society was just as much a disaster.
New Deal was actually old deal, deal of all failing states based on inflation, destruction of individual liberties, growth of government that leads to inevitable economic collapse.
You can't handle the truth.
You might want to ask Susette Kelo that question.
We have hundreds of millions of people in this country with a wide range of ideas about what the best way to spend money is.
Yes, but that's really not the problem, is it? The problem is the people in positions of power deliberately spending money in ways which they know are not the best for us, specifically for their own personal gain and at the expense of (in some cases) literally everyone else. I'm not against the concept of government. I'm not even necessarily against it being very large, although I question the wisdom of it becoming the largest employer in the nation — especially when "other job duties as required" for so very many of those jobs may include killing people. Is that really the future we wanted to create?
I am opposed to strong centralized anything. Too much power is concentrated at the top of this structure that might better be distributed down to lower levels. It disincentivizes citizen involvement in government by making it unapproachable, and our lack of involvement is what has permitted us to come to this pass to begin with.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ahem.
1. What is up with all y'all and "socialism"? No one's asking for socialism. No one's handing out socialism. There's no F'in socialism! !@#$
2. We're a mixed economy. Seriously. Everyone needs to look these terms up in a dictionary. Everyone. Go look up Socialism and Mixed Economy.
Human nature dictates that those with power will always try to exploit the weak. The basic tenants of good government is to balance this equation in favor of the common good.
By giving people in the government power. You do realize how this seems to an alien observer?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Not really. They concentrate and consume a disproportionately large percentage of the resources while producing similar amounts of work as everyone else. At my company I see people who make 10 times more then I do, and 10 times less. We do similar amounts of work with similar amounts of training and experience, but I derive a lot more income then some and a lot less then others, and that income comes from a pool of profits that everyone contributes to. But the idea that the person making 10,100, or 1000 times more is providing that much more benefit is laughable.
If we took the top 1% or 0.1% of this countries' earners and made them vanish, the impact on the economy would be minimal to positive.
The government didn't build those things - they merely paid for them.
Yes, with our money. And my point was that government didn't build those things! Instead, it takes money from us to spend on our behalf, and then deliberately spends it on hookers and blow. Sometimes literally, but mostly in the form of cost-inflated pork projects which funnel that money directly into the pockets of the already-rich.
Congress doesn't pass laws because it gets an idea in its head and does it.
That is exactly what congresscritters are supposed to do: spot a problem, come up with a solution, and propose it. I am aware that the system works as you describe, but I am not required to be happy with that fact, nor accept it. I would rather work to change it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The free market is imaginary. Show me one. Anywhere on earth. Anywhere. Find me a free market, a market unfiddled by a large organization (government or private, doesn't matter).
The free market is like a frictionless wheel. It's useful to explain some concepts, but it's NOT REAL.
No, the government cannot come bulldoze your house on a whim. Calm down. It COULD use emminent domain, possibly... But then, the bank could decide to mess up some paperwork and forclose on your house despite your ability to pay. Frankly, both of these have happened. They're also RARE AS SHIT and cause a shit storm in the news when they DO happen.
Power is always going to exist. I can run a campaign against my government. I can do lots of things to stop my governemnt. I can't do shit against a bank except ask politely.....
And Seriously? The US Armed forces? Stop hyperbolizing... Both the bank and the governemnt will just call the cops. You're not cool enough to call in the military.
SV execs should now better than allowing ideology to take over economy. It always ends bad. The Sunflower State is the current example. http://www.latimes.com/busines...
"Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues." GREAT! So are libertarians! Except the pretend ones who only use the guise of libertarianism to protect corporate interests... which isn't particularly libertarian, either.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
There will always be people in power. That's why good government attempts to balance this power so that the result is beneficial to society as a whole.
Power concentrated in the hands of organisations such as multi-national corporations (or even less omniscient entities such as car dealership networks) is no better than being in the hands of an autocratic and abusive regime.
For us in the developed world, at least we have some sort of say over policies implemented by a government which is in theory accountable to the people. Why not improve this system so that is is *more* accountable? Rather than advocating for it's dissolution and letting someone (e.g. private actors, which will always be less accountable) fill in the power vacuum?
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Slavery is an old idea. So is feudalism. You open to those ideas, too?
And do you enjoy living off a max of something like 30% of your income from when you are employed in some states? UI, which is an insurance program has a limited time length. The way you can extend it is in a time of high unemployment or by going to school.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Re: versus "government, please steal that guy's money and give it to me" -- Germany doesn't seem to have a problem with that, neither do Finland, Sweden, Denmark, or Norway. They have universal healthcare, equitable education (everyone gets excellent education), excellent infrastructure, coordinated, rational public transport, low poverty, low crime, higher standard of living, etc. These countries have rates of taxation at around 50%.
Socialism in this form is a bit like participating in "groupon" -- People collectivise to research and find the best price for the services they want/need so that it costs less for everyone. Paying for services by tax is much, much cheaper than end users paying on a "per use" basis or buying deliberately overly complicated "plans" that they aren't able to understand because the right information isn't readily available to them (or available at all). Think about US health insurance plans... do you understand those?
Libertarianism/Objectivism are no more than pseudonyms for reinstating medieval, feudal, undemocratic, unmeritocratic, inequitable systems of government where the super-rich rule over impoverished masses and wealth is inherited, not earned (the vast majority of wealth in the USA is inherited -- remember that the Facebook and Google CEOs went to the incredibly expensive "ivy league" schools and universities). The USA's shocking child poverty, wealth inequality, preventable deaths (poor diet, obesity, and lack of adequate healthcare -- The food industry barons are making billions out of making people sick with nobody willing to stop them), and educational outcomes statistics are testament to that. The shocking thing is that the USA isn't a 3rd world country, it's the richest country in the world and its ruling elites choose to cultivate a culture like that, calling it "the free market." Is that how you want to live?
I am stupid because I dont believe that the employer paid for my medicare when it came directly out of my paycheck? Even if he wants to lay that claim, the same logic would dictate it was not the employer who paid for it but the customer of the business.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
That is funny, as it was mostly my republican friends that were upset about the shutdown as services they wanted to use were offline.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Well, that helps explain why KSB's sci fi went out of its way to have such screwed up economic models.
Which is why the libertarian dream is to derive all the benefits of living in a country where public money is invested in the future while avoiding any of the responsibility or cost themselves. Silicon valley would be NOTHING if not for public investment to build off of.
Because today's Libertarians really aren't very good Libertarians.
Bill Maher of all people, put it best : https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Selfish pricks are what now define Libertarianism.
The new libertarian is quite happy to do whatever they see fit to benefit themselves. Enlightened self interest my ass. More like pathological greed, but with their truisms trotted out whenever cornered about their lack of the "enlightened" part of that equation.
In other words, today's Libertarians are mostly just Republicans with a tiny bit of liberal around inconsequential edges.
Because today's Libertarians are perfectly happy to gut the system in pursuit of their personal wealth. That their greed ends up putting more people on the public dole, as people working for minimum wage are not capable of surviving without it, is of no consequence to them.
This country is now in the wealth extraction phase of it's existence. Where the wealth came from is of no concern to those who are gleefully gutting us.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I see the chickenhawks are as loud as they are ignorant of history.
How's that Iraq working out?
You have to admit, they have a great employment program for other people's children. Kinda dangerous though.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So instead of paying taxes to a government that can use volume to make management cheaper, and use the funds for other public goods you pay it to an insurance company, unless you really though insurance costs would not skyrocket for the new services they provide, and in the end you get less value, but the insurance company makes more money.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I just find it fascinating that left leaning people always proclaim how they are such fans of diversity and inclusion, yet revile any thoughts that might stand in opposition to their own.
This is circular logic with a touch of hypocrisy. So people that value diversity and inclusion are supposed to welcome those that oppose diversity and inclusion even when doing so will result in less diversity and inclusion? The republican party is for the most part dominated by older white men - of which Rand Paul is one. There is a reason well over 90% of blacks, 70% of hispanic and a majority of women lean to the democrats. In case you were wondering why it has a little something to do with the republican party having earned a reputation for not valuing diversity and inclusion. There is a difference between accepting the idea that others might disagree with you and acting to support those you disagree with to the detriment of your own principles and interests.
God forbid people be open minded towards new ideas, or even old ones.
So it's ok for conservatives to not be open to liberal ideas but it's not ok for liberals to be cool with conservative ideas? Nice double standard you have there.
