>> ^shinyblurry:

Not that I am a huge fan of those who horde wealth, but its just a bare fact that the top 10 percent pay 70 percent of all of the income tax in this country..the top 1 percent pays 40 percent of that. The bottom 50 percent pays all of 3 percent. So you really can't say they aren't paying their fair share.


Wow... it's like you actually believe that. Tell you what, why don't you actually back that up with facts instead of pulling bullshit out of your ass.

Given you get your belief system from the same place, I don't foresee anything intelligible.

>> ^notarobot:

Interesting blueprint. I wonder if something like this will be done to the nation?


Something like this has been done to many nations, listen to this guy for some examples:
http://videosift.com/video/Economic-Hitmen.

But I guess you want to know whether it will happen to our nation. I don't think that can happen as long as the US dollar remains the world reserve currency, which is Why We Fight. When the dollar goes the way of the pound sterling then all bets are off.

>> ^notarobot:

Interesting blueprint. I wonder if something like this will be done to the nation?


Hasn't it already been?

GDP is up. Payroll is down.

Your video, How Did Mitt Romney Get So Obscenely Rich?, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Dan Savage's Blog this morning:

I would like to apologize for describing that walk out as a pansy-assed move. I wasn't calling the handful of students who left pansies (2800+ students, most of them Christian, stayed and listened), just the walk-out itself. But that's a distinction without a difference—kinda like when religious conservatives tells their gay friends that they "love the sinner, hate the sin." They're often shocked when their gay friends get upset because, hey, they were making a distinction between the person (lovable!) and the person's actions (not so much!). But gay people feel insulted by "love the sinner, hate the sin" because it is insulting. Likewise, my use of "pansy-assed" was insulting, it was name-calling, and it was wrong. And I apologize for saying it.

As for what I said about the Bible...

A smart Christian friend involved politics writes: "In America today you just can't refer, even tangentially, to someone's religion as 'bullshit.' You should apologize for using that word."

I didn't call anyone's religion bullshit. I did say that there is bullshit—"untrue words or ideas"—in the Bible. That is being spun as an attack on Christianity. Which is bullshhh… which is untrue. I was not attacking the faith in which I was raised. I was attacking the argument that gay people must be discriminated against—and anti-bullying programs that address anti-gay bullying should be blocked (or exceptions should be made for bullying "motivated by faith")—because it says right there in the Bible that being gay is wrong. Yet the same people who make that claim choose to ignore what the Bible has to say about a great deal else. I did not attack Christianity. I attacked hypocrisy. My remarks can only be read as an attack on all Christians if you believe that all Christians are hypocrites. Which I don't believe.

On other occasions I've made the same point without using the word bullshit...

We can learn to ignore what the bible says about gay people the same way we have learned to ignore what the Bible says about clams and figs and farming and personal grooming and menstruation and masturbation and divorce and virginity and adultery and slavery. Let's take slavery. We ignore what the Bible says about slavery in both the Old and New Testaments. And the authors of the Bible didn't just fail to condemn slavery. They endorsed slavery: "Slaves obey your masters." In his book Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris writes that the Bible got the easiest moral question humanity has ever faced wrong. The Bible got slavery wrong. What are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? I'd put those odds at about 100%.

It shouldn't be hard for modern Christians to ignore what the bible says about gay people because modern Christians—be they conservative fundamentalists or liberal progressives—already ignore most of what the Bible says about sex and relationships. Divorce is condemned in the Old and New Testaments. Jesus Christ condemned divorce. Yet divorce is legal and there is no movement to amend state constitutions to ban divorce. Deuteronomy says that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night she shall be dragged to her father's doorstep and stoned to death. Callista Gingrich lives. And there is no effort to amend state constitutions to make it legal to stone the third Mrs. Gingrich to death.

...and maybe I shouldn't have used the word bullshit in this instance. But while it may have been a regrettable word choice, my larger point stands: If believers can ignore what the Bible says about slavery, they can ignore what the Bible says about homosexuality. (The Bible also says some beautiful things that are widely ignored: "Sell what you possess and give to the poor... and come, follow me.” You better get right on that, Joel.)

Finally, here's Mark Twain on the Bible:

It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.

