Note that not being able to lie does not imply not being able to tell anything but the truth. Many people telling wrong things actually believe them.
True. Some people really were raised to believe in omniptotent magical beings, and some people really do think that income taxes are only fair if half of the voting population doesn't pay them, etc. I'm not talking about which wrong-headed thing someone believes - but I'd like to know what they actually are, rather than what they're panderingly saying. That would also cut down on the "elect me and the waters will recede" sort of nonsense.
I request a large array of magnets, stage left, at all political debates, presidential appearances in joint sessions of congress, county council hearings, talk show round tables, to the left of all marketing managers' desks, and of course as special left-wall installations in special kiosks that will become the only places where you can access match.com, slashdot, yelp, and the huffington post.
So, what happens to that system when nobody works? And what happens when somebody decides they do want to work, but that they don't want to have the product of that work given to someone else? Please be specific.
In a capitalistic utopia, selling yourself should be completely legal. In fact, it is -- it's known as wage slavery.
Indentured servents aren't really part of the legal landscape any more, if you haven't noticed. Clearly you are referring to people who are willing to work for low wages, because they aren't willing to do what it takes to be able to demand higher wages. Your use of the term "slavery" in that context is simply absurd.
if you studied American at all history, you'd know this.
And if you didn't deliberately play fast and loose with semantics, you'd have nothing left to say.
If that was the South's position (you are grossly simplifying it), it really doesn't matter, because it's based on the false premise that a fellow human is the same as a hammer you've made or a goat you've raise. They're not, and so that line of reasoning is a non-starter. Regardless, what previous slave holders said has nothing to do with the reality that capitalism doesn't include forced transactions between people. You're in a market when you're only option besides participating in a transaction is torture, death, etc. Of course you know all of this, and you're just trolling in a completely idiotic way.
That is not a move away from capitalism. That's a move away from, essentially, fuedalism. Capitalism participation in a market, and the mutually agreed-upon exchange of goods, services, etc. Being forced to work for someone else isn't capitalism. But it is the bedrock of socialism.
you accuse your grandparent of an "ad hominem" attack, and then...your last paragraph, what is that? "Lefty fit?"
Oh, that. Well, it's because he was already having exactly that. I extrapolated to assume that if he heard the people he's complaining about using the sort of language that we saw Hoffa using at Obama's event yesterday, that he'd saying more things along the same lines. Not a stretch.
As for competition... if you want to drive around in a truck and deliver things all day, or sort packages, or manage people that do, there absolutely are competing employers who certainly do want to pick and choose from the best recruits. The USPS has the monopoly on specific services, but people who want to do that sort of work can shop around for employers. Though plainly many don't want to, because if they've got that gig at the USPS, they know they can't get layed off, even if there's absolutely no reason to keep them employed there.
Actually, it occurred to me to mention this because of reading on the subject in the Washington Post and the New York Times. Excellent attempt to distract from reality, though, and come out swinging with a lame ad hominem maneuver.
... there are trade offs for paying less for health care and pensions. Salaries are less to compensate for better benefits
Not even close, if you run the numbers. Combine that with being completely unfireable, and obliging your employer to keep paying you even when they have absolutely no need for you, and it's there's a reason that people who work there have no interest in leaving for another gig.
It was the free market acting as it should.
No, it was an entirely political process surrounding a government mandated monopoly. You can't get less free-market than that.
"Evil Unions"
As tempting as it is to use that phrase rhetorically, and in a snarky way, it's now becoming simply descriptive. But then, I suppose you'rehere to provide cover for people like Hoffa, right? If the people for whom you have so much venomous disdain actually said anything approaching what the union bosses say on a regularl basis, you'd be pitching an absolute lefty fit of even more faux unctuous umbrage. You're completely transparent, here.
They are an supertanker with 2 steering wheels- the USPS leadership on one and congress on the other.
You're forgetting the third steering wheel that congress built, and turned over to: the labor union that has the USPS by the short hairs, fiscally. Their contract prohibits any layoffs, even when they close down an under-used post office. Those union employees don't pay as much for their own health care or contribute to their own retirement plans as do normal government employees, and so on - and there's nothing the USPS management can do about it, except hemorage money in that general direction.
