"Democratic utopia" aside, you really think 237 years of US history is making things... better? I'd love to hear you elaborate, because it sounds more and more like we're going the way of fascism.

And no small "l" libertarian believes in corporatism. That's right, here's a fun fact for you: corporations are created by government. Given special limited liability the rest of us are not. Given special government subsidies and welfare and even, at times, given eminent domain privileges.

And I love your "go to" disgusting statist answers of "don't like it then get out of my country" and "you must be a birther." Next you'll call me a racist or tell me to move to Somalia. Waiting for that one.

But the truth is you never addressed my real question here, but I'm guessing that was your point. Distraction and obfuscation tends to be the only weapon in the statist's arsenal. Your move, genius.

If anyone thinks corporations will pay it's employee's an upper wage for no reason when they can keep it for themselves then they're wrong.

There's plenty of industries where there's competition for workers, and companies are forced to pay higher wages to retain them. Where unions tend to increase wages is where there isn't competition for a type of labor.

And you're vulnerable to the same argument you're making. If you don't like what a company is offering for pay, or how dangerous your job is, just go find another one? The answer is that's not always an option. That's why unions came to be, and similarly, a lack of options can also make unions a big negative for some workers. My dad's union was a huge negative for him through his career, but there a government monopoly in his field so he had no choice. That monopoly and union broke up in the last few years before he retired - he made triple his wage, while many of the co-workers he'd carried for years couldn't find work.

Yes it's worth understanding what unions have done (and continue to do) for many workers - but they're not always a force for good. They reduce choice, consume resources, and open the door to negative politics and corruption (this is what hurt my dad, he could do his job but couldn't play the political games).

If anyone thinks corporations will pay it's employee's an upper wage for no reason when they can keep it for themselves then they're wrong.

I see this bizarre, absolute anti-corporatism everywhere right now, and
it's not just wrong and misinformed, it's poisonous. Lots of companies see success by paying their workers more, voluntarily, and reaping the benefits of having workers compete to work for them, value their jobs, and generally be better employees. Compare Costco and Walmart. There isn't only one way to corporate success, and many, many companies understand this. Reactionary anti-corporatism is as naive and wrong as blind corporate fealty.

But if you imagine that employment is a perpetual battle, instead of a mutual beneficially relationship, you are writing a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The door is open.

Thanks.

Anyway, I think it is foolish for anyone to say that god does not exist and they know it. But, god could mean so many things. All I know is that a bunch of dudes wrote the Bible based on older stories. It is man made, there may be some truth to it but there is some truth to everything. The kind of fascism hypocricy that today's extremist republican christians exhibit disgusts me. They would let rich, corrupt motherfuckers, manipulate them for their own gain and throw them from a plane. Their perception of reality is so completely bent by right wing think tanks and corporatism that they live in some sort of Christian inspired DaDa universe while the rich send their zombie minds to the polls to vote with their manipulated hearts and steal every last penny from their coffers as they self willingly turn a blind eye.

Well, in this context God means the being that created the Universe. The scripture claims to be revelation from this God, in the person of Jesus Christ. God says we have all sinned and are accountable to Him for our sins, but He sent a Savior who paid the price for our sins so we could be forgiven and have eternal life with Him. Jesus says everyone who comes to God must go through Him:

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So, God could be many things, but there is only one way to know God according to Jesus. So, it's not something you can just pick and choose from. If Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, none of it is true. I have found His claims to be true.

I can't speak for your impressions of Christians as seen through the lens of our current culture, but seen through the lens of society at large Christians have been a force for good. Before the welfare system was created, the church in America was providing the social safety net, and still does in a number of ways. They're the ones running the charities, food banks, youth centers, blood drives, homeless shelters, etc. Look in any community, you will undoubtedly find Christians taking care of the poor and doing good works. I'm not saying there are no secular charities, food banks, etc, but this is something the church is well noted for.