That's an interesting alternate history you've concocted there. So robber-barons, child labor, rampant pollution, and killing workers the attempted to stand up for themselves is you idea of the best the United States ever was?
Paul had one-on-one meetings with ... Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Well now there is a truy hideous beast to consider: What do you get when you cross Rand Paul's megalomaniacal motives with a sociopath who has the means, opportunity, and willingness to perform mass psychological experiments? Let's find out!
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
well you could have less government but would mean stripping the states of a lot of powers which wont happene. Having one set of uniform tax and employment laws would save a lot of money. It makes no sense in the 21st century for the USA to have 52 sets of employment law plus federal employment laws
with fewer regulations for everyone
Ahahaha whoa there now, slow down sonny. Those regulations are there for a reason, mostly to keep people from competing against me and to make sure that nobody smokes anything I wouldn't openly admit to smoking. Let's back up to that low taxes thing.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Another idiot fucktard foreigner AC who doesn't understand how American government works.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
The problem isn't necessarily the decisions that are made. Those are just a symptom. The problem is with the method by which decisions are made.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
and when the gangsters have fixed the election what then :-) One of my Asian coworkers commented that his family had lost property to "gangsters" in India more than once.
The states can define eligibility and require five years residency etc. Just like they do for in-state tuition etc.
I would be perfectly OK with an NHS, it just needs a constitutional amendment to set up. Even when the govt tries to do the right thing they do it the wrong way.
versus "government, please steal that guy's money and give it to me"
It's known as "Gibs me dat."
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
taxes are most definitely theft. You need to stop worshipping at the altar of government.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
We Americans need to remember what war is and what it is not. It's not about winning hearts and minds, it's about fragging hearts and minds.
If we kept this in mind we would resume winning wars again ala 1945, but there are too many bleeding heart liberals who couldn't handle this brutal variety of truth. Therefore those who can't handle this sort of truth should STFU re: foreign intervention.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Things like regulatory capture happen because people don't pay enough attention to their government, not because it is too big.
Vote for guy R - he appoints his friends. Vote for guy D - he appoints his friends. Neither are mine.
Money chases power wherever it is.
That entirely contradicts your first statement.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
@DNS-and-BIND
The lilbtards are out in force today. Foreigners. Don't sweat it.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
George Bush left Obama a stable Iraq. It didn't have to go down the tubes.
He also left Obama a healthy economy and a basket of puppies!
I stole this Sig
Does this mean that Rand Paul will make "interesting posts" that Facebook thinks I want to read that end up in my newsfeed? Does this mean autoplay videos of Rand Paul will be "posted" by my "friends"?
Facebook is already making me doubt the validity of anything I see on the internet, and frankly, I don't care which game of thrones character I am, I don't care that 99% of people can't name a movie with the letter "S" in it, and I don't care that some friends want a one word response about how we met. And I really don't care that someone's cancer will be cured if they get a million "likes".
So, really, what's being added here by Rand Paul? All it's going to do is confirm that I'm fed up with facebook, and my "friends" aren't important enough for me to have to put up with it.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
To imply small government is the opposite of good governance is absurd.
That's not what he implied. He was saying that small government is not a *substitute* for good governance. In its simplest form, you won't necessarily fix your government just by making it smaller. But what he was actually saying there was more insightful than its simplest form. He was implying both that there may be some size of government necessary for good governance, and that whether the governance provided was at least somewhat independent of the size of the government.
And without a government, a rich/powerful person can bulldoze your house to the ground if they decide to.
I completely agree with this. The Republicans and Libertarians profess to be really big on 'family' and 'family values'. But they're not: their families and their families' descendants are going to suffer big-time from the policies and practices which since the beginning of the Reagan administration they have been promoting. I think it's all going to be pretty ugly. There's much already that is pretty ugly.
Didn't Tesla get a massive loan from the government to fund their development? One they paid back early?
The federal government hasn't caused any big problems for Tesla. It's State governments that are the problem. Legislators for State governments are protecting auto dealers (also known as unnecessary middlemen) to the detriment of both auto manufacturers and car buyers.
So you go back to paying taxes in order to have someone else enforce your property rights again.
Then all people have to do is convince your quasi-government to hand over your land to them, then the people you are paying come and take it. Who is going to stop them? I guess you could always hire another company to protect you from the first company you hired.
List of US federal government agencies and operations affected by the shutdown of 2013.
IRS was closed. No business could file forms or get disputes resolved. I know from personal knowledge that this delayed stuff for months.
The museums were closed. The national forest campgrounds were closed. Cities that depend on the campground visitors were hurt.
The FDA was closed. No inspections or approvals. Again, a huge business problem.
The Department of Homeland Security shut down the E-Verify system, which enables employers to check whether the people they hire are eligible to work in the United States.
The EPA suspended cleanup work at 505 Superfund sites, which are areas contaminated by hazardous chemicals.
The Small Business Administration will stop processing new loans to small businesses with the exception of loans to businesses affected by natural disasters. Existing loans will be unaffected. Programs that help mentor business owners, including businesses owned by veterans, will be shut down.
And this wasn't all of it.
The Republicans sure talk up being "Pro-Business" but they hindered business for over two weeks! Delays aren't free. Talk about shooting their own foot. But it was both feet with a cannonball.
No business owner has forgotten.
The basic tenants of good government is to balance this equation in favor of the common good.
Incorrect. Government is a necessary evil. Thus it requires hard limits on its authority.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
The idea that the largest most powerful entity to ever exist on this planet is only ever just trying to be benevolent and good, but is in danger because some people think it is too large is laughable.
I don't know if I've ever heard anyone suggest that idea. I think people have suggested that the most powerful entity to ever exist on this planet has the capacity to do good things. I think people have suggested that it should do good things, and that, since that powerful entity is to some degree democratic, we should be able to get it to do good things.
I think people have suggested that, because it's somewhat democratic and follows "the will of the people", ideologues convincing people to push that powerful entity to do dangerous and reckless things is... well... dangerous and reckless.
You might argue that, because it's such a big, powerful leviathan, it should be dismantled. I am not entirely opposed to the idea. The big question there that libertarians don't always seem to address is, where do you think that power will go? I see no reason why we should assume that it will all be distributed equitably and we'll all live happily ever after. There will be a power-grab.
We can present an argument, but I'm not sure I see the point.
The idea that libertarians would instantly reduce the government to nothing if they took power is laughable.
It depends on what you mean by "libertarians". Some libertarians are actually anarcho-capitalists who would literally like to reduce the government to nothing. Some other "libertarians" (e.g. much of the "tea party") aren't libertarians at all, but are neoconservative republicans who have found a way to make the trend of "libertarianism" server their political goals. They favor "small government" and "keeping the government out of our lives" when it comes to paying taxes, keeping guns, or being racist. But if you're an atheist, if you're gay, if you want to use drugs, or if you want to have an abortion, then suddenly the government needs to do something about that.
So we can't just talk about "libertarians". We have to be specific. Who are we talking about here?
Thank you. This is why I still come to slashdot.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
"Someone who supports conservative economic policy but liberal social policies"
When are you going to run for office? I'd vote for you despite the mycilliae. ;)
I don't know if you'd be any good at governing, but you've already demonstrated a greater grasp of current political realities than any ticket in my US state... I'd totally give you a shot.
Power concentrated in the hands of organisations such as multi-national corporations (or even less omniscient entities such as car dealership networks) is no better than being in the hands of an autocratic and abusive regime.
That's not necessarily true. For one thing, you're talking about multiple corporations that compete against each other, providing a better balancing of power than a single entity with unlimited power. Also, governments retain a monopoly on violence. So corporations might have a lot of financial power, but they can't put you in jail or kill you like governments can. They generally can't spy on you, either, unless you're using their stuff - not true with government which injects itself into the very infrastructure of all communication channels, which they license and regulate.