Which rules? The ones about helping a US soldier steal and disseminate hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents? They did not follow those rules, the actively, deliberately broke the rules (and common sense, needless to say). That horse was out of the barn the moment they set up server space for Manning to dump to, and didn't involve the authorities when he started doing it.
but a picture that Wikileaks now places someone at risk that wasn't placed at risk earlier through joint efforts is monumentally deceitful
Nonsense. Before Assange and crew offered to help the original criminal move copies of all of that stolen data, the people named in those documents were less at risk. Assange acted to handle that data and make a big show of picking and choosing how and to whom he would dribble it out (to maximize his ego-boosting press coverage), but it was his group's actions that took one bumbling, screwed-up idiot's lame data-dump-theft and turned it into widely reachable collection that, of course, inevitably would be clear text for everyone at some point.
Monumentally deceitful? That would be Assange pretending this wasn't what he wanted all along. He's got a political agenda and a personal need for the spotlight, and this allows him to grind both axes. And of course his sycophantic apologist fanboi club will simply say that no information should ever be discreet, and so this is all good, blah blah blah.
You can argue about blame
Not at all. The guy who stole the documents is primarily to blame, and the guy who set up the infrastructure to hold it for him, and to spread it around is the other party. Period.
Right. Taxpayer money was collected from people, and then set aside to cover loans for this company. Loans this company would not otherwise be able to get because nobody with an eye on reality would ever finance it privately. The loans are of course going to be defaulted upon, and so the tax money that was put up for collateral will now be lost on the venture that it very much subsidized. The primary subsidy was in the form of loan guarantees, and the secondary subsidy is in the form of kissing that solar money goodbye.
And...an "experimental company?" Really? That's not what our Glorious Leader called it when he stood there at that very business holding it up as a sure-thing example of what we need more of. He didn't talk risk, or experiment, he talked about doing more of exactly this winning, genius thing.
It's hilarious to see Republicans pretending they don't understand how business works.
No, it's (painfully) hilarious to see liberals thinking that government is supposed to be in business. It's not. They shouldn't be owning car companies, or making sweetheart deals on their stock with politically active labor unions, either... but that's the only reason Obama got into the car business anyway. And when he himself gave a press conference at this very failed solar company, he didn't say "these are the sort of companies that tax payers should finance, because it's worth the risk"... no, he proclaimed it as a model for how things should be. A sure thing for jobs and rainbow-powered Chevy Volt rechaging stations.
The government is also invested in the companies that put this one out of business.
Really? Which Chinese solor panel manufacturers is the US government invested in, and why aren't they insisting that those businesses play fair? Oh.
some of your investments will turn out to be failures
Yes, I'm sensing that a lot of Hopey Changey voters are realizing how badly they invested their votes.
Are you equally perplexed when peace protesters burn buildings, or when a bunch of people unhappy about how a soccer game turned out decide to destroy a bunch of their city's infrastructure? Packs of people, mostly adolescent and presuming they can act with impunity because they're wearing real or virtual scarves over their faces, do exactly the sort of stuff you think makes no sense.
And when it does, I suddenly have the right to force you to work for me, because my right to your time and efforts trumps your right to your time and effort? Ah, Social Justice.
Wow, let me bask in the glow of your self entitlement
No, what you're saying is that I'm not entitled to things I do myself, but other people are entitled to what I do.
Just because you're lucky enough not to have to worry about such things does not mean that you have any more right to them than anybody else does
Who says I don't worry about suddenly becoming blind, or poor, or injured and unable to work? Other than you, I mean, since you know.
I've seen the folks that work janitorial and in kitchens and chances are good that they work harder than you do for less.
Really? I work about 90 hours a week, and haven't had a single week actually "off" in about ten years. Nobody paid my way through college - I didn't get to go, because I had to work. Hey, look! Horrible injustice - somebody else got something I didn't get! I better start whining, and asking for justice!
You want justice? Take kids away from crappy parents, since parents committed to raising witless, uneducated kids are the only reason that some people don't have as much stuff as other people. Well, that and the fact that entire sub-cultures are basically lazy, and actually resent the people who do the work.
Regardless, what you're saying is that because I work, I'm not entitled to things, and because other people can't or don't, they are entitled to having me work for them. What you're calling for is charity, but what you want is central power over productivity so that you can distribute its output as you see justly fit. After you take you administrative costs out for yourself, of course, right? I mean, somebody has to run the Stuff Justice Reallocation Department, so it might as well be you, of course.
You are wrong on basic facts, wrong on premises (which are mixed, and self-contradictory while also being wrong), and certainly wrong on the basic ethical issues related to whether a business owner does, or does not have a say in how information is sold. Basically, you're a rambling tin-foil troll. Get a grip.
