Well of course it's 90%-or-so the rich, who else invests in capital and takes on massive, risky investment? The average person isn't harmed by this, they benefit from the increased capital (typically -- unless it's a false price signal in interest rates, like from the Fed) which lowers costs, and increases output per person.
Money doesn't have value by virtue of it's existence, it has value because of how it's earned. Taking money from the rich undermines the value of the money and it doesn't increase production, it doesn't increase the amount of products, it doesn't increase the amount of houses or food or other goods/services. It raises prices, which increases costs, and hurts investment, all of which disproportionately hurts the working class. If you want to benefit the average person you have to produce the wealth before you can sell it.
Actually that's called the broken window fallacy, and it destroys wealth, it doesn't create it. Trickle down refers to the formation of capital by government stealing and spending less money, not more. This includes government borrowing less money to make it available for capital investment (and government deficit spending is not capital investment).
And ideally they would have counted as zero people because the only point of the census is to allocate seats in the House of Representatives, the whole point was to convince the slave states to free the slaves if they wanted to get increased representation in the House. Go read up on the "Three-fifths compromise" please.
No, what happens is that you refuse to pay, based on a cost-benefit estimation weighing deterioration from losing your share of maintenance to the cost to you. Everyone else does that too, and the thing collapses entirely. That's "tragedy of the commons".
If I refuse to pay then I don't get access to the network. This is already how it works how are you disputing this? A "tragedy of the commons" is what happens when you don't have property to allocate decision making, i.e. what we have with the oceans where it is profitable to over-fish because no one owns oceans, unlike as farms do for crops.
Of course I can, simply by disputing your definition. Specifically, I'm not buying your assertion that you have a right to not be taxed, or that property rights are absolute
Can you can find some objective way of allocating resources? Individual rights (including property ownership and rule of law) has the track record of being one of the most predictable, simple systems to determine who does what, and best of all, it's all about freedom.
So first you show your approval of this guys actions by celebrating him, and then you show your disapproval by executing him. That is ridiculous. Either they were okay, in which case no execution, or they weren't, in which case no parade.
I can't say for sure would happen in a free society, otherwise it would't be a free society, would it? Point is just because you violated someone's rights, even if for some greater good which everyone (subjectively) recognizes, is no excuse to make exemptions to the rule of law.
That would depend on who your ask, now wouldn't it ?-) Economics isn't science, it's glorified astrology.
The parts where people are imposing subjective theory as objective fact is where it's glorified astrology. We can observe the act of action, though. We can make logical conclusions from action, by observing the decisions made. But that's all you can do. You cannot say who benefited more in a voluntary exchange, that makes no sense, since value is subjective. You could compare who would be willing to abandon the exchange depending on how much money you bribe them, but of course you can't say that even that money is worth the same to different people. Likewise, we can observe that people, as an aggregate, are willing to exchange for more food than actually exists if what they have to give up is below the equilibrium price. That's a shortage.
Short term shortages may occur if an entrepreneur did not correctly forecast the equilibrium price for a product, usually when launching a new product (for instance). Long term shortages simply do not exist in a free market. In this case, the Fed printed the money necessary to lower the interest rates to 1%, dramatically reducing the price of time (interest), making unsustainable capital projects like housing profitable, when in a free market it wouldn't have been. To argue that's a failure of the market is like paying farmers to destroy crops and blaming starvation on the free market because they voluntarily accepted the money. (Something which really did happen, too.)
No, it isn't a false dilemma, I'm sad to say. It's exactly the dilemma factory workers faced during the Industrial Revolution and minimum-wage workers face today.
I understand it's difficult to accept something that will undermine your entire belief system, but... that's just the way it is. Libertarianism doesn't work, since it fails to acknowledge resource starvation as a form of coercion. That's why the more libertarian an economic system is, the more hierarchical and oppressive its power structures tend to get.
Since when is starvation a form of coercion? Food is an economic good. That means it's scarce. That means there isn't enough food for everyone if it were free to acquire. If what you were saying were true, coercion would be an intrinsic part of the system. C
GP is citing the "Best Part Of The Talk"... everyone knew where the image they showed was from, or at worst, you know everyone else knows and you go and Google it.
However, forcing you to pay your share of maintenance of the social and physical infrastructure which made it possible to manufacture that cell phone, deliver it to you, build and maintain the cell phone network, and do the exchange without having to barter... now that is entirely just.
If the infrastructure needed funding, I would have to voluntarily agree to pay for that price that is being charged -- Which is exactly how it happens, your idea that we have to force people to pay for that is ridiculous.
Adding the word "period" at the end of your sentence doesn't prove your assertion. Sorry.
BY DEFINITION it's a violation of individual rights. You can't argue with a by definition argument, sorry.
For example, if people are dying of thirst because some rich plutocrat has claimed all fresh water for his opium plantation, the situation clearly calls for coercive methods of correction.
If that were just, the person who stole it would still have to pay for their crimes. If an alien race threatened to blow up the earth unless we killed someone, well sure, let's find someone who will kill the guy, and then have our little parade celebrating how he saved the earth by murdering someone... and then we would promptly execute him too. But you see how perverted you have to get to undermine liberty?
And seriously, since when was the last time people died of thirst? We have charities for that, never mind that you can find water free in practically every retail store in existence. It's a false dilemma, we do not need to steal water from people to keep people from dying of thirst.
So what about, say, non-compete clauses?
They are unenforceable... well technically you would be in violation of your contract, but there's no damages that the former employer could sue for if they have already gotten everything they asked of you in the way of labor, and have already paid you everything in the way of salary. At the very worst you could simply not get any pay that was due to come to you at a future date.
his latest economic crash is a good example of what happens when you give the powerful more liberty to exercise their power: they loot the economy, and the poor end up paying the bill.
