@quantumushroom If facts are so important to you, then why is it that you never employ them while making implausible comments like liberalism causes black people to have babies out of wedlock, or that gays don't want equal marriage rights, or that California is broke because of liberalism.

You proudly admit to getting your media from questionable, corporate funded sources that a) carry no credibility outside of hardcore sympathetic ideologues, and b) have been shown to be less effective at keeping you informed than no media at all. This should be a big red flag.

http://www.good.is/post/poll-finds-fox-news-is-worse-than-no-news-at-all/

Beyond all this, you support a political ideology that has been on the wrong side of history, from slavery to women's rights to civil rights, to labor rights, and continuing with campaigns against gays, Muslims and Mexicans, as well as a continuation of the prejudices of old.

Do you ever wonder how regular German citizens got sucked into supporting fascism? Well wonder no more.

Let's take a look at the 14 defining characteristics of fascism and see how you do....

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

CHECK

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

CHECK

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

CHECK

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

CHECK

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

CHECK

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

CHECK

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

CHECK

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

CHECK

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

CHECK

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

CHECK

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

CHECK

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

CHECK

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

CHECK

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

I've seen nothing to suggest you support fraudulent elections.

13 out of 14. NOT GOOD DUDE. NOT GOOD AT ALL. You are free to dispute which ever ones you like, but you've got years of incriminating comments on this site to back this up.

But of course if you could see it, then the Germans would have been able to see it too, and we wouldn't have had to fight that war.



In reply to this comment by quantumushroom:
My problem is only with intellectual dishonesty, whether it's via curable ignorance or deliberate deception is almost irrelevant.

I've been where you are now politically, only LONG ago. I worked my way UP from liberalism, wiped the slate clean with anarchism, aimed toward libertarianism and am now floating in the undefined, invisible world of 'conservatarianism'. I do not agree with liberal policies based on liberals' good intentions. As a taxpayer and citizen, I demand positive RESULTS, and anyone foisting social experiments on society better be ready to defend them when they fail. Do you know the stats on Black crime and births out of wedlock? "Racism" did not cause a 70% illegitimacy rate in the Black community, LIBERALISM did. Crazy Johnson's "Great Society" garbage. The results of holding Blacks to lower standards--including standards of behavior--is self-evident.

There is even a fair argument for gay marriage, but the gay "lifestyle" generally is a sad one, with rampant promiscuity and diseases. It's not established that most gays even want legal marriage. And though no one else cares to acknowledge it, AIDS is a behaviorally spread disease. Remember that the billions politically steered towards AIDS research could also have been spent on cancer research, and cancer affects FAR more people.

California is broke. It got that way due to liberalism. RESULTS. Not good intentions, RESULTS.

You have a right to your opinions, but no one has the right to their own facts. If I had to judge you, I would say you're highly intelligent but misguided, not because your political views don't mirror mine, but because you refuse to step back and view the entire picture.


>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The bottom line is that your problem with gays, blacks and other minorities is just that: your problem. It's not their fault that they have ended up on the wrong side of your emotional development. It's something you need to come to terms with on your own.

I've seen the vids. The protests is a knut of very old radicals reliving their 'nam glory days, and a bunch of kids just there to feel like they've got a purpose. You've got Cornel, Fonda, Saranden, and other bozos getting people to chant anti-American revolution dogma. You've got these yahoos blocking traffic and sidewalks. It's called "Day of Rage".

A peaceful protest is one where you confine your demonstration to a place where you are not interfering with innocent citizens. The Wall Street yahoos are blocking both foot and road traffic, causing a disturbance, and being a public nuisance. When that happens - boom - the cops show up. When the cops show up in that situation, stuff like this happens. Duh. Protesting is fine - but don't be stupid about it.

