Just FYI, there aren't any federal level property taxes in the US, either (at least not real estate). In my state, there aren't even any state, it's all city/county property taxes.
My favorite is the pay raises scam. Congressional members can't benefit from pay raises they voted themselves during the term for which they voted. So in the past, those poor Congressmen had to vote themselves a pay raise and hope they won reelection in order to take advantage of it. Then some bright spark proposed a bill that gave them automatic pay raises, unless they voted to NOT get a raise. Of course the bill became law and Voila! they now instantly get their pay raises without having to wait till the next election cycle. Bonus points - they don't have to answer to their electorate for voting themselves a pay raise during widespread economic downturns.
Oh, come off it. Cars are much simpler to maintain and operate than computers. Spotting the square tires that will break my car when I put them on is much much easier than spotting the game with malware embedded in it that will break my computer. The whole point of a computer is to enable me to run multiple third party programs. If every time I wanted to change the dice hanging from my rear view mirror I had to worry about them silently altering my air/fuel injection ratio, then you might have a point.
You cannot simply pay the IRS more than they think you owe. If your account doesn't balance, they will send you a refund. I was audited once (I assume). The first I heard of it was when the IRS sent me a letter and a check saying I had misfiled my taxes and didn't owe as much as I had thought. Three years after the filing in question. I guess I didn't have to cash the check but I suspect it would not simply have gone away. I imagine the IRS are VERY interested in maintaining balanced books. If you want to donate to government, there is probably a different agency for that.
As I recall, the initial mortality rates out of Mexico, where swine flu was first observed, were much higher than normal influenza strains. That is what caused the initial panic. Then, for reasons either that aren't understood or I simply have never heard, swine flu proved to have lower mortality rates than normal influenza everywhere else it was observed.
I believe there are no such things as absolute morals for the simple reason that an identical action in differing circumstances has different moral implications. "Lying is wrong" is not a universal truth - it's wrong to lie to someone in order to defraud them of their money and their life, it's not wrong to lie to a mugger to prevent him from injuring your hidden friend. I do not believe that morals are subjective in the sense that the exact same action performed in the exact same circumstances takes on different moral implications depending on the culture/background/whatever of the person acting. If eating that baby is immoral for me to do in these circumstances, the simple fact that you were raised to eat babies doesn't excuse you. It simply means you were raised to behave immorally.
As for defining what is or is not moral in a given situation, it starts with "unnecessary harm" to others. And quickly becomes very complicated.
But unlike in high school, it isn't based on the popularity of who is saying it, but rather the popularity of what is being said. Except for instances of the bury brigade, or it's up-modding equivalent. In any moderating system, by definition, the popular ideas will rise. Of course this isn't the same as the best or most accurate ideas, but good luck figuring out a system that promotes those. Until you do, "ideas that more people agree with/like than disagree with/dislike" is the next best metric we have.
It would also be simple for an omniscient god to know the complete results of every possible choice of initial conditions before choosing which universe to create and pick the best possible universe.
Maybe he did? Just b/c it doesn't seem so to you (or me) doesn't mean it isn't. After all, "best" is a subjective phrase - maybe this universe is maximizing something other than human happiness.
Most importantly, a truly benevolent god would be wise enough not to create any universe at all if the best possible universe wasn't perfect.
Huh? My life isn't perfect, but I'd rather have it than no life. I want the best life possible for my child, but just b/c that life won't be perfect doesn't mean I wish the kid had never been born. For his sake, that is. If he'd never been born, I'd be knee deep in hookers and tequila right now.
I don't live in a city that has Critical Mass demonstrations, but we have a lot of cyclists. Everybody except the cyclists think the cyclists are the most reckless, self-entitled creatures on the road. And about half the cyclists feel that way about the other half. Given that background, it always struck me as incredibly self-defeating for cyclists to try to get more bike-friendly laws and attitudes by once a month getting together and knowingly inconveniencing everyone else in a rather hypocritical display. I mean, "we don't like the fact that you monopolize the roads, so we're gonna do it once a month just to show you how it feels" simply doesn't strike me as a mature, constructive approach.