I'm not guilty of saying anything that hasn't been said before and—yes—said much better. What is "bullshit" in this context but "upwards of a thousand lies" in modern American English? And while those slamming me most loudly for "pansy-assed" may be on the right, they are also in the right. I see their point and, again, I apologize for describing the walk-out as "pansy-assed." But they are wrong when they claim that I "attacked Christianity." There are untrue things in the Bible—and the Koran and the Book of Mormon and every other "sacred" text—and you don't have to take my word for it: just look at all the biblical "shoulds," "shall nots," and "abominations" that religious conservatives already choose to ignore. They know that not everything in the Bible is true.

All Christians read the Bible selectively. Some read it hypocritically—and the hypocrites react very angrily when anyone has the nerve to point that out.

it's obscene is what it is... I've seen the evolutionary transformation drawings of ape to man... we're on square 3 here people

We train young men to drop fire on people, but we won't let them say fuck on television because it's obscene!

@dystopianfuturetoday I'd like to help you visualize what I understand a free market is or ought to be. When you say free markets are impossible, I tend to compare that to someone saying, "free speech is impossible" while holding an extreme or maybe unrealistic interpretation of what free speech ought to be as well.

Imagine when freedom of speech was first proposed, "What if we had a society where people could say whatever they want without fear of censorship or oppression?". Before we had a country where freedom of speech was in the first Ammendment of its Constitution, I'm pretty sure we didn't have freedom of speech anywhere, or mostly in any time in history. Someone could have replied, "A free speech society is impossible, which is why one has never existed, and why you were unable to come up with any working examples". Sure, because there would almost always be some asshole, usually a king, a despot or church, telling people what they could or could not say, and punishing them for it.

Now, do we enjoy absolute freedom of speech today? Not at all, and I'm fine with that. There are laws against libel, hate speech, obscenity, incitement to commit crimes, etc., which are all restrictions imposed on that very freedom.

However, all things considered, I think freedom of speech is mostly free. I don't know of anyone who advocates "restricted speech" or "highly regulated speech" as an ideal. More importantly, whenever censorship is reported or witnessed, everyone is instantly indignant and sometimes outraged, because we are all aware of how essential freedom of speech is to a free society, a freedom that should be cherished and protected.

Now let's take a look at the dynamics of free speech in society.

Just because people can say whatever they want, doesn't mean there won't be millions of people lying, deceiving each other, spreading ideologies that are COMPLETELY WRONG, etc.

Does that mean we should have laws banning ideas that are wrong? Not easy to do, because it is common sense that no one has absolute authority over truth, so such laws would hardly be fair.

Instead, we resort to letting ideas compete, letting people select for themselves what is true or not. That might doom society to eternal stupidity and ignorance or to a gradual process where truths will be preferred, and lies will tend to be exposed or ignored. Which outcome do you think is more likely? It takes time, but a free society matures with such freedoms. When abuses happen, society learns and deals with them without immediately resorting to laws and restrictions, because that would be considered censorship, and, therefore, usually unfair.

Now when it comes to economic freedom, liberals treat it as a whole different ball game, when I don't think it should be. First off, "free markets" = obscenity. They learn to understand it like you do, "absolutely free of government intervention, chaos everywhere, society is doomed", when in fact the proponents of free markets recognize that the State is necessary to enforce contracts, punish fraud and protect private property.

Liberals are mostly influenced by the socialist interpretation of capitalism as an inherently unfair system. Whenever any perceived abuse happens in an economy, they see it as resulting from an imbalance of economic power, so they rush to demand laws and regulations to forcibly correct them.

How about letting these abuses happen, and let society learn to deal with them, select them, and evolve? Just like what happens with free speech. Sure, if it's blatant fraud, theft, breach of contract, etc. the State can and should step in. Otherwise, let people come up with their own solutions. It will be a painful process, but it's better to let a free society mature by itself than oppressing it into behaving well.

Besides, if you think about it, politicians aren't any better than anyone at judging what economic practices are right or wrong. So the laws they make are usually unfair. They have the same kind of presumptuousness of someone who would claim authority over truth, and want to create laws censoring "wrong" ideas. Like keynesian economists who try to plan and steer economies because they have little theories where they claim it's smarter to use other people's money than letting people make decisions with their own money.

We would never put up with people trying to engineer society/culture through censorship. Why do we put up with that when it comes to economics?

About the thought experiment (hoping it's not a trick question), I don't see why there should be a limit on how much property a person can own, as long as the property is honestly obtained.