If the rule of law is working, maybe government is a better choice. But that is breaking down severely these days.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Ok. You completely misunderstand the idea of property rights in terms of Libertarian thought. Part of my property right is the ability to enjoy my property, which means if you decide to build a freeway next door to mine, then you have diminished my enjoyment. Hence you have the Coase idea, which actually works quite well in the real world, see Mancur Olson's Power and Propsperity, which states in a world of well defined property rights, you can work out agreements so if you want to build a noxious factory next to my house, you need to negotiate with me. In a land of government control and influence, I have no choice. To show how power works, see San Francisco where the freeway that was designed to cut through city to the GG Bridge was halted once it began to encroach on more influential neighborhoods, and how it was torn down when those neighborhoods were "rehabilitated." The poor had no choice and no voice. The fact is, Government favors the rich and strong -- who can hire lawyers, lobbyist and others to protect and even promote their interests -- and not the poor and the weak. Hence, you never hear of major drug busts on college campuses despite the common knowledge that drug use is rampant, etc.,etc. Or, again, simply think about the legal protections which most corporations enjoy. They are LEGAL protections after all.
That's why Mexico is such a safe place, you can hire a corporation to protect you from the other businesses and with such a small government the economy is doing so well that everyone can afford to hire private protection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Diversity and inclusion are tools for gathering ideas, not for determining their acceptance or rejection.
If we follow your argument to its conclusion, anyone's beliefs are valid by virtue of being diverse (or needing to be inclusive). Are you failing to "respect my diversity" if you don't believe my claim that there are ants on the moon?
(Ad hominem attacks are a logical fallacy. So is, as you're putting it, ad hominem respect.)
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
> There will always be people in power. That's why good government attempts to balance this power so that the
> result is beneficial to society as a whole.
I was really interested in Alan Moore's statement on anarchism and how everyone always claims anarchy would lead to the biggest gang being in power; but that is really the state we have now, so isn't this just a "badly evolved anarchy"?
What I mean here is, I agree, there will, most likely, always be those who hold power over others and would use their power to control the lives of others, hell, we see it every day. The main function of government is not to enable that, but to hamper it and to attempt to make it easier for them to do other things than directly mess with people who don't have power.... kind of like the way you move the plant you don't want the cat to eat to a spot he has to work extra hard to get to, thus setting him up for success rather than putting it on the floor where his nose passes by it every few hours as he walks.
The thing is, those in power will always be looking for ways to slip their collar off; you have to be willing to ask whether the current collar needs to be replaced occasionally.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
This is an unusual argument for "small government", if that's what you're arguing in favor of. You're saying government is bad because we don't have enough public infrastructure, and too much of our infrastructure is privatized?
If you just want to argue that our government has not done a very good job with our infrastructure, then I'd agree, but that's an argument for a bigger, more involved government (at least with regards to infrastructure). That stuff wouldn't have been better by the federal government being *less* involved.
keep your "benefits". I'll keep the wages I earned from my labor.
Interesting. So you will give up the infrastructure that supplies you with your daily needs? Best you get off that road, turn off that light, water, etc. and make sure you never lose your job because you will get no help whatsoever.
It's almost like there's this sort of happy medium built into the system where the Federal government represents the small government that doesn't intrude while more local governments (States and Municipalities) which offer more representation to their constituents can serve the role of the larger government.
The problem is that large corporations wield even more undemocratic power at the state level. A big company (or even just a small one that employs a lot of people locally) doesn't even have to spend much to gain influence. They just have to make noises about moving operations to another state and they can get all sorts of concessions out of state and local governments. So a lot of reforms, particular things that relate to labor or benefits, are harder to enact at a state-by-state level.
And the Republicans were perfectly happy choosing to shut down the government. It wasn't a threat. It was completely real. They shut down the government because they didn't want people to have healthcare.
That's funny, because during that time period, I got a ticket for speeding, a bill from the IRS, taxes were taken out of my pay check every week, and my neighbor's EBT card continued to work to buy groceries. The VA didn't kick my dad out of the hospital.
The country was stripped of its AAA credit rating, was one day away from a credit default,
There's a lot of misinformation here. Especially the "default" myth, when the treasury was taking in many times more money than required for debt service. But the ONE credit agency that lowered the US rating actually stated as the reason that there is too much debt and not enough political will do do anything to address it. Interesting, that was the very issue the shutdown was about. So the credit rating was lowered because the Republicans eventually capitulated, not because they "shut down" the government.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
In a "free market", people can still come and bulldoze your house. Who is going to stop them?
Free markets cannot exist in the absence of property rights. So your assertion is non-nonsensical.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Power concentrated in the hands of organisations such as multi-national corporations (or even less omniscient entities such as car dealership networks) is no better than being in the hands of an autocratic and abusive regime.
You've hit the nail on the head. Its not the entity that is the problem, concentration of power itself is the problem. Many people, including Libertarians don't seem to grasp this concept. It's not that giving power to the government is always bad or always good, its conditional on whether that concentrates power or distributes it more widely. So if you're in a situation where the Federal government is the most powerful entity in society then giving them more power is bad, but if you're in a situation where some other entity is the most powerful then giving them more power is good. Pluralism is the best guarantee of liberty.
"aspiring politicians appealing to plutocrats."
Please. When WASN'T it that way?
Oh yeah, when the politicians WERE the plutocrats. Would that be better?
(Assuming we're not sprinting to that endpoint already.)
-Styopa
There's nothing wrong with advocating big government for tasks that only a big government can accomplish, such as defense or multistate water infrastructure. The problem is that there is a mentality out there that insists on centralizing every activity, no matter what, on principle. Your dog craps on the sidewalk, and they will invoke the United Nations.
That's because 'Overrated' means "I disagree" and 'Troll' means "I really disagree."
But the philosophical core of the region and the tech industry remains fundamentally progressive.
Never underestimate the power of a god. And make no mistake about it; to many in The Valley, Zuck is a god. Even among those for whom he is not, most worship at the temple of Facebook with more dedication, trust, and fervor than the average Christian. If that temple begins to emit a message, it will have a significant distorting effect on perception, just like the church -- and traditional religion doesn't have the power of computer aided psychological operations.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
No, the government cannot come bulldoze your house on a whim. Calm down. It COULD use emminent domain, possibly... But then, the bank could decide to mess up some paperwork and forclose on your house despite your ability to pay. Frankly, both of these have happened. They're also RARE AS SHIT and cause a shit storm in the news when they DO happen.
Accidental bank foreclosures are rare. Government bulldozing whole neighborhoods - often to hand over to private developers for the sake of "economic development" - is actually quite frequent. In fact, here's a layout of a few for you.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I pay a gas tax for highways and a property tax for streets, a phone bill (that includes taxes) for phone service, and an electric bill (that includes taxes) for electric service. So why are they also taking ~40% of my paycheck?
Neat trick, to focus on 'federal income tax'.
Rich people don't earn the majority of their money as income, or salary. Poor people pay taxes in ways other than federal income tax.
So being in a facist (or libertarian) oligarchy with no accountability is better than being in a social democracy with many services provided by a government which is accountable?
Regulations are there for a purpose - for example, the FDA was created to save lives. Over regulation is stifling and encourages rent-seeking behavior, but under-regulation cause us to revert back to the previous, non-desirable state. So we need to find a balance.
As you said, the current system is breaking down, but not because of the system itself. It's because it hasn't been maintained. As citizens we should be more involved in ensuring that the system is kept in check, and that powerful interests, both private and public, is kept in the balance.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
I thought the bulk of Tesla's opposing regulation was from state governments, not Federal government.
Things like regulatory capture happen because big government is too big for anyone to pay attention to what they do unless you personally have a large financial stake in a particular action or government bureau. Who has a large financial stake in regulations? The guys being regulated. Given enough time and a big government, regulatory capture is inevitable.
I know a lot of folks who are genuinely irritated with the day to day affairs of the federal government. They aren't out to limit anyone's rights and are quite convinced that your rights will be expanded, but the potential for abuse is pretty high given history. Even worse, a more local focused rule doesn't seem to historically offer as strong a protection against powerful corporate abuse. We will live with corporate abuse but we won't stand for abuse by the state.
"You are inferior and all the improvements in your condition which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you."
-Ludwig von Mises to Ayn Rand with regards to the common folk
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
So being in a facist (or libertarian) oligarchy with no accountability is better than being in a social democracy with many services provided by a government which is accountable?
I was just responding to your false choice of two extremes - which you just doubled down on. I don't even know where you live that's a "social democracy", or even what that's supposed to be. Libertarian ideas are not fascist - that's an idea that Mussolini came up with and drives much of public policy at the federal level today (typically is renamed as something like "public/private partnership". It's entirely the opposite of what libertarians espouse.
Regulations are there for a purpose - for example, the FDA was created to save lives. Over regulation is stifling and encourages rent-seeking behavior, but under-regulation cause us to revert back to the previous, non-desirable state. So we need to find a balance.