Relying on the courts to provide relief against environmental degradation A) doesn't prevent degradation as long as the company in question finds it more profitable to pollute and pay restitution than to find alternatives to pollution. I value my health far more highly than a market system will - why should I involuntarily be required to sell it at a lower price than I place on it? Additionally, this simply shifts the point of corruption, it doesn't eliminate it. B) This solution requires the abolition of public property, which opens up a whole other set of complex problems.
Just b/c labor "abuses" make sense from a strict supply/demand economic analysis doesn't mean we as a civilized society should allow them. From a strict supply/demand point of view, the value of human labor is negligible compared to the value of capital. The power imbalance between capital and labor is so skewed that any free market competition between the two will drive the value of labor down until we have people doing anything for a mere subsistence. Which is exactly what we saw with things such as company towns. When you say poor working conditions were an improvement over the conditions of not working, you gloss over the fact that oftentimes, those poor conditions were created by capitalists in order to obtain cheap labor.
I find that this argument tends to fall on deaf ears. True market advocates inevitably believe "the free hand" adjudicates not just efficiency, but morality (whatever their definition of moral happens to be, oddly enough). I've yet to find one that can provide any theoretical or historical method for this moral adjudication; again inevitably, they fall back on simply asserting that all immoral behaviors of a market are in some undefined way caused by government intervention.
In pure capitalism, politicians would not have enough control over the economic system to provide sufficient advantage to be worth the cost of bribing the politician.
So how then do we prevent externalities such as environmental degradation and labor abuse, just to name two, from occurring? As soon as government has the power to regulate these, it has sufficient power to be worthy of bribing. Feel free to outline how the market itself would prevent these, in the face of actual historic evidence that it doesn't. If your claim is that the historic events were in fact caused by government intervention, please outline the actual method government intervention managed to cause what appear to be market failures.
,The uncontrollable break down you experienced that we'll call the third paragraph of your post makes it appear as though your biggest problem is your own self loathing. Your parents and the military could very well be douches, but you clearly are not comfortable with your own sexuality.
How did you get self-loathing out his 3rd paragraph? Sounded more like bitterness against his parents b/c they kicked him out when he came out to them. "Child rejected by parents feels bitterness" might qualify for some counseling, but I don't see how self-loathing comes into it.
Neither Campbell's advertising campaign nor the change of military's position on gays ACTUALLY changed anything outside of your head
The Campbells advertising didn't change anything, but it did signal their support/acceptance/desire to profit from his lifestyle, so he returns the favor by supporting them. Seems reasonable. And revoking DADT certainly did ACTUALLY change the military. It is no longer illegal to be gay in the military. If your CO finds out you are gay (however that may occur) there are no longer official consequences. I'm not sure how that doesn't qualify as a significant difference.
People just don't give a fuck, your self loathing makes you think others care
Again with the self-loathing as a motivation for what already has very clear motivations. People just don't give a fuck? Then why did a whole organization of them (the AFA) criticize Campbells for trying to sell gay people soup? B/c they don't give a fuck about sexual orientation? Why did his parent kick him out for being gay? B/c they don't give a fuck about his sexual orientation?
You know, you try to sound like a caring person with your "You ARE an acceptable human being" line but if you really are trying to be nice, you failed. You are trying to convince this guy that nobody in society judges gay people for their sexuality, but rather all that perceived animosity is really just delusional externalizing of his own self-loathing. That is so mind-bogglingly delusional in and of itself (really, there are no anti-gay sentiments from segments of society???) that if you truly believe it, you need a 24/7 caretaker to make sure you don't hurt yourself. More likely, you're a giant asshole that wanted to see just exactly how much extra evil you could pour into the world by attacking someone you perceived as vulnerable.
Indentured servants generally were not forced in servitude; except where children were considered property of their parents and the parents signed the contracts on their behalf. Even in those cases, there was some consideration (generally paid transportation) in exchange for the labor above and beyond mere life maintenance.
Prisoners (and their labor) can be transferred, against their will, to a different prison system owned by a different private organization. Sounds a lot like selling property to me. Slavery does not necessarily imply permanence - many systems allow for a slave to earn or be granted freedom.