I don't think it's an injustice when someone owns more than others, maybe there are other factors to be considered? Forcibly redistributing property is usually more unfair than just letting society deal with any problem arising from someone having property that others want or need.

This is a question of philosophy. The inheritees on the right are TERRIFIED of having their kids up against a huge load of educated peers. The entire notion of elite private schools is so you KNOW who will be running your country in 50 years (and it's someone you know/are related to/owes you something).

In Britain 90% of judges come from 2 schools. The current government (PM, Chancellor, Mayor of London, heads of banks) were in a club together at the age of 20 for obscenely rich 5th+ generation inheritees, where they would have a luxury dinner then smash the restaurant up and drop a few thousand for the peasants to clean up after them.

While a state is in the grip of true evil like that, all you can hope for is screaming obfuscation from right wing mouthpieces like the Fox mercenaries, half the Senate and our very own QM, and nothing *NOTHING* will change.


>> ^Trancecoach:

The educational system in this country is in dire need of revision. Corruption and antebellum notions from an industrial era has turned public school into nothing short of a clusterfuck.

>> ^Deano:

They all earn incredible amounts of money and don't act in a way that is consistent or respectful of the rather sweet lifestyles they've landed.

The idiotic behavior that provides grist for the media mill is a symptom of lack of wisdom and maturity, not stupidity.

I don't know much about Premier Leaguers, but pro American football players are more intelligent on average. A better way to describe it is that their distribution of IQs is much narrower and shifted upwards a bit from the overall population's distribution. American football requires being able to process a lot of information and modifying complex plans all very quickly. It's not a game for idiots.

As for the pay, well they're entertainers. Any entertainer good enough in their field will be paid millions simply because there will be so many people that want to watch that entertainment. Actors, athletes, musicians, writers, artists can all become obscenely rich if they are good enough and marketed well. And as messenger points out, most pro athletes work harder than most people ever will to achieve a level of performance that only a handful of people on the planet can even dream of.

>> ^NetRunner:
China doesn't have the ability to censor anything outside of its own domain either

What are you talking about? The Chinese government controls or monitors most or all communication channels going in and out of the country (thanks in no small part to Google). Not only do they effectively prevent communication about certain topics between their own citizens, they prevent communication between their citizens and the outside world. When the censorship is circumvented, the consequences are dire, sometimes fatal.

>> ^NetRunner:
in the hypothetical situation that Google stuck to their guns, and thunderf00t decided to keep breaking Google's policy to make a point, ultimately the U.S. government would be drawn into the fight, and would, if nobody backed down, arrest thunderf00t for trying to use Google's property in a way that they didn't consent to.

lmahs! On what charges? Google wouldn't even have grounds for a civil suit unless they could demonstrate some real harm to their business. Short of thunderf00t actively hacking Google's servers to post his videos, he would face no consequences more severe than those set out in the terms of service:

1. YouTube will terminate a user's access to the Service if, under appropriate circumstances, the user is determined to be a repeat infringer.


2. YouTube reserves the right to decide whether Content violates these Terms of Service for reasons other than copyright infringement, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscenity, or excessive length. YouTube may at any time, without prior notice and in its sole discretion, remove such Content and/or terminate a user's account for submitting such material in violation of these Terms of Service.

That might be terrifying if YouTube was the only useful video host, or could somehow exert influence on all the others to prevent access to those as well.


I think this comes down to two interrelated disagreements. First, I view censorship, like most tools, as morally neutral. It can be used morally (e.g., preventing the dissemination of information on how to design biological weapons) or immorally (e.g., preventing the dissemination of information on government corruption). The immorality of an act of censorship is based on what the information is, why its censored, who is censored, and the consequences for circumventing the censorship.

Second, in this case, I don't think Google is in a position to use censorship in an immoral way. This is what I mean by "effective" censorship. If circumventing the censorship requires little or no effort, and there are no real consequences for doing so, it can hardly be called "effective", can it? Hypocritical and unethical? Absolutely. But Google can neither prohibit nor prevent thunderf00t from communicating anything he wants to whomever he wants.