And I'm not a Republican. I'm a fiscally conservative, socially libertarian constitutional constructionist. Or - as I like to call it - a FiSCCaL. These protestors are angry at the wrong target. The Wall Street problems (and they are a problem) are merely a symptom of the greater issue. The problem is government which creates an environment of corruption and cronyism. Wall Street couldn't have done squat if government hadn't served up a bunch of exemptions, loopholes, and other shenanigans. Did companies WANT those things? Sure - but they can't HAVE them without a corrupt government. The solution is not to whine about Wall Street. The solution is to slap down government hard, reduce their power, and have simple tax reform like Cain's 9/9/9 plan (moving to a Fair Tax), and eliminate all the pork projects and government 'subsidies' of industry. Limit government and root out federal corruption and you create a system where Wall Street abuses can no longer exist because there is no 'system' for them to abuse.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm going to argue it in a different way and see if it changes your opinion.

I believe the war is maintained not for our safety, not for other nations safety, not to catch terrorists, not to prevent anything, but to directly funnel money into corporate pockets and in turn the very same people who support the war going on via donations and lobbyists.

Now, these same people are more than willing to cut benefits of teachers, government unions, and also seem to keep bringing up social security/medicare/medicaid. Plus the other myriad of programs they want to cut or eliminate........or PRIVATIZE, which is their word for turning public facilities to private gains that the government still has to pay for but has a company squatting over taking profits off the top of everything.

Now, here's where my other argument comes in. What if the tax rate was high enough on every person in these little "money circle jerks" that they couldn't keep enough of it to make it worthwhile and still bribe/donate to people?

I mean look at the ForaTV top15 video right now where he says in the 50s people making over 200k were taxed at 91 percent, so that would basically mean that making 2 million today would be the cut off for the sub 91 percent rate.

It would mean that people getting bribed and making in excess of a million dollars would need more bribe money to get the same benefit. It would mean people doing the bribing would have less money to bribe with.

I mean let's put it this way:

If you were working a job making 100 grand a year. New tax law comes in and now they want to take 75% of earnings after 100 grand. It would effectively make it so that you earning more money at your job would result in almost no benefit to you, so now money is off the table as an effective bargaining tool to use with you. That leaves other things to take into consideration when the money can't really be factored in anymore, and for politicians the only other things I can imagine as bargaining tools would be giving them houses/cars/etc and offering them jobs after their political career.....where they would be limited by the tax rates on their earnings. It'd make me a lot less willing to be a dirtbag if I could only make 1 million dollars versus the 60 some odd million some of these CEOs are getting without the majority of it being taken in taxes.


>> ^blankfist:

>> ^messenger:
>> ^blankfist:
I'm still not sure why people think taxing income is okay. And I'm speaking about federal income tax, not state and local. I think in times like this when the country is running record deficits, it should cut spending instead of looking elsewhere for more money.

So you understand there's a deficit, and the only way to reduce it is increase income (taxes), and/or reduce spending (cuts). Take a look at where the spending cuts are going to come from, and then decide if you want those cuts to be made. Cronyism, imperialism, war and all those other things we both hate are what the government does for fun. Until a true statesman is elected, they're never going to be cut. So what will get cut instead? Things that actually benefit the people living in the country. I'm not American so I don't know what your federal government provides in that regard, but either you're glad those services exist and are happy to pay for them with your taxes, or you need to include them in the list of things you'd like to have cut.

This is the part I don't understand. Yes, there are services that are useful, but the majority of what they spend their money on are immoral things I disagree with that put our lives in jeopardy over here. Wars and occupation have made us less safe. I don't care that they spend some of the money on things I agree with. They spend the most of it on things I don't.
I voluntarily support the ACLU, but if they started drowning kittens, I'd most likely pull my money from them. This is the ideological discussion we should be having about government right now. They're spending more than we as the people can afford and yet both parties are refusing to cut defense spending.
If we cut a large portion of our defense spending (the portion that puts us in overseas entanglements) we might be able to balance the budget and cut income tax completely. Why aren't we having that discussion instead of being defeatists about what the government will cut? Because people in favor of raising taxes are scared that cutting income tax may lead to less entitlement programs, so they're willing to bomb people over it. That's why.

>> ^messenger:

>> ^blankfist:
I'm still not sure why people think taxing income is okay. And I'm speaking about federal income tax, not state and local. I think in times like this when the country is running record deficits, it should cut spending instead of looking elsewhere for more money.

