This was great.

Like, really fucking fantastic.

And he's right, of course. What sort of person goes into politics? And, even more importantly, what sort of person goes on to succeed in politics?

Well, in my experience, they are either psychopaths, religious or ideological zealots, or a volatile mixture of all of the above.

These people don't want others to have a choice, because in their world, you are either the the one who has all the power, or you are one of pathetic bastards who've got nothing to show but the imprint of your master's boot on your neck.

And what they've managed to do, by baiting the masses with paranoic fear, mindless hatred, and the shared delusion of their country's intrinsic greatness, is to create a sort of political cartel - a playground for the exceedingly rich, the utterly ruthless, and the ceaselessly greedy - that will insure their power and their authority and their capital even if the people they've spent the last 70 years stepping on should learn to see past their lies and finally try to pry the boots of their masters off their necks.

It's going to be interesting to see how it all pans out.

I agree. His suggestion seems to be that any recreational drug use is drug abuse, which ofc is completely absurd. Not everybody needs to be completely abstinent to maintain a healthy balance. As for medicating emotions, don't people get written prescriptions for that already?

And damaging young lives?...I think its far more damaging to get hit with a criminal conviction and jail time for possession of a controlled substance. I think its far more damaging for familes south of the border caught up between drug enforcement and drug cartels.

Right, they are no longer engaged in this kind of fraudulent behaviour. And HSBC is no longer laundering money for drug cartels and terrorists. And the DEA is no longer making up fictional sources for the data they were handed by the NSA.

And they're all terribly sorry.

Still waiting for the facts?, its been nothing more than arguments from authority & the gun deaths chart is pure bogus, I.E. bee stings annually kill more US citizens than terrorism thus terrorism is not as important as stopping people getting stung straw-man argument. furthermore, alcohol is regulated, cars are regulated even medical practitioners are licenced - if you went into surgery knowing that your doctor may be one of 40% of unregistered practitioners would you feel safe in that knowledge?.

Here is how easy it is to twist this logic to suit your claim: Since the war began in Iraq there has been 4488 U.S. causalities, comparing this to 11,000 annual gun death's in the U.S. PROVES that being at war is LESS DANGEROUS than merely being at home. This example is how correlation does not equal causation (& if this girl in the video is indeed a psychologist she should know this).

Maybe one aspect of the Mexican gun rate is also the fact that the U.S. with 'the 'Fast & Furious law' actually allowed the trafficing of guns from the United States into Mexico right into the hands of drug gangs in the hopes of stopping the cartels. (But did she mention that?).

What are the stats for mass homicides?, rather than suicides compared to other countries?. and in one breath the speaker said that a gun is the most effective way of killing yourself, and later that regardless of guns the person will find a way to kill themselves regardless of guns which she just stated were the most effective other than hanging or jumping from a height. (& Japan is a collectivist culture with a high population, where the individual is expected to look after their entire family & the government is expected to ensure public safety hence strict gun laws - so it may in fact be due to feelings of being ashamed culturally rather than seeking attention & fame as in individualistic cultures like America.

a gun is not a 'tool', it's a weapon - it has no other purpose than to kill. it's like saying a harpoon is a 'tool'.

No-one is saying its just about A) whether being allowed to own a gun B) or not. it's about as stated in the opening of this video as stated in the 2nd amendment 'A well REGULATED militia or marketplace of guns' and the American gun lobby is definitely not said anything about wanting to strengthen the gun-laws I.E. waiting times, background checks, sales at gun-shows etc.

This video is wrong in all these areas listed from start to finish it has been nothing but misrepresentation calling them facts.

Okay, that's one example. Have any others? Also, guess how the shooter in that spree was stopped? He was shot by someone else with a gun. If nobody else was carrying guns in that area, the casualties would have been significantly higher.

The fact is that the vast majority of shooting sprees happen in schools and business areas.

Also, why do people think that banning guns would be any more effective than banning drugs? Have the junkies and cartels disappeared since the war on drugs began? No. Will guns disappear if they are banned? No. If people really want a gun, they'll get one, legally or not. Banning guns just ensures that people who obey the law will be left defenseless against criminals, which is exactly what criminals want.

@bareboards2 you make a good point, the villification of labor is very bad, I would also add that it's as bad as the villification of profit.

What really should be villified is government stepping in to solve issues with laws.

In a truly free market, unions, cartels, consumer groups, certification services (and many other kinds of associations and corporations I couldn't even begin to imagine) would each fight freely for their own special interests, as long as they didn't recourse to laws and force, which often lead to more problems and injustice. That's the real issue here.

There's a difference between being against unions, and being against unions that use government to get their way with one-sided laws, because the latter is what locks down the labor market imposing all kinds of hidden costs on society.

Fragility? Hmm.