Giving the federal reserve more leeway to ruin things is not deregulation, it's interventionism. You realize they held interest rates at 1% for years, right? What does economics teach about price fixing, again?
If your choices are making the exchange or starving to death, is that voluntary?
False dilemma. The only way death would be the only option is if a gun were pointed at your head in which case... that's coercion.
If I walked up to you and took (Say) the cell phone you were holding, that would be initiation of violence, it would be theft. unless I am the owner of that phone and there was no agreement for you to hold it, then it's my right to take it from you. That's what "wrongful" is. Just because an entity like the government does it, doesn't make it just. Whatever you want to call it, it's a violation of individual rights, period.
Except that I am plundered.
You can't be plundered of something you never owned! You realize the difference between allocation and rationing, right? It's the same difference between scarcity and shortage.
Liberty does you no good if you lack resources to exercise it, nor do individual rights when you have to give them up to be allowed to eat by your corporate overlords.
You cannot give up individual rights, by definition! They are yours alone. You can't give them away even if you wanted to! If there's a "corporate overlord" who is telling me how to run my Internet... oh wait that sounds a lot like the government doesn't it? Government, corporation, it doesn't matter, coercion is bad, immoral, period. In that sense yes, power is bad, but show me the last cooperation that was breaking into people's homes threatening to forcefully take money from workers -- It's really only something the government does (the State is the monopoly on the means of coercion, after all).
The weak aren't suppressed by freedom, they are empowered by it, because of this thing called comparative advantage maybe you've heard of it. It doesn't matter how small and incapable you are, you still benefit from voluntary exchange, it's a logical consequence of the act of exchange.
I find it funny you say "taxes are stealing" (it is, it's legalized theft) and then don't argue against it. Apparently you completely missed the point of the GP: The left advocates stealing from the rich, or at least disproportionately from the rich, and suddenly the "Right" is all of a sudden "only concerned with the rich" which is complete BS, equal justice under law means the "Right" don't care if you're rich, poor, you have the same individual rights everyone else does, to not be plundered.
It's because you can't differentiate between an ideal, and force. Government is force, by definition... The State is the monopoly on the means of coercion.
There is nothing wrong with Net Neutrality, there is nothing wrong with anything if the conditions are voluntarily accepted by both parties.
You're missing the point that government enforced Net Neutrality is a bad thing. At that point you are violating one person's natural rights (the ISP) for the sake of a "freedom" that a person has no right to. You are violating individual rights for the sake of enforcing a belief that has had no problem being enforced by the market so far. Fact is, the vast majority of people have no problem accessing YouTube and Facebook and whatever else. All of the fancy graphic illustrations I've seen years ago "$5.99/mo for access to ten whole websites!" has been sheer nonsense. Even if it did come true, an ISP still has a right to sell such a plan!
How about the FCC, what sort of track record do they have for enforcing freedom? The Fairness Doctrine? The broadcast flag? Their whole existence in recent history has been to silence content, never, ever, to promote it. Even if government-forced Net Neutrality were moral I wouldn't trust the FCC with the task to the end of the earth.
Get it out of your mind that competition and "the market" is why freedom is a good idea. That's probably one of the worst, most damaging ideas to ever have been invented. One entity having so much control isn't necessarily a bad thing... It's their property after all, they can decide what to sell, or what not to sell. Does it make sense if we had to have two power lines going to every house in the country, that would be a massive waste of natural resources? Even if we split up power producers, distribution, etc, into separate companies, that would still massively increase costs. Saying you are in favor of "freedom on the Internet" is like saying you are in favor of "freedom from not owning a house"... whose liberty do you have to violate to ensure that non-existent freedom? It seems like you have inconsistent values if liberty is good for one group of people but not for others. What natural law allows us to determine there is an "Internet service provider exemption" to individual rights?
The free market isn't the best there is because it's open, it's the best there is because it's free, it's liberal (as in liberty). Because an ISP can decide who they sell their services to and under what conditions, that's voluntary exchange and it's a good thing!
Notice that even so, no one has ever actually blocked content in that manner... But what about the FCC, do they have nearly as clean a record? The broadcast flag? The Fairness Doctrine?!? (Gosh "Fairness Doctrine" is worded an awful lot like FCC Mandated "Net Neutrality"...) Their sole purpose was to establish property rights over radio frequencies over geographical areas. What right do they have to tell companies how to operate their networks that often never even cross state lines? And even if it does become a problem, that's a solution for engineers to solve, not for government force to solve. End to end encryption would allow unparalleled freedom over the Internet, if you cannot determine the content, for instance.
A person bashing an entire collective of people because of a loaded article? I'm shocked.
The "right" has no problem with the Internet. It's the most free, most liberal institution on the face of the earth in the history of the earth bar none. The "right" doesn't have a problem with that. They have the same issues that the EFF has which is that even if government control of the Internet were a good idea, the FCC has NO history of being fair, free, open, or any of the ideals that Net Neutrality is about. This isn't a "Big Corp" issue, it's a freedom issue, and using the force of government to enforce freedom is something that has never been accomplished, and for good reason. I have to rely on initiating use of force i.e. attack individual rights, to ensure freedom? It's a contradiction of terms. So why would we expect it to work now?
Big Corp (i.e. telcos, cablecos, and Hollywood) are anti-neutrality, therefore the Right is anti-neutrality.
Such a massive fallacy I don't even know where to begin.
Forget about cost-pricing, since when has any government program gone under-budget? Even if that was viable, prices determine costs, and not the other way around. There's a market rate for renting money, that's called the interest rate, maybe you've heard of it.
