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Apartment In US Asks Tenants To 'Like' Facebook Page Or Face Action (business-standard.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Business Standard: An apartment building in Salt Lake City has told tenants living in the complex to "like" its Facebook page or they will be in breach of their lease. Tenants of the City Park Apartments said they found a "Facebook addendum" taped to their doors last weekend, asking them to "like" the City Park Apartments Facebook page. The contract says that if tenants do not specifically "friend" City Park Apartments on Facebook within five days, they will be found in breach of the rental agreement. In addition, the contract includes a release allowing the business to post pictures of tenants and their visitors on the Facebook page. Currently, the apartment building has a 1.1 star rating on its Facebook page.
IIRC, that's a violation of Facebook's Terms of Service. Please report it to Facebook, and if enough people corroborate the report, the business in question won't have a page anymore.
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Like us on facebook... Or ELSE, you bastards!
You know, you didn't even have to read the article. You only had to make it to the second sentence of the summary to learn the name. In fact, it's mentioned three times in the summary alone.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
https://www.ksl.com/?sid=39954...
Article references original source...
-- "Oh. This guy again."
A rather twisted way to take the page offline for good, but it worked...
So what's the name of the Apartment Complex?
So, you know. We can report this to FB. And publicly shame them. And all that.
It is Shitty Park Apartments
Believe it or not there are some people in the world that don't actually have Facebook accounts.
There are now several kinds of "like." I would use the Hilarious icon.
Reminds me of the ol' prank memo: "The beatings will continue until morale improves!"
Table-ized A.I.
This has been retracted by the apartment company.
https://www.facebook.com/mande...
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
It's not his fault that "City Park Apartments" has such a generic name and wesn't set off with quotation marks as one resource I looked at mentioned things that do not normally stand by themselves should.
If the Apartments in question tied somebody's job and/or bonus to the number of likes. Having worked my share of crappy customer service positions where I was given unreasonable performance metrics you'd be surprised some of the... creative ways folks will come up with when they get desperate to meet them. After 40 years of stagnate wages and 6% rent inflation a "bonus" is practically part of your salary...
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This would be a highly effective way for a pissed-off tenant to make their landlord look very, very bad...
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This is basically changing the terms of a rental tenancy agreement while the lease is still in effect, and will not be met without penalty for the landlord.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Some places have "rent control", which is limits how much your rent can be raised per year.
If you are not seen as profitable by the owner, then they have an incentive to jerk you around so that you leave and get replaced by a profitable tenant.
If you are a good tenant and not under rent control, normally the owner has an incentive to keep you because your replacement could be a jerk/flake without paying them more than you did.
Houses have their own downside: you pay for anything that breaks, you have to arrange for repairs, you have take care of landscaping, broken fences, electrical glitches, etc. And the bigger the house, the more that can break or rot or be eaten by termites. And they are more likely to be robbed.
Table-ized A.I.
"Join us... or die."
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Here's a cache if anyone is interested. The official page is gone now, no telling if they pulled it or FB did. Gawker has more info, including part of the new clause that says “to not post on any public forum or page negative comments relating to the community.” While it may not be strictly illegal, it would be found discriminatory against those who don't have a Facebook account, internet access, etc. The quoted lawyer mentions this; it might violate other laws too; but it would be trivial to show in court that this is discriminatory against the elderly etc who don't use computers, have a Facebook account, etc. It's not technically a "free speech" issue, since it's not a Government agency forcing this..and at this time the only "free speech" restrictions are the Government, a private corp can do whatever it wants inside it's contractual agreements. Utah, and Salt Lake, might have additional "tenet laws" that might restrict them.
However, IANAL
City Park Apartments The old address was at 764 N 900 W, this one is at 780 N 900 W. But it's been around for quite some time. However, the "missing one" was marked "unofficial" so perhaps this is the "official" page.
class action lawsuit to me, a lawyer ought to be able to rip that apartment manager & owner a new one
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
http://img.ksl.com/slc/2591/259185/25918548.jpg
Note that clause 5 is an indemnification clause. (If you don't know that that means, learn)
Never, ever buy a rent controlled apartment. Unless you have insider information that the renter is terminal.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It has exactly one month protection for both tenant and landlord. If that's not enough for you, sign a longer lease...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
...in addition to FB's new Like button options, can they add a "Like through clenched teeth" button? When people click on it, they should simply appear as regular "Likes" to the FB account holder (or anyone with the same IP address) but as "Like through clenched teeth" to everyone else. How about it? Can we petition Mark Zuckerberg to implement it?
Dickheads like the property owner need to pay, one way or another.
Guaranteed none of this asshole/company's tennants are too poor to hire attorneys. Elsewise this prick would be in court, mere hours from losing his property in a settlement.
I don't even HAVE a fucking facebook account. Please be so stupid, someone, to deny someone with a disability a lease based on that. I could stand to own a bunch of apartments.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
s/none/all/
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Sort of like illegal drug dealing, prostitution and assassination? Granted they exist because they provide a service people are willing to pay for. However, they're limited in number and difficult to do due to the nature of governmental opposition.