Well today the FDA does swat-style raids on food coops and dairy farmers, bans healthy supplements unless a pharmaceutical company can come up with a patent for it (much of the FDA's budget is paid by pharmaceutical companies, BTW). So I think at this point we are WAY out of balance in the wrong direction.
As you said, the current system is breaking down, but not because of the system itself. It's because it hasn't been maintained.
The "system" requires a very strict limit on the authority of the Federal government, spelled out as "enumerated powers" in the Constitution. Those limits have been ignored, perverted, and dismissed, as has the balance of power in the branched, by partisan loyalties. I'm not sure the system can be saved.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
So small government = your dollars going to large corporations? Show me where Rand Paul is for corporate welfare of any kind. In fact, the first article I get back on a Google search of Rand Paul corporate welfare is where he's criticizing Republicans for not standing against corporate welfare. Reducing corporate welfare by definition is reducing government.
When does this happen in the movie?
We will live with corporate abuse but we won't stand for abuse by the state.
Good Lord Sir, you have spoken the truth.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
It's also paid for by an Unemployment Insurance Tax, paid by your employer, as a percentage of your income. It's not a deduction from your paycheck, it's an additional amount your employer pays to the government for your work.
So why are they also taking ~40% of my paycheck?
given the overwhelming historical association between "liber"tarian ideology and slavery
That is complete BS. The libertarian ideology and associated economic-centric thought has always been against slavery.
Indeed, the term "the dismal science" in reference to economics first occurs in Thomas Carlyle's 1849 tract entitled "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question", where he found it was "dismal" in "find[ing] the secret of this Universe in 'supply and demand,' and reducing the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone." Instead, Carlyle felt that the "idle Black man in the West Indies" should be "compelled to work as he was fit, and to do the Maker's will who had constructed him." Carlyle's view was attacked by early libertarians such as John Stuart Mill (whose "On Liberty" addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.)
But the philosophical core of the region and the tech industry remains fundamentally progressive. That's why it remains the king despite decades of conservative "small government" states desperately trying and failing to replicate it on any remotely competitive scale.
San Jose became a tech hub because of Stanford (a private university) and Moffett Field (military spending on radio and later aerospace technology). It is unclear to me that "progressive" economic policies had much to do with it. If anything, the annoying level of government control over building (i.e. artificially inflated house prices) and horrific public schools of Silicon Valley are a huge negative (I would never work there without a pay rise to afford private school for my kids, for example), not to mention the high level of taxation on high income workers for California state income tax.
There are of course other tech hubs in the country, including Austin, TX (home of Dell), where "normal" workers can afford housing. And every major company that may have been founded or has headquarters in Silicon Valley tend to have operations in other parts of the US or the world.
Except Groupon won't throw you in jail if you decide not to participate.
When does this happen in the movie?
See "Machines of Loving Grace" documentary. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki...
Wow, maybe if you had been paying attention, you would understand that the reason government is "breaking down" is because of unchecked corporate power. It is in the best interest of multinational corporations to "break down" any barriers in their way to profits at all cost, regardless of human or environmental well being.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
In most of Europe, the "economically conservative but socially liberal" parties have economic policies to he left of the Democrats
Switzerland, Ireland, Estonia, and Denmark are now ranked more "Economically Free" than the US by the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom.
For example, government spending accounts for 33.8% of the economy of Switzerland, 40% for the US.
It is not stolen, without that money it would be very much harder for you to do your labor. What with no roads,reliable electric grid, phone service.
The concept of stealing something requires a recognition that it was yours to steal in the first place. Legally it isn't - the tax dollars belonged to the government the moment they were "earned."
Even the word "earned" isn't completely appropriate. It suggests that you received your income purely on the basis of things that you provided through your own efforts. However, the fact that you are able to walk, talk, and think is in no way based on your own efforts, nor is the fact that somebody took the time to teach you how to read and write, and so on (assuming that you're even able to do those things - many can't).
I can't say that I've earned my income any more than I can say that some mentally retarded and physically disabled orphan earned their life of destitution. Thus, I have a responsibility to ensure that they are cared for, and this responsibility includes using legal means to compel others to support them as well.
You cannot get welfare if you are in that situation... But keep on thinking that.
What gets me is that chumps like AC here bitch endlessly about the pittance a person on welfare receives, yet you never hear them say word 1 about corporate welfare, which has zero benefit to taxpayers and costs hundreds of billions every year.
Straining at gnats while swallowing camels.
-- CanHasDIY, preserving mods
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
That's an interesting alternate history you've concocted there. So robber-barons, child labor, rampant pollution, and killing workers the attempted to stand up for themselves is you idea of the best the United States ever was?
What! You left out the best part: slavery!
Err, rather, the contracted sale of persons into a mutually beneficial arrangement where their owner obtains the benefit of their labor, and the worker obtains the benefit of not having to worry about feeding or clothing themselves, or having to repair the bars on their windows when they wear out.
In a country like Canada you can't just move there for six months to have your cancer fixed.
Sure you can. You just have to call yourself a refugee.
err because we believe that you actually "own" your own property and can do what ever you want with it. I'm sorry but the progressive view which is that as long as you only have a little bit of property it's pretty much yours, unless of course the gov't says it's not doesn't really work for us.
In other words we are not National Socialists..... like you.
At its heart libertarianism is just about minimizing the threat and use of force by the government to just those things which are truly essential government functions. However, Laws which protect people from the use of force by others are one of those essential government functions.
Real libertarians don't believe you can pollute your neighbors land or your neighbors air without legal consequences. A person depriving another of the use of their property (such as by polluting it) or violating their rights would be at the heart of what types of things a libertarian would want laws prohibiting or punishing. As to whether the particular circumstances of one person depriving others of their rights are best regulated by laws, regulations, criminal law or civil tort those are practical matters not about the ideals of liberty.
As for the common good, libertarians just believe that charity is better than having the government put a gun to your head telling you what to give and who to give it to.
Personally, I wouldn't want to live in a society that just cold turkey dropped public welfare and benefits, but I think moving towards a system of voluntary charity and looking for ways to keep the government out of our homes and bedrooms is much much better than a system of forced taxation to deal with individual needs.
If the charities and social groups aren't up to the task, then as a practical matter I would rather see people taken care of then not, but I would also rather elect someone who sees that as a slippery slope of government coercion and dependency than someone who doesn't see the inherent (but sometimes necessary) evil in using force to take from one person to give to another.
In terms of practical policies, I think that libertarian values are simply put that government, taxation and the use of force by the government are sometimes necessary evils to be minimized as much as practical. Versus the alternative view that just sees government, taxation and the use of force by government as necessary without acknowledging the "sometimes" or evil parts of that statement.
-- CanHasDIY, preserving mods
... or maybe not, if I forget to check the "post as AC" box...
Well scheisse.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Just because you don't agree with everything the system represents, doesn't mean that the system is broken beyond repair.
I mean, you probably disagree with your mom on many things as well. The fact is that in life, you don't always get your way. You need to live and get along with other people.
Libertarians pretend that everybody can live inside their own little bubble (they can't, society as we know it breaks down, and actors will come in an fill the power vacuum).
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Mass doesn't have a single-payer heathcare system, basic income, etc.
What is called socialism in the US is not what most people in the world would call socialism. I'll agree that it is a matter of degree, but there really is only so much you can offer when people can freely shift income/wealth outside of your taxing jurisdiction and those who have needs can freely move into it.
Not seeing how few regulations and low taxes for everyone equally on one hand, and lot's of taxes, loop holes, subsidies and regulations tilted towards favored or politically connected groups/business on the other hand is a false dichotomy.
Currently we have the second, and a great many of us would prefer the first. As far as throwning out the baby, the only false anything is equating with "few" and "low" as meaning the same as "none". Does that help any there Paul?
We can't even get an NHS passed by simple majority. You'll never see another constitutional amendment within your lifetime, unless it is for something like the Patriot Act.
You'd have as much success trying to turn the US into a parliamentary system with proportional representation.
Hey, I'm talking about good government, not a libertarian government. :D
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With regards to corruption, the rule of law and good government goes hand-in-hand.
That's also why it's sometimes important to have certain basic rights immutable - it prevents populist but abusive policies and mob rule in general.
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In a country like Canada you can't just move there for six months to have your cancer fixed.