For me, the non-consensual nature of prisoner labor puts the practice much closer to slavery than indentured servitude. It can be kind of a gray area, I admit. However, even if you prefer the term indentured servitude, it is still involuntary servitude. I realize the prohibition against involuntary servitude made in the 13th Amendment specifically makes an exception in the case of criminal punishment, but that was well before the idea of private organizations administering criminal punishment. Private organizations forcing people to work for less than minimum wage under the threat of physical punishment for failure to do so simply does not strike me as a behavior we as a society shoud allow, regardless of who that person is.
You realize slaves were fed, clothed and given shelter, right? Forcing someone to work in exchange for the basics of survival while physically preventing them from opting out of providing you with their labor is pretty much the definition of slavery, regardless of the motivation for enslaving them.
Ideas that cannot be tested or disproved are the absolute antithesis of science
So basically, every human being on the planet is the antithesis of science? Because there isn't a single one alive today (well, ok, maybe a couple in a psych ward somewhere) that doesn't believe something that can't be tested or disproved. Does your mother love you? Did you hear the song you think you heard on the radio this morning? It's impossible to function in the world if you insist on only believing the bare minimum of things that you have personally scientifically proven. It's an absurd standard and it doesn't do the religion vs. science debate any good when the science side pretends to an extreme rationality that is neither possible nor desirable.
,why should we use our collective will to create an economy? To what end?
In my experience, the true free-market loons see accumulating capital in and of itself as the ultimate goal of society. This is why economic liberty is the paramount liberty, property rights are the paramount rights. Anything that is not tied to accumulating or producing capital/labor is by definition valueless in their philosophy.
You can't maximize a society's liberties by allowing all individuals to do whatever they want. B/c there are assholes in the world that want to restrict other people's liberties and inevitably will if we let them. This applies to economics just as much as physical violence, speech and pooping. I can see no compelling reason for me to trade off protecting my various non-economic rights in order to allow complete economic freedom. Of course, I also have relatively little economic power and would be subject to economic coercion if it were allowed.
OK, so we agree that corporations have little ability to exert force through market forces, only through crony capitalism/regulatory capture through government power. So cut government power. Vote libertarian.
Currently. They did just fine coercing through market forces before the government stepped in and made them stop. What prevents them from returning to market force coercion once government no longer has the power to oppose them? 3% of Americans used to live in company towns. How many would that be now w/o government interference? It may not matter which radio station I listen to, but I must have food, shelter and medicine to live. How long before these essentials are monopolized, at least at various local levels, forcing me to do business with the hand that feeds? There is absolutely nothing in any market theories to prevent this, and history shows that it in fact tends to happen.
Nope; he's a part-owner. All stock investors are part owners, even those with only 1 share.
That's the theory, but in reality what does that 1 share guy really own? Considering that the stock valuation for just about every publicly traded company exceeds it's assets, what happens if that company goes broke? 1 share guy gets nothing, the real owners split up the available equity in the company to pay themselves off. 1 share guy really owns nothing more than the right to sell that share in the future, hopefully for more than he paid. Hell, he probably isn't even getting dividends.
So, you check out a book, find that it's damaged, and return it - and they have no way of telling who took it out before you
When the book is processed in, which still happens by an actual human being everywhere I am aware of, they are supposed to notice any damage and note it in the book's record along with the date and note in the patron's record that they returned a damaged book.
Or the update to the main inventory doesn't take place, and you're dinged with a claim that you never returned the book.
If you have returned the book, it will be on the shelf (or waiting to be processed). Most places have a form you fill out and someone will go look for that book. If they find it on the shelf, you obviously returned it. I honestly don't see how keeping your check-out history addresses this concern.
In general, libraries have been doing this for A LONG TIME, and have policies and processes in place from long before computers were even around to address the problems that can arise. You shouldn't have to shout, they should have forms and processes already in place for these common occurrences. Jail time is a ludicrous threat over what was probably at most a $50 fine. Sounds like your local library sucks.
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,but there are no federal level property taxes
Just FYI, there aren't any federal level property taxes in the US, either (at least not real estate). In my state, there aren't even any state, it's all city/county property taxes.