Many potentially profitable businesses don't exist because society doesn't give permission for them. It sure seems like they do need "society's permission" since laws are created by society to prevent actions and businesses the society doesn't approve of. Many times, this is actually a good thing.
Consider net neutrality. Most posters here seem to be in favor legislation forcing companies to act against their own profit interests in favor of something benefiting the greater good of the society that creates the rules.
This coming from an avowed libertarian.
Just out of curiosity, what service do, say, patent trolls provide?
It's the society which runs the real estate registry which allows this landlord to have any land to lord over, the monetary system which makes it possible for them to be paid, the law enforcement system which lets them keep breathing despite their actions, etc. You not only need society's permission but its active support to run any kind of business without having to have your own personal army of thugs.
Dunno about him, but I much prefer a strong state, over which I have democratic control in the form of my vote, to plutocratic jungle where my landlord/employer/whatever does shit like this. But perhaps you fancy being one of the overlords.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Oh, I'm sure this will work out splendidly for City Park Apartments. What could possibly go wrong?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
You forgot the business license... from the state.
The property taxes.
The various fire codes, electrical codes, water and sewer hookups, etc etc The permits form the housing authority
Ayn Rand much? Because no, you can *not* just do whatever the fuck you feel like. Businesses are a *legal* construct, deal with it. Society has no obligation to recognize you and your shit.
C|N>K
>Just out of curiosity, what service do, say, patent trolls provide?
Target practice? :)
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Obviously, the landlord is an idiot, and your best choice is not to rent there.
"I really like City Park Apartments. The amenities are nice and the neighbors very accommodating.
- Signed Mr Cockroach, using Anon's Facebook account while he's asleep."
Have gnu, will travel.
Beware of sentient buildings!
Yes, you do Statist entirely too much.
A businesses can exist without a government to issue permits, inspect premises, and ensure compliance (with whatever). Not the other way around. Suck it up, cupcake.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The government's role is to protect me from violence and help me enforce fair contracts. It must not be allowed to dictate, what services can be offered, by whom, at what price, etc. That it increasingly does so, is an obvious violation of our liberties.
Yep, Statists gonna State...
Yeah? And how is it working out for you? When a business needs government's permission to offer you their service? Do you have "democratic control" over Internet-service provision, for example? Are you happy with the government's ability to shut down Uber and Lyft? With the government, that can demand your cell-phone data from your cellular provider — and get it, or else the provider may run into difficulties renewing its license? With the police, who can confiscate your life savings on suspicion of tax-dodging, or simply because you have "too much" cash on you?
Is this the "strong state" you clamor for? Yeah, I know, let's all go raise awareness — that will surely help our strong, but benevolent and kind-hearted rulers realize the errors, nay, imperfections of their ways.
The freedom to pursue happiness is oh-so overrated...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Rent control = artificially deflating the value of a property by government at the cost of the business owner
Rent control didn't stop three corporations in as many years to buy the apartment complex I lived in for over a decade, repaint the exterior walls in a different color scheme and redo the landscaping, and charge "luxury" rental rates. The third corporation is actually renovating the apartments to justify the "luxury" rental rates. Rent control in San Jose prevents them for raising the rent more than 8% each year, so no doubling or tripling of the rents during a hot real estate market. For three years after the Great Recession, there was no rent increases at all.
Actually, businesses do need society's permission. Hell, it's built right into our federal and state constitutions here in the US. The mechanism is called a business license, and those are issued in order to both tax and regulate businesses, making sure workers and customers are safe. I'd agree that government regulations occasionally go too far, but on the other hand, landlords like this are *exactly* why such regulations tend to get put into place in the first place.
The landlord/tenant relationship especially is one that demands respect on both sides, or else it goes to hell pretty quickly. I can't see how this could be viewed as anything but a dick move, especially when it could have been so easily handled much better. How about they give their tenants $20 off their next month's rent if they give a like on Facebook instead of threatening them with fines or eviction (which is what breach of contract essentially boils down to)? I'll bet a bunch of people would have happily done just that.
I'm a far from a "statist" as you'll find, but arguing that the society (aka the government) can't regulate commerce is just silly.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
It's a trade-off: lower potential rent but more hassles from the owner/manager. If you are retired or unemployed, you may figure you have time to haggle with and nag them.
Table-ized A.I.
Society is under no obligation to grant incorporation or any other form of limited liability. Even though it is apparently never enforced, incorporation requires that the incorporation be in the public interest. Anti-social behavior is the opposite.
Rent control didn't stop three corporations in as many years to buy the apartment complex I lived in for over a decade, repaint the exterior walls in a different color scheme and redo the landscaping, and charge "luxury" rental rates. The third corporation is actually renovating the apartments to justify the "luxury" rental rates. Rent control in San Jose prevents them for raising the rent more than 8% each year, so no doubling or tripling of the rents during a hot real estate market. For three years after the Great Recession, there was no rent increases at all.
San Jose's only applies to apartments built before 1978 IIRC (I think there is a separate one for mobile home parks). That accounts for only 33% of the apartment rental stock according to a recent study commissioned by the city.
You will respecct mah libertah!
I'm referring to the commerce clause:
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3:[3]
[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
This covers various types of commerce, clearly setting a precedent that the the government is granted the power to regulate commerce.