In any case, I'm certainly biased for it, because I think people should have the option to choose. The same way I think drugs should be legal, but still regulated. Right now the "drug industry" outside of medicine is like the wild west, and the porn industry is near the same. They should have checks and balances in the same way that other industries have, and honestly they should have significantly more of them, because of the nature of the business. This is nothing compared to what the illegal drug industry goes through - ever seen the results of Mexican Cartels? That stuff ain't pretty either.

She is calling for illegalizing it completely, and that's just stupid.

I don't think my bias is as big (hmm, which word is correct instead of "big"?) as hers and not to the extent that people should feel the need to invalidate my arguments, but that's not really up to me to decide.

When I say that "she's biased" it is to call attention to the fact that I think her bias should be considered when evaluating her point. She is doing these two
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-texas-sharpshooter
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-emotion

And while I don't doubt that's she's been through hell and back, her data is not all the data.

I agree that this was not conveyed when calling it "biased" as I intended, so I'll retract that and stand corrected.

Well, you're on the internet right now, you should try googling the things he's talking about, here's merely one article of.. thousands:

http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/13457-feds-let-mexican-cartel-hit-men-kill-in-us-senior-lawman-told-stratfor

The CIA has had a direct hand in the drug trade for decades now. That's another topic you can google.

Edit: Also looked up this link for you:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.htm Very enlightening.

Soooo, I'm a bit confused about something. At 7:45 he states that the US is allowing for cartel killings "giving them permission"...how exactly does one do that? What are they telling or communicating about that gives permission/allows and what motivation do they have to do that?

You guys accusing libertarians of lack of empathy, and even sociopathy is typical intellectual short-sightedness. The libertarian considers further consequences to political actions that others usually ignore, they care about longer-term priorities. They can be easily accused of being less emotional for not caving in to perceived short-term benefits, but I assure you they're as human and caring as proponents of any other political philosophy. Please stop hating.

That being said, as a libertarian, I think workers should unionize if they want, they should be fired if Walmart doesn't want to hire unionized workers (contract permitting), let them figure this out. Letting anyone use force, be it the union, government laws, or a criminal cartel to set working conditions is a recipe for disaster down the road.

Super fucking rad hook up.
In reply to this comment by shagen454:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpIyaIHsJbc&feature=player_embedded

I would love to see political parties banned from national politics altogether the same way that anti-trust legislation put an end to the era of the robber barons.

Elect individuals not cartels.

@rbar np, take your time, I'm quite busy as well.

Did East Germany have a great economy? Like you said, it faired well in some sectors, highly subsidized sectors I might add, at the huge expense of the rest of its economy which was miserable compared to West Germany (or to what it could be if it were capitalistic). Think of all the "luxuries" enjoyed right outside the Berlin Wall that were denied to east germans. Can you see purchasing or providing those products and services as economic activity being denied, and, therefore, less cooperation?

You have to question your assumption that capitalism universally strives for competition, or that it always should, or that it's the philosophy of free markets to make everyone compete. There are forces *for* and *against* competition everywhere in capitalism, from those who benefit and lose from it, respectively. I think that's what you mean by "near perfect competition", the perfection being the balance between competing and not competing as required.

Why are labor unions formed? So workers can compete less with each other and cooperate for better employment terms. Does that favor companies? No, but who cares, it's meant to favor the workers. Why are cartels formed? So companies can compete less with each other and cooperate for better profits. Is that good for the consumers? Usually not, but it's good for the companies in the cartel. Why are consumer groups formed... you get the point. These institutions operate against competition, but that doesn't make them any less capitalistic or contrary to the incentives of free markets, assuming they're formed without the use of force, criminal or lawful. A lawful association between individuals or companies to cooperate instead of compete with each other is capitalism at work too.

When you talk about situations where there is less or no competition, you're not considering the competition that arises on the other side of the demand-supply relation!

If there is large demand and little supply, you correctly point out that there is little competition *among suppliers*, right? However, aren't you overlooking the increased competition among the *demanders*? Like I said, competition is increasing as supply and demand differ. Who is competing with whom is beside the point.

You might argue, "well, how is competition among the demand going to help??", because it sucks to be in the demand for something in low supply, that unmet demand represents an incentive for more supply. Supplying something in high demand is a coveted position. Resources from elsewhere will tend to be allocated towards that coveted position, supplying that demand, and increasing competition in what started out as a less or non-competitive environment.

So, I don't follow your "markets universally tend towards monopolies" argument. As much as companies like monopolies, they like it because it profits from the clients/consumers' desperate demand for it, but these people are not ok with fighting each other for something in low supply. THAT is the incentive towards competition, towards destabilizing any monopoly that abuses its position.

The derivatives market is a complex example, but you're blaming the "free market", when the banking system is far from a free market if there's a central bank. Banks should be allowed to make risky investments and, if these investments don't pan out, they should pay the price with loss and bankruptcy, like it happens with any business that makes bad decisions. That is one of the best incentives to make good decisions! If the whole banking system is to blame for that, then it would collapse, which would be disastrous, but it would expose the disaster that is central banking.