So you understand there's a deficit, and the only way to reduce it is increase income (taxes), and/or reduce spending (cuts). Take a look at where the spending cuts are going to come from, and then decide if you want those cuts to be made. Cronyism, imperialism, war and all those other things we both hate are what the government does for fun. Until a true statesman is elected, they're never going to be cut. So what will get cut instead? Things that actually benefit the people living in the country. I'm not American so I don't know what your federal government provides in that regard, but either you're glad those services exist and are happy to pay for them with your taxes, or you need to include them in the list of things you'd like to have cut.


This is the part I don't understand. Yes, there are services that are useful, but the majority of what they spend their money on are immoral things I disagree with that put our lives in jeopardy over here. Wars and occupation have made us less safe. I don't care that they spend some of the money on things I agree with. They spend the most of it on things I don't.

I voluntarily support the ACLU, but if they started drowning kittens, I'd most likely pull my money from them. This is the ideological discussion we should be having about government right now. They're spending more than we as the people can afford and yet both parties are refusing to cut defense spending.

If we cut a large portion of our defense spending (the portion that puts us in overseas entanglements) we might be able to balance the budget and cut income tax completely. Why aren't we having that discussion instead of being defeatists about what the government will cut? Because people in favor of raising taxes are scared that cutting income tax may lead to less entitlement programs, so they're willing to bomb people over it. That's why.

>> ^blankfist:

I'm still not sure why people think taxing income is okay. And I'm speaking about federal income tax, not state and local. I think in times like this when the country is running record deficits, it should cut spending instead of looking elsewhere for more money.


So you understand there's a deficit, and the only way to reduce it is increase income (taxes), and/or reduce spending (cuts). Take a look at where the spending cuts are going to come from, and then decide if you want those cuts to be made. Cronyism, imperialism, war and all those other things we both hate are what the government does for fun. Until a true statesman is elected, they're never going to be cut. So what will get cut instead? Things that actually benefit the people living in the country. I'm not American so I don't know what your federal government provides in that regard, but either you're glad those services exist and are happy to pay for them with your taxes, or you need to include them in the list of things you'd like to have cut.

The housing credit bubble was caused just as much by certain public institutions as it was private.

This is true. I've always said that the housing bubble was a THREE PARTY problem. 1. Government changed the laws (IE created the environment). 2. Finaincial institutions set out the banquet (provided the cash). 3. Businesss & citizens borrowed money like idiots. All three of these groups were necessary to create the bubble. But all too often, especially in neolib circles, only one group gets the blame (financial guys) while the government and the public get a free pass.

The separate issue from all of this is how much you want to provide to citizens as a basic right.

Depends on what you mean by that. I totally disagree that the federal government has ANY role in the lives of citizens except as (A) a place to go to redress greivences and (B) national defense (including enforcing of borders). That's it. Everything else should be done as the state and local level. If citizens want to have government take care of food, shelter, and medicine then that should take place at the state level where it is more directly monitored and where abuses can be punished more directly at the ballot box. I don't have a problem with government stepping into such areas. I have a problem with FEDERAL government doing it. Federal programs have proven to be inefficient, ineffective, and hopelessly cumbered by corruption, waste, and cronyism. Time to ditch the 'one state' solutions which are so clearly failing and return to a more local, privatized, federalist approach. Socialist systems result in the mobs and yobs we see in the UK, and should be avoided at all costs.

This finally made it to the front page due to cronyism?
Somebody decided to clean out your PQ and put your old shit on the front page.

BOO on videosift .

I see this all the time , multiple videos upvoted from the same person all at once! Just a bunch of good old boys cleaning out your closet.

Walter Cronkite deseves alot more than this

@heropsycho

1. My original point was more aimed at questioning whether teaching is so exceptional. It is certainly harder than many other jobs, but does it deserve exclusive status with it's restrictive labour laws? If so, do you believe jobs equal to or more stressful than teaching should receive the same benefits? More specifically, if we knew that greater job security in stressful jobs created better outcomes (ie, in teaching the students are better taught), then why is it that the private sector has not willingly adopted this? What I'm saying is, there's double standards at play.

2. This is getting off topic, but I don't think anything is innate. We may have a predisposition to better at certain things but anything that we wish to excel at will ultimately require countless hours of practice. Again, I think you're being selective in exemplifying only a very good teacher which directly engages with everyone in the class. Most of what I recall (from 4 schools) involved teachers teaching in their own style 'at' a class, not directly to individuals.