The tenth amendment then goes on:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
This indicates that beyond a few specific powers granted to the federal government, the majority of powers then fall to the state or the people. You'll have to examine your own state's constitution, but a quick look at my own state shows a few articles related to commerce, which I believe establishes a pretty convincing precedence.
It seems pretty clear to me that regulating commerce is one of the functions the founders had in mind for government, with the bulk of it being managed by individual states, which in fact it is. I'm not sure why this should be such a shocker to anyone.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Society (aka "the market"), not government, controls what businesses can exist.
If a business is messed up enough, people will eventually vote with their feet.
Five minutes attention span? Next you're going to tell me you expected Obama to make a difference, and that Hilary can...
It's a general point of the rule of contract, there must be offer, acceptance, and consideration. Without all three its just a promise, and we all know what they're worth
And by "flower pot" I mean your new sports car.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> BS. A business exists, because it provides service, that people are willing to pay for. It does not need "society's permission".
Say that next time you want to open a casino outside of Las Vegas or an escort service.
> It must not be allowed to dictate, what services can be offered, by whom, at what price, etc
Hey, do you want to buy some mariuana, xtc or coke? The government should bust me only when I sell fake drugs, not when I honor the contract by selling exectly what you want.
I'm not a US citizen, so the law relating to tenancy is likely quite different from the State in this story, but perhaps the principles are similar.
It seems highly unlikely (conceded, we don't know all the relevant facts in this case) the the landlord would have written their own tenancy agreement without some form of legal support. For one thing, the landlord would have wanted/needed to ensure that they had adequate protections in case a tenant turns out to be a criminal (say drug dealer), or causes damage to the property - that sort of thing. So let's give the landlord the benefit of the doubt and assume they consulted a lawyer on that tenancy agreement...
If that lawyer was worth their salt then they would have told the landlord that they would need to be consulted before making changes to the agreement, that it was not possible to make unilateral changes to the agreement and impose them on existing tenants without the agreement of those tenants. So whilst, in this case, the landlord is rightly being castigated for an ill-thought-out idea, it's possible the trouble runs even deeper.
Then again, as a friend of mine quips in the face of stories like this: "Always bet on stupidity - the odds will be in your favour."
Every time I read one of those "must not make bad comments about us" demands I have to think of that old joke from Stalinist times where a person was sent "away" and knew that his letters would be censored, so he told his wife that he'd write everything that's true in blue ink, everything that wasn't in red. And when the first letter came it read, all in blue:
"Dear Natasha, everything is great here. Good food, easy work, nice people and we are all in great health. It is so great here that I can honestly say, my biggest problem here is actually just that we have no red ink."
The joke's pretty well known around here, to the point where the saying "only problem: No red ink" has become the "coded message" for when you can't talk as you wish. We need something like that for cases like this.
And yes, it's kinda sickening that we have to learn tactics from Stalinist times to communicate today...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Never, ever buy a rent controlled apartment. Unless you have insider information that the renter is terminal.
If you buy something why would you also rent it?
Wanna buy a shirt?
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You aren't okay with this but you are okay living on stolen property. How come your head doesn't hurt from so much cognitive dissonance?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
BS. A business exists, because it provides service, that people are willing to pay for. It does not need "society's permission".
Statist much?
The administrative structures and limited liability protection, not to mention corporate personhood are all granted by the state. Without them it's not so much a business as people doing business. You appear to have statism so deeply and heavily ingrained into your thinking that you've confused state granted rights with natural ones and yet you point the finger and cry "statist" as if it is an insult when someone appears to have a mildly different flavour of it from you.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Wong wefwence, you Japanese dog.
>Dunno about him, but I much prefer a strong state, over which I have democratic control in the form of my vote, to plutocratic jungle where my landlord/employer/whatever does shit like this. But perhaps you fancy being one of the overlords.
We used to have that system. It was called feudalism. It's what libertarianism (or indeed any other brand of unregulated capitalism) must inevitably devolve into. We got rid of that system for very, very good reasons.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
>If a business is messed up enough, people will eventually vote with their feet.
Maybe this theory actually could work in practice, but the reality is society has generally found that it's better to get rid of the butcher selling the dodgy meat BEFORE half the town is dead. And generally businesses tend to have no such thing as a conscience. It takes a very evil person to poison a town's drinking water - it merely takes a typical company to do the same. If we don't prohibit this behavior explicitly - not only can we not even try to prevent it, we can't punish them if they do it either (something we mostly do in the hope of preventing all the other companies from also doing it).
Libertarians always claim their theories cannot be disproven by empirical facts. The claim is two-fold, firstly they mostly subscribe to Austrian economics - a cult that rejects the very concept of empiricism and so can conveniently ignore when all their economic predictions invariably fail to occur (for example). Secondly they claim that their ideas in terms of government has never been truly tested - so it can't be refuted until it is. Except... it has, repeatedly, they just disavow every occurrence there-off because they all went very bad, very quickly. Tortuga, Somalia - all places of small and limited government with no real regulation. One historical, one current.