Would the government want society to realize that central banking is terrible? Of course not, they're the ones who profit from it the most, which is why it stepped in with a massive taxpayer-funded bailout. None of what I just described is allowed in a free market.

Just like people realized the Church and State should be separate centuries ago, it will take a while for people to realize the State and Banks should be separate as well. The evidence is unravelling right before us.

>> ^NetRunner:

@jimnms I think the right lesson to take from the example of Brazil is "gun control laws need to be properly enforced to reduce homicide", not "gun control laws never reduce gun crime."
Also, you're wrong about gun shows, there's a pretty big loophole. From wikipedia:

U.S. federal law requires persons engaged in interstate firearm commerce, or those who are "engaged in the business" of dealing firearms, to hold a Federal Firearms License and perform background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System maintained by the FBI prior to transferring a firearm. Under the terms of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, however, individuals "not engaged in the business" of dealing firearms, or who only make "occasional" sales within their state of residence, are under no requirement to conduct background checks on purchasers or maintain records of sale (although even private sellers are forbidden under federal law from selling firearms to persons they have reason to believe are felons or otherwise prohibited from purchasing firearms).

In other words, you can always just say you're a private seller, and sell guns at gunshows without doing background checks or recording the sale.
There are videos, sifted right here on Videosift, of people going and buying guns at gunshows while literally saying to the seller "I don't need a background check, right? 'Cause I probably couldn't pass one" with the seller replying with some form of "no problem, here's your gun".
But more than anecdotal video evidence, there's also a been series of studies about drug cartels moving serious amounts of guns using straw purchases at gun shows.
Yet for some reason you're calling Moyers a liar for saying the same thing.
Also, the Assault Weapons Ban set the maximum legal size of a single clip at 10 rounds. IIRC, this latest shooting featured the shooter using a barrel mag with over 100. That used to be illegal. Also, the Tuscon shooting featured a shooter using 2 guns with 30-round clips -- and he was stopped when he had to reload.
Personally, I don't quite understand the anti-gun control side of the argument. Say banning assault weapons only reduces the number of people killed by gun violence by 1.6%. That's still what, a few thousand people's lives a year? Why is having assault weapons legal for civilians worth the deaths of a thousand people a year? Why would it be worth the death of even one person a year? You can still have a pistol, a hunting rife, a shotgun, etc., you just can't have a high-velocity, large-magazine firearm. What exactly is the harm in making that illegal?


That's not a loophole in gun shows, private sales and transfer of firearms are not regulated in some states. You can't set up a booth and sell guns at a gun show unless you are a licensed gun dealer. And you certainly aren't going to walk in and buy a fully automatic assault rifle without showing ID or getting a background check. If a person legally has a fully automatic weapon, they have to have a class 3 federal firearms license and register the weapon with the ATF. If they sell that weapon, the person they are selling it to must also have a class 3 firearms license and the transfer of the weapon must be reported to the ATF.

I've seen the videos you speak of and I read the report you linked. It's good that the ATF is doing their job and cracking down on those douchbags dealers. What you said about Brazil, "gun control laws need to be properly enforced to reduce homicide", not "gun control laws never reduce gun crime.", can be said about the U.S. also.

The assault weapon ban limited pistols magazines to 10 rounds and rifles to 30 rounds. This also only applied to weapons and magazines manufactured or imported before the 1994 law went into effect. He still could purchase the high capacity magazine if it was manufactured or imported before the law went into effect, or he could have purchased it illegally.

People are still confused about what an assault rifle is. The definition of an assault rifle is a gun that can fire full auto or in bursts, and generally uses a shorter, less powerful cartridge than a battle rifle. The guns the media so ignorantly call assault rifles are NOT assault rifles. They look like their military assault rifle counterpart, fire the same round, but the internals are different. They only fire in semi-automatic and can not be modified to fire full auto.

If "assault weapons" were the least used weapons in violent crimes, why go after them when according to the DOJ the effect on crime is "too small for reliable measurement, because assault weapons are rarely used in gun crimes." The guns most preferred by criminals are small caliber (.25, .38 an 9mm) easily concealed pistols with magazines of 7 or less. So what do they do? They ban "assault rifles" and big magazines. Does that make any sense? It's just politics to appease the mass stupids by banning big scary looking guns.

Lets apply the same logic used by legalize drug crowd (which I'm all for). Pot and other drugs are illegal. There are laws against the sale and possession of these drugs, yet people still get them. Ban all guns, and people will still get them, only it will just criminals with guns. Both England and Australia have banned private ownership of guns, and their crime rates went up because the only people left with guns were criminals [1][2][3][4]. Why don't we give that a try here, because it worked so well for them.