3. My point would be that merit pay would raise the wages of 'good' teachers and thereby attract more teachers into the workplace. It won't ever be perfect as a system, enterprise bargaining in the private sector is subject to the whims of cronyism/favoritism of your superiors and isn't a perfect reflection of performance, but as a system it functions. By the way, I'm not in any way implying multiple choice tests are sufficient, open ended questions can be standardized just fine.

5. I would put down the opposition of unions to merit pay to several reasons:

a) Unwillingness to change - this reflects all changes not just merit pay. There are potential ups and downs but there is no incentive for them to take a risk. You would think flagging students scores relative to other countries (particularly Scandinavian and rich SE Asian countries) would be an incentive, but ultimately they are delinked from these outcomes.

b) Potential fall in membership - A move to individual wage setting over a seniority based wage (at least that is what it's here in OZ) would diminish their power and their members base. Standardized wages are generally seen in low skilled jobs where there is high turnover, a large supply of willing workers to replace them and therefore constant pressure to push down wages - a place where unions have great value in preventing this from happening. We both agree teaching requires considerable expertise. Were the labor system to move to individual wage setting on performance their role would diminish and their members base would dwindle.

As far as I'm concerned merit pay is but a scapegoat to justify their opposition from a more selfish point of view.

Last point - As I made sure to mention, I'm not opposed to the arts. What I'm appalled by is teacher's union activists talking about the benefits of these ultimately extracurricular areas when there are countless schools in impoverished regions unable to imbue many of their students with the ability to hold down an rudimentary job. Talking about these luxury activities and painting a rosy picture detached from reality, while glossing over the overt failings of basis education in derelict communities is disgusting to me frankly.

These are laughable. Universal education is a failure?! Uhh, on what planet? Despite the enormous problems universal education faces today in the US, it's a hell of a lot better than the last time we left education up to the private sector only. It also put the US on the road towards becoming an economic and military superpower. Social Security has been a failure? How exactly?! The US was not an economic superpower until AFTER SSI began, and amazing, we've been a superpower ever since. Not that SSI caused our ascendance, but it clearly didn't hurt at all. The Post Office is a failure?! A few money issues doesn't change the fact that the post office still delivers mail to anywhere in the US for a nominal charge.

Now, and here's the most laughable thing I've seen WP say yet. That everywhere there's socialism, there's cronyism, corruption, poor standards of living, and routinely oppress people. Uhh, dude, we're more capitalist than virtually every European country, and you're saying there's no cronyism, corruption, standards of living are good for everyone in the US, and we oppress people less than France, Britain, or Germany?! Completely laughable.

And do you know how many failed, corrupt mainly market economies there have been?! Do you understand that the US has suffered two massive recessions (1929 & 2008) after structuring itself missing very basic regulation required along with proper enforcement, right? Oh, of course you don't. Somehow, socialist agendas somehow caused each.

For every Switzerland there's a bad socialist economy. Ok, how about this? Name a single thriving economy that isn't a mixed economy.

Socialist agendas are not aimed at creating bureaucracies for the sake of bureaucracies, and advocates are not selfish. I'm a pragmatist who favors what works. I know for example a well run public education system and wide access to normal people for college educations (first introduced to average Americans en masse in the GI Bill) radically changed society for the better. It's absurd to even argue against that. The US's rise to global superpower came as generations began being generally educated. I know the Tennessee Valley Authority, a New Deal program, laid the foundation to industrialize that region of the US, which helped to produce war material to win WWII, improve the quality of life for people in that region with wide availability of electricity, and lots of jobs. It was originally one of those evil gov't socialist programs you so despise.