In both cases the 'government' was quickly a non-entity and actual rule devolved into powerful warlords (seeing as there was no powerful government to prevent this) who are much, much worse than any democratic government. Liberty was soon replaced with slavery and forced labour - since the government was too weak to prevent this (by means of things like labor laws to define what is or isn't free labor and punish those who violate that). And in both cases death, famine and disease were soon rampant.
Productivity rapidly broke down and very soon the main industry was piracy - that is, taking the productivity of people in other (functional) countries to supply the needs of your own non-functional one by force.
This is what *always* happens (indeed it's the only thing that CAN happen) when folks like you get their way. Another version of that ruled Europe for centuries, it's mature form is called 'aristocracy' (an aristocrat is just what warlords become after a generations when their position gains political cement) - and the economic system was called feudalism. Feudalism wasn't REPLACED by capitalism it replaced it. It's what capitalism without adequate regulation must ultimately become. We returned to a functional market economy only when we added regulations - by taking away the 'rights' that the feudal warlords had claimed for centuries. Reducing the liberty of the few, to give liberty to the many - it's the only way that liberty ever has been or ever can be increased.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
>A businesses can exist without a government to issue permits, inspect premises, and ensure compliance (with whatever). Not the other way around. Suck it up, cupcake.
Actually history has proven this statement false. You don't get businesses without those things - you get feudal warlords.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I actually have to wonder - how the hell is it that the landlord can just single-handedly change the rental contract anyway ? Surely any addendums (which modify the contract) must be agreed to by both parties before they can take effect ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
> I do see laws written that explicitly state that things the people have a right to shall not be required to license.
Yet you need a license to drive. The moment your actions affect anybody else - the government (as the representatives of everybody else) gets a stake in the decision. No business can possibly claim NOT to affect society, hence society gets a stake in the decision of what kinds of businesses can exist to affect it.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
No. It's the Japanese restaurant owner from South Park, Colorado.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Not sure about the case here, but it's fairly common for rental law to give the landlords the right to evict tenants with something like 30 days notice, even on a fixed-term contract. If they're on a rolling contract then effectively they're renewing the same contract each month. In both cases, you're not really changing the contract, you're simply making the old one unavailable and requiring that they either sign the new one or find somewhere else to live at the end of the 30 day period.
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In most sane jurisdictions thats not allowed. Im a landlord and there are definite restrictions around this I have to comply with. Cannot alter the lease agreement before it is up without tennants consent. Cannot evict anybody without a court order (so a judge can check fair play) cant market the property for sale until the last 2 months of the lease.
And as a landlord I call these things the restrictions of a sane system. As a decent human being I would never do any less anyway but it evens the playing field by forcing the evil types to do what a decent human being would never consider not doing.
Keeping evil people from getting higher profit margines by acting evil to those less well off is something many here would call an intrusion on liberty. Maybe but I for obe consider it a justified and valid one since liberty should not be restricted to those rich enough to own multiple properties.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The moment your actions affect anybody else - the government (as the representatives of everybody else) gets a stake in the decision.
So, since now the government requires citizens to purchase government-approved health insurance and forces all citizens to share in the costs of healthcare, does that mean the government has the right to control anything you do that could possibly affect health?
If so, that's a pretty freaking scary thing, as practically everything and anything one does (or doesn't do), eats, drinks, etc etc, has some affect on health. If we include mental health, it's even more frightening. With power over anything that could affect mental and/or physical health, that's a blank check for the government to control just about anything people do, say, or think.
Together with the surveillance-state infrastructure that's already been built and being rapidly expanded, it's Big Brother on steroids and meth.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I'm guessing that it's due to weak tenant protection laws. "Sign or get out" is a pretty powerful negotiating tactic, if it's legal in that jurisdiction.
Otherwise it might just be the landlord trying to bully the tenants in the hope that they comply, and having it backfire massively.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
No, you are confusing libertarians with anarchists again... Libertarians believe in a strong central government, but a SMALL strong central government that only does it's job of enforcing laws to protect the rights of the citizens. No one seriously believes that Somalia was ever close to libertarian in operation.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Is there any post you've made that doesn't conflate libertarianism with unregulated capitalism?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
I think you missed some words in Clause 3 there...
...with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes
So if your business operates in one state, doesn't sell overseas or to Indian Tribes the federal government has no power to regulate your commerce. Most states do not require a business license, but only registration of your business. Even then I've found that improperly registered businesses will not be pursued by the state. The only state required license for a business is if you want to set up a legal entity to protect your personal assets.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Complete strawman. Nowhere did I say 'a right to control'. I said 'a stake in the decision'. Thats a massively different thing which completely and utterly invalidates your response.
No the government does not get an automatic right to control healthcare. Though the international empirical facts prove incontrovertibly that giving them a duty to do so is by far the best way for healthcare to work it is not a right.
But they do get a stake. So they can establish regulations aroumd medical testing standards to protect the public from snake oil for example. Before the FDA 99% of what was sold as medicine in the USA was either snake oil or cocaine or opium. Real medicine was barely available and impossible to distinguish. You think homeopathy is bad ? Its a picnic nect to what Americans got as medicine less than a century ago. Homeopathy only does nothing. That shit was dangerous and highly adfictive drugs sold with no warnings or disclosure about the risks. Welcome to how every industry looks in the libertarian paradise. All tge real products go out of business very quickly when nobody stops people from competing by selling hot air.