Sure you can. You just have to call yourself a refugee.
Moving to Canada as a refugee is a far more involved process than moving to a different state in the US.
I can just pay for a hotel room in another US state, move there, and claim residence as long as I live out of that hotel. Nobody has to approve my residency, there are no border crossings, etc.
A tourist visiting Canada and staying in a hotel is generally not eligible for their nationalized health system. They expect payment/etc just like most other countries would. I don't know the details, but I wouldn't be surprised if they offer free healthcare to citizens of comparable countries that reciprocate for emergency conditions/etc, which would be fairly logical.
Libertarians pretend that everybody can live inside their own little bubble (they can't, society as we know it breaks down, and actors will come in an fill the power vacuum).
No, sorry, but you're just repeating some pop statist talking points about libertarian ideas, you don't understand them at all, and can't even pretend to have tried to find out. Society breaks down under all kinds of governments, that's clear from history. The US was actually based on libertarian ideas from John Locke, and functioned quite well until the Federal government start breaking out of it's chains.
Also, the government is not my mom, and I am not a child. It's this attitude that government is some benevolent parent that has gotten us into this mess.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Amazing to see that people are still falling for Reagan's "welfare queen" fantasy.
I can think of 2 reasons:
1) Because it's not a total fantasy
2) Because it affirms their pre-existing beliefs about people on welfare.
Regarding #1 - I know of at least 3 families on welfare. 2 of them are hard working people who, in some way or another, got shafted by circumstances beyond their control, and wouldn't be able to survive without the assistance, regardless of how hard they work. The third contains your stereotypical "welfare queen;" the one who hasn't had a job in 5 years, gets $10,000/yr in tax refunds (even though they maybe pay $3,000 in) and immediately blow it on big screen TVs and rims for the car they can't afford, and refuses to buy groceries when she's out of food stamps but continues to frequent expensive restaurants.
Granted, it's an incredibly small sample size, but the fact is that 33.3% of the families I know who are on some form of welfare abuse it. That's a significant number*.
* And yet, the amount of taxpayer money spend on welfare cheats is but a grain of sand on an endless beach compared to the amount our government "leaders" give to their buddies companies in the form of corporate welfare. Which is why I tend to ignore people who bitch about "welfare queens" without ever mentioning Shell or Pfizer.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
yet we still have a segment of the population who bitch and whine like little toddlers with shit in the diapers that taxes are too high.
Taxes could be lower (or we could spend the money on helpful things) if we stopped spending money on killing people meaninglessly.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Wow, maybe if you had been paying attention, you would understand that the reason government is "breaking down" is because of unchecked corporate power.
HA! If you knew any history, you would understand that the reason society is breaking down is because of unchecked government power. Corporations are subject to (and subjected to) swat raids just like everybody else. The only ones safe from that are the ones with ... hmmm... connections with government. Imagine that.
It is in the best interest of multinational corporations to "break down" any barriers in their way to profits at all cost, regardless of human or environmental well being.
Yes. And with unchecked government power they are 1) required to petition government for the ability to operate at all, and 2) find government can provide them with safety from competition, assistance with lowering wages, and money from the treasury. All thanks to a government with too much authority.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
They concentrate and consume a disproportionately large percentage of the resources while producing similar amounts of work as everyone else.
You do realize that productivity is measured by economic value, right? Not by energy expended? If you're so sure that others making far more than yourself are doing similar amounts of work, why not apply for their position? You can do the job, right? Why wouldn't they jump at the chance to save a bunch of money paying you 2x instead of paying the current guy 10x? For that matter, why haven't they done this already? There's no shortage of people looking for work.
Perhaps there's more to the job than you realize.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
I want to add something else. The 1% is a myth.
No, it's a misnomer.
http://www.theatlantic.com/bus...
When people complain about "the 1 percent," they're actually complaining about the 0.1 percent.
Because the reality is yea, while you might be well-off enough to qualify as "part of the 1 percent," you're still a dirt-poor worthless piece of shit in the eyes of the 0.1% who really do own/run everything.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
In a "free market", people can still come and bulldoze your house. Who is going to stop them?
In a libertarian capitalist free market you would have a few options in order of preference 1) Ask them to stop which is your freedom of speech. 2) Point a gun at them and ask them not to or shoot them if they don't stop. 2nd amendment 3) Call the police and have them sort it out if there is still time or arrest them after the fact if they did not have permission. 4) Go to court to seek damages and/or a restraining order which the police would be obligated to enforce. Or were you thinking of something else?
You need to take a break from Fox News.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Which is why we should keep government in check of its mandate (ie. accountability), but also to be powerful enough to be a useful counterbalance to all of the other powerful actors in our society.
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Aww, you should have kept reading, at least to the part where the author says, "the math works out this way," but doesn't actually show his work.
Funny how something that caused me to fail Geometry in high school is a perfectly acceptable response to requests for information in adult life, idn't it?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You just described why the existing system of lobbying (and corporate influence) is bad. The government should be a "referee" on the other powerful interests, with power that is derived from the "people".
The best way to do this is to limit the amount of money that individuals and corporations can use to influence the result of elections.
A corporate free-for-all will not lead to a better society. We had that back in the Victorian era and it sucked.
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Perhaps you should look at the regressive taxes imposed upon the Middle/Working classes. Things like sales taxes, etc; The percentage of income going to taxes for those groups is much higher than for the top 10% of income earners.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
No, (democratic) government requires constant upkeep and attention by its citizen in order to work properly. That's the idea that libertarians like you don't (and actively try not to) understand, and hence undermine.
You're so focused on promoting your own little ideology, that you forget about the big agenda. People like you is what caused the whole federal government to shut down and nearly ruined the global financial system.
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Accidental bank foreclosures are rare.
I noticed that you do not support that statement with any sort of citation. It wouldn't be because it just happens to fit your world view, and you're too lazy to actually look up some statistics, would it?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
In Belgium we have the Christian Democrats, the Liberals, the Socialists, the Nationalists (two types, even), the Greens, and those are just the major parties of the north. I count 13 parties with seats in the federal government after the most recent election, and a coalition usually includes at least two northern parties and two southern parties, but often more.
The make-up of the government can change significantly, as well. For example, the big winner in the north of the country, the nationalist NVA party, didn't exist 15 years ago and now they've got the most seats of all parties (22%). Government negotiations this year are going to be a real pain because the Nationalists and the Northern Christian Democrats are at loggerheads with the Socialists and the Southern Christian Democrats, with the Liberals of both north and south are caught in between.
If you want a laugh, look up the Belgian political crisis of 2010-11. It took the government 541 days of negotiations to form a coalition. I believe that's a modern world record.
I support such voting systems, in the hope they will bring candidates to the center.
So to me when I hear "more regulation" or "less regulation", or "big government" versus "small government" I hear two sides missing the point.
I think what we need is better government, not necessarily more or less, not necessarily bigger or smaller not necessarily more regulations or less.
Sure, In many cases I think we probably do need fewer actual pages of regulations, but ones which are more effective at accomplishing the public purpose. Tax law is a good example of law that needs simplification if just for the sheer insanity of the tax code. But you could look at environmental laws the same way. And then there are the actual numbers of regulators going around and enforcing the law, which is all part of actual executive part of "regulation".
If I had to make a generalization, it would be that we need more regulators with fewer actual lines of regulations to enforce.
I am a libertarian and an environmentalist. Here in Massachusetts, one of the more liberal environmentalist states by reputation and I've found that many many of our laws and regulations regarding the environment and wetlands specifically, boil down to the discretion of various boards and bureaucrats and the many many lines of language regarding criteria and standards are just window dressing to be cast aside by the discretion of multiple layers of obscure public officials as long as you have the money and connections to jump through all the right hoops. This has the insidious effect of favoring larger and denser developments near wetlands which is the exact opposite effect that you would want in order to protect the quality of your water and wetland habitats. Or then maybe in your community you have different officials with different standards which are actually upheld.
So yes, I do think as both a libertarian and an environmentalist we would be better served by fewer environmental regulations, but with criteria and standards that are meaningful and actually enforced in a more uniform way rather than with regulations that seem there solely to give jobs to environmental engineers and are there to reward the developers with the most connections, the most money and those that propose the biggest most potentially disruptive projects and can afford all the lawyers and "donations" to get the job done.