We can fix public education without privatizing it, btw. Across the US, there are shining examples of top notch schools that are public schools that outperform private schools, even though private schools get their proverbial pick of the litter. Across the US, there are lots of examples of bad private schools. I went to a public school, and here I am, on my second successful career, intelligent, thoughtful, and in demand by employers. I attended a public university, and I don't regret it at all.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Socialized medicine…only failing because of a lack of funding
Oh of course. Socialism never fails. Instead, socialism just doesn’t have enough money. Just keep on pouring taxes into the meat grinder, and finally socialized (whatever) creates the perfect sausages… Except it never does. War on Poverty. Great Society. Socialized Medicine. Universal Education. Social Security. Post Office. Shoot – take it all the way down to Food Stamps. No socialist program ever has ‘enough money’.
Social medicine fails because socialism is not designed to help people. Socialized systems are designed 100% to create large bureaucracies, which in turn exist only to self-perpetuate in the form of increasing year-over-year budgets. Helping people actually decreases a program’s budget-line, so they work to deny services (or waste them) as aggressively as possible so they can use it as leverage to lobby the government for more money and power. That’s the reason why the UK system (or any socialist program) routinely denies more and more ‘care’, while at the same time costing more and more money.
Guys like BS Bill brag about how wonderful socialist systems are. They ignore the reality. Socialist nations are rife with cronyism, corruption, poor standards of living, and regularly oppress their people. Socialist governments are the perpetrators of the worst tragedies of all human history. Historically, for every Switzerland there are a hundred North Koreas. Even the modern Euro socialist lite nations only work because they have capitalist wealth-creation engines to support (barely) their corrupt and inefficient socialist programs. The US is not failing because it is too capitalist and giving too much to the rich. It is failing because heavily socialized programs are doing what they always do… Collapsing because of internal corruption.
At its heart – socialism is nothing more than laziness and selfishness. People see a problem in society. They feel bad. They think, “Gee – someone should do something…” At that point you have a couple choices. 1. Be a capitalist and solve the problem yourself. 2. Be a socialist and vote for someone who PROMISES to solve the problem for you. That’s the trick of socialism. It preys on people who are well-intentioned, but who are also selfish, lazy, and a bit stupid. Socialists want to ‘help’, but are too selfish and lazy to actually do something about the problems they see. Therefore they become stupid and fervidly believe any liar (like Obama) who says they will solve the problem for them using taxes. It is stupid because there is no evidence that taxes EVER solve social problems.
Examples of lies that socialists believe…
“Aw – you feel bad when there are poor people… Vote for me and I’ll create The Great Society and eliminate poverty!”
“Aw – you feel bad about people who have medical needs… Vote for me and I’ll tax the ‘rich’ so you don’t have to pay for your medical expenses!”
“Aw – you get sad when you see pictures of polar bears… Vote for me and I’ll tax all carbon emissions and change the global climate!”
“Aw – you want children to get an education… Vote for me and I’ll create free universal public education!”
And do these systems work? Of course not. The Great Society didn’t make a dent in poverty. Social medicine denies more care than it provides. Carbon taxes don’t change the climate. Kids that go to public schools come out stupider. But the SOCIAL PROGRAMS created to address these problems? Oh – of course – they just need ‘more money’ and THEN they will start working!
Socialism. The lazy jerk’s way of destroying society while telling themselves they are ‘helping’.

Socialized medicine…only failing because of a lack of funding

Oh of course. Socialism never fails. Instead, socialism just doesn’t have enough money. Just keep on pouring taxes into the meat grinder, and finally socialized (whatever) creates the perfect sausages… Except it never does. War on Poverty. Great Society. Socialized Medicine. Universal Education. Social Security. Post Office. Shoot – take it all the way down to Food Stamps. No socialist program ever has ‘enough money’.

Social medicine fails because socialism is not designed to help people. Socialized systems are designed 100% to create large bureaucracies, which in turn exist only to self-perpetuate in the form of increasing year-over-year budgets. Helping people actually decreases a program’s budget-line, so they work to deny services (or waste them) as aggressively as possible so they can use it as leverage to lobby the government for more money and power. That’s the reason why the UK system (or any socialist program) routinely denies more and more ‘care’, while at the same time costing more and more money.

Guys like BS Bill brag about how wonderful socialist systems are. They ignore the reality. Socialist nations are rife with cronyism, corruption, poor standards of living, and regularly oppress their people. Socialist governments are the perpetrators of the worst tragedies of all human history. Historically, for every Switzerland there are a hundred North Koreas. Even the modern Euro socialist lite nations only work because they have capitalist wealth-creation engines to support (barely) their corrupt and inefficient socialist programs. The US is not failing because it is too capitalist and giving too much to the rich. It is failing because heavily socialized programs are doing what they always do… Collapsing because of internal corruption.