So, it's unjust that I pay for the energy I use now, and pay taxes to subsidize some of what it takes to develope, transport, and secure it?
What you're saying is that I'm not being treated fairly because I have to pay? Or are you saying that people who don't pay for the energy they use are being treated unjustly? Or is it the people who don't pay for the energy they don't use? This whole justice thing is confusing. Here, let me look that up...
Hmmm. No. I couldn't find a definition of "justice" that means "entitled to stuff."
Out of curiosity, what do you gain by characterizing your proposed evil conspiracies exactly, perfectly, 180 degrees out of phase with reality? Other than simply trolling, I mean.
So, to be clear, it's your position that one of the things that Bush said in the context of that particular discussion, makes all of the other facts - and everything else said about them at the time - suddenly no longer true?
My guess is that you're so deep into partisan US politics to ever be able to understand how the rest of the world looks at your actions.
My guess is that you're so pleased to let other people pay in blood and money to deal with many of the world's bad guys that the only way you can make yourself feel better about it is to pretend you resent them for it. It's craven of you, but I get it.
You really need to find less biased sources for your daily information flow.
You mean, less biased towards the actual events that happened? Please be specific. Explain that I'm wrong about Saddam continuing to target patroling aircraft. Explain that I'm wrong about his continued import of NK scuds, and diversion of UN-program oil-for-food funds into his military. Explain that I'm wrong about UN inspectors' observations of large VX stockpiles at the sites they were able to freely visit following the Kuwait invasion, but for which they were able to obtain no information regarding disposal, and of which they could only find partial remains. Really, do tell.
Yes, there was a second action taken because Saddam never actually followed through on the many things to which he agreed as his forces were being pushed back from Kuwait. He never stopped shooting at patroling aircraft, he never stopped importing and working on long-range missiles, he never disclosed what he did with mountains of VX and other nasties, etc. His aggression against Kuwait was what started it, and he never backed down to the posture he was told would be necessary if he wanted his regime to survive. He didn't, and so... he didn't.
Slashdot Mirror
Note that not being able to lie does not imply not being able to tell anything but the truth. Many people telling wrong things actually believe them.
True. Some people really were raised to believe in omniptotent magical beings, and some people really do think that income taxes are only fair if half of the voting population doesn't pay them, etc. I'm not talking about which wrong-headed thing someone believes - but I'd like to know what they actually are, rather than what they're panderingly saying. That would also cut down on the "elect me and the waters will recede" sort of nonsense.
I request a large array of magnets, stage left, at all political debates, presidential appearances in joint sessions of congress, county council hearings, talk show round tables, to the left of all marketing managers' desks, and of course as special left-wall installations in special kiosks that will become the only places where you can access match.com, slashdot, yelp, and the huffington post.
Nobody is forced to work in socialism
So, what happens to that system when nobody works? And what happens when somebody decides they do want to work, but that they don't want to have the product of that work given to someone else? Please be specific.
In a capitalistic utopia, selling yourself should be completely legal. In fact, it is -- it's known as wage slavery.
Indentured servents aren't really part of the legal landscape any more, if you haven't noticed. Clearly you are referring to people who are willing to work for low wages, because they aren't willing to do what it takes to be able to demand higher wages. Your use of the term "slavery" in that context is simply absurd.
if you studied American at all history, you'd know this.
And if you didn't deliberately play fast and loose with semantics, you'd have nothing left to say.
If that was the South's position (you are grossly simplifying it), it really doesn't matter, because it's based on the false premise that a fellow human is the same as a hammer you've made or a goat you've raise. They're not, and so that line of reasoning is a non-starter. Regardless, what previous slave holders said has nothing to do with the reality that capitalism doesn't include forced transactions between people. You're in a market when you're only option besides participating in a transaction is torture, death, etc. Of course you know all of this, and you're just trolling in a completely idiotic way.
The abolition of slavery
That is not a move away from capitalism. That's a move away from, essentially, fuedalism. Capitalism participation in a market, and the mutually agreed-upon exchange of goods, services, etc. Being forced to work for someone else isn't capitalism. But it is the bedrock of socialism.
you accuse your grandparent of an "ad hominem" attack, and then...your last paragraph, what is that? "Lefty fit?"
Oh, that. Well, it's because he was already having exactly that. I extrapolated to assume that if he heard the people he's complaining about using the sort of language that we saw Hoffa using at Obama's event yesterday, that he'd saying more things along the same lines. Not a stretch.