My favorite is the pay raises scam. Congressional members can't benefit from pay raises they voted themselves during the term for which they voted. So in the past, those poor Congressmen had to vote themselves a pay raise and hope they won reelection in order to take advantage of it. Then some bright spark proposed a bill that gave them automatic pay raises, unless they voted to NOT get a raise. Of course the bill became law and Voila! they now instantly get their pay raises without having to wait till the next election cycle. Bonus points - they don't have to answer to their electorate for voting themselves a pay raise during widespread economic downturns.
Oh, come off it. Cars are much simpler to maintain and operate than computers. Spotting the square tires that will break my car when I put them on is much much easier than spotting the game with malware embedded in it that will break my computer. The whole point of a computer is to enable me to run multiple third party programs. If every time I wanted to change the dice hanging from my rear view mirror I had to worry about them silently altering my air/fuel injection ratio, then you might have a point.
You cannot simply pay the IRS more than they think you owe. If your account doesn't balance, they will send you a refund. I was audited once (I assume). The first I heard of it was when the IRS sent me a letter and a check saying I had misfiled my taxes and didn't owe as much as I had thought. Three years after the filing in question. I guess I didn't have to cash the check but I suspect it would not simply have gone away. I imagine the IRS are VERY interested in maintaining balanced books. If you want to donate to government, there is probably a different agency for that.
As I recall, the initial mortality rates out of Mexico, where swine flu was first observed, were much higher than normal influenza strains. That is what caused the initial panic. Then, for reasons either that aren't understood or I simply have never heard, swine flu proved to have lower mortality rates than normal influenza everywhere else it was observed.
I believe there are no such things as absolute morals for the simple reason that an identical action in differing circumstances has different moral implications. "Lying is wrong" is not a universal truth - it's wrong to lie to someone in order to defraud them of their money and their life, it's not wrong to lie to a mugger to prevent him from injuring your hidden friend. I do not believe that morals are subjective in the sense that the exact same action performed in the exact same circumstances takes on different moral implications depending on the culture/background/whatever of the person acting. If eating that baby is immoral for me to do in these circumstances, the simple fact that you were raised to eat babies doesn't excuse you. It simply means you were raised to behave immorally.
As for defining what is or is not moral in a given situation, it starts with "unnecessary harm" to others. And quickly becomes very complicated.
But unlike in high school, it isn't based on the popularity of who is saying it, but rather the popularity of what is being said. Except for instances of the bury brigade, or it's up-modding equivalent. In any moderating system, by definition, the popular ideas will rise. Of course this isn't the same as the best or most accurate ideas, but good luck figuring out a system that promotes those. Until you do, "ideas that more people agree with/like than disagree with/dislike" is the next best metric we have.
It would also be simple for an omniscient god to know the complete results of every possible choice of initial conditions before choosing which universe to create and pick the best possible universe.
Maybe he did? Just b/c it doesn't seem so to you (or me) doesn't mean it isn't. After all, "best" is a subjective phrase - maybe this universe is maximizing something other than human happiness.
Most importantly, a truly benevolent god would be wise enough not to create any universe at all if the best possible universe wasn't perfect.
Huh? My life isn't perfect, but I'd rather have it than no life. I want the best life possible for my child, but just b/c that life won't be perfect doesn't mean I wish the kid had never been born. For his sake, that is. If he'd never been born, I'd be knee deep in hookers and tequila right now.
Hobo sperm free Twinkies.
I don't live in a city that has Critical Mass demonstrations, but we have a lot of cyclists. Everybody except the cyclists think the cyclists are the most reckless, self-entitled creatures on the road. And about half the cyclists feel that way about the other half. Given that background, it always struck me as incredibly self-defeating for cyclists to try to get more bike-friendly laws and attitudes by once a month getting together and knowingly inconveniencing everyone else in a rather hypocritical display. I mean, "we don't like the fact that you monopolize the roads, so we're gonna do it once a month just to show you how it feels" simply doesn't strike me as a mature, constructive approach.