A lack of regulation? You realize the Federal Reserve set interest rates at 1% for years. Lower than the rate of inflation low. Like, it was cheaper to mortgage your house than put money in the bank low. That's price fixing, and what does basic economics teach about price fixing?... Shortages and surpluses! Huh, which seems to be exactly what happened during the cri...sis... huh forget that that's just too good an explanation. But no, they verbally didn't care what the consequences would lead to, and now of course they flatly deny everything. Lifting the floodgates to allow the Fed to set whatever policy it wants isn't deregulation, it's interventionism.
Apparently you missed the part where the TSA is doing things other people would go to prison for doing. And in any case, yes, they took over private security in most airports after 9/11.
The fact that GM received government money and a ridiculous program to subsidize cars doesn't change the fact they they are losing money. An act of congress doesn't change the basic laws of economics, all it does is takes money from one group of people and gives it to another. Profits are good, losses are bad, that's pretty basic stuff, and getting special laws to prop you up doesn't change that. The liquidation of assets -- reallocation to their most urgently demanded use -- is exactly what is needed to speed the recovery, but the administration won't hear any of it, and -- surprise -- we get no recovery because of it (I mean, because NO ONE IN THE WORLD saw double digit unemployment coming if we passed the stimulus).
Sorry, you need a price system to signal profit and loss. Single payer systems (and to some extent, the employer-based health insurance plans that are made profitable by our tax structure) get rid of that, entirely negating the ability to efficiently allocate resources.
Dissolving the Union would require revolution or the consent of the states to dissolve the Union. Withdrawing from it would be within the powers of each state that signed into the union in the first place. You do realize that even after the union was created when the constitutionally-required minimum of nine members joined, there were some states that were still independent (that is, ran by the Articles of Confederation)? There was no obligation on any state to join... you didn't have to join the club, but you wouldn't get the benefits of being in the club. The states created the union and not the other way around, and no one can sign into a binding agreement forever, that's slavery (how ironic).
Also, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not the Supreme court. The Supreme Court is just one element of the system that interprets and (supposedly) enforces the Constitution. All the Supreme Court does is say we won't allow any convictions of this law, or hold any person guilty relating to it, etc. The law still stays on the books!
Perhaps you've missed out on the federal takeover of student loans, much of the banking sector (by force!), the TSA, the auto industry, health insurance. Sure we've seen the protests (alright maybe not against obscure things like student loans though that was in Obamacare so I guess it counts), but that didn't change anything. Have you read any of the writings of the FCC chair? The FCC will grab whatever powers it doesn't have and use them for whatever purpose it likes, sheeple or not. The only thing really stopping them at this point is the threat of congressional review, and getting dragged in front of angry committee chairs, next term.
The Constitution only allows the Supreme Court to rule on specific cases. They do not change the meaning of the constitution under any circumstances -- it is the job of all the branches to ensure that any branch is not violating the Constitution by using power not granted to them. Justices will refuse to comment on generalizations for this reason, because they only apply the law, they do not define it.
As such, case law can be used to apply an opinion to a large number of similar cases at once, but it does not redefine the plain language of the law. The Supreme Court has entirely reversed its opinion over years -- especially over the FDR era -- but no one would argue this changed the meaning of the Constitution in any way.
In particular, in order to fall under the jurisdiction of Congress' interstate commerce clause, the regulation must affect an exchange being made over state lines as it is happening. Also note that the word "regulation" means something entirely different than just power -- it meant to "keep regular". The Interstate commerce clause gave Congress (I love this) the coercive power to enforce free trade, that is, to prohibit states from establishing tariffs and other taxes (same effect as "Congress shall have power to enforce this article" clauses seen in amendments). Unfortunately, the health insurance mandate falls under neither interstate nor commerce. In fact, you can't even argue that it affects interstate commerce since buying health insurance across state lines is (unconstitutionally) illegal! Assuming that the "affects interstate trade" argument is even true (it isn't), you would have to successfully argue that the non-purchase of health care somehow affects the illegal interstate market health insurance!
Go ahead, name just one case where the states have authority that the federal government does not, because of the 10th amendment.
Citation needed on how I'm not a "constitutional scholar." Let's just read the Constitution, shall we? What part of Article 1 section 8 and/or amendment saying "Congress shall have power to enforce this article" grants congress the power to force citizens to buy a privately produced service? I can't find it. I can't find a single claim anywhere in the Constitution or its writings like the Federalist that argued they have any such power. Not even the Anti-federalist papers said the Constitution threatened this (it made the claim that the Executive branch would force people to do things they didn't have the power to, like regulating exchanges).
Let me ask you, name just one power that the 10th amendment prohibits to the Federal government that the states have?
By definition, if the supremes say it is constitutional, then it is.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not the supreme court. By definition.
The difference is that with the ISPs, it's their network. Like, they own it. They are providing a service to you that you voluntarily agree to, to connect your network with theirs. The government, however, is a third party in the exchange and does not have any authority to regulate it. There's no reason the government couldn't just regulate you instead of the ISPs, it's the same thing, just a different side of the agreement.
The unamended Constitution doesn't even use the word "freedom". The Constitution enforces this thing called liberty (maybe you've heard of it) where people have certain individual rights, chief among these are your right to life (you own yourself), property (you can own things as you own yourself), and liberty (you can make voluntary agreements with other people, possibly to exchange your property, among other things).
Overall, this is called freedom. People like to misuse this word, though, to try and grant abilities to people that don't actually exist. You don't have the "freedom" to steal money from other people, for instance.