I've swam through a few of her books,the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged,and I think her philosophy of Capitalism is Holy could work except for one basic problem:human nature. And her supporters in the GOP really don't get where she was coming from either. The protagonists of these books are people who run large companies struggling to provide their excellent products and services in spite of heavy regulations at the hands of the small minded government. They are personally involved with their companies,willing to go the extra mile and get their hands dirty in the persuit of delivering the goods and providing livings for their extended families of employees they feel responsible for. Yet the government in pettiness and jelousy scheme to thwart them in this:making the Creative Movers of Industry gasp under the strain of mad laws written by parasites to sap the energy of the Doers to feed the gluttony of the lazy masses. More or less this. Unfortunatelythis fairy story is a bit backwards nowadays...
Instead of clever creators marketing their dreams,we have souless corporations dissecting the labours of the many to feed the obscenely rich the lions share of profits,and existing only to figure out new ways of paying themselves incentive bonuses while the companies they run heave and expire beneathe them from the sheer weight of their greed. Emploees are not families to these executives,all cooporating with the mutual goal of seeing the company succeed,but disposable pawns easily replaced and forgotten,not worth providing benefits for and certainly not worth considering when cheap if not competant labour is available elsewhere.And regulations ? Taxes? Blasphemies!

Some of Rand's opinions I find valid:armies of the unambitious would swollow every dime you earn with demands for welfare and other government mandated largesses. For every brave sould with a creative spark there are a dozen happy to make them fall for the perverse pleasure of simply watching a great idea fail. These exist:but a socialism is not on the genda in this future of ours...it seems to be evolving into a new sort of feudalism where the Rich rule and the serfs provide the neccessaries. And I suppose there are entrepreneurs out there fighting the good fight,and fighting it with style and dignity for themselves and their employees.

They just don't make the headlines.

>> ^longde:

@Gallowflak, so where do you place sport hunting/sport fishing? Where the utility in that?


Its actual utility is questionable, but I still think there's a clear gulf between that and, to put it one way, inflicting suffering pointlessly.

It really depends on the intentions of the person. I don't think that most hunters are out to cause suffering; they're out to indulge themselves in their activity. Inflicting cruelty isn't the objective, then, and it's a very different psychological process.

The question is: what are the origins of this behaviour? What does it mean? How does it reflect on the person acting in that way?

And my argument is that those who act to cause pain and suffering (esp. on a sentient entity) and are capable of doing this without remorse, and without empathy, are dangerous, disgusting and obscene.

Thanks @dotdude for the update,

Alabama fan wanted in post-BCS sexual assault on LSU fan arrested in New Orleans


http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/01/alabama_fan_wanted_in_sexual_a_1.html
Brian xxxxxx, identified as the Alabama fan who pressed his testicles on the neck of an unconscious LSU fan in a Bourbon Street burger joint after the BCS Championship Game, was arrested by New Orleans police Thursday night after driving to meet police. xxxxxx, of Smiths Station, Ala., was taken into custody by New Orleans police about 10 p.m.

Detectives met xxxxxx, 32, at his attorney's office in Mid-City and then took him to Central Lock-Up, where he was booked with one count of sexual battery and one count of obscenity.

Earlier in the day, Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor, who said he is a second cousin to xxxxxxx, said he personally spoke with the NOPD sex crimes detective handling the case about whether to arrest the man or send him to New Orleans for questioning.

Although he'd heard about the video -- which has created a firestorm on the Internet -- for a couple days, Taylor said he watched it Thursday morning at the prompting of other people who suggested the University of Alabama fan was his relative. The man in the video indeed appeared to be Downing, he said.
"So then I went out there and looked at it and was, like, you have to be kidding me," Taylor said. At that point, he called Downing's father and told him to bring his son to the sheriff's office.

http://gothamist.com/2012/01/06/better_more_infuriating_video_shows.php

yah definitely resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

this from NYC penal law code

A person is guilty of disorderly conduct when, with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof:

1. He engages in fighting or in violent, tumultuous or threatening behavior; or

2. He makes unreasonable noise; or

3. In a public place, he uses abusive or obscene language, or makes an obscene gesture; or

4. Without lawful authority, he disturbs any lawful assembly or meeting of persons; or

5. He obstructs vehicular or pedestrian traffic; or

6. He congregates with other persons in a public place and refuses to comply with a lawful order of the police to disperse; or

7. He creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose.

Disorderly conduct is a violation.

I don't think the cops really care about the political message exactly,
but clearly they are directed to deny the use of public spaces for political purposes of the 99%