Saying or implying that corporations want less regulations is an oversimplification which is often not the case. It is often the case that more regulations give more power to those that had a hand in crafting them or to those companies that can afford the lawyers to use and get around those regulations. Burdensome regulations can become just another tool in the corporate tool chest which can be used as a barrier to entry to competition without accomplishing any public purpose. But it is that public purpose that we must focus our laws and regulations on.
Once you have determined a worthy public purpose, then the size or magnitude of laws, regulation and government should be a practical consideration more so than an ideological one, except to say that big enough to do the job should be the goal and anything bigger is depriving people of their property, wealth and livelihoods unnecessarily.
Taxation is not theft, you allow it to happen. You have options to avoid it.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
The government should be a "referee" on the other powerful interests, with power that is derived from the "people".
EVERY "referee" is subject to being influenced. And not by the "people", not when they claim more power than the people ever gave them. People have power in local government and in the market. That's how companies (without legal access to the use of force) are kept in check. Expecting 1 person to make decisions for 700,000 people will rarely mean those 700,000 will be treated equitably.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
And who will protect your rights from those with more power and money?
Rule of Law. It's worked before...
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I don't "bank" with any banks... I bank with a credit union, for that express reason. How about you?
There are people who refuse to pay a portion of their taxes because it goes to war funds, and they think that's murder, and is against their deeply held religious beliefs. These actual real Christians are called Quakers, and no one pays attention to them, which is a shame. I also know a guy that hates what the US government does, so he purposely doesn't make any money so he doesn't have to pay taxes. He's a neat guy..... but these are anecdotes, not the average.
People who don't want to pay taxes, who rail against government, usually take for granted all that they get from living in a civil society. You drove to work on public roads. Your kids go to public school, your electricity works, your sewer works, your water flows when you turn the tap on. You are protected by police and fire departments. The businesses around you couldn't operate without courts and uniform laws. If you want an example of small government and freedom, go see Somolia. See how well that turns out.... They're super free to do whatever the local warlord tells them to do.
The US was actually based on libertarian ideas from John Locke
No, the US CLAIMS to be based on libertarian ideas from John Locke. On PAPER it is based on them.
What it actually is for the majority of its existence is far from it.
Shafting the natives. Slavery. The mess that came about in trying to end slavery. Exploiting/discriminating against certain immigrants for cheap labor. Government picking winners and losers (i.e guys like Carnegie wouldn't have been as successful if government didn't push for railroads, which were built by aforementioned cheap immigrant labor)
"Oh, but average Joe farmer in rural America doesn't condone those things, he's just forced to pay taxes to pay for it! He might not even know about them!"
Yeah, and average Cheng farmer in communist China is the same. Doesn't mean we cannot judge China as not living up to libertarian ideals (or even communist ideals)
and functioned quite well until the Federal government start breaking out of it's chains.
That is the opposite of the truth. The US exploded economically after the Civil War. The Civil War also marked the beginning of the Federal government growing. First they started small (relatively speaking) with the Reconstruction and transcontinental railroad, but over time it grew, and didn't stop save for a few exceptions ("oh there was recession and government shrunk and things went back to normal quickly!"... yeah, back to normal as in government grows even bigger than before the recession)
Depends on from who's view.
Time to offend someone
I wonder why you would chose those two examples for this story. Rand Paul is socially conservative and economically regressive.
And at any rate, it's a bad choice for one reason: So do Americans. The Democrats gave up on any liberal economic policy back in the 80's
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Which are often backed or put in place by big traditional companies trying to keep out competition.
Table-ized A.I.
Government has a monopoly on violence? In theory. In practice....
Legally, the government does have a monopoly on violence. This is the principle of government almost everywhere in the world.
Check the history of opposition to labor rights. Lots of corporate violence there. Corporate behavior overseas has a long and (undertold) storied history of hired thugs, violence and the threat of it all over this planet.
Unions have a history of violence as well. Never heard of the Haymarket Square Massacre of 1886? The Colorado labor war of 1903 and 1904? Most of the claims of employer violence against strikers were actually local police and militia called in. Today, violence by labor unions is cannot be prosecuted by our government, in spite of all the violence perpetrated by labor unions these days. How is that an improvement?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
A tourist visiting Canada and staying in a hotel is generally not eligible for their nationalized health system. They expect payment/etc just like most other countries would. I don't know the details, but I wouldn't be surprised if they offer free healthcare to citizens of comparable countries that reciprocate for emergency conditions/etc, which would be fairly logical.
I doubt it. I think you're expected to carry travel insurance. I know as a Canadian I don't get covered out of the country by provincial health care.
And people here routinely get screwed by discount travel insurers that refuse to pay up when they get sick in the US. My extended medical insurance, provided by my employer, includes decent travel medical, though.
So if I get modded as a troll, it means I'm really being effective in disseminating a valuable opinion.
All of politics is about a struggle to be the exploiter instead of the exploitee. Libertarians are not immune from this.
I think this here sums up libertarianism nicely, as well as how anyone who isn't a true believer can expect to be treated should they ever win. Most might not be so blunt about it, but it's the idea behind all the sweet words about liberty.
[...]
And it's interesting to note that this is pretty much exactly what Nazis themselves, or hard-line communists, or really any totalitarians spouted.
You're doing the exact same thing.
I doubt it. I think you're expected to carry travel insurance. I know as a Canadian I don't get covered out of the country by provincial health care.
I was thinking more of a Canadian travelling to the UK being covered by the UK NHS, and a UK citizen travelling to Canada being covered by Health Canada.
As I said, I have no idea if this is the case, but it would make sense for me for countries with similar levels of coverage to arrange for reciprocal benefits like this as it just makes things easier on everybody without really incurring any net costs.
"Silicon Valley" is the wrong term. Usually when media says this they are really talking about an extreme out of touch minority: the CEOs and other executives of rich companies in Silicon Valley. This has no relationship at all to the actual workers in Silicon Valley. Yes, there are some naive and deluded tech workers who believe they will be amazingly wealthy some day (the American pipe cdream), but many more of them are realistic and just want their salary. Plus the many many more people in Silicon Valley who are the low tech workers, the peripheral workers, the support workers, the janitors and gardeners, the unemployed, and so forth.
The media needs to stop talking about Silicon Valley when they don't know what the area is even like.
Rich people don't earn the majority of their money as income
Profits from any companies they own are counted as income, capital gains are taxed as income once the stock is sold. How exactly are the rich earning money without it being taxed?
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
That's funny, because during that time period, I got a ticket for speeding, a bill from the IRS, taxes were taken out of my pay check every week, and my neighbor's EBT card continued to work to buy groceries. The VA didn't kick my dad out of the hospital.
Well, let's see... Speeding ticket -- a service provided by the state, county, or city you were busted in IRS bill -- well, we've privatized the Post Office and generating a bill doesn't require people (or it was mailed before the shutdown). Payroll taxes -- taken out by a private payroll provider, usually, and sent to the gubmint EBT -- administered by the state, usually through the counties As for the VA -- they are funded in advance a bit and the shutdown didn't last long enough for them to run out of money.
Businesses like to pick whatever political leaning manages to get government to stop looking at the evil being done. Want to continue dumping sludge into the local river, then fund for the small-government guys. Want to continue pumping oil from under your neighbor's land, then fund for the pro-energy anti-green party. Want to cut your salary overhead, then fund for the anti-union party and the no-minimum-wage party.
The real political magic trick that's been going on has been to convince so many voters to act against their own best interests. Thus those with a social conservative agenda are duped into supporting big business and destructive business, duped into rejecting health care reform. We should really be having 12 different political parties here but since we're stuck with effectively only two because of winner-takes-all, we end up with unnatural political alliances.
I wish we had some new ideas floating around. Just the same old ones is all I hear.
Give him.a break, he is still new to online rantings about this crap. I mean he got quite a few things completely wrong in concept and fact.
First, he cannot be talking about Reagan as he was elected in 1980 not 81. I know you just assumed because he took office like all presidents- the first month of the yesr following the election, but you actually encourage idiocy when you fill in the blanks for them.
For some reason, he thinks no one registers for the draft any more. Despite the fact we have a volunter military, the draft is still there and males still have to register when they turn 18. Perhaps calling it the selective service threw him off?
And while he talks about taxes like its his money or something, he either doesn't know about all the loopholes you could have to escape those taxes. Yes, that guy elected in 1980 stopped a doctor from buying a luxury boat, taking his receptionist out on it and banging her a few times, calling it a business expene and writing it off his 70 and 90% taxes.
But since he talked in platitudes, its hard to pin down specifics. But here is one that seems to challenge his premis. More people habe bettered their lives since Reagan was president than at any other time since 1933.
Yeah I don't believe that's the case. The provinces have agreements, but I don't think there's any country-level reciprocity.
It always amazes me when a discussion about the size of government turns into whining about the sales tax and crap impacting the poorer the hardest from the same people who want bigger government.
Logic would suggest that if we didn't have to pay for lots of government, we wouldn't need to tax some much. But alas, it gets lost i guess. Especially when small verses big government is typically focused on the federal government and sales tax as well as most other regressive taxes come from state and local governments.
I take it you are unfamiliar with the history of coal miner unions? Corporations have used PLENTY of violence. You may want to look up The Battle of Blair Mountain. It got so out of hand the frigging ARMY had to go settle it down. Sample of what went on: Mining families lived under the terror of Baldwin-Felts detective agents who were professional strikebreakers under the hire of coal operators. During that dispute, agents drove a heavily armored train through a tent colony at night, opening fire on women, men, and children with a machine gun.[9] They would repeat this type of tactic during the Ludlow Massacre in Colorado the next year, with even more disastrous results.[10]
why does it seem that non libertarians claim to know what we stand for, when the truth is everytime i see someone make a claim that " libertarians are xxx" it always is flat wrong? no libertarian i know of thinks they can live in their own little bubble. what you said is the same as saying that the democrats want to force abortions on everyone or the republicans want grandma to eat dogfood, its either a lie or ignorance.
so, are you a liar, or just ignorant??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
We'll do some math to help you understand how wrong you are. I'll even include sales and property tax even though those are state so they vary.
,and 3k in sales tax, for a rate of 18.8%.
... and probably at a higher rate since taxes don't go down. The dividend and capital gains taxes are lower 10-15% for the 100k guy. Capital gains are only paid when the stock is sold and the rate is much higher is the stock was purchased within the year. Stock awards are taxed like ordinary income. I fail to see how the middle class will be paying a higher rate.
Lets first look a single person making 20k a year they pay no federal income tax, $1240 in FICA that's 6.2% in taxes they have paid. Now lets look at sales tax items, lets say they pay 10% sales tax on everything else that's $1876 for a total tax rate of 15.5%. This is not a true rate as this person would qualify for tax credits and assistance which are not accounted for.
Now lets look at someone making 40k they pay $4k in federal $2480 in FICA , $3k in property tax we'll assume they don't have a mortgage to deduct
Now lets look at someone making 100k they pay 18k federal 6k FICA, their property taxes will be around 8k and lets pretend that is all the taxes they payed that's still 32%. Even if this person defers the taxes by investing the money they still will pay taxes on it when it's moved out of their IRA, 401k,
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
to be fair, there is a lot of important information missing there
The shutdown was over the delay of some portions of obamacare due to the website not being ready. obama and the democrats would not budge, instead "allowed the republicans" to shut down the government. They then proceeded to gate off open air monuments, and close down privately ran restaurants that get no funding federally and instead bring in money for the feds, to make it hurt the little guys as much as possible
after all this, the very reason the government shutdown, blamed on the republicans, were instituted as soon as "the democrats reopened the federal government"
Im sure I left out some information but let us remember the government shutdown was not something the republicans wanted, and the hardships put on the WW2 vets was done by the administration
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I just posted this above and I hate to copy and paste the same comment 2 times in a thread, but i really need to correct you here.
The shutdown was over the delay of some portions of obamacare due to the website not being ready. obama and the democrats would not budge, instead "allowed the republicans" to shut down the government. They then proceeded to gate off open air monuments, and close down privately ran restaurants that get no funding federally and instead bring in money for the feds, to make it hurt the little guys as much as possible
after all this, the very reason the government shutdown, blamed on the republicans, were instituted as soon as "the democrats reopened the federal government"
Im sure I left out some information but let us remember the government shutdown was not something the republicans wanted, and the hardships put on the WW2 vets was done by the administration
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Haymarket Square as an example of union violence?
When it was at a rally started to protest the police murder of labor workers and the next governor pardoned the remaining defendants due to the suspect nature of the trial?
Not to mention how questions as to whether the bomb was from anarchists or a plant by the Pinkerton's or other provacteur.
If you want to learn anything from Haymarket, it should be how malicious antiunion sentiment can be. Four people who were known not to have been the bomber were executed. Even with the prosecution admitting to it. Really, of those on trial, only Spies and Fielden were present, but known not to have thrown it. So what was their crime? Or were they martyrs?
Maybe we should learn about scapegoats and demonization from Haymarket Square.
How is something that is pure unsupported drivel considered "insightful" ... oh right, because it fits with a certain mentality of (R) bad, (D) good and any (R) is evil rich white man wanting to oppress the brown and black people.
The biggest fallacy is that people want it harder for "minorities and poor to vote, to hold jobs", which is pure bullshit race baiting crap. Take a look at the places that have (D) leadership, and then look at the poor souls who live there and tell me the (D) people have done ANYTHING for the poor colored people, besides keep them poor and segregated.
The world was once rich with opportunity, not it is stuck in quagmire of equity of outcome, in which the poor colored people are trapped in poor segregated neighborhoods. Now, you can blame this on rich white men, but Oprah and Obama clearly show that most Americans really don't give a shit about your "color". They give a shit about your actions and appearance. If you want to dress like a prison whore with your pants down around your knees, by all means do so. But don't blame white people for not accepting idiocy in the name of "Ghetto Culture".
As a Libertarian, I oppose all welfare, except those that CANNOT (not will not) support themselves. If you're healthy, you should be working, and if you can't find a job, make one (deregulation required). But like everything else, taxes, fees and regulation do help but actually hurt the poor and middle classes. That $100 business license your city requires, only keeps the poor people from starting a business, legally. Rich don't care.
And as for the outright LIE of 'no access to birth control", that is pure LIBERALISM in a nutshell. Nobody is saying women can't have birth control. Not even the Supreme Court. And nobody is saying you can't take four of the twenty HHS Required Birth Control pills either. What they are saying is pay for them yourself. And if you're a strong, liberated woman, shouldn't you be able to afford the cost of your liberation?
No, sir, a vote for people like you is a vote for stupidity. Because you take liberal talking points that have already been proven false, and continue to spew them forth. And typical of liberal idiots, are commenting as AC. Chickenshit
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Not only will I take lower taxes, but the GP somehow made the leap that even if the government brings in less revenue, that's a bad thing and a corporate giveaway. I agree Rand is in the GOP and not a libertarian, but let's be honest and say if the government brought in less tax revenue and spent less (hopefully by even more than the decrease in income to bring us to parity) we'd probably all be better off.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
I give this post a hearty libertarian "HARUMPH!"
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
I wish I had mod points .... TROLL.
This kind of shit it just pathetic. But it works in Liberal crowds. People like you can't actually point to anything specific, so you toss out huge nasty sounding challenges, that have no basis in fact.
Take a look at Chicago, DC and NO, and tell me, what good has (D) policies done for the Minority Communities there?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
THANK and YOU!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Um, that's why we have the rule of law to protect fundamental rights and a democratic process to ensure accountability.
There's several reasons why we have elections in our representative democracy. To elect a dictator is not one of them. The problem is that this system has been thoroughly polarised and distorted due to the amount of money that has been thrown at this process.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
The problem is that this system has been thoroughly polarised and distorted due to the amount of money that has been thrown at this process.
No, not really. I know that's the prevalent leftists meme, but it really doesn't wash, and a Constitutional amendment to change free speech, and license journalists, and all the other statist ideas are just a way to protect incumbents and provide them more power to shut people up. Already the rules are quite onerous - I know, I tried doing the accounting for a VERY small disconnected political committee. It's a full-time job just to keep up with the reporting requirements, and it's often used as a tool to crush [real] grassroots opposition, because almost nobody can follow the rules to the letter, and the organization treasurer is personally and criminally liable for failing to deliver reports on time.
The 2-party duopoly is certainly an issue, as Washington warned about. It breaks the balance of power of the executive / legislative / judiciary, because they end up with more loyalty to party than to their branch. But the real issue is the break-down of the Republic, which is designed to vest the greatest authority in the people, then the local government, then state, then Federal which is supposed to have supremacy, but only in very limited, specific powers. State governments are much more responsive to their constituents, and local governments even more so. Unfortunately, the Feds are now exerting police powers (which they were never supposed to have at all), the bureaucracies are heavily armed (from the FBI to the USDA even down to the Department of Education), and the centralization of power is out of control.