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You cant have that. Its impossible. Strong and small cannot coexist. Small inevitably means weak.
And you misunderstand anarchism. Anarchism wants the biggest government possible. A government everybody is an equal part off. Where every citizen can vote on every law.
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No, there is no theoretical basis for assuming a limited government cannot be powerful in the areas where it actually has jurisdiction.
And no, I don't misunderstand anarchism, you do. You are making up your own definition. Every dictionary pretty much agrees: Anarchy: a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The apartment complex I have lived at for over 8 years now once asked tenants to submit positive reviews on an apartment rating website. There were no threats or b.s. about it being in rental contracts, just an honest call for some reviews to try and boost their ranking after a disgruntled individual had opened several fake accounts to push their rating below where it had historically been. Only a handful of tenants bothered to submit reviews but they were at least honest about some of the downsides to the place and the rating went back up to where it had averaged before. If you take the time to read many of the reviews that are out there for apartments you will begin to notice patterns that clearly indicate someone hit financial difficulty then got bitchy about management not letting them live there for free, or people that have mental health issues and can't deal with the slightest noise during the daytime. Then, of course, there are the racists that assume any person of color is on Section 8 and somehow responsible for any and all litter or crime in their neighborhood. Heaven forbid someone have young children.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
If I had been wanting to leave but couldn't due to a lease I would jump on this as a change I didn't accept and get out of there. I would hold the complex to 30 days notice however.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Thats the common speech definition. The philosophy of anarchism is a synonym for direct democracy. When Plato said democracy was anarchist he was not demeaning it as most people think. He was just describing it accurately.
In an anarchst state you have an all encompassingly large government. What you do not have is authority or unequal power.
The common definition is held only by those who think authority is a prequisite for order and its absense lead to chaos. You are debating philosophies with such ignorance you cannot tell a term of art from a common meaning in context.
Most dictionaries by the way define libertarianism as 'an anarchist form of socialism' because thats what it means everywhere outside the US and has meant fir 500 years. The American movement which coopted the name to mean almost the exact opposite is barely 40 years old. Yet I can tell which meaning is being discussed from context.
Basically you come across as a mom's basement libertarian whose belief in it is based entirely on teenaged narcicism coupled with ignorance. Most libertarians are exactly that. No judgement. 18 years ago when I was a teenager I was a libertarian too. I thought John Galt was a hero. The government is always evil. Social safety netts were theft. The rich were noble and the market was always best.
Then I llived in the real world. I saw firsthand what the market does when it goes wrong. Saw first hand the unmitigated death, destruction and suffering an unrestrained market rains upon the innocent. Studied philosophy and learned about how to think critically and found libertarianism utterly unable to stand up to critical analysis when subjected to actual empirical thought.
Real life, a conscience and learning the capacity for empathy made me a leftist. So I must extend you the benefit of the doubt that in time, if you see and experience enough you too will outgrow the horror that lives in your mind and pretends to he rational and objective while never even approaching either. Only that which is backed by empirical science can ever be rational or objective.
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Yeah, the 'Governmental Opposition' hates competition.
My not responding to your flame is in no way indicative of my submission to your statement, it just means I don't have t
In order for one person to rent something, another person has to own it.
So if your business operates in one state, doesn't sell overseas or to Indian Tribes the federal government has no power to regulate your commerce.
If only that were the case.
Time to offend someone
San Jose's only applies to apartments built before 1978 IIRC (I think there is a separate one for mobile home parks).
I did not know that. My current apartment complex was built in 1968, looked like a 1960's housing project when I moved in 10+ years ago (a walk through could reveal 20 different pot smells from roach spray to expensive shit), and new rentals are priced at the same rate of the new apartment complex opened down the street.
Reminds me of a similar story. In Provo, in order to house BYU students, an apartment complex must be "BYU approved". They only approve the whole building, not individual units, so basically, every building in Provo is BYU approved, because otherwise they'd be at a serious disadvantage getting tennants. One of the requirements of being "BYU approved" is that the Honor Code staff can inspect your apartment at any time for violations.
So, a guy who is not a student at BYU, comes home one day to find a picture he had on his wall, of a girl wearing a bikini, had been taken down. The morality police at BYU were unapologetic. He violated their code, in their town.
Imagine people with that mentality. They wouldn't think twice about requiring you like them on Facebook.
So let me get this straight. You get to make up your own definitions of political theories and then argue with other people based on your singular beliefs? Right. I am the teenaged narcissistic mom's basement dweller...
For reference, Google's definition of Libertarianism: "an extreme laissez-faire political philosophy advocating only minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens."
Notice how the state is still in control of things, just minimally so? No anarchy or socialism in that definition. Similarly, I haven't found a single definition of anarchy that includes large government...
You seem to think libertarians can't have a conscience or empathy. The reality is that libertarians don't dump their responsibilities on the government. As Penn Jillette expressed:
It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.
People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we’re compassionate we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.