There is some truth to what you say. Christians are not perfect, and unfortunately in the western church this sometimes becomes very apparent. You do not usually see this kind of behavior from Christians in countries where there is some cost to becoming a Christian. When there is no cost to following Christ, the church becomes lazy and apostate, as you see today in America. A good percentage of American Christians probably are not saved. This isn't though a reason to reject Jesus. He in fact predicted this behavior from Christians in Matthew 24. It is simply that we are not following His ways that you see this kind of behavior.

Question: Do you have any church background or were you raised in a secular home?

Hey Shinyblurry,

This is exactly why you should come over to my house and try some DMT. You said anyone who does it is under control of demons. How would you know if you havent tried? Are you saying that you do not really know anything at all?

The door is open.

Anyway, I think it is foolish for anyone to say that god does not exist and they know it. But, god could mean so many things. All I know is that a bunch of dudes wrote the Bible based on older stories. It is man made, there may be some truth to it but there is some truth to everything. The kind of fascism hypocricy that today's extremist republican christians exhibit disgusts me. They would let rich, corrupt motherfuckers, manipulate them for their own gain and throw them from a plane. Their perception of reality is so completely bent by right wing think tanks and corporatism that they live in some sort of Christian inspired DaDa universe while the rich send their zombie minds to the polls to vote with their manipulated hearts and steal every last penny from their coffers as they self willingly turn a blind eye.

>> ^lantern53:

I guess the GOP will continue to lose until fiscal responsibility, limited gov't and free markets are not seen as 'white' values.


Or until the GOP learns fiscal responsibility, supports limited government in personal/moral affairs and "free market" means more to them than a code word for corporatism and preferential treatment for the financial elite.

Or we could ALL culturally accept the values of selfishness, xenophobia and...selfishness.

What is the point of you? This is a great human accomplishment and should be celebrated without any reservation. Enough petulant whining about it being too corporatized or insufficiently scientific. Get that dick out of your mouth and revel in the remarkable things mankind is capable of.

Less self-indulgent cynicism, more energetic humanism.

So, the Romney idiots corner wants to close those tax haven loopholes that Romney uses. Hypocrites. These people dont care about America they only care about boosting the power of their corporat puppet masters. All of them, its a fixed agenda.

@renatojj Ah, its nice to be called a socialist for once. Where I come from, they call me a right wing capitalist
Any economic system is as cooperative as the next. That is the definition of an economic system, a system where economic transactions take place, ie cooperation. So capitalism is NOT more (or less) cooperative than other isms. (And mercantilism and corporate capitalism (corporatism right?) are forms of capitalism ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism)

Definition of capitalism:
"an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state" - oxford dictionary
Emphasis is on "for profit". So yes, all capitalist are per definition profit seeking. Relentless is something that follows Darwin. Those who are more relentless get higher profits and have more money to grow, invest, invent, etc. They eventually push out less relentless profit seekers so the relentless ones are the only ones left.
And remember you said them first, not me. I just said that capitalism tries to achieve profit and as competition drives prices down one way to do so is to minimize cost, ie become more efficient. So there is always a drive for efficiency in capitalism.
I am not against profit seeking, I believe that capitalism is the system that pushes the most growth in most regions, be it economic growth, technological progress, etc. That also makes it a rat race, where you continually need to go faster to keep up. As I am getting older I see that running is not the only game in town. And in most cases it detracts from happiness more then other methods in the long run (though it brings more wealth). Given also the finite resource problem and it is a good discussion to have if capitalism is the best and only economic system we should have on this planet. Like I said, for another time.

"The Libor and derivatives markets scandals, are not examples of free markets at all, they're abuses where the bad behavior was encouraged by policy"

What? What policy? The entire idea of over-the-counter (OTT, the largest amount by far) derivatives was that they are traded without any supervision or visibility. Complete free market! That and the inability to value and understand the risk per unit made for instance the Credit Default Swaps so dangerous. These were perfectly legal, and are still in most cases. The market is still unregulated today. You can argue that in the end it wasnt a free market because they got bailed out. Bullshit. They got bailed out because the other option was to let the entire economic system collapse. Letting the system collapse is not free markets, its stupid. The damage would have been catastrophic. The markets wouldnt repair that, they wouldnt exist anymore. That is why people call the derivatives market an example of a free market that should have been more regulated, because they had the power to destroy everything and the incentive to take the risk (for profit).
The way the bailout happened (and is still happening) is total and utter crap, but that is a different story all together.