You talk about wealth like somehow if one person becomes wealthier, another person must become less wealthy as a result. This is absolutely not true, because a free market is not a zero-sum game, it must have a positive outcome for both parties, otherwise the exchange could not have occurred by definition.
You realize congressmen are immune from prosecution for things they do and say on the floor right? Even without that protection you are the one bringing up treason, not the grandparent, which is very well defined in the Constitution anyways, can you go through the definition and find him guilty point by point on all the criteria?
Needless to say, yes, most every congressman has voted for unconstitutional legislation, and Franken is no exception (Obamacare especially), unless you can look at it and describe what section of the Constitution grants congress the power to pass every single bill they voted for.
I'll take that as a concession, thank you very much.
Again, you're a fucking idiot. Telling you facts is like showing a dog a card trick.
This hardly refutes the case that somehow newly elected, non-establishment (i.e. not the choice of the Republican Party leadership) representatives must somehow adopt the same views as other people from the same party. No, not true in any universe. I will concede that arm-twisting goes on within parties, but that's something to (rightfully) blame the parties themselves for, not the anti-spending/anti-tax values the Tea Party stands for.
The issue is that you're so unbelievably ignorant that you think Republic means Republic. Actually, it means that the state is ruled by the public. Which means they vote for representatives to control their government. Which is a representative democracy. Which does limit democratic power to abridge minority rights, but even those rules can be removed by democratic action through a 2/3 vote in the Congress and Senate, or in a Constitutional Convention.
Go read the Federalist papers, now please. Madison pretty damn well knew what he meant by "republic" when he said it.
Does this mean you're missing a Klan rally somewhere? In what universe is not counting people as people a good thing? Because it allowed the North to retain power while they allowed the south to own slaves? The rest of the civilized world considers that a mistake.
Slaves couldn't vote. Let me rephrase that again to get the point across. By definition slaves were non-voters. Counting slaves into the House of Representatives would have given more power to pro-slavery congressmen against the wishes of slaves themselves, who again did not vote. Still you manage to completely miss the important point that blacks != slaves and were counted as full people when they were able to vote (thus getting increased representation in Congress), are you going to acknowledge that?
You're probably not aware of this, but about 30,000 children die every day in Africa from preventable diseases. In developed nations with strong social infrastructure, the rate is pretty close to 0.
That's because of this thing called capitalism where we invest lots of capital into workers so they can be productive enough to be able to exchange their produce for clean water, medical care, shelter, etc. You don't need a government to do that, and there's plenty of examples around the world, the US itself to an extent, New Zealand (out of all places), Hong Kong, etc. Government doesn't produce prosperity, rule of law does, and surveying African social structures you will find some of the most tyrannical governments or social structures in general. So again, you fall victim to the "correlation does not imply causation" fallacy.
The name calling can end please, thank you. You have yet to cite what propaganda I'm regurgitating let alone acknowledge my correction on the party preferences of the tea party.
Do you really think I never read the amendment process? You're completely missing the point. The legislative branch and the House of Representatives in particular might be structured like a democracy but what part of the Constitution establishes a democracy? What part provides that member states will be democracies?
While we are on the topic of taking fine points completely out of context and missing the point, blacks were never considered 3/5ths of a person. Only slaves were. There were numerous blacks who were voting, owned land, owned other slaves (!), and held political office. The 3/5ths number was so that slave states would not have as much representation in congress, and ideally they wouldn't have counted at all, and that's a good thing.
And stop playing stupid. When I say "they can't" I mean in terms of legitimacy, i.e. individual rights. When was the last time a government agency ever stopped anything? It's so wound up in the side-effects of it's own actions all it can do is make the problems worse. What kind of company wants to put arsenic in pacifiers, you tell me? That was your original question wasn't it? You were talking about some company that was already doing that action, yes, they legitimately can be stopped because it's something an individual could legitimately do.
The US is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic, the Constitution provides that (look it up). There's a major difference, in particular, there is supreme law and natural law that the citizens cannot change. Yes, yes I did equate taxes with stealing, is it not legalized theft? Yes the US does have quite a bit of illegitimate powers that the Framers did not intend, as a consequence.
Right. So if a pacifier company is putting arsenic in their products, they can't be stopped without violating shareholder rights? You can't possibly be that stupid and still have the ability to read and write.
Tthat's called fraud, it's a form of coercion, and individuals cannot do it, therefore companies (and governments for that matter, no difference) cannot either.
And if the people decide progressive taxation leads to a better society, they are free to impose it, and you are free to leave if you don't like it.
There's no reason you couldn't start a small city and have everyone sign onto an agreement in exchange for a public library and whatnot. I'm perfectly happy doing that if I understand what's going on. But most people have not, and it's almost certainly not possible at a federal level, therefore the legitimate powers are most narrow.
No one is talking about stealing savings. What we are talking about is taxation of income earned in the United States. Try to stay on this side of reality.
It applies equally well to any form of taxation. I would, by the way, include the estate tax and the "inflation" tax as taxes on savings when using that term, but that's a matter of personal definition I guess.
Thanks for reiterating my exact point, but note that cooperations are made up of individuals, yes? You cannot stop any company from doing something without violating some individual's rights, nor can a government try and steal money since government's only legitimate powers are those which are derived from the people, and last I checked individual people cannot go into a person's savings just because they they think they are "rich" or for any other reason.
Maybe you should actually go read some Jefferson (and the rest of the Framers for that matter, they all had different opinions, of course) before you claim to know what he thinks on the issue of liberty and individual rights?
Citation needed on what propaganda it is I am "regurgitating."
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Well of course it's 90%-or-so the rich, who else invests in capital and takes on massive, risky investment? The average person isn't harmed by this, they benefit from the increased capital (typically -- unless it's a false price signal in interest rates, like from the Fed) which lowers costs, and increases output per person.