For reference, I am turning 30 this year and am in the top 15% of wage earners in my single income household. I read Atlas Shrugged and I enjoyed it (because I am an engineer and find trains interesting), however my wife can't stomach it, but is still a libertarian.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
You are correct in that interpretations and current laws have exceeded the Constitutional mandate and sadly the Supreme Court has come down on the wrong side for quite awhile.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
I did not define anarchism as big government. I defined it as 'a synonym for direct democracy'. I described this as being, in practise, the biggest government you can possibly have because all ctizens are part of the government.
These are entirely compatible things to say.
And the trouble with your beliefs is that the need outweighs the capacity of people to meet individually (and that need grows massively bigger the less you regulate markets as the poor and the needy are a consequence of bad behaviour in the market). The only way the need can ever or has ever been met is by ensuring all of society contributes.
It has benefits to everybody to meet that need. Maintaining a social safety net is kike maintaining roads. Everybody benefits from having it and we all venefit the most if individuals do not have exclusive control of it. And there is the issue of trust. When somebody raises a million for charity most often the charity gets less than 5%. Private citizens can lie, abscond, misrepresent and commit fraud because their finances are private. Government in a free country on the other hand is accountable to the public and is budgets are public record. If it spends less tgan allocated we can easily know and complain. It cant hide costs in fine print to take what we gave to the needy and keep it. This is why charity fraud is common but fraud by welfare departments is exceedingly rare.
Its funny though how libertarians never oppose the most common theft by government of them all. The obe known as privatization. Where that which we all paid to build is given to a private owner who now charges us to use what we invested to have for free. Or worse privatising formerly public natural resources. Depriving the entire populace of their former free access to this common resource is theft of the grandest order. Libertarians claim this prevents a tragedy of the commons. It does no such thing. It is a tragedy of the commons - it just has red tape added.
Nothing in libertarianism holds up to critical examination under empirical facts because it fails to understand a core aspect of humanity. All people are exactly as evil as they can afford to be. And the richer you are the more devastating your evils become. The worst thing I could probably do is kill somebody. It takes a corporation to talk politicians into needless wars that kill millions. I would almost certainly be caught if I did that. The corporation would get away scott free.
I could steal some money and maybe get lucky and not get caught. Only a giant bank can steal trillions from the world and cause a major recession and not only face no legal penalties but get paid a bailout.
Libertarianism fundanentally fails to understand how wealth magnifies capacity. I can give some money to the needy. Maybe feed one or put one poor kid through school. The Gates foundation have done billions of times more good than I ever could. Their capacity to do good is magnified by their vast financial resources. The capacity for evil is magnified in the same way.
But while humans do both good or evil corporations can only ever do evil. They are fundamentalky designed by law to preclude the capacity to ever do sincere good.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Consider net neutrality. Most posters here seem to be in favor legislation forcing companies to act against their own profit interests in favor of something benefiting the greater good of the society that creates the rules.
This coming from an avowed libertarian.
That's because ISPs and other utilities need permission from the city to operate in the city in the first place, which in turn is because cities own the roads under which utility lines are buried. It then becomes reasonable for the city to require some minimum quality of service from its tenant utilities.
What surprises me is that no one seems surprised that anyone would be so obsessed about getting "likes". Just goes to show how common this mania is nowadays. I'm always a bit shocked at how far people go to get you to say something positive about them on social media, whether they're begging for "likes" or hounding you to review your transaction. I sold something on eBay recently. The guy sent me the money, and I sent him the item. End of story. We had no communication. Yet, I was compelled (by eBay) to "say something" about it. Just marking it "positive" wasn't good enough. God help you if you say anything negative!
I bought a simple item online recently. The company sent me five emails, asking me to "review the product". No news is good news, I want to tell them.
Now, would you kindly take a moment to mod up my comment? Thank you!
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
I believe "business" was meant to mean "corporation", which is certainly a give and take between the business and society, and not the natural state of doing commerce.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Or sharecropping. Or 14 hour/day, seven day/week work hours. Or child labour. Or mangled workers due to zero safety measures. Or company stores. Or Boss Hogg.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Likewise, there is no theoretical reason a sumo wrestler needs to be plus sized, if he's short and explosive.
I would say "all of the above".
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I am totally cool with him coming up with whatever theories and definitions he wants to follow and calling ice cream a banana if he wants to. But we haven't have a public discussion on bananas if he is talking about ice cream... What he is doing is creating theories of what other people (libertarians) believe and then shitting on them for it. I don't care if he wants to call himself an anarchist meaning whatever he wants it to mean, but I do care when he says libertarian means what he wants it to mean instead of what libertarians actually mean and is generally accepted to be the definition.
I have my own theories, most of which align with the traditionally accepted definition of libertarianism. I quote people who say smart things because apparently my own thoughts aren't accepted because I'm accused of being a petulant child.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Oooh, can I be a chocolate and raspberry cupcake, with the top cut into angel wings tucked in a soft butter icing filling that's got that enticing sugary crust that breaks crisply as you bite into it?
Sorry, was that meant to be demeaning or something? Really?