... if you want to drive around in a truck and deliver things all day, or sort packages, or manage people that do, there absolutely are competing employers who certainly do want to pick and choose from the best recruits. The USPS has the monopoly on specific services, but people who want to do that sort of work can shop around for employers. Though plainly many don't want to, because if they've got that gig at the USPS, they know they can't get layed off, even if there's absolutely no reason to keep them employed there.
As for competition
Nice Fox News banter.
Actually, it occurred to me to mention this because of reading on the subject in the Washington Post and the New York Times. Excellent attempt to distract from reality, though, and come out swinging with a lame ad hominem maneuver.
... there are trade offs for paying less for health care and pensions. Salaries are less to compensate for better benefits
Not even close, if you run the numbers. Combine that with being completely unfireable, and obliging your employer to keep paying you even when they have absolutely no need for you, and it's there's a reason that people who work there have no interest in leaving for another gig.
It was the free market acting as it should.
No, it was an entirely political process surrounding a government mandated monopoly. You can't get less free-market than that.
"Evil Unions"
As tempting as it is to use that phrase rhetorically, and in a snarky way, it's now becoming simply descriptive. But then, I suppose you'rehere to provide cover for people like Hoffa, right? If the people for whom you have so much venomous disdain actually said anything approaching what the union bosses say on a regularl basis, you'd be pitching an absolute lefty fit of even more faux unctuous umbrage. You're completely transparent, here.
for essentially the same price as USPS
There's your problem. This is simply not even close to true.
They are an supertanker with 2 steering wheels- the USPS leadership on one and congress on the other.
You're forgetting the third steering wheel that congress built, and turned over to: the labor union that has the USPS by the short hairs, fiscally. Their contract prohibits any layoffs, even when they close down an under-used post office. Those union employees don't pay as much for their own health care or contribute to their own retirement plans as do normal government employees, and so on - and there's nothing the USPS management can do about it, except hemorage money in that general direction.
Ok, Wikileaks follows the rules
Which rules? The ones about helping a US soldier steal and disseminate hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents? They did not follow those rules, the actively, deliberately broke the rules (and common sense, needless to say). That horse was out of the barn the moment they set up server space for Manning to dump to, and didn't involve the authorities when he started doing it.
but a picture that Wikileaks now places someone at risk that wasn't placed at risk earlier through joint efforts is monumentally deceitful
Nonsense. Before Assange and crew offered to help the original criminal move copies of all of that stolen data, the people named in those documents were less at risk. Assange acted to handle that data and make a big show of picking and choosing how and to whom he would dribble it out (to maximize his ego-boosting press coverage), but it was his group's actions that took one bumbling, screwed-up idiot's lame data-dump-theft and turned it into widely reachable collection that, of course, inevitably would be clear text for everyone at some point.
Monumentally deceitful? That would be Assange pretending this wasn't what he wanted all along. He's got a political agenda and a personal need for the spotlight, and this allows him to grind both axes. And of course his sycophantic apologist fanboi club will simply say that no information should ever be discreet, and so this is all good, blah blah blah.
You can argue about blame
Not at all. The guy who stole the documents is primarily to blame, and the guy who set up the infrastructure to hold it for him, and to spread it around is the other party. Period.
company didnt recieve subsidies, it was loans.
Right. Taxpayer money was collected from people, and then set aside to cover loans for this company. Loans this company would not otherwise be able to get because nobody with an eye on reality would ever finance it privately. The loans are of course going to be defaulted upon, and so the tax money that was put up for collateral will now be lost on the venture that it very much subsidized. The primary subsidy was in the form of loan guarantees, and the secondary subsidy is in the form of kissing that solar money goodbye.
...an "experimental company?" Really? That's not what our Glorious Leader called it when he stood there at that very business holding it up as a sure-thing example of what we need more of. He didn't talk risk, or experiment, he talked about doing more of exactly this winning, genius thing.
And
It's hilarious to see Republicans pretending they don't understand how business works.
No, it's (painfully) hilarious to see liberals thinking that government is supposed to be in business. It's not. They shouldn't be owning car companies, or making sweetheart deals on their stock with politically active labor unions, either ... but that's the only reason Obama got into the car business anyway. And when he himself gave a press conference at this very failed solar company, he didn't say "these are the sort of companies that tax payers should finance, because it's worth the risk" ... no, he proclaimed it as a model for how things should be. A sure thing for jobs and rainbow-powered Chevy Volt rechaging stations.
The government is also invested in the companies that put this one out of business.