At its heart – socialism is nothing more than laziness and selfishness. People see a problem in society. They feel bad. They think, “Gee – someone should do something…” At that point you have a couple choices. 1. Be a capitalist and solve the problem yourself. 2. Be a socialist and vote for someone who PROMISES to solve the problem for you. That’s the trick of socialism. It preys on people who are well-intentioned, but who are also selfish, lazy, and a bit stupid. Socialists want to ‘help’, but are too selfish and lazy to actually do something about the problems they see. Therefore they become stupid and fervidly believe any liar (like Obama) who says they will solve the problem for them using taxes. It is stupid because there is no evidence that taxes EVER solve social problems.

Examples of lies that socialists believe…

“Aw – you feel bad when there are poor people… Vote for me and I’ll create The Great Society and eliminate poverty!”
“Aw – you feel bad about people who have medical needs… Vote for me and I’ll tax the ‘rich’ so you don’t have to pay for your medical expenses!”
“Aw – you get sad when you see pictures of polar bears… Vote for me and I’ll tax all carbon emissions and change the global climate!”
“Aw – you want children to get an education… Vote for me and I’ll create free universal public education!”

And do these systems work? Of course not. The Great Society didn’t make a dent in poverty. Social medicine denies more care than it provides. Carbon taxes don’t change the climate. Kids that go to public schools come out stupider. But the SOCIAL PROGRAMS created to address these problems? Oh – of course – they just need ‘more money’ and THEN they will start working!

Socialism. The lazy jerk’s way of destroying society while telling themselves they are ‘helping’.

The problem with the free market is that it has no respect for humanity. Profit motive has no moral objections to slavery, violence, pollution, theft, war or oppression. In recent times, deregulation has lead to massive corruption, further social stratification and consolidations of corporate wealth and power. In times past, unregulated markets lead to a multitude of inhumane labor abuses, including slavery, child labor, unfair wages, dangerous working conditions, long hours, no breaks, no redress for on the job injury and the murder of workers who step out of line. All is fair when selfishness is seen as virtue. Do you really want to go back to these dark times?

Why do you think corporations spend so much money on the institutions that inform your politics? You never did comment on the fact that the same people who fund Cato and Reason also fund the 'Project for a New American Century'.

'Volunteerism' is such a load of bullshit. People will always need food, water, security, energy and shelter. Those things are necessities, and cannot be 'voluntarily' opted in or out of. Whomever takes control of these resources becomes the new King.

There is no utopia and there will always be a state. Embrace it. Every system is going to be flawed, because human beings are flawed. If not a public state, then other forces will rise to take control.. Never has there been a failed state that resulted in 'people freely interacting and engaging in voluntary agreements'. That's a pipe dream. In reality, power vacuums in failed states are quickly filled by warlords, gangs and financial interests. What we want to do is have the system that empowers everyone, not just the strong and wealthy. Democracy accomplishes this, the free market does not.


In reply to this comment by blankfist:
A free market is merely people freely interacting and engaging in voluntary agreements without coercion. That's a good place to start. That's not been the problem. The problem is interventionism and cronyism. I think you conflate corporatism with free markets. And I know you think we've had unfettered raw free market practices in the US for 200 years and that's been the cause of our ills, but it's simply not true. We've been living at the trough of progressivism since the early 1900s, and that's only fostered a dangerous climate of corporatism and crony capitalism.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
The free market isn't the cure, it's the disease.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
There's never a guarantee of anything. Life is dangerous. Freedom is dangerous. Without a state there's no guarantee there won't be violence, theft and oppression. Violence, theft and oppression will always exist. There is no human utopia. But maybe it'll get better?

I can guarantee this: under our current system the plagues of our society (violence, theft, etc.) will continue to exist and probably will get worse as the police state grows. I know you see it. I know you see the problems with government. You hate the war as much as me. You hate the police state as much as me. Voting hasn't and will never remedy this growing problem, because it's only proven to increase it over time.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Why do you think these problems would go away without a state? Why should I believe that violence, theft, guns and oppression wouldn't be much worse under your system?

