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The only thing worse than a state invading another state is if the two states cooperate to infringe on the liberties of a private citizen, if the US conquers the afghan government or causes it to collapse you have reduced the number of states by one, ergo that is the better option.
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Sep 24, 2020 23:54
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Well government authority collapsed in large parts of Afghanistan, so total worldwide liberty increased thanks to the neocons
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Sep 25, 2020 00:00
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There's your justification then. Unfortunately I have neglected to patent my posts so nothing is stopping mises.org from homesteading my takes and putting them up as their own. I am a fool. Such is the folly of altruism.
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Sep 25, 2020 00:07
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necrotic posted:It was Cisco. I just watched that episode. 
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Sep 25, 2020 00:16
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Hello Sailor posted:Lol, no it wasn't. Elaborate, please. Osama was being allowed to stay in Afghanistan. How could it not be justified? I don't think the cluster gently caress of staying after was worth it but initially yes. I would have liked better for an actual declaration of war to have been made. SpaceSDoorGunner posted:What the fuckloving gently caress does this even mean Israel and Iran are in Asia. We are in north america. If Iran and Israel want to go at it then that is there prerogative. Enigma89 fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Sep 25, 2020 |
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Sep 25, 2020 01:23
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Do you think that killing osama bin laden achieved anything? Do you think it was worth the cost if it did?
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Sep 25, 2020 01:29
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Enigma89 posted:Osama was being allowed to stay in Afghanistan. How could it not be justified? I don't think the cluster gently caress of staying after was worth it but initially yes. I would have liked better for an actual declaration of war to have been made. LMAO at the  peace-lover wishing that all out war had been declared.
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Sep 25, 2020 01:29
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Because like, I feel like if you are going to take a pro war stance there are probably better justifications than ritualised atavistic vengeance against one dude lol.
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Sep 25, 2020 01:30
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Enigma89 posted:Osama was being allowed to stay in Afghanistan. Elaborate on this, please.
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Sep 25, 2020 01:41
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If only we were half as thorough on pursuing tax evaders or domestic terrorists.
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Sep 25, 2020 02:04
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Even if I thought killing Bin Laden did accomplish something (and it definitely didn't), there was no need for the war because the Taliban offered to help us find him. Of course in reality the war had negative value in stopping terrorism since it created wayyyyy more terrorists than Bin Laden.
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Sep 25, 2020 04:13
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Enigma89 posted:Osama was being allowed to stay in Afghanistan. How could it not be justified? I don't think the cluster gently caress of staying after was worth it but initially yes.  but...it took a decade to find and kill him. What do you mean "staying after" wasn't worth it, you think 10 years of cluster gently caress in Afghanistan was worth it and it only became not worth it after we found him in a different country? Enigma89 posted:I would have liked better for an actual declaration of war to have been made.
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Sep 25, 2020 04:21
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You won't stop a war by voting for president. Join a union.
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Sep 25, 2020 04:45
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VideoTapir posted:Read "Friday." Or don't, and read about it, I guess. I don't remember "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" well enough to comment beyond saying that it often comes up in discussions of Heinlein's right-libertarianism. But "Friday" is the ancappiness turned way up and the horniness turned down to moderate-by-aging-SF-writer-standards. Also it comes through in his early short stories, too; particularly in the Randian vision of singular genius inventors. From what I remember of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" the book isn't particularly libertarian-y, it's mostly just anti-colonialist. The main political character describes himself as an anarchist. Sure, yes, there are homesteaders on the moon. But mostly people organize however they want. Capitalism isn't really addressed at all. Heinlein might be mega-libertarian but I didn't get the vibe from reading that book. Like no one wears a bow tie or gives a poo poo about GOOOOOOLD. It has a sentient computer that cums when it nukes earth so that's pretty cool
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Sep 25, 2020 12:37
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It has been a long time since I read any of his books, but I remember Heinlein as changing his political opinions several times during his life in all directions. Not exactly a good example for a majority of any opinion within SF.
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Sep 25, 2020 13:17
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Aw drat pretty big whiff on my part
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Sep 25, 2020 17:58
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QuarkJets posted:From what I remember of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" the book isn't particularly libertarian-y, it's mostly just anti-colonialist. The main political character describes himself as an anarchist. Sure, yes, there are homesteaders on the moon. But mostly people organize however they want. Capitalism isn't really addressed at all. Heinlein might be mega-libertarian but I didn't get the vibe from reading that book. Like no one wears a bow tie or gives a poo poo about GOOOOOOLD. I'm not convinced Heinlein had an ideology other than out of control horniness.
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Sep 25, 2020 18:52
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Since we were just talking about him https://twitter.com/ronpaul/status/1309567134222233601?s=21
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Sep 25, 2020 21:01
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VitalSigns posted:
I am not saying the entire effort there was good. There was an attack and a response. War should have been declared. Enigma89 fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Sep 25, 2020 |
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Sep 25, 2020 21:05
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Man: Steals my wallet. Me: Firebombs the building I think he lives in. "There was an attack and a response. Also I am very peaceful."