Relying on the courts to provide relief against environmental degradation A) doesn't prevent degradation as long as the company in question finds it more profitable to pollute and pay restitution than to find alternatives to pollution. I value my health far more highly than a market system will - why should I involuntarily be required to sell it at a lower price than I place on it? Additionally, this simply shifts the point of corruption, it doesn't eliminate it. B) This solution requires the abolition of public property, which opens up a whole other set of complex problems.
Just b/c labor "abuses" make sense from a strict supply/demand economic analysis doesn't mean we as a civilized society should allow them. From a strict supply/demand point of view, the value of human labor is negligible compared to the value of capital. The power imbalance between capital and labor is so skewed that any free market competition between the two will drive the value of labor down until we have people doing anything for a mere subsistence. Which is exactly what we saw with things such as company towns. When you say poor working conditions were an improvement over the conditions of not working, you gloss over the fact that oftentimes, those poor conditions were created by capitalists in order to obtain cheap labor.
I find that this argument tends to fall on deaf ears. True market advocates inevitably believe "the free hand" adjudicates not just efficiency, but morality (whatever their definition of moral happens to be, oddly enough). I've yet to find one that can provide any theoretical or historical method for this moral adjudication; again inevitably, they fall back on simply asserting that all immoral behaviors of a market are in some undefined way caused by government intervention.
In pure capitalism, politicians would not have enough control over the economic system to provide sufficient advantage to be worth the cost of bribing the politician.
So how then do we prevent externalities such as environmental degradation and labor abuse, just to name two, from occurring? As soon as government has the power to regulate these, it has sufficient power to be worthy of bribing. Feel free to outline how the market itself would prevent these, in the face of actual historic evidence that it doesn't. If your claim is that the historic events were in fact caused by government intervention, please outline the actual method government intervention managed to cause what appear to be market failures.
,The uncontrollable break down you experienced that we'll call the third paragraph of your post makes it appear as though your biggest problem is your own self loathing. Your parents and the military could very well be douches, but you clearly are not comfortable with your own sexuality.
How did you get self-loathing out his 3rd paragraph? Sounded more like bitterness against his parents b/c they kicked him out when he came out to them. "Child rejected by parents feels bitterness" might qualify for some counseling, but I don't see how self-loathing comes into it.
Neither Campbell's advertising campaign nor the change of military's position on gays ACTUALLY changed anything outside of your head
The Campbells advertising didn't change anything, but it did signal their support/acceptance/desire to profit from his lifestyle, so he returns the favor by supporting them. Seems reasonable. And revoking DADT certainly did ACTUALLY change the military. It is no longer illegal to be gay in the military. If your CO finds out you are gay (however that may occur) there are no longer official consequences. I'm not sure how that doesn't qualify as a significant difference.
People just don't give a fuck, your self loathing makes you think others care
Again with the self-loathing as a motivation for what already has very clear motivations. People just don't give a fuck? Then why did a whole organization of them (the AFA) criticize Campbells for trying to sell gay people soup? B/c they don't give a fuck about sexual orientation? Why did his parent kick him out for being gay? B/c they don't give a fuck about his sexual orientation?
You know, you try to sound like a caring person with your "You ARE an acceptable human being" line but if you really are trying to be nice, you failed. You are trying to convince this guy that nobody in society judges gay people for their sexuality, but rather all that perceived animosity is really just delusional externalizing of his own self-loathing. That is so mind-bogglingly delusional in and of itself (really, there are no anti-gay sentiments from segments of society???) that if you truly believe it, you need a 24/7 caretaker to make sure you don't hurt yourself. More likely, you're a giant asshole that wanted to see just exactly how much extra evil you could pour into the world by attacking someone you perceived as vulnerable.
Indentured servants generally were not forced in servitude; except where children were considered property of their parents and the parents signed the contracts on their behalf. Even in those cases, there was some consideration (generally paid transportation) in exchange for the labor above and beyond mere life maintenance.
Prisoners (and their labor) can be transferred, against their will, to a different prison system owned by a different private organization. Sounds a lot like selling property to me. Slavery does not necessarily imply permanence - many systems allow for a slave to earn or be granted freedom.