Probably. I forgot to include 'workers falling into the sausage making vats, and hey, cost of materials just went down.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
As another AC pointed out, he isn't just making things up out of thin air. But let's suppose he is. So? Why can't he make up his own definitions?
You can make all the definitions you want so long as you first ensure that others understand them. In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, Humpty Dumpty claims that his words mean whatever he chooses them to mean, which causes Alice some confusion. Sometimes the reader can guess the definition you're using because it makes sense; sometimes it doesn't. For example, if you look at an egg-shaped character and call his arms "legs", so long as they behave like legs, the reader can infer the sense via duck typing. But because most of us don't walk that way (with some exceptions), calling arms "legs" might need some explanation.
Let's look at another example inspired by Edward Josiah Stears' Notes on Uncle Tom's Cabin:
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a kangaroo have? Five. If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a moo cow have? Four.The difference is that unlike a cow's tail, a roo's tail fulfills a role that speakers associate with the ideal of a "leg". In particular, a roo's tail is weight-bearing during pentapedal walking and during kicks when boxing. A cow's tail isn't weight-bearing. So if you want to "call a tail a leg" without confusion, you have to make clear to readers what the definition is and how it is useful.
The Gates foundation have done billions of times more good than I ever could. Their capacity to do good is magnified by their vast financial resources. [...]
But while humans do both good or evil corporations can only ever do evil. They are fundamentalky designed by law to preclude the capacity to ever do sincere good.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a non-profit corporation with charitable tax status. Even among for-profit entities, the benefit corporation is a type of corporation that incorporates good into its charter.
The government's role is to protect me from violence and help me enforce fair contracts.
Does trespass to real property count as "violence"?
And how is it working out for you? When a business needs government's permission to offer you their service?
Presently, cities tend to own roads, which gives them a claim against unauthorized utilities under trespassing law. Or under your preferred society, who would own the roads?
Some cities enact sit/lie laws, which force residents to either buy or lease real property to live on rather than buying a tent and temporarily occupying a common area. So if the choice is to either A. comply with the landlord's speech limits or B. get evicted for speaking and then go to jail for violating the sit/lie law, then the sit/lie law is effectively an abridgment of freedom of speech.
And see, this is where you lose your reality. You call Somalia libertarian while you espouse communism under the term "anarchy" or "direct democracy."
The only way the need can ever or has ever been met is by ensuring all of society contributes.
Show me any society in history where every need has been met for every individual AND it's because everyone in that society contributes. Star Trek doesn't count.
Private citizens can lie, abscond, misrepresent and commit fraud because their finances are private. Government in a free country on the other hand is accountable to the public and is budgets are public record.
Governments throughout history have committed fraud, embezzling, and general incompetence which has stolen or wasted a significant portion of public money. Even when the money is spent with good intentions, it can be spent on wasteful endeavors. The government also has the power to borrow infinitely and spend public money they don't have. This puts future generations on the hook for spending today that they may not receive any benefit from.
And the richer you are the more devastating your evils become. ... It takes a corporation to talk politicians into needless wars that kill millions. ... Only a giant bank can steal trillions from the world and cause a major recession and not only face no legal penalties but get paid a bailout.
Funny how most of the political elite around the world also happen to be rich... As you say, they tend to be evil. Politicians may be urged by defense contractors to engage in war, but it definitely is not required. Plenty of nations go to war because of crazy governments and not corporations. Bringing up banks stealing trillions of dollars and getting off with no penalties is rather ironic since it's the government that encouraged and then pardoned the crime.
Maybe in your fantasy world where all people are equally powerful and form a collective "government" where they all share in resources equally things would be great. Sadly, in a universe with finite resources where economic principles of scarcity are true, this is a utopian fantasy that cannot exist.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
I wonder if this scenario will happen? Don't like your companies page, then you will have to be let go.. You work at McDonald's and don't like the McDonald's page? then time to move on.. There is a fine line between supporting your product and being forced to support it.
You're talking about a landlord for low-rent apartments. Chances are a lot of these tenants are too poor to find anyplace else to live.
BS. A business exists, because it provides service, that people are willing to pay for. It does not need "society's permission".
Absolutely they need society's permission. That is what the concept of a corporate charter is all about. Any given state has the legal authority to grant or refuse to grant charters, thereby given the state the power to prevent companies from forming. Up until recently, Any company which did not have some inherent value to society was not allowed to incorporate, and was effectively barred from operation. Recently, however, profit alone became an acceptable reason for a company to exist, and states have been allowing corporations to get away with all kinds of things that run contrary to the very concept of corporate charters.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Oh if only the government had such common sense. Unfortunately they haven't had it since 1942 with the Wickard vs Filburn case where they determined that the act of not participating in commerce within your state is in fact participating in interstate commerce.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Summary? What's that?
Complete strawman. Nowhere did I say 'a right to control'. I said 'a stake in the decision'. Thats a massively different thing which completely and utterly invalidates your response.
I disagree. A 'stake in the decision' when it comes to government == 'duty/ability to regulate/control'. If this were not true then the entire argument for mandating by law the wearing of seat belts is invalid, along with other similar laws/regulations like laws surrounding the discouragement of smoking/smoking in public establishments, etc.