A free market is merely people freely interacting and engaging in voluntary agreements without coercion. That's a good place to start. That's not been the problem. The problem is interventionism and cronyism. I think you conflate corporatism with free markets. And I know you think we've had unfettered raw free market practices in the US for 200 years and that's been the cause of our ills, but it's simply not true. We've been living at the trough of progressivism since the early 1900s, and that's only fostered a dangerous climate of corporatism and crony capitalism.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
The free market isn't the cure, it's the disease.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
There's never a guarantee of anything. Life is dangerous. Freedom is dangerous. Without a state there's no guarantee there won't be violence, theft and oppression. Violence, theft and oppression will always exist. There is no human utopia. But maybe it'll get better?

I can guarantee this: under our current system the plagues of our society (violence, theft, etc.) will continue to exist and probably will get worse as the police state grows. I know you see it. I know you see the problems with government. You hate the war as much as me. You hate the police state as much as me. Voting hasn't and will never remedy this growing problem, because it's only proven to increase it over time.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Why do you think these problems would go away without a state? Why should I believe that violence, theft, guns and oppression wouldn't be much worse under your system?

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

M'eh - as usual with most faux documentaries this one ignores quite a lot. The cold war of the 50s to the late 80s was no figment of imagination. There was a very real need there, and it has to be said that France, Britain, Germany, and the other pillars of Western Civilization were neither interested in, or capable of, dealing with the issue of Communist expansion. Quite to the contrary - as evidenced by their socialist policies most of Western Europe was - in fact - somewhat sympathetic to it.
So the U.S. stepped up to the plate, and via military spending & brinkmanship they contained China, and even collapsed the Soviet Union. It also allows governments like the UK to spend a piddling little 4 to 5% of their budget on defense and the rest on social spending. It also allows smug, self-satisfied twits in the BBC to act all snooty over the fact that the U.S. spends over 24% of its budget on defense while not pointing out the reality that the U.S. defense spending is in fact obliquely subsidizing their own nation's social spending.
But I do think that the U.S. military is long overdue for some cutbacks and oversight. Like most government programs, they are rampant with cronyism, inefficiency, and waste. Let's start by cutting all the military in Western Europe, and letting them pay for their own national defense, eh wot? Wonder how staid the BBC would be if we actually did pack up and do as they suggest and leave them hanging.


No the figment of our imagination was that all that military spending was to combat the soviet union. Notice how the military budget during and after the Cold War didn't drop a cent. That tells us that the spending wasn't really about the Soviets, it was a constant redistribution of wealth to keep an empire going.

Also beating the Soviet Union isn't something the brag about after we got a look at their internal economics. They were a 3rd world country twice destroyed by Germany that built back up and was still very flimsy. The US emerged from WW2 with literally Half the worlds wealth and remained almost completely untouched by the War.

Sorry but where the fuck did you go to college?

M'eh - as usual with most faux documentaries this one ignores quite a lot. The cold war of the 50s to the late 80s was no figment of imagination. There was a very real need there, and it has to be said that France, Britain, Germany, and the other pillars of Western Civilization were neither interested in, or capable of, dealing with the issue of Communist expansion. Quite to the contrary - as evidenced by their socialist policies most of Western Europe was - in fact - somewhat sympathetic to it.

So the U.S. stepped up to the plate, and via military spending & brinkmanship they contained China, and even collapsed the Soviet Union. It also allows governments like the UK to spend a piddling little 4 to 5% of their budget on defense and the rest on social spending. It also allows smug, self-satisfied twits in the BBC to act all snooty over the fact that the U.S. spends over 24% of its budget on defense while not pointing out the reality that the U.S. defense spending is in fact obliquely subsidizing their own nation's social spending.

But I do think that the U.S. military is long overdue for some cutbacks and oversight. Like most government programs, they are rampant with cronyism, inefficiency, and waste. Let's start by cutting all the military in Western Europe, and letting them pay for their own national defense, eh wot? Wonder how staid the BBC would be if we actually did pack up and do as they suggest and leave them hanging.