Really? Which Chinese solor panel manufacturers is the US government invested in, and why aren't they insisting that those businesses play fair? Oh.
some of your investments will turn out to be failures
Yes, I'm sensing that a lot of Hopey Changey voters are realizing how badly they invested their votes.
This doesn't make sense
Are you equally perplexed when peace protesters burn buildings, or when a bunch of people unhappy about how a soccer game turned out decide to destroy a bunch of their city's infrastructure? Packs of people, mostly adolescent and presuming they can act with impunity because they're wearing real or virtual scarves over their faces, do exactly the sort of stuff you think makes no sense.
This.
OK, just so we're clear that the solution to poverty is slavery. Thanks for straightening that out.
Your world could turn on a dime. It happens
And when it does, I suddenly have the right to force you to work for me, because my right to your time and efforts trumps your right to your time and effort? Ah, Social Justice.
Must ... get ... back ... in ... chair ...
... comment ... has ... caused ... disturbance ... in ... fabric ... of ... universe!
Rational
Wow, let me bask in the glow of your self entitlement
No, what you're saying is that I'm not entitled to things I do myself, but other people are entitled to what I do.
Just because you're lucky enough not to have to worry about such things does not mean that you have any more right to them than anybody else does
Who says I don't worry about suddenly becoming blind, or poor, or injured and unable to work? Other than you, I mean, since you know.
I've seen the folks that work janitorial and in kitchens and chances are good that they work harder than you do for less.
Really? I work about 90 hours a week, and haven't had a single week actually "off" in about ten years. Nobody paid my way through college - I didn't get to go, because I had to work. Hey, look! Horrible injustice - somebody else got something I didn't get! I better start whining, and asking for justice!
You want justice? Take kids away from crappy parents, since parents committed to raising witless, uneducated kids are the only reason that some people don't have as much stuff as other people. Well, that and the fact that entire sub-cultures are basically lazy, and actually resent the people who do the work.
Regardless, what you're saying is that because I work, I'm not entitled to things, and because other people can't or don't, they are entitled to having me work for them. What you're calling for is charity, but what you want is central power over productivity so that you can distribute its output as you see justly fit. After you take you administrative costs out for yourself, of course, right? I mean, somebody has to run the Stuff Justice Reallocation Department, so it might as well be you, of course.
You are wrong on basic facts, wrong on premises (which are mixed, and self-contradictory while also being wrong), and certainly wrong on the basic ethical issues related to whether a business owner does, or does not have a say in how information is sold. Basically, you're a rambling tin-foil troll. Get a grip.
Access to energy is social justice
So, it's unjust that I pay for the energy I use now, and pay taxes to subsidize some of what it takes to develope, transport, and secure it?
What you're saying is that I'm not being treated fairly because I have to pay? Or are you saying that people who don't pay for the energy they use are being treated unjustly? Or is it the people who don't pay for the energy they don't use? This whole justice thing is confusing. Here, let me look that up...
Hmmm. No. I couldn't find a definition of "justice" that means "entitled to stuff."
Out of curiosity, what do you gain by characterizing your proposed evil conspiracies exactly, perfectly, 180 degrees out of phase with reality? Other than simply trolling, I mean.
My guess is that you're so deep into partisan US politics to ever be able to understand how the rest of the world looks at your actions.
My guess is that you're so pleased to let other people pay in blood and money to deal with many of the world's bad guys that the only way you can make yourself feel better about it is to pretend you resent them for it. It's craven of you, but I get it.
You really need to find less biased sources for your daily information flow.
You mean, less biased towards the actual events that happened? Please be specific. Explain that I'm wrong about Saddam continuing to target patroling aircraft. Explain that I'm wrong about his continued import of NK scuds, and diversion of UN-program oil-for-food funds into his military. Explain that I'm wrong about UN inspectors' observations of large VX stockpiles at the sites they were able to freely visit following the Kuwait invasion, but for which they were able to obtain no information regarding disposal, and of which they could only find partial remains. Really, do tell.
You do remember there was a second part, right?
Yes, there was a second action taken because Saddam never actually followed through on the many things to which he agreed as his forces were being pushed back from Kuwait. He never stopped shooting at patroling aircraft, he never stopped importing and working on long-range missiles, he never disclosed what he did with mountains of VX and other nasties, etc. His aggression against Kuwait was what started it, and he never backed down to the posture he was told would be necessary if he wanted his regime to survive. He didn't, and so ... he didn't.