Money doesn't have value by virtue of it's existence, it has value because of how it's earned. Taking money from the rich undermines the value of the money and it doesn't increase production, it doesn't increase the amount of products, it doesn't increase the amount of houses or food or other goods/services. It raises prices, which increases costs, and hurts investment, all of which disproportionately hurts the working class. If you want to benefit the average person you have to produce the wealth before you can sell it.
Actually that's called the broken window fallacy, and it destroys wealth, it doesn't create it. Trickle down refers to the formation of capital by government stealing and spending less money, not more. This includes government borrowing less money to make it available for capital investment (and government deficit spending is not capital investment).
And ideally they would have counted as zero people because the only point of the census is to allocate seats in the House of Representatives, the whole point was to convince the slave states to free the slaves if they wanted to get increased representation in the House. Go read up on the "Three-fifths compromise" please.
No, what happens is that you refuse to pay, based on a cost-benefit estimation weighing deterioration from losing your share of maintenance to the cost to you. Everyone else does that too, and the thing collapses entirely. That's "tragedy of the commons".
If I refuse to pay then I don't get access to the network. This is already how it works how are you disputing this? A "tragedy of the commons" is what happens when you don't have property to allocate decision making, i.e. what we have with the oceans where it is profitable to over-fish because no one owns oceans, unlike as farms do for crops.
Of course I can, simply by disputing your definition. Specifically, I'm not buying your assertion that you have a right to not be taxed, or that property rights are absolute
Can you can find some objective way of allocating resources? Individual rights (including property ownership and rule of law) has the track record of being one of the most predictable, simple systems to determine who does what, and best of all, it's all about freedom.
So first you show your approval of this guys actions by celebrating him, and then you show your disapproval by executing him. That is ridiculous. Either they were okay, in which case no execution, or they weren't, in which case no parade.
I can't say for sure would happen in a free society, otherwise it would't be a free society, would it? Point is just because you violated someone's rights, even if for some greater good which everyone (subjectively) recognizes, is no excuse to make exemptions to the rule of law.
That would depend on who your ask, now wouldn't it ?-) Economics isn't science, it's glorified astrology.
The parts where people are imposing subjective theory as objective fact is where it's glorified astrology. We can observe the act of action, though. We can make logical conclusions from action, by observing the decisions made. But that's all you can do. You cannot say who benefited more in a voluntary exchange, that makes no sense, since value is subjective. You could compare who would be willing to abandon the exchange depending on how much money you bribe them, but of course you can't say that even that money is worth the same to different people. Likewise, we can observe that people, as an aggregate, are willing to exchange for more food than actually exists if what they have to give up is below the equilibrium price. That's a shortage.
Short term shortages may occur if an entrepreneur did not correctly forecast the equilibrium price for a product, usually when launching a new product (for instance). Long term shortages simply do not exist in a free market. In this case, the Fed printed the money necessary to lower the interest rates to 1%, dramatically reducing the price of time (interest), making unsustainable capital projects like housing profitable, when in a free market it wouldn't have been. To argue that's a failure of the market is like paying farmers to destroy crops and blaming starvation on the free market because they voluntarily accepted the money. (Something which really did happen, too.)
No, it isn't a false dilemma, I'm sad to say. It's exactly the dilemma factory workers faced during the Industrial Revolution and minimum-wage workers face today.
I understand it's difficult to accept something that will undermine your entire belief system, but... that's just the way it is. Libertarianism doesn't work, since it fails to acknowledge resource starvation as a form of coercion. That's why the more libertarian an economic system is, the more hierarchical and oppressive its power structures tend to get.
Since when is starvation a form of coercion? Food is an economic good. That means it's scarce. That means there isn't enough food for everyone if it were free to acquire. If what you were saying were true, coercion would be an intrinsic part of the system. C
GP is citing the "Best Part Of The Talk"... everyone knew where the image they showed was from, or at worst, you know everyone else knows and you go and Google it.
However, forcing you to pay your share of maintenance of the social and physical infrastructure which made it possible to manufacture that cell phone, deliver it to you, build and maintain the cell phone network, and do the exchange without having to barter... now that is entirely just.
If the infrastructure needed funding, I would have to voluntarily agree to pay for that price that is being charged -- Which is exactly how it happens, your idea that we have to force people to pay for that is ridiculous.
Adding the word "period" at the end of your sentence doesn't prove your assertion. Sorry.
BY DEFINITION it's a violation of individual rights. You can't argue with a by definition argument, sorry.
For example, if people are dying of thirst because some rich plutocrat has claimed all fresh water for his opium plantation, the situation clearly calls for coercive methods of correction.
If that were just, the person who stole it would still have to pay for their crimes. If an alien race threatened to blow up the earth unless we killed someone, well sure, let's find someone who will kill the guy, and then have our little parade celebrating how he saved the earth by murdering someone... and then we would promptly execute him too. But you see how perverted you have to get to undermine liberty?
And seriously, since when was the last time people died of thirst? We have charities for that, never mind that you can find water free in practically every retail store in existence. It's a false dilemma, we do not need to steal water from people to keep people from dying of thirst.
So what about, say, non-compete clauses?
They are unenforceable... well technically you would be in violation of your contract, but there's no damages that the former employer could sue for if they have already gotten everything they asked of you in the way of labor, and have already paid you everything in the way of salary. At the very worst you could simply not get any pay that was due to come to you at a future date.
his latest economic crash is a good example of what happens when you give the powerful more liberty to exercise their power: they loot the economy, and the poor end up paying the bill.
Giving the federal reserve more leeway to ruin things is not deregulation, it's interventionism. You realize they held interest rates at 1% for years, right? What does economics teach about price fixing, again?
If your choices are making the exchange or starving to death, is that voluntary?
False dilemma. The only way death would be the only option is if a gun were pointed at your head in which case... that's coercion.
Notice the key word "wrongful" there?
If I walked up to you and took (Say) the cell phone you were holding, that would be initiation of violence, it would be theft. unless I am the owner of that phone and there was no agreement for you to hold it, then it's my right to take it from you. That's what "wrongful" is. Just because an entity like the government does it, doesn't make it just. Whatever you want to call it, it's a violation of individual rights, period.
Except that I am plundered.
You can't be plundered of something you never owned! You realize the difference between allocation and rationing, right? It's the same difference between scarcity and shortage.
Liberty does you no good if you lack resources to exercise it, nor do individual rights when you have to give them up to be allowed to eat by your corporate overlords.
You cannot give up individual rights, by definition! They are yours alone. You can't give them away even if you wanted to! If there's a "corporate overlord" who is telling me how to run my Internet... oh wait that sounds a lot like the government doesn't it? Government, corporation, it doesn't matter, coercion is bad, immoral, period. In that sense yes, power is bad, but show me the last cooperation that was breaking into people's homes threatening to forcefully take money from workers -- It's really only something the government does (the State is the monopoly on the means of coercion, after all).
The weak aren't suppressed by freedom, they are empowered by it, because of this thing called comparative advantage maybe you've heard of it. It doesn't matter how small and incapable you are, you still benefit from voluntary exchange, it's a logical consequence of the act of exchange.
It's called an oxymoron.
I find it funny you say "taxes are stealing" (it is, it's legalized theft) and then don't argue against it. Apparently you completely missed the point of the GP: The left advocates stealing from the rich, or at least disproportionately from the rich, and suddenly the "Right" is all of a sudden "only concerned with the rich" which is complete BS, equal justice under law means the "Right" don't care if you're rich, poor, you have the same individual rights everyone else does, to not be plundered.
These terms are nonsense anyways, liberty and individual rights are neither left nor right.
It's because you can't differentiate between an ideal, and force. Government is force, by definition... The State is the monopoly on the means of coercion.
There is nothing wrong with Net Neutrality, there is nothing wrong with anything if the conditions are voluntarily accepted by both parties.
You're missing the point that government enforced Net Neutrality is a bad thing. At that point you are violating one person's natural rights (the ISP) for the sake of a "freedom" that a person has no right to. You are violating individual rights for the sake of enforcing a belief that has had no problem being enforced by the market so far. Fact is, the vast majority of people have no problem accessing YouTube and Facebook and whatever else. All of the fancy graphic illustrations I've seen years ago "$5.99/mo for access to ten whole websites!" has been sheer nonsense. Even if it did come true, an ISP still has a right to sell such a plan!
How about the FCC, what sort of track record do they have for enforcing freedom? The Fairness Doctrine? The broadcast flag? Their whole existence in recent history has been to silence content, never, ever, to promote it. Even if government-forced Net Neutrality were moral I wouldn't trust the FCC with the task to the end of the earth.
Get it out of your mind that competition and "the market" is why freedom is a good idea. That's probably one of the worst, most damaging ideas to ever have been invented. One entity having so much control isn't necessarily a bad thing... It's their property after all, they can decide what to sell, or what not to sell. Does it make sense if we had to have two power lines going to every house in the country, that would be a massive waste of natural resources? Even if we split up power producers, distribution, etc, into separate companies, that would still massively increase costs. Saying you are in favor of "freedom on the Internet" is like saying you are in favor of "freedom from not owning a house"... whose liberty do you have to violate to ensure that non-existent freedom? It seems like you have inconsistent values if liberty is good for one group of people but not for others. What natural law allows us to determine there is an "Internet service provider exemption" to individual rights?
The free market isn't the best there is because it's open, it's the best there is because it's free, it's liberal (as in liberty). Because an ISP can decide who they sell their services to and under what conditions, that's voluntary exchange and it's a good thing!
Notice that even so, no one has ever actually blocked content in that manner... But what about the FCC, do they have nearly as clean a record? The broadcast flag? The Fairness Doctrine?!? (Gosh "Fairness Doctrine" is worded an awful lot like FCC Mandated "Net Neutrality"...) Their sole purpose was to establish property rights over radio frequencies over geographical areas. What right do they have to tell companies how to operate their networks that often never even cross state lines? And even if it does become a problem, that's a solution for engineers to solve, not for government force to solve. End to end encryption would allow unparalleled freedom over the Internet, if you cannot determine the content, for instance.
A person bashing an entire collective of people because of a loaded article? I'm shocked.
The "right" has no problem with the Internet. It's the most free, most liberal institution on the face of the earth in the history of the earth bar none. The "right" doesn't have a problem with that. They have the same issues that the EFF has which is that even if government control of the Internet were a good idea, the FCC has NO history of being fair, free, open, or any of the ideals that Net Neutrality is about. This isn't a "Big Corp" issue, it's a freedom issue, and using the force of government to enforce freedom is something that has never been accomplished, and for good reason. I have to rely on initiating use of force i.e. attack individual rights, to ensure freedom? It's a contradiction of terms. So why would we expect it to work now?
Big Corp (i.e. telcos, cablecos, and Hollywood) are anti-neutrality, therefore the Right is anti-neutrality.
Such a massive fallacy I don't even know where to begin.
Forget about cost-pricing, since when has any government program gone under-budget? Even if that was viable, prices determine costs, and not the other way around. There's a market rate for renting money, that's called the interest rate, maybe you've heard of it.
A lack of regulation? You realize the Federal Reserve set interest rates at 1% for years. Lower than the rate of inflation low. Like, it was cheaper to mortgage your house than put money in the bank low. That's price fixing, and what does basic economics teach about price fixing? ... Shortages and surpluses! Huh, which seems to be exactly what happened during the cri...sis... huh forget that that's just too good an explanation. But no, they verbally didn't care what the consequences would lead to, and now of course they flatly deny everything. Lifting the floodgates to allow the Fed to set whatever policy it wants isn't deregulation, it's interventionism.
Apparently you missed the part where the TSA is doing things other people would go to prison for doing. And in any case, yes, they took over private security in most airports after 9/11.
The fact that GM received government money and a ridiculous program to subsidize cars doesn't change the fact they they are losing money. An act of congress doesn't change the basic laws of economics, all it does is takes money from one group of people and gives it to another. Profits are good, losses are bad, that's pretty basic stuff, and getting special laws to prop you up doesn't change that. The liquidation of assets -- reallocation to their most urgently demanded use -- is exactly what is needed to speed the recovery, but the administration won't hear any of it, and -- surprise -- we get no recovery because of it (I mean, because NO ONE IN THE WORLD saw double digit unemployment coming if we passed the stimulus).
Sorry, you need a price system to signal profit and loss. Single payer systems (and to some extent, the employer-based health insurance plans that are made profitable by our tax structure) get rid of that, entirely negating the ability to efficiently allocate resources.
Dissolving the Union would require revolution or the consent of the states to dissolve the Union. Withdrawing from it would be within the powers of each state that signed into the union in the first place. You do realize that even after the union was created when the constitutionally-required minimum of nine members joined, there were some states that were still independent (that is, ran by the Articles of Confederation)? There was no obligation on any state to join... you didn't have to join the club, but you wouldn't get the benefits of being in the club. The states created the union and not the other way around, and no one can sign into a binding agreement forever, that's slavery (how ironic).
Also, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not the Supreme court. The Supreme Court is just one element of the system that interprets and (supposedly) enforces the Constitution. All the Supreme Court does is say we won't allow any convictions of this law, or hold any person guilty relating to it, etc. The law still stays on the books!
Perhaps you've missed out on the federal takeover of student loans, much of the banking sector (by force!), the TSA, the auto industry, health insurance. Sure we've seen the protests (alright maybe not against obscure things like student loans though that was in Obamacare so I guess it counts), but that didn't change anything. Have you read any of the writings of the FCC chair? The FCC will grab whatever powers it doesn't have and use them for whatever purpose it likes, sheeple or not. The only thing really stopping them at this point is the threat of congressional review, and getting dragged in front of angry committee chairs, next term.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OonDPGwAyfQ
Lenka for your convincingness. Taylor Mali is amazonian
The Constitution only allows the Supreme Court to rule on specific cases. They do not change the meaning of the constitution under any circumstances -- it is the job of all the branches to ensure that any branch is not violating the Constitution by using power not granted to them. Justices will refuse to comment on generalizations for this reason, because they only apply the law, they do not define it.
As such, case law can be used to apply an opinion to a large number of similar cases at once, but it does not redefine the plain language of the law. The Supreme Court has entirely reversed its opinion over years -- especially over the FDR era -- but no one would argue this changed the meaning of the Constitution in any way.
In particular, in order to fall under the jurisdiction of Congress' interstate commerce clause, the regulation must affect an exchange being made over state lines as it is happening. Also note that the word "regulation" means something entirely different than just power -- it meant to "keep regular". The Interstate commerce clause gave Congress (I love this) the coercive power to enforce free trade, that is, to prohibit states from establishing tariffs and other taxes (same effect as "Congress shall have power to enforce this article" clauses seen in amendments). Unfortunately, the health insurance mandate falls under neither interstate nor commerce. In fact, you can't even argue that it affects interstate commerce since buying health insurance across state lines is (unconstitutionally) illegal! Assuming that the "affects interstate trade" argument is even true (it isn't), you would have to successfully argue that the non-purchase of health care somehow affects the illegal interstate market health insurance!
Go ahead, name just one case where the states have authority that the federal government does not, because of the 10th amendment.
Citation needed on how I'm not a "constitutional scholar." Let's just read the Constitution, shall we? What part of Article 1 section 8 and/or amendment saying "Congress shall have power to enforce this article" grants congress the power to force citizens to buy a privately produced service? I can't find it. I can't find a single claim anywhere in the Constitution or its writings like the Federalist that argued they have any such power. Not even the Anti-federalist papers said the Constitution threatened this (it made the claim that the Executive branch would force people to do things they didn't have the power to, like regulating exchanges).
Let me ask you, name just one power that the 10th amendment prohibits to the Federal government that the states have?
By definition, if the supremes say it is constitutional, then it is.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not the supreme court. By definition.
The difference is that with the ISPs, it's their network. Like, they own it. They are providing a service to you that you voluntarily agree to, to connect your network with theirs. The government, however, is a third party in the exchange and does not have any authority to regulate it. There's no reason the government couldn't just regulate you instead of the ISPs, it's the same thing, just a different side of the agreement.
The unamended Constitution doesn't even use the word "freedom". The Constitution enforces this thing called liberty (maybe you've heard of it) where people have certain individual rights, chief among these are your right to life (you own yourself), property (you can own things as you own yourself), and liberty (you can make voluntary agreements with other people, possibly to exchange your property, among other things).
Overall, this is called freedom. People like to misuse this word, though, to try and grant abilities to people that don't actually exist. You don't have the "freedom" to steal money from other people, for instance.
You talk about wealth like somehow if one person becomes wealthier, another person must become less wealthy as a result. This is absolutely not true, because a free market is not a zero-sum game, it must have a positive outcome for both parties, otherwise the exchange could not have occurred by definition.
You realize congressmen are immune from prosecution for things they do and say on the floor right? Even without that protection you are the one bringing up treason, not the grandparent, which is very well defined in the Constitution anyways, can you go through the definition and find him guilty point by point on all the criteria?
Needless to say, yes, most every congressman has voted for unconstitutional legislation, and Franken is no exception (Obamacare especially), unless you can look at it and describe what section of the Constitution grants congress the power to pass every single bill they voted for.
No. You're a fucking idiot.
I'll take that as a concession, thank you very much.
Again, you're a fucking idiot. Telling you facts is like showing a dog a card trick.
This hardly refutes the case that somehow newly elected, non-establishment (i.e. not the choice of the Republican Party leadership) representatives must somehow adopt the same views as other people from the same party. No, not true in any universe. I will concede that arm-twisting goes on within parties, but that's something to (rightfully) blame the parties themselves for, not the anti-spending/anti-tax values the Tea Party stands for.
The issue is that you're so unbelievably ignorant that you think Republic means Republic. Actually, it means that the state is ruled by the public. Which means they vote for representatives to control their government. Which is a representative democracy. Which does limit democratic power to abridge minority rights, but even those rules can be removed by democratic action through a 2/3 vote in the Congress and Senate, or in a Constitutional Convention.
Go read the Federalist papers, now please. Madison pretty damn well knew what he meant by "republic" when he said it.
Does this mean you're missing a Klan rally somewhere? In what universe is not counting people as people a good thing? Because it allowed the North to retain power while they allowed the south to own slaves? The rest of the civilized world considers that a mistake.
Slaves couldn't vote. Let me rephrase that again to get the point across. By definition slaves were non-voters. Counting slaves into the House of Representatives would have given more power to pro-slavery congressmen against the wishes of slaves themselves, who again did not vote. Still you manage to completely miss the important point that blacks != slaves and were counted as full people when they were able to vote (thus getting increased representation in Congress), are you going to acknowledge that?
You're probably not aware of this, but about 30,000 children die every day in Africa from preventable diseases. In developed nations with strong social infrastructure, the rate is pretty close to 0.
That's because of this thing called capitalism where we invest lots of capital into workers so they can be productive enough to be able to exchange their produce for clean water, medical care, shelter, etc. You don't need a government to do that, and there's plenty of examples around the world, the US itself to an extent, New Zealand (out of all places), Hong Kong, etc. Government doesn't produce prosperity, rule of law does, and surveying African social structures you will find some of the most tyrannical governments or social structures in general. So again, you fall victim to the "correlation does not imply causation" fallacy.
The name calling can end please, thank you. You have yet to cite what propaganda I'm regurgitating let alone acknowledge my correction on the party preferences of the tea party.
Do you really think I never read the amendment process? You're completely missing the point. The legislative branch and the House of Representatives in particular might be structured like a democracy but what part of the Constitution establishes a democracy? What part provides that member states will be democracies?
While we are on the topic of taking fine points completely out of context and missing the point, blacks were never considered 3/5ths of a person. Only slaves were. There were numerous blacks who were voting, owned land, owned other slaves (!), and held political office. The 3/5ths number was so that slave states would not have as much representation in congress, and ideally they wouldn't have counted at all, and that's a good thing.
And stop playing stupid. When I say "they can't" I mean in terms of legitimacy, i.e. individual rights. When was the last time a government agency ever stopped anything? It's so wound up in the side-effects of it's own actions all it can do is make the problems worse. What kind of company wants to put arsenic in pacifiers, you tell me? That was your original question wasn't it? You were talking about some company that was already doing that action, yes, they legitimately can be stopped because it's something an individual could legitimately do.
The US is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic, the Constitution provides that (look it up). There's a major difference, in particular, there is supreme law and natural law that the citizens cannot change. Yes, yes I did equate taxes with stealing, is it not legalized theft? Yes the US does have quite a bit of illegitimate powers that the Framers did not intend, as a consequence.
Right. So if a pacifier company is putting arsenic in their products, they can't be stopped without violating shareholder rights? You can't possibly be that stupid and still have the ability to read and write.
Tthat's called fraud, it's a form of coercion, and individuals cannot do it, therefore companies (and governments for that matter, no difference) cannot either.
And if the people decide progressive taxation leads to a better society, they are free to impose it, and you are free to leave if you don't like it.
There's no reason you couldn't start a small city and have everyone sign onto an agreement in exchange for a public library and whatnot. I'm perfectly happy doing that if I understand what's going on. But most people have not, and it's almost certainly not possible at a federal level, therefore the legitimate powers are most narrow.
No one is talking about stealing savings. What we are talking about is taxation of income earned in the United States. Try to stay on this side of reality.
It applies equally well to any form of taxation. I would, by the way, include the estate tax and the "inflation" tax as taxes on savings when using that term, but that's a matter of personal definition I guess.
Thanks for reiterating my exact point, but note that cooperations are made up of individuals, yes? You cannot stop any company from doing something without violating some individual's rights, nor can a government try and steal money since government's only legitimate powers are those which are derived from the people, and last I checked individual people cannot go into a person's savings just because they they think they are "rich" or for any other reason.
Maybe you should actually go read some Jefferson (and the rest of the Framers for that matter, they all had different opinions, of course) before you claim to know what he thinks on the issue of liberty and individual rights?
Citation needed on what propaganda it is I am "regurgitating."