Rule of law? Who at the Federal level does anything but laugh at such an idea - it's gone.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
The "People's Republic of Austin" as it is derisively called here is the most "progressive" city in Texas
Yeah, the state income tax rate in Texas is 0.0%. Oh my, quite progressive.
In Silicon Valley, for earnings between $49,774.00 and $254,250, you'll pay 9.3% income tax, and highest earners pay 12.3%.
You can carry an unregistered, concealed firearm in Austin. You can't in San Jose, and you'll need to register your handgun there as well (so it can be confiscated later :)
George Bush left Obama a stable Iraq. It didn't have to go down the tubes.
Actually, he invaded a stable Iraq (admittedly run by a ruthless dictator). He left Obama an occupied Iraq with 157,000 US troops in it.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
Not because they "capitulated," but because it was obvious that they'd play stupid games like that without actually making useful moves towards controlling the debt. Make no mistake, the GOP didn't cause the shutdown because they were concerned about the debt. They were annoyed that they didn't get their way to the exclusion of all others.
We Americans need to remember what war is and what it is not. It's not about winning hearts and minds, it's about fragging hearts and minds. If we kept this in mind we would resume winning wars again ala 1945, but there are too many bleeding heart liberals who couldn't handle this brutal variety of truth. Therefore those who can't handle this sort of truth should STFU re: foreign intervention.
Maybe a better lesson would be not to invade countries that pose no serious threat to the US and not to believe the fantasy that if you destroy a country's infrastructure that a thankful democracy will emerge from a sea of sectarian hatred.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
Not because they "capitulated," but because it was obvious that they'd play stupid games like that without actually making useful moves towards controlling the debt. Make no mistake, the GOP didn't cause the shutdown because they were concerned about the debt. They were annoyed that they didn't get their way to the exclusion of all others.
Close enough. Neither party is serious about their "stance" - it's all marketing.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
How about "if the cops aren't working, lets reform them instead of getting rid of them." Yes, our government is out of control. liberal and conservative both agree on this. Conservatives just seem to have this idea that pruning it down will magically solve all the corruption and chicanery going on. It won't. Us liberals want to make government work for US again. What's so wrong with that idea, at it's heart?
You should listen to what liberals actually say instead of what the right tells you they say.
I'd also listen to conservatives more if they actually went out and protested the bank bailouts... they griped, but never seemed to actually manage to try to do anything about it. Oh, but social safety nets? Those have to be cut right away, lets protest!
I'm surprised to see all of the anti-libertarian sentiment in the comments above. I haven't seen this much anger at straw-man libertarian views outside of Salon. At least based on people's comments about libertarians, you'd think that libertarianism were some unified Kochtopus front ready to take away everything they hold dear, rather than a fairly divided set of political views and philosophies that share a few bits of common ground. I guess the angry folks don't read the same people I do.
How does "I mind my business and you mind yours" is so incompatible with things such as democracy or the freedom of speech or liberty? Well it does interfere with people calling for the harm and slavery of others, under the pretence of social justice and fairness, which is why you resorted to name calling instead of a logical argument for a response. If the shoe fits........
I see one of the super useless, partisan hack mods got their panties in a bunch.... again. It's a pity the worthless fucking conservatives out there have to be deceitful lying bitches to keep people stupid and on their side.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
The idea that small government is a substitute for good governance is a koch dream. Small government means less oversight.
That's exactly where your are wrong! Small government means it only does what it has been given explicit permission for by the constitution. That means getting out of education, finance (yes, that includes the illegal federal reserve), canning the war or drugs and terror and a whole lot more.
Paul's appeal doesn't surprise me. There has always been an undercurrent of sentiments that embraced Randian ideas, and from the beginning. At the same time as there has been an idealistic and liberal thread. There is a sense that the political spectrum is a circle and that the right and left merge at the point furthest from the pragmatic center of American Politics. There is also the sense that techies are simplistic thinkers about complex social issues, and like many engineers, have a tendency to go half cocked. So myths about individualism and the rights of entrapaneurs get embraced before one has done the thinking through to consequences and side effects, like the half baked idea of that Silicon Valley business man to break California into six states including one named Silicon Valley. Maybe he is like Emperor Norton and wants to become the monarch of Silicon Valley. Some of these guys seem shady at the outset so possibly a tendency to be doing hard time they end up being Silly Cons.
I think Silicon Valley has seen brighter days. The reality of the effects of technology not driven by greater wisdom than some half-baked business plan is about to catch up with it, and the Bright Boys will be asked to pay up-front to deal with the anticipated risk of doing business in these parts. Good, maybe they should take their schemes to Texas and let the people there who put the like of Paul and Cruz and Perry pay the consequences. Maybe all the better if it turns out that Texas and California are in different nations, too.
Sorry, but libertarians don't confuse government with society. Progressive Statists tend to rabidly cling to the idea that society cannot function without a certain level of 'accountable'(meaning accountable to their particular 'right thinking' statist agendas) regulatory beuraucracy. Same goes for 'Conservative' Statists like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, they just reserve their authoritarian zeal for Guns more than Butter.
Libertarians are fine with organic bottom up, non-authoritarian rulemaking. For instance, in my libertarian idea of society, a progressive person or group of them could voluntarily arrange for a complete socialistic health care polity provided they all continue to voluntarily agree to do so. If it worked well, and attracted people outside of the progressive ideologues who want that sort of thing they might even be popular in providing that service to others. My only problem is the reasoning (oh so Bush-Like) that you're either with us or against us. You also ignore that your heroes like Soros and others, tend to reveal their intentions to slowly chip away at the republican constitutional government and put in place a perhaps well intentioned (if you're a moron in terms of intentions), authoritarian police state.
IF it was anything other than a bunch of rat-bastard banking elites who currently control the farce you call todays global financial system and currently benefit from the collapse by driving up inflation (real inflation) you might be taken seriously. But you're just a lover of the status-quo. And a consumer of state propaganda. Bush and Obama are both toady financial system figureheads. Your heroic Progressive and Status-Quo congress critters are freely allowed to legislate their immunity to the insider trading laws everyone else (not in a protected class) has to follow.
If a system continues to do the morally wrong thing more often than not the system is broken and voting for either side isn't always the best option. Libertarian Republicans to me Justin Amash, Rand Paul etc. and to some extent Democrats like Kucinich represent the respective wings of the 'two party duopoly' that are pro-reform. Smaller is better in terms of the idea of a lean design with strictly limited functionality... None is actually the best but that would require lots of responsibility that has atrophied in the society that government invariably parasitizes. Keep government to the level of beneficial bacteria, and not the cancerous tumor that it has become is the general idea...
It's the echo chamber of messiah love having elected their progressive leader, they conveniently ignore how much more of a tyrant that the already-tyrannical executive he replaced... the poor, played dupes.
They also got fined 1 Billion dollars in a politically motivated selective prosecution afterward. That'll show them.
Actually, your point was addressed multiple times. A barebones government would be more influenced by vested interests, not less.
We don't need big government nor small government. We need smart government and we need to put in the right regulations to ensure that power is distributed and kept in check for the common good.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Behold... the archangel of mendacity. The tenor of the trivial. The narrator of narcissism. Who speaks with the same twisted tongue as the evil doers he accuses. Behold... and get on thy knees in praise and pray his wisdom pours upon us in abundance. AMEN
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
It's people like you who enable that mayhem.
You have that exactly backwards. You're the one who supports government, and I'm the one who opposes it.
Logic apparently wasn't taught in the government schools you attended.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Human nature dictates that those with power will always try to exploit the weak.
Yes, and when they do so, we call that government.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Why should I abandon my home instead of resisting the protection racket in the neighborhood?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
No, we call them the rich and powerful. They are usually in positions powerful positions in the private sector that influence government through money.
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I cite every hellhole third world country in the world as my reference, where this is exactly what happens, with few exceptions
You're citing examples of corrupt governments as reasons why we need to have corrupt governments.
You have an extremely poor understanding of how power works.
See above.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
unless you really though insurance costs would not skyrocket for the new services they provide
Competition lowers costs, not monopolies.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)