Which leads again to the same question: if not the (IMHO obvious) derivatives market, name me an example of a free market?

@rbar have these thousands of philosophers, lawyers and activists ever considered that, if people have material needs, they may or may not be satisfied in exchange for money, money that may or may not be provided through a job? What about other ways of making money, like being self-employed, a businessman, an investor, or a beggar? What if I can satisfy those needs without money, as a farmer?

Should the self-employed have a right to customers? Should a businessman or an investor have a right to profits, or a beggar to handouts? Should farmers also be entitled to good crops? If there's no direct and necessary link between job->survival, what, then, would justify it being declared an unalienable human right?

Your objection about government causing social injustice, sounds to me like asking, "if government outlaws drinking, how is it wrong to stop people from drinking if it's against the law?". If government outlaws something that doesn't use force, it inevitably uses force to outlaw it, thus increasing the overall use of force in society and diminishing our condition as a civilization. On the other hand, any force used to repress wanton shooters is a good deterrent to their use of force, no?

About laziness, your characterization of capitalism as "more and more efficiency", with no regard to human hapiness is very typical of a socialist's portrayal of capitalism as a social order of relentless profit-seeking and competition. When in fact, capitalism is the most cooperative of any social system ever devised. Markets thrive in capitalism, and markets are a bunch of people trading and making agreements with each another. There's nothing more cooperative than trades and handshakes. You get more cooperation in capitalism than in feudalism, mercantilism, corporatism, socialism or any other "ism". In the end, you're allowed more choices, including that of softer lifestyles in capitalism, than anywhere else.

The Libor and derivatives markets scandals, are not examples of free markets at all, they're abuses where the bad behavior was encouraged by policy. What you and I argued about making the weak complacent, also applies to bad rules encouraging excessive greediness and risk-taking that went unpunished, bad behavior that would, otherwise, be "regulated" in a free market by the very real prospect of bankruptcy, and being sued for fraud instead of a get-out-of-jail-free card and juicy bailouts granted by a secretive central bank (which wouldn't exist in a free market!).

Things are not necessarily less regulated when you have economic freedom, and anything resulting from deregulation is not an automatic example of free markets at work. Regulation just happens to come from the bottom-up, from forces in the market itself, instead of by force from the top-down, by well-intentioned bureaucrats who fancy writing human rights declarations in their spare time.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^NetRunner:
Soooo...instead of trying to pass laws that limit corporate power, we should stop bothering and give corporations unlimited ability to do whatever they like with the internet they claim they own, and the intellectual property they claim to own?
Didn't mean to imply that, just that it doesn't matter how we try to regulate corporate power until we do something about the sway they hold over the government who would regulate them.


The two things are not mutually exclusive -- if we rally enough people to an anti-corporate cause, then we've laid the groundwork for a movement that might have the ability to de-corporatize our government in a more general way.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^kir_mokum:
dupe of http://videosift.com/video/Mike-Daisey-on-Collaborating-with-Corporat

ions

Bah, figures.
Unless anyone has an objection, let's not dupe it until it ages off the frontpage. It'd be a shame to kill this video's hotness prematurely.


I second, First time I've noticed this one on VS.

thanks back at ya =)

i'm a china analyst serving overseas for the state dept

and you?

In reply to this comment by criticalthud:
thanks. i like your style and your depth of inquiry/understanding.
what do you do?

In reply to this comment by Diogenes:
@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/criticalthud" title="member since February 15th, 2010" class="profilelink"><strong style="color:#008800">criticalthud
man, i honestly think it's a hopeless can of worms... and imho, i believe that the continued advance of technology means that even our best efforts in "regulation" or making "fair" the process of political advocacy... well, i think we're always going to be lagging behind

first off, to even discuss the matter we need to divorce ourselves from our partisan political leanings (conservative talk radio, liberal press, wingnut internet content)

next, we need to avoid where possible the all-too-convenient labels, such as "corporatism", as it's much too vague - better to just understand that "big money" will inevitably lead to undue influence peddling in our political process

we should also understand the types of regulations or statutes that were tried (and failed) in the past, i.e. fairness doctrine, equal-time rule, and even the implications of miami herald publishing co. v. tornillo

we also need to reach some kind of concensus on both relevant first amendment provisions, e.g. freedom of speech and and freedom of the press (the latter being a certain candidate for the "big money" moniker) - any tinkering we do here carries disturbing implications

and finally, what the heck are we to do with the internet, where both the speed and pervasiveness of political advocacy easily avails itself to abuse from "big money" - just try imagining how we'd regulate big money from filtering through pacs to banner ads, popups, blogs and web-hosting

all that said... dude, i feel lost as to where to even begin forming a coherent solution - sorry

thanks. i like your style and your depth of inquiry/understanding.
what do you do?

In reply to this comment by Diogenes:
@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/criticalthud" title="member since February 15th, 2010" class="profilelink"><strong style="color:#008800">criticalthud
man, i honestly think it's a hopeless can of worms... and imho, i believe that the continued advance of technology means that even our best efforts in "regulation" or making "fair" the process of political advocacy... well, i think we're always going to be lagging behind

first off, to even discuss the matter we need to divorce ourselves from our partisan political leanings (conservative talk radio, liberal press, wingnut internet content)

next, we need to avoid where possible the all-too-convenient labels, such as "corporatism", as it's much too vague - better to just understand that "big money" will inevitably lead to undue influence peddling in our political process

we should also understand the types of regulations or statutes that were tried (and failed) in the past, i.e. fairness doctrine, equal-time rule, and even the implications of miami herald publishing co. v. tornillo

we also need to reach some kind of concensus on both relevant first amendment provisions, e.g. freedom of speech and and freedom of the press (the latter being a certain candidate for the "big money" moniker) - any tinkering we do here carries disturbing implications

and finally, what the heck are we to do with the internet, where both the speed and pervasiveness of political advocacy easily avails itself to abuse from "big money" - just try imagining how we'd regulate big money from filtering through pacs to banner ads, popups, blogs and web-hosting

all that said... dude, i feel lost as to where to even begin forming a coherent solution - sorry

@criticalthud
man, i honestly think it's a hopeless can of worms... and imho, i believe that the continued advance of technology means that even our best efforts in "regulation" or making "fair" the process of political advocacy... well, i think we're always going to be lagging behind

first off, to even discuss the matter we need to divorce ourselves from our partisan political leanings (conservative talk radio, liberal press, wingnut internet content)

next, we need to avoid where possible the all-too-convenient labels, such as "corporatism", as it's much too vague - better to just understand that "big money" will inevitably lead to undue influence peddling in our political process

we should also understand the types of regulations or statutes that were tried (and failed) in the past, i.e. fairness doctrine, equal-time rule, and even the implications of miami herald publishing co. v. tornillo

we also need to reach some kind of concensus on both relevant first amendment provisions, e.g. freedom of speech and and freedom of the press (the latter being a certain candidate for the "big money" moniker) - any tinkering we do here carries disturbing implications

and finally, what the heck are we to do with the internet, where both the speed and pervasiveness of political advocacy easily avails itself to abuse from "big money" - just try imagining how we'd regulate big money from filtering through pacs to banner ads, popups, blogs and web-hosting

all that said... dude, i feel lost as to where to even begin forming a coherent solution - sorry

So naive to think someone can can run on a socialist platform even though many people see it as a better system than our current whacked out 1984 corporatism / socialism for the rich / pre-fascism. Theoretically, yes, realistically - probably not. If you want socialism (I do), prepare for a bloody, bloody battle (I am down). Why do you think they passed a bill to allow military action on American soil? The corrupt powers that be are prepared to do whatever it takes. Prepare, brother's and sister's our time is nigh.