For me, the non-consensual nature of prisoner labor puts the practice much closer to slavery than indentured servitude. It can be kind of a gray area, I admit. However, even if you prefer the term indentured servitude, it is still involuntary servitude. I realize the prohibition against involuntary servitude made in the 13th Amendment specifically makes an exception in the case of criminal punishment, but that was well before the idea of private organizations administering criminal punishment. Private organizations forcing people to work for less than minimum wage under the threat of physical punishment for failure to do so simply does not strike me as a behavior we as a society shoud allow, regardless of who that person is.
You realize slaves were fed, clothed and given shelter, right? Forcing someone to work in exchange for the basics of survival while physically preventing them from opting out of providing you with their labor is pretty much the definition of slavery, regardless of the motivation for enslaving them.
Ideas that cannot be tested or disproved are the absolute antithesis of science
So basically, every human being on the planet is the antithesis of science? Because there isn't a single one alive today (well, ok, maybe a couple in a psych ward somewhere) that doesn't believe something that can't be tested or disproved. Does your mother love you? Did you hear the song you think you heard on the radio this morning? It's impossible to function in the world if you insist on only believing the bare minimum of things that you have personally scientifically proven. It's an absurd standard and it doesn't do the religion vs. science debate any good when the science side pretends to an extreme rationality that is neither possible nor desirable.
,why should we use our collective will to create an economy? To what end?
In my experience, the true free-market loons see accumulating capital in and of itself as the ultimate goal of society. This is why economic liberty is the paramount liberty, property rights are the paramount rights. Anything that is not tied to accumulating or producing capital/labor is by definition valueless in their philosophy.
But but but, companies ARE people! Why is it suddenly fine as long as the victims are just companies?
But they are decidedly not about liberty.
You can't maximize a society's liberties by allowing all individuals to do whatever they want. B/c there are assholes in the world that want to restrict other people's liberties and inevitably will if we let them. This applies to economics just as much as physical violence, speech and pooping. I can see no compelling reason for me to trade off protecting my various non-economic rights in order to allow complete economic freedom. Of course, I also have relatively little economic power and would be subject to economic coercion if it were allowed.
Kill a 1 percenter and claim his hat. If you kill two, you get a free turkey sub with the hat.
The female orgasm is a myth!
OK, so we agree that corporations have little ability to exert force through market forces, only through crony capitalism/regulatory capture through government power. So cut government power. Vote libertarian.
Currently. They did just fine coercing through market forces before the government stepped in and made them stop. What prevents them from returning to market force coercion once government no longer has the power to oppose them? 3% of Americans used to live in company towns. How many would that be now w/o government interference? It may not matter which radio station I listen to, but I must have food, shelter and medicine to live. How long before these essentials are monopolized, at least at various local levels, forcing me to do business with the hand that feeds? There is absolutely nothing in any market theories to prevent this, and history shows that it in fact tends to happen.
Nope; he's a part-owner. All stock investors are part owners, even those with only 1 share.
That's the theory, but in reality what does that 1 share guy really own? Considering that the stock valuation for just about every publicly traded company exceeds it's assets, what happens if that company goes broke? 1 share guy gets nothing, the real owners split up the available equity in the company to pay themselves off. 1 share guy really owns nothing more than the right to sell that share in the future, hopefully for more than he paid. Hell, he probably isn't even getting dividends.
So, you check out a book, find that it's damaged, and return it - and they have no way of telling who took it out before you
When the book is processed in, which still happens by an actual human being everywhere I am aware of, they are supposed to notice any damage and note it in the book's record along with the date and note in the patron's record that they returned a damaged book.
Or the update to the main inventory doesn't take place, and you're dinged with a claim that you never returned the book.
If you have returned the book, it will be on the shelf (or waiting to be processed). Most places have a form you fill out and someone will go look for that book. If they find it on the shelf, you obviously returned it. I honestly don't see how keeping your check-out history addresses this concern.
In general, libraries have been doing this for A LONG TIME, and have policies and processes in place from long before computers were even around to address the problems that can arise. You shouldn't have to shout, they should have forms and processes already in place for these common occurrences. Jail time is a ludicrous threat over what was probably at most a $50 fine. Sounds like your local library sucks.