You said yourself in your OP that "The moment your actions affect anybody else - the government (as the representatives of everybody else) gets a stake in the decision."
Well, by that logic the government gets a stake in personal decisions and behaviors affecting individual health since those decisions (more than anything else) affects individual health and the costs to everyone in a shared-cost system.
You can play semantic word-games all day long, but that's the long and short of it.
As a poster above points out, "Statists gonna State". If you allow a government powers, it will use them to further government power & scope whenever possible to the limits of public tolerance and, as history shows us, often well beyond. That's how revolutions and police states happen (depending on who wins, citizens or government).
Many doctors' offices/practices and health care institutions are already including questions in pre-exam questionnaires about things like gun ownership which is a basic civil right. It seems the government itself is proving me correct and you...not so much.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Rent control doesn't work.
At least for tenants.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I never said government was good. It is not. Its just better to face an evil accountable to me than one accountable to shareholders. And I didnt say every need. Just the need to care for the needy. You may want to work on those reading comprehension skills...
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
A part the the altered terms was that you couldn't post anything negative about them to social media.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Okay, what sorts of regulations is libertarianism supposed to put onto capitalism? Pretty much everything relevant I've read says the government enforces contracts and prevents violence, and otherwise stays out of things.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Real estate "developers", venture capitalists, and other bacterial forms typically buy up buildings filled with rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments with the intention of illegally forcing the tenants out so that they can quadruple the rent.
Manhattan landlord Steve Croman hit with indictment charging he threatened, sued rent-protected tenants to force them out
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/nyc-landlord-steve-croman-arrested-threatening-tenants-article-1.2629980
2 Brooklyn Landlords, Accused of Making Units Unlivable, Are Charged With Fraud
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/nyregion/brooklyn-landlords-joel-and-aaron-israel-arrested.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0
Top real estate broker says his own nephew screwed him out of $100M deal
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/top-broker-nephew-screwed-100m-deal-article-1.2339737
Libertarians believe in a strong central government, but a SMALL strong central government that only does it's job of protecting the rich against the poor they screw.
There, I fixed it for you.
And see, this is where you don't realize that the government is an evil that is not accountable to you. Maybe you might have some influence in a local city election. At the state level, incumbents win in landslides if they aren't running unopposed (which they generally are). Primary battles are a rarity at the state level. By the time you get up to the federal level, it is unlikely that a few votes matter, and even if they did the elected representative doesn't give two shits about what you care about. You'll be lucky to get a form email back if you voice any concerns. If you want influence with a politician and actually hold the government accountable, you need MONEY. Bribe them legally through campaign contributions and then suddenly they might be accountable to you.
Also, speaking of accountability... We shall see how accountable politicians really are. We have a major political party presidential candidate that is highly likely to have committed a crime while holding office. We already know they violated department policy and have an FBI investigation ongoing. Do you think this individual will be held accountable? Hopefully we find out before the election, though the vast majority of that party's supporters have already said they will still vote for this individual even if they are indicted.
Which brings me to your businesses which are accountable to shareholders... Which for public companies you are welcome to become one. Yes, it takes money to get a vote, but at least they are honest about that. And even if you aren't a shareholder, you can still choose which companies to support by voting with your dollars. Don't like the way Walmart operates? Don't shop there. You don't have to own Walmart shares to influence their behavior.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
You identified correctly one of the biggest problems today and failed to consider the cure. You cant reduce the impact of money on politics by reducing the size of government and that never happens anyway. The GOP may say they want to but all they actually do is defund good and useful programs to give more money to bad programs that benefit rich donors. The cure is to remove the legal right to bribe politicians. Get over the idea that political spending is free speech. Its the opposite. It undermines free political speech to complete irrelevance.
Look at most functional democracies and you find that giving money to a politician for any purpose, ever is flat out illegal. Every candidate gets a fixed (equal) sum from public money to spend on campaigning and spending any more is a jailtime crime and paid-for political advertising is flat out illegal. Then an election is a contest of ideas on a level playing field.
Imagine walking into a government office and demanding some records file under a freedom of information act, without filling in a form or even having to give your name and a guarantee that if they dont hand it over in less than one hour the office head has to be fired by law.
Thats how it is in several European countries. But Europe constrains money in politics and regulates industry properly (including a requirement that 50% of a company board must be non shareholding, non-exective employees so the people whose livelihoods depend on board decisions get a serious say in those decisions). Where a company is not legalky or economically deemed a profit maximising entity but a community working for collective gain by all involved.
Government can be accountable to all. Corporations never are. Even the things you describe are not real. Its easy to avoid customers punishing bad behaviour: just do the bad behaviour somewhere other than where you sell. ... well like chocolate.
Nobody would buy chocolate in America if it was American kids being kidnapped and enslaved by cocoa farms. But do it in Africa and 70% of all chocolate can be picked by kidnapped child slaves and Americans will keep buying. You get a scandal ? Spend a few hundred thousand on a PR campaigning about cleaning up your act and wait for people to forget. Never actually do anythi g better. Just ask Nestle, beacon and Hershey. They all had a major scandal when the slavery thing became news in 2000. 16 years later its only gotten worse. Chocolate still sells
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *