Maybe. However, reality seems to be strangely absent from the current discussion climate in the US. Considering who is being called a socialist, communist, marxist, etc, and the idiocy around immigration, I fully expect to hear that the Russians will use that tunnel to invade the good ol' USA.
There are rail networks in Alaska already, including a 2000km railroad which connects Prince of Wales (where they're planning one end of the tunnel) to Fort Nelson in Canada
Can the railroad handle a significant increase in traffic that comes from all of East Asia and wants to reach all of North America? Pretty sure not.
Hm...Let's see...an oil pipeline that goes from Alaska to Siberia and links with other oil pipelines could transport oil to places like China. But it's not like the oil companies have any sway with Congress...
This is going to cost far, far more than the estimated $65Billion. Even the Chunnel, at half the length in far more clement weather and environments, cost about $18B. And that's not counting the required incidental investments. Doesn't matter how much sway the oil companies have, it's not going to be in the budget.
#1 It involves Russia. There are too many people who will be worried about pinko-commies invading the American Heartland. #2 it involves rail. Yes, freight-rail primarily, which has some presence in the US. But there's no way that the US will build the kind of rail network that will link a tunnel on the far-western side of Alaska with the rest of the US in order to import Russian goods. #3 It will cost money. Considering that our lovely congress-critters are willing to blow up the US over money that has already been spent on previously approved projects, I can't see how the US government will spend even a penny on this completely pie-in-the-sky project. #4 It requires significant infrastructure projects in Alaska to link a tunnel ending at an uninhabited point in Alaska with places that can actually use all the stuff coming through. Not gonna happen, for the reasons listed above.
Nice dream, but not gonna happen. Even (I would say especially) if Russia funds the entire cost of the tunnel.
Good point. However, the entire video is online on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Wu1HlZbBk&feature=youtu.be&t=36s. The interesting bits start at 36 seconds in. Anyone who speaks Chinese care to take a look at the entire thing to check for authenticity? The channel owner who uploaded the youtubee video seems to be fairly pro-China, but who knows... I have no idea what's going on in the entire thing. For all I know, this could be a video for how to create VB apps for a call center.
Just like every public political, economic and scientific discussion in the US. To some extent, I find that Slashdot discussions are a good barometer on how the general public discourse will look like in a year or two. It's a sign that Slashdot is a good cross-section of America - and one of the reasons I still read the comments.
I'm wondering if you're German - it's a little known fact in the US (ok, a lot of things about Europe are little known facts in the US) that many German companies are required to have workers' representatives on the board of directors.
However, I would very strongly object to shareholders getting real and direct rights to decide on the direction of the company. Why? Because shareholders measure the success of the company in exactly one metric: how much money it is making them, either through rising stock price or through increasing dividends. Considering the amount of research done into how people plan for the future, and how they deal with future pay-offs, I can guarantee you that your proposed system would be even worse than what is currently in place. Instead of merely demanding immediate pay-offs, shareholders could implement immediate payoffs.
I do agree though that the insanity of regarding corporations as people has to stop. It is the biggest perversion of the American government system that has ever happened.
So what you're saying is that the tea party argument is identical to the one advanced by the Nazis? Making Tea Partiers and similar right-wing movements the American equivalent of Nazis?
Niiice.... I wonder who the equivalent of Hitler would be then? Bachmann?
Even the American colonies were not really Libertarian. If anything, they were patriarchical societies with power deriving strongly from biblical interpretations of how power is to be distributed. And even if you assume that they were Libertarian examples, they failed as they were absorbed into the nascent USA.
As a matter of fact, the complete absence of stable, working Libertarian societies indicates the failure of the model. You really think that over 2000 years, no one has ever tried what Libertarians advocate? Since Libertarianism is basically an offshoot of anarchism, which was a philosophy very much en vogue in the mid-19th century, it has a history behind it: anything from attempts to bring on general anarchy in Europe in general to anarchistic communes centered around various European population centers. All those attempts failed even more quickly than communism.
If what Thiel said is true - that governments compete with each other, with the best one coming out on top - the fact that Libertarian governments don't exist is proof that they are even worse than the currently existing governments. If governments don't compete against each other based on their merits, then his effort is doomed to failure before it even gets started. If he is advocating a set of rules for a group of people to live together - well, that's great, but that's not a form of government. That's a commune, on par with hippies living in tree huts and making beads for tourists.
Libertarian philosophy is nice in theory, but completely fails in practice.
I don't see this society as working out AT ALL. Its essentially neo-feudalism.
Quite possible. Except that the closest thing we have to a libertarian society is Somalia. I prefer neo-feudalism.
It's working better than any Libertarian pipe-dream. Does that mean it's great? No, it just means that the government could be far worse than it is now.
So what you're saying is that this will be an island of really rich people. Who will clean their phones or serve their food? Other really rich people? Yeah right. No one would be able to afford a phone cleaning. So they'll have to import labor. Who'll want to work for little money and no social security? Other countries provide far better benefits, so poor people have no reason to emigrate to these countries.
This will end up the same way some smaller Middle East countries are "importing" from poor South-East Asian nations: a modern version of slavery. And if it doesn't, it will fall apart because the building isn't properly maintained, the armament isn't properly maintained, or it becomes too expensive to live there due to the immense cost of basic services.
Pirates are the least of the problems that I see these people facing.
Not only that, but it's entirely feasible to set up your own "nation" within an existing governmental structure. Buy some land in the middle of nowhere, make sure you pay your taxes, and handle everything else internally. The overhead of paying taxes to the existing government is small change compared to the running costs of an off-shore sea platform. There already are or have been communes for every brand of "government" you can think of: from flower-power hippies to hardcore anarchists to bureaucratic paradises (also know as HOAs) to survivalists. What do they have in common? They all vanish after a few years, because once those communes get past a certain size, they become what they were trying to get away from. So they either stay small and completely under the radar, or they grow big and get absorbed by their environment.
The more I hear about Libertarians, the less I'm impressed. None of them seem able to learn from past mistakes, understand why things are the way they are now or what the straightforward, repeatedly demonstrated consequences of their pipe-dreams are.
I'm not sure why anyone didn't see this coming.... I was actually surprised they didn't send some locals to clean up the chopper rests. Either that, or it's really not that advanced. Radar-reducing skins are known, and the shape didn't seem that out of the ordinary. Oh look, a cover over the tail rotor to reduce radar signature. The biggest deal would be the electronics. I can only hope they were reduced to dust.
Sounds to me like this is how they looked at the recent outcry over their rapid release schedule: Problem: People are upset about our rapid changes in major versions. Solution: Don't show people the version numbers!
I expect this kind of reasoning from the PHB in a Dilbert cartoon. I expect a bit more from an organization that is trying to create the bestest browser ever. I mean, I understand that they're setting themselves up for failure with trying to be everything to everyone, but at least there are good ways to aim too high, and then there is aiming high and shooting yourself in the foot.
The WP article says nothing about who got the patents. I can't imagine Google blowing $12 billion on a struggling handset maker, so I'm assuming that Motorola Mobility actually owns all the important wireless patents.
Ozone-wholes or Ozone depletion occurred or so we thought because spaceship had certain chemicals in the fuel they used. You should read about Ozone layer depletion myths.
You're a fucking moron. You're quoting ozone layer depletion myths as a reason to believe that the science behind ozone holes is not to be believed? Man, that's a new one.
Maybe. But I've heard too often that "Macs are more secure than Windows, so we don't need safety stuff." Mind you, this came from the guy who wanted to install an AV on all their Powerbooks, but handed out same Powerbooks without proper passwords, no password policy, no automatic lockdown and admin accounts to everyone.
I think these stories are valuable because you can show them to the twits in power who think that Macs are magically more secure, and drop every security practice there is.
Interesting insurance experience. I never had anything remotely resembling that kind of dental plan when I was a contractor. Prices were pretty eyewatering then, and one reason I was happy to switch to salaried.
Government philanthropy.
Very true that Bastiat only talks about government run programs being bad. However, we were talking about Medicaid, a government run philanthropy. Bastiat would have been apoplectic about its existence.
People on welfare
I'm sure you are aware of the argument from anecdote. I personally know one person who is a productive member of society, but would not have made it without government welfare. Finally, ALL organizations are at risk of deceit and waste. Just one real quick example, but many abound with a bit more serious digging. ahref=http://shanghaiist.com/2011/06/24/showing_off.phprel=url2html-28102http://shanghaiist.com/2011/06/24/showing_off.php> NGOs in Africa and Afghanistan are notoriously ineffecient, largely because the local government structure requires it. The real question is, what's the ROI on the investment? Positive, or negative? Again, to cut a long argument short: there is a place for both GOs and NGOs in the welfare space. Sometimes, efficiencies of scale do make things possible that otherwise aren't. Lastly, I don't understand the relationship between who pays taxes and whether the government should provide philanthropy. To some extent, it counters your main thrust: that people would have more money to give to charity if they wouldn't be taxed. Well, half the people don't pay taxes, and give very little to charity. The other half does, and gives more to charity. Does this mean that taxes lead to charity? Of course not, but statistics are fun. It does mean, however, that taxes and charity are not related in the way you argue that they are.
Personal philanthropy
Note that I never said you're not philanthropic. As a matter of fact, I did imply that you did have a heart. Regarding your link of conservatives vs liberals, remember your quote about statistics. It's handy. The article itself says the correlation isn't so much conservative vs liberal as religious vs non-religious - which makes sense. Christianity, after all, is founded around the precept of helping the weaker, and Catholic and Protestant churches are big on church donations. It's also interesting that the statistics switch from % of income to total numbers when it comes to supporters of welfare vs not. My experience is that the overwhelming majority of people against government welfare are hanging out in the top 15% of incomes. That skews total numbers. What I would be interested in is what the donations are for. My suspicion is that once you take out religious organizations as targets of the donations, the numbers would be a lot closer. No proof, of course, that they will be even, but they will be closer. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the actual study, so I can't back that claim up. I realize that Brooks claims that Christians give more "in every measurable way", but I can't verify that statement. From what I've seen of that study, it is interesting, but I find that its statistics are designed to show the greatest gap possible. Just doing back of the envelope calculations of his comparison of South Dakotan giving vs San Franciscan giving, I know that the relationship would be reversed if he had used raw numbers, rather than %s. As a result, I strongly suspect that the math might be valid, but he chose numbers based on effect, rather than abstract study. To me, this makes the study not worth quoting.
Ya, but the costs there need to have their decimal points moved to the left one.
Beats me - I based that on the cost of my crown, which was about $800 total, with me paying %50. And that's with Delta Dental. Maybe I need to talk to your employer about a job.
And I don't think Bastiat would throw a sick baby into the wilderness.
Again, I think you don't recall Bastiat as well as you think you do. To wit: "This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it:
1. The few plunder the many.
2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. Nobody plunders anybody."
His conclusion is that the only acceptable position is 3., with 1. being given a pass if it is used to fight socialism. And I'm sure you are aware that legal plunder is his wording for protections, subsidies, tariffs, etc - anything that takes from one to give to another. He specifically calls out that the legal plunder is often enacted under the guise of philanthropy, but that it really is false philanthropy.
I'm glad you're not a complete hardass - but then you're looking for guidance from the wrong person.
Mmh. Clear arguments. I can actually live with this. Onward...
On Proudhon
While there are certainly socialist tendencies in some of his writings, he is actually closer to a Libertarian or an Anarchist than a Socialist. He explicitly disavows communism and generally rails against against any power source that can cause someone to control someone else. The reason that I find him more coherent than Bastiat is that he correctly understands that the entire concept of property is completely arbitrary. He furthermore understands that property, as an exclusionary concept applied to limited resources, by definition creates inequality, and thereby leverage, of one person over another. This leverage is opposed to the concept of liberty and equality. Mind you that it isn't better or worse, but the concept of property destroys the concept that people are born equal in liberty and opportunities. Instead, their birth places them in a social and economic context. And since it takes arguably more to escape your social and economic context than it does to preserve it, a persons position in life has only marginally something to do with their abilities.
Proudhon vs Bastiat
Bastiat's main drawback is that he idealizes The Law, and completely fails to apply his idealized concept of it to any real world situation. Because in even the most basic application - that of group self-defense - his law fails to provide Justice in anything but the most convenient set up. At the most basic, imagine the following situation: a widget was posessed by A, but now is in the hands of B. Further assume that the event was only witnessed by person A and B. A cries theft, and invokes group self-defense. What is the proper course of action of the rest of the group? String up B? String up A? Why? You want more detail? Of course you do, as you should. Because suddenly, we get into contract law (did A give widget to B for service C?), judicial process (is A lying? is B lying?) and even that of feasibility (can B beat off the self-defense group on his own?). Compared to Bastiat's idealism, Proudhon is a downright cold calculator. Hence my preference for his line of reasoning.
Candide
Your guess is wrong. I actually have Candide on my smartphone (along with Descartes, Rousseau, the federalist papers and other free classics), and had to study it fairly extensively in High School. The phrase "human condition" is fairly common in French philosophical studies, and is a far more common term in colloquial French than it is in English. Wikipedia merely got common terminology right. For some reason, I always get Rousseau and Voltaire mixed up. *shrug* Furthermore, just like "A modest proposal", it was explicitly designed to explore specific aspects of the human condition through satire - in this case, Optimism and its impact on life. The comparison to Bastiat was a bit of a throw-away. I find Bastiat uninteresting, rehashing thoughts that had been better expressed by others before him, with little redeeming quality anywhere. While Candide has its own issues as a discussion of the human condition, it at least is entertaining. If a text can't be insightful, it better be entertaining. And the government they lead to is very similar: as small as possible, with individuals responsible for tending to their own small patch of influence. The difference is that Voltaire presents that life as hoping for minimal interference, while Bastiat prescribes minimal interference in the affairs of others.
On The Law
You were looking for where I got that terminology from. His phrase is: "If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as in deed." I'm pretty sure that "government non-intervention will always lead to the optimal human development" is a reasonable paraphrase of that. While it sounds nice in theory, practice disproves his conjecture. Furthermore his
If NHS never existed, a doctor would still save his life
Since the AC was an infant, he couldn't have paid the doctor. Assume for a second that his parents weren't able to pay, either. How does the doctor get paid, in the absence of a government or a corporation subsidizing individual health care? Do doctors work for free? If not enough doctors volunteer to work for free, do you require charity work them to perform charity work?
"only NHS can provide ACCESS to doctors"
Your use of quotes is incorrect. I said " he wouldn't have ACCESS to doctors". I know this is difficult, but stay with me: there's no indication in there that because someone's in set A (people with no access to doctors), set A is identical to set B (all people).
Now in the U.S. the conversation goes like this:
Doctor: Your tooth is toast, you need a root canal. Patient: When can I come in to get that? Doctor: Tuesday.
And this is the how the discussion goes on Tuesday: Doctor: You owe me $2500. Your insurance covers half. You owe me $1250. Patient: Here's my credit card. Now picture for a second the situation (I know, difficult, but just try) where the patient doesn't have a credit card, or the bank account is overdrawn, or any other reason why the patient doesn't have the cash. The doctor just performed the operation for free. How often will he provide a free root canal? Never again. As a matter of fact, the patient won't be able to schedule an appointment with him until they clear their debt (exact time of cut-off of healthcare varies with doctor. but it will happen).
And just because this REALLY cracks me up...
As far as infants go, in the U.S. we have a safety net called medicaid for people who cannot afford insurance.
Wait. No. Way. You didn't just promote a government run safety net that takes from some to pay for the needs others, did you? Bastiat is spinning in his grave.
There are some truly hardcore Libertarians out there. I can respect their integrity. I might think they're loony, but they at least buy into every last consequence of Bastiat's theory of government. You, on the other hand....
Since you clearly can't make coherent arguments on your own, I'll just respond to your valid points.
Voltaire wrote Candide, not Rousseau, my apologies. What you missed though was that Candide is all about the human condition, albeit written in a form a bit less dry than Bastiat. And since the human condition is at the root of ANY discussion about government, it actually is a useful text.
You're also right that Bastiat demonstrates the logical fallacies in Proudhon's ideas. I just happen to agree with some of Proudhon's axioms more than with Bastiat's. Both though have significant problems in their argumentation. If you want to discuss them, feel free to actually read what I wrote.
As for the rest.....
Maybe if there wasn't so many instances were it appeared to me that you were lying I would take you more seriously.
I thought you were above insults? I actually directly referred to terminology used by Bastiat in his argumentation. How did you miss that? Maybe you're not as familiar with his arguments as you'd like to think?
All in all, this is about what I've come to expect in any argument with a self avowed socialist, so I guess I shouldn't be too disappointed with your deceit.
Self-avowed socialist? I guess I know where your ignorance comes from: you just make shit up.
Exactly, the fucking hippies have destroyed all our industry. I say we ship the hippies to China.
Somehow, I don't think that trading hippies for pollution with China is going to help us. Unless this is all a master double-crossing plan, by which we expect the hippies in China to destroy their polluting industries, thereby creating a Chinese Tea Party that insists on importing those same industries right back, leaving us with no hippies and no pollution...
Considering that Tea Party Republicans want to defund the EPA, there's a non-zero chance of this actually happening. We can then find out first-hand the costs that China is paying for being the world's foremost exporter of rare earth ore.
Since the government in the U.S. does not control or own any industry, it follows that all innovations for any industry come from private industry.
Only by a very narrow definition of industry and control. What do you call SEC and EPA regulations?
Are you suggesting that the government has a "magic" power plant does not pollute that private industry is incapable of using?
Do you know what a strawman is? It's an argument that no is making, created for the sole sake of knocking it down. The quote is a strawman, because no one is making the argument you're making.
What does government posses that private individuals do not?
Really? You're asking that question? I'll just put out a really, really obvious example: what's more effective, a private individual shooting at trespassers, or the US Army shooting at trespassers?
I have read more volumes about government than I even care to list here.
Notice I didn't say anything about your reading habits. Merely about your knowledge. The two are not identical. Quite obviously so, in your case. And for the record, I probably read more than you.
Stuff about China
I'm shocked that you actually have citations. Too bad you didn't read them. Your rediff link, for example, points out that there are multiple definitions of polluters, and under one of them, Australia is actually ranked #1, and China #44. Things are never as easy as they look. This is no clearer demonstrated than with capital punishment and imprisonment. Did you know that the US has more prisoners per capita than China? I'll just point at Wikipedia, since you seem to be fine using that as a source (I'm sure you know it really isn't). China is so big that a lot of national numbers are misleading. Finally, you clearly didn't read the Wikipedia entry for Communism, because China isn't communist. It very much is its own form of government, rooted in a few thousand years of government and philosophical traditions. Again, it goes to show that reading is not the same as understanding.
Here's one for you to get started "mesothelioma lawyer"
And why is that effective? Because of government laws. Find me something that shows you have guaranteed recourse outside of getting any government agency involved - recourse being made whole.
Google link
Google is not a source. Don't be lazy.
Ever hear of the right of citizens to redress grievances [wikipedia.org] with the government?
So you're saying, it kinda works like lawsuits or anything else? Shocking. Furthermore, I was looking for something much simpler. Look up the concept of voting.
I've backed up 100% of my assertions with facts.
Yeah... about that. Your sources didn't even support the assertions you were trying to back up with them, if they didn't flat out contradict them. Good job.
And to that end, I suggest you honestly sit down and read The Law [constitution.org] It's not even 50 pages long if you double space them, and in the time it takes to argue with me, you can read one of the books I draw my arguments from and sort of "skip the middleman".
I find Proudhon more convincing than Bastiat, which isn't saying much. Bastiat, while certainly able to see the fallacies of socialism taken too far, is unable to follow his own arguments to their logical conclusion. Furthermore, he commits the sin of building a great theoretical construct of the law that completely ignores the realities of human nature. You can argue that we should all aspire to be great people, but the reality is that most of us aren't, and will never be. As a result, his basic premise that government non-intervention will always lead to the optimal human development is a complete non-starter, and renders his entire concept unworkable. In that sense, I find him actually worse than Rousseau. At least Rousseau's Candide has a certain poetic and literary charm.
Slashdot Mirror
How much do you think it takes to ship the paper around? It doesn't materialize in the cockpit either, you know.
Uh, 21st Century, Dude. The Cold War is over.
Maybe. However, reality seems to be strangely absent from the current discussion climate in the US. Considering who is being called a socialist, communist, marxist, etc, and the idiocy around immigration, I fully expect to hear that the Russians will use that tunnel to invade the good ol' USA.
There are rail networks in Alaska already, including a 2000km railroad which connects Prince of Wales (where they're planning one end of the tunnel) to Fort Nelson in Canada
Can the railroad handle a significant increase in traffic that comes from all of East Asia and wants to reach all of North America? Pretty sure not.
Hm...Let's see...an oil pipeline that goes from Alaska to Siberia and links with other oil pipelines could transport oil to places like China. But it's not like the oil companies have any sway with Congress...
This is going to cost far, far more than the estimated $65Billion. Even the Chunnel, at half the length in far more clement weather and environments, cost about $18B. And that's not counting the required incidental investments. Doesn't matter how much sway the oil companies have, it's not going to be in the budget.
#1 It involves Russia. There are too many people who will be worried about pinko-commies invading the American Heartland.
#2 it involves rail. Yes, freight-rail primarily, which has some presence in the US. But there's no way that the US will build the kind of rail network that will link a tunnel on the far-western side of Alaska with the rest of the US in order to import Russian goods.
#3 It will cost money. Considering that our lovely congress-critters are willing to blow up the US over money that has already been spent on previously approved projects, I can't see how the US government will spend even a penny on this completely pie-in-the-sky project.
#4 It requires significant infrastructure projects in Alaska to link a tunnel ending at an uninhabited point in Alaska with places that can actually use all the stuff coming through. Not gonna happen, for the reasons listed above.
Nice dream, but not gonna happen. Even (I would say especially) if Russia funds the entire cost of the tunnel.
Good point. However, the entire video is online on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Wu1HlZbBk&feature=youtu.be&t=36s. The interesting bits start at 36 seconds in. Anyone who speaks Chinese care to take a look at the entire thing to check for authenticity? The channel owner who uploaded the youtubee video seems to be fairly pro-China, but who knows... I have no idea what's going on in the entire thing. For all I know, this could be a video for how to create VB apps for a call center.
Just like every public political, economic and scientific discussion in the US. To some extent, I find that Slashdot discussions are a good barometer on how the general public discourse will look like in a year or two. It's a sign that Slashdot is a good cross-section of America - and one of the reasons I still read the comments.
I'm wondering if you're German - it's a little known fact in the US (ok, a lot of things about Europe are little known facts in the US) that many German companies are required to have workers' representatives on the board of directors.
However, I would very strongly object to shareholders getting real and direct rights to decide on the direction of the company. Why? Because shareholders measure the success of the company in exactly one metric: how much money it is making them, either through rising stock price or through increasing dividends. Considering the amount of research done into how people plan for the future, and how they deal with future pay-offs, I can guarantee you that your proposed system would be even worse than what is currently in place. Instead of merely demanding immediate pay-offs, shareholders could implement immediate payoffs.
I do agree though that the insanity of regarding corporations as people has to stop. It is the biggest perversion of the American government system that has ever happened.
So what you're saying is that the tea party argument is identical to the one advanced by the Nazis? Making Tea Partiers and similar right-wing movements the American equivalent of Nazis?
Niiice.... I wonder who the equivalent of Hitler would be then? Bachmann?
Even the American colonies were not really Libertarian. If anything, they were patriarchical societies with power deriving strongly from biblical interpretations of how power is to be distributed. And even if you assume that they were Libertarian examples, they failed as they were absorbed into the nascent USA.
As a matter of fact, the complete absence of stable, working Libertarian societies indicates the failure of the model. You really think that over 2000 years, no one has ever tried what Libertarians advocate? Since Libertarianism is basically an offshoot of anarchism, which was a philosophy very much en vogue in the mid-19th century, it has a history behind it: anything from attempts to bring on general anarchy in Europe in general to anarchistic communes centered around various European population centers. All those attempts failed even more quickly than communism.
If what Thiel said is true - that governments compete with each other, with the best one coming out on top - the fact that Libertarian governments don't exist is proof that they are even worse than the currently existing governments. If governments don't compete against each other based on their merits, then his effort is doomed to failure before it even gets started. If he is advocating a set of rules for a group of people to live together - well, that's great, but that's not a form of government. That's a commune, on par with hippies living in tree huts and making beads for tourists.
Libertarian philosophy is nice in theory, but completely fails in practice.
I don't see this society as working out AT ALL. Its essentially neo-feudalism.
Quite possible. Except that the closest thing we have to a libertarian society is Somalia. I prefer neo-feudalism.
It's working better than any Libertarian pipe-dream. Does that mean it's great? No, it just means that the government could be far worse than it is now.
So what you're saying is that this will be an island of really rich people. Who will clean their phones or serve their food? Other really rich people? Yeah right. No one would be able to afford a phone cleaning. So they'll have to import labor. Who'll want to work for little money and no social security? Other countries provide far better benefits, so poor people have no reason to emigrate to these countries.
This will end up the same way some smaller Middle East countries are "importing" from poor South-East Asian nations: a modern version of slavery. And if it doesn't, it will fall apart because the building isn't properly maintained, the armament isn't properly maintained, or it becomes too expensive to live there due to the immense cost of basic services.
Pirates are the least of the problems that I see these people facing.
Not only that, but it's entirely feasible to set up your own "nation" within an existing governmental structure. Buy some land in the middle of nowhere, make sure you pay your taxes, and handle everything else internally. The overhead of paying taxes to the existing government is small change compared to the running costs of an off-shore sea platform. There already are or have been communes for every brand of "government" you can think of: from flower-power hippies to hardcore anarchists to bureaucratic paradises (also know as HOAs) to survivalists. What do they have in common? They all vanish after a few years, because once those communes get past a certain size, they become what they were trying to get away from. So they either stay small and completely under the radar, or they grow big and get absorbed by their environment.
The more I hear about Libertarians, the less I'm impressed. None of them seem able to learn from past mistakes, understand why things are the way they are now or what the straightforward, repeatedly demonstrated consequences of their pipe-dreams are.
I'm not sure why anyone didn't see this coming.... I was actually surprised they didn't send some locals to clean up the chopper rests. Either that, or it's really not that advanced. Radar-reducing skins are known, and the shape didn't seem that out of the ordinary. Oh look, a cover over the tail rotor to reduce radar signature. The biggest deal would be the electronics. I can only hope they were reduced to dust.
Sounds to me like this is how they looked at the recent outcry over their rapid release schedule:
Problem: People are upset about our rapid changes in major versions.
Solution: Don't show people the version numbers!
I expect this kind of reasoning from the PHB in a Dilbert cartoon. I expect a bit more from an organization that is trying to create the bestest browser ever. I mean, I understand that they're setting themselves up for failure with trying to be everything to everyone, but at least there are good ways to aim too high, and then there is aiming high and shooting yourself in the foot.
The WP article says nothing about who got the patents. I can't imagine Google blowing $12 billion on a struggling handset maker, so I'm assuming that Motorola Mobility actually owns all the important wireless patents.
Ozone-wholes or Ozone depletion occurred or so we thought because spaceship had certain chemicals in the fuel they used. You should read about Ozone layer depletion myths.
You're a fucking moron. You're quoting ozone layer depletion myths as a reason to believe that the science behind ozone holes is not to be believed? Man, that's a new one.
Maybe. But I've heard too often that "Macs are more secure than Windows, so we don't need safety stuff." Mind you, this came from the guy who wanted to install an AV on all their Powerbooks, but handed out same Powerbooks without proper passwords, no password policy, no automatic lockdown and admin accounts to everyone.
I think these stories are valuable because you can show them to the twits in power who think that Macs are magically more secure, and drop every security practice there is.
Check the comments from the various MPs. They'll discuss the impact of technology on the riots and what can be done about it in their next sessions.
Interesting insurance experience. I never had anything remotely resembling that kind of dental plan when I was a contractor. Prices were pretty eyewatering then, and one reason I was happy to switch to salaried.
Government philanthropy.
Very true that Bastiat only talks about government run programs being bad. However, we were talking about Medicaid, a government run philanthropy. Bastiat would have been apoplectic about its existence.
People on welfare
I'm sure you are aware of the argument from anecdote. I personally know one person who is a productive member of society, but would not have made it without government welfare. Finally, ALL organizations are at risk of deceit and waste. Just one real quick example, but many abound with a bit more serious digging. ahref=http://shanghaiist.com/2011/06/24/showing_off.phprel=url2html-28102http://shanghaiist.com/2011/06/24/showing_off.php> NGOs in Africa and Afghanistan are notoriously ineffecient, largely because the local government structure requires it. The real question is, what's the ROI on the investment? Positive, or negative? Again, to cut a long argument short: there is a place for both GOs and NGOs in the welfare space. Sometimes, efficiencies of scale do make things possible that otherwise aren't.
Lastly, I don't understand the relationship between who pays taxes and whether the government should provide philanthropy. To some extent, it counters your main thrust: that people would have more money to give to charity if they wouldn't be taxed. Well, half the people don't pay taxes, and give very little to charity. The other half does, and gives more to charity. Does this mean that taxes lead to charity? Of course not, but statistics are fun. It does mean, however, that taxes and charity are not related in the way you argue that they are.
Personal philanthropy
Note that I never said you're not philanthropic. As a matter of fact, I did imply that you did have a heart. Regarding your link of conservatives vs liberals, remember your quote about statistics. It's handy. The article itself says the correlation isn't so much conservative vs liberal as religious vs non-religious - which makes sense. Christianity, after all, is founded around the precept of helping the weaker, and Catholic and Protestant churches are big on church donations. It's also interesting that the statistics switch from % of income to total numbers when it comes to supporters of welfare vs not. My experience is that the overwhelming majority of people against government welfare are hanging out in the top 15% of incomes. That skews total numbers. What I would be interested in is what the donations are for. My suspicion is that once you take out religious organizations as targets of the donations, the numbers would be a lot closer. No proof, of course, that they will be even, but they will be closer. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the actual study, so I can't back that claim up. I realize that Brooks claims that Christians give more "in every measurable way", but I can't verify that statement.
From what I've seen of that study, it is interesting, but I find that its statistics are designed to show the greatest gap possible. Just doing back of the envelope calculations of his comparison of South Dakotan giving vs San Franciscan giving, I know that the relationship would be reversed if he had used raw numbers, rather than %s. As a result, I strongly suspect that the math might be valid, but he chose numbers based on effect, rather than abstract study. To me, this makes the study not worth quoting.
Just a few things, since it is getting late:
Ya, but the costs there need to have their decimal points moved to the left one.
Beats me - I based that on the cost of my crown, which was about $800 total, with me paying %50. And that's with Delta Dental. Maybe I need to talk to your employer about a job.
And I don't think Bastiat would throw a sick baby into the wilderness.
Again, I think you don't recall Bastiat as well as you think you do. To wit:
"This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it:
1. The few plunder the many.
2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. Nobody plunders anybody."
His conclusion is that the only acceptable position is 3., with 1. being given a pass if it is used to fight socialism. And I'm sure you are aware that legal plunder is his wording for protections, subsidies, tariffs, etc - anything that takes from one to give to another. He specifically calls out that the legal plunder is often enacted under the guise of philanthropy, but that it really is false philanthropy.
I'm glad you're not a complete hardass - but then you're looking for guidance from the wrong person.
Mmh. Clear arguments. I can actually live with this. Onward...
On Proudhon
While there are certainly socialist tendencies in some of his writings, he is actually closer to a Libertarian or an Anarchist than a Socialist. He explicitly disavows communism and generally rails against against any power source that can cause someone to control someone else. The reason that I find him more coherent than Bastiat is that he correctly understands that the entire concept of property is completely arbitrary. He furthermore understands that property, as an exclusionary concept applied to limited resources, by definition creates inequality, and thereby leverage, of one person over another. This leverage is opposed to the concept of liberty and equality. Mind you that it isn't better or worse, but the concept of property destroys the concept that people are born equal in liberty and opportunities. Instead, their birth places them in a social and economic context. And since it takes arguably more to escape your social and economic context than it does to preserve it, a persons position in life has only marginally something to do with their abilities.
Proudhon vs Bastiat
Bastiat's main drawback is that he idealizes The Law, and completely fails to apply his idealized concept of it to any real world situation. Because in even the most basic application - that of group self-defense - his law fails to provide Justice in anything but the most convenient set up. At the most basic, imagine the following situation: a widget was posessed by A, but now is in the hands of B. Further assume that the event was only witnessed by person A and B. A cries theft, and invokes group self-defense. What is the proper course of action of the rest of the group? String up B? String up A? Why? You want more detail? Of course you do, as you should. Because suddenly, we get into contract law (did A give widget to B for service C?), judicial process (is A lying? is B lying?) and even that of feasibility (can B beat off the self-defense group on his own?). Compared to Bastiat's idealism, Proudhon is a downright cold calculator. Hence my preference for his line of reasoning.
Candide
Your guess is wrong. I actually have Candide on my smartphone (along with Descartes, Rousseau, the federalist papers and other free classics), and had to study it fairly extensively in High School. The phrase "human condition" is fairly common in French philosophical studies, and is a far more common term in colloquial French than it is in English. Wikipedia merely got common terminology right. For some reason, I always get Rousseau and Voltaire mixed up. *shrug*
Furthermore, just like "A modest proposal", it was explicitly designed to explore specific aspects of the human condition through satire - in this case, Optimism and its impact on life.
The comparison to Bastiat was a bit of a throw-away. I find Bastiat uninteresting, rehashing thoughts that had been better expressed by others before him, with little redeeming quality anywhere. While Candide has its own issues as a discussion of the human condition, it at least is entertaining. If a text can't be insightful, it better be entertaining. And the government they lead to is very similar: as small as possible, with individuals responsible for tending to their own small patch of influence. The difference is that Voltaire presents that life as hoping for minimal interference, while Bastiat prescribes minimal interference in the affairs of others.
On The Law
You were looking for where I got that terminology from. His phrase is: "If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as in deed." I'm pretty sure that "government non-intervention will always lead to the optimal human development" is a reasonable paraphrase of that. While it sounds nice in theory, practice disproves his conjecture. Furthermore his
Just because it's kinda funny at this point...
If NHS never existed, a doctor would still save his life
Since the AC was an infant, he couldn't have paid the doctor. Assume for a second that his parents weren't able to pay, either. How does the doctor get paid, in the absence of a government or a corporation subsidizing individual health care? Do doctors work for free? If not enough doctors volunteer to work for free, do you require charity work them to perform charity work?
"only NHS can provide ACCESS to doctors"
Your use of quotes is incorrect. I said " he wouldn't have ACCESS to doctors". I know this is difficult, but stay with me: there's no indication in there that because someone's in set A (people with no access to doctors), set A is identical to set B (all people).
Now in the U.S. the conversation goes like this:
Doctor: Your tooth is toast, you need a root canal.
Patient: When can I come in to get that?
Doctor: Tuesday.
And this is the how the discussion goes on Tuesday:
Doctor: You owe me $2500. Your insurance covers half. You owe me $1250.
Patient: Here's my credit card.
Now picture for a second the situation (I know, difficult, but just try) where the patient doesn't have a credit card, or the bank account is overdrawn, or any other reason why the patient doesn't have the cash. The doctor just performed the operation for free. How often will he provide a free root canal? Never again. As a matter of fact, the patient won't be able to schedule an appointment with him until they clear their debt (exact time of cut-off of healthcare varies with doctor. but it will happen).
And just because this REALLY cracks me up...
As far as infants go, in the U.S. we have a safety net called medicaid for people who cannot afford insurance.
Wait. No. Way. You didn't just promote a government run safety net that takes from some to pay for the needs others, did you? Bastiat is spinning in his grave.
There are some truly hardcore Libertarians out there. I can respect their integrity. I might think they're loony, but they at least buy into every last consequence of Bastiat's theory of government. You, on the other hand....
Since you clearly can't make coherent arguments on your own, I'll just respond to your valid points.
Voltaire wrote Candide, not Rousseau, my apologies. What you missed though was that Candide is all about the human condition, albeit written in a form a bit less dry than Bastiat. And since the human condition is at the root of ANY discussion about government, it actually is a useful text.
You're also right that Bastiat demonstrates the logical fallacies in Proudhon's ideas. I just happen to agree with some of Proudhon's axioms more than with Bastiat's. Both though have significant problems in their argumentation. If you want to discuss them, feel free to actually read what I wrote.
As for the rest.....
Maybe if there wasn't so many instances were it appeared to me that you were lying I would take you more seriously.
I thought you were above insults? I actually directly referred to terminology used by Bastiat in his argumentation. How did you miss that? Maybe you're not as familiar with his arguments as you'd like to think?
All in all, this is about what I've come to expect in any argument with a self avowed socialist, so I guess I shouldn't be too disappointed with your deceit.
Self-avowed socialist? I guess I know where your ignorance comes from: you just make shit up.
Exactly, the fucking hippies have destroyed all our industry. I say we ship the hippies to China.
Somehow, I don't think that trading hippies for pollution with China is going to help us. Unless this is all a master double-crossing plan, by which we expect the hippies in China to destroy their polluting industries, thereby creating a Chinese Tea Party that insists on importing those same industries right back, leaving us with no hippies and no pollution...
Yeah, don't think so.
Considering that Tea Party Republicans want to defund the EPA, there's a non-zero chance of this actually happening. We can then find out first-hand the costs that China is paying for being the world's foremost exporter of rare earth ore.
Since the government in the U.S. does not control or own any industry, it follows that all innovations for any industry come from private industry.
Only by a very narrow definition of industry and control. What do you call SEC and EPA regulations?
Are you suggesting that the government has a "magic" power plant does not pollute that private industry is incapable of using?
Do you know what a strawman is? It's an argument that no is making, created for the sole sake of knocking it down. The quote is a strawman, because no one is making the argument you're making.
What does government posses that private individuals do not?
Really? You're asking that question? I'll just put out a really, really obvious example: what's more effective, a private individual shooting at trespassers, or the US Army shooting at trespassers?
I have read more volumes about government than I even care to list here.
Notice I didn't say anything about your reading habits. Merely about your knowledge. The two are not identical. Quite obviously so, in your case. And for the record, I probably read more than you.
Stuff about China
I'm shocked that you actually have citations. Too bad you didn't read them. Your rediff link, for example, points out that there are multiple definitions of polluters, and under one of them, Australia is actually ranked #1, and China #44. Things are never as easy as they look. This is no clearer demonstrated than with capital punishment and imprisonment. Did you know that the US has more prisoners per capita than China? I'll just point at Wikipedia, since you seem to be fine using that as a source (I'm sure you know it really isn't). China is so big that a lot of national numbers are misleading. Finally, you clearly didn't read the Wikipedia entry for Communism, because China isn't communist. It very much is its own form of government, rooted in a few thousand years of government and philosophical traditions.
Again, it goes to show that reading is not the same as understanding.
Here's one for you to get started "mesothelioma lawyer"
And why is that effective? Because of government laws. Find me something that shows you have guaranteed recourse outside of getting any government agency involved - recourse being made whole.
Google link
Google is not a source. Don't be lazy.
Ever hear of the right of citizens to redress grievances [wikipedia.org] with the government?
So you're saying, it kinda works like lawsuits or anything else? Shocking. Furthermore, I was looking for something much simpler. Look up the concept of voting.
I've backed up 100% of my assertions with facts.
Yeah... about that. Your sources didn't even support the assertions you were trying to back up with them, if they didn't flat out contradict them. Good job.
And to that end, I suggest you honestly sit down and read The Law [constitution.org] It's not even 50 pages long if you double space them, and in the time it takes to argue with me, you can read one of the books I draw my arguments from and sort of "skip the middleman".
I find Proudhon more convincing than Bastiat, which isn't saying much. Bastiat, while certainly able to see the fallacies of socialism taken too far, is unable to follow his own arguments to their logical conclusion. Furthermore, he commits the sin of building a great theoretical construct of the law that completely ignores the realities of human nature. You can argue that we should all aspire to be great people, but the reality is that most of us aren't, and will never be. As a result, his basic premise that government non-intervention will always lead to the optimal human development is a complete non-starter, and renders his entire concept unworkable. In that sense, I find him actually worse than Rousseau. At least Rousseau's Candide has a certain poetic and literary charm.