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Sep 25, 2020 21:19
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Enigma89 posted:I am not saying the entire effort there was good. There was an attack and a response. War should have been declared. The United States was not attacked by Afghanistan, you bloodthirsty psycho.
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Sep 25, 2020 21:36
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Enigma89 posted:I am not saying the entire effort there was good. There was an attack and a response. War should have been declared. What do you think "peace" is? Because it generally doesn't involve declarations of war on sovereign nations that had nothing to do with attacks.
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Sep 25, 2020 21:39
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Enigma89 posted:I am not saying the entire effort there was good. There was an attack and a response. War should have been declared. What part of "Afghanistan was not willingly harboring him and offered to help us find him" is difficult for you to understand?
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Sep 25, 2020 21:42
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Enigma89 posted:I am not saying the entire effort there was good. There was an attack and a response. War should have been declared.
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Sep 25, 2020 21:54
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Enigma89 posted:I am not saying the entire effort there was good. There was an attack and a response. War should have been declared. The US protected and welcomed terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, who bombed a civilian airliner and killed dozens of people, including olympic athletes. Does Cuba get to firebomb american cities?
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Sep 25, 2020 21:55
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Osama was allowed to stay in afghanistan because he had a shitload of armed guys in an area of afghanistan that was controlled by the taliban who didn't really have any reason to like a bunch of rich fucks from saudi arabia setting up shop, but didn't have any reason to start a loving pitched battle to kill them either. Iran was giving us intel on Al-Qaeda in the area because they did NOT like the idea of a saudi arabia controlled militant group setting up shop next door. We could have accomplished a few limited goals there if we hadn't decided to declare the taliban, iran, and iraq our enemy while also going after Al-Qaeda PookBear fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Sep 26, 2020 |
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Sep 26, 2020 01:07
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Enigma89 posted:I am not saying the entire effort there was good. There was an attack and a response. War should have been declared. Why
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Sep 26, 2020 03:08
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PookBear posted:Osama was allowed to stay in afghanistan because he had a shitload of armed guys in an area of afghanistan that was controlled by the taliban who didn't really have any reason to like a bunch of rich fucks from saudi arabia setting up shop, but didn't have any reason to start a loving pitched battle to kill them either. The sheer amount of good will the us squandered in the wake of 9/11 will always cement Bush's position as one of the worst presidents ever.
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Sep 26, 2020 03:45
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Luckily for Trump's legacy there was no more goodwill to squander after that
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Sep 26, 2020 03:58
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PookBear posted:Osama was allowed to stay in afghanistan because he had a shitload of armed guys in an area of afghanistan that was controlled by the taliban who didn't really have any reason to like a bunch of rich fucks from saudi arabia setting up shop, but didn't have any reason to start a loving pitched battle to kill them either. The Northern Alliance was largely an Iranian-sponsored project before we got there and if we did need an ally against the Taliban, they would've been well-suited. Oops lol axis of evil then we invade iraq and give them a gift anyway after we declare them our sworn enemy.
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Sep 26, 2020 09:05
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Panzeh posted:Oops lol axis of evil then we invade iraq and give them a gift anyway after we declare them our sworn enemy. That's just realpolitik
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Sep 26, 2020 14:20
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I'm happy people seem to read my posts responding to JRode's drivel in the spirit I intended. Much like Caros, I'm just pretty much done. He's not going to change his mind, and it's going to be the same, endlessly refuted 'arguments' dressed up in new clothing over and over and over ( homesteading, for Christ's sake ), so I figured I may as well indulge myself. And hopefully entertain the audience. HootTheOwl posted:The sheer amount of good will the us squandered in the wake of 9/11 will always cement Bush's position as one of the worst presidents ever. I don't think this can be overstated, actually; After 9/11, absolutely everyone were on the side of the US. Even China, Russia and Iran were making sympathetic noises ( and Iran explicitly helped the US with intel during the run-up to and during the Afghanistan-venture ), and I genuinely think there was a chance for true rapprochement between Iran and the US there, and a different administration would have been able to do a lot. Unfortunately, the world was unlucky enough to have the Bush White House, and seven years later, the world economy was on fire, Iraq and Afghanistan broken into bits, and a lot of us non-USians were looking around in horror at the hundreds of thousands of dead, the unfolding economic disaster, the mounting climate-crisis, and diplomatic turmoil, completely aghast. I know it keeps getting - deservedly - mocked, but Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize because the rest of us were just so goddamn happy it was him and not McCain getting the nod. Which leads me neatly to... Enigma89 posted:I am not saying the entire effort there was good. There was an attack and a response. War should have been declared. I'm going to be... charitable here. It's not just that the entire effort wasn't good. It was that it was the wrong kind of effort, against the wrong target, done in the wrong way. It was a military invasion that singularly failed to achieve its publicly stated goal, the assertion that the Taliban were harboring Bin Laden is open to some dispute, and - as you yourself point out - it was not a declared war. I'll go so far as to say that this OwlFancier posted:Man: Steals my wallet. is understating the overreaction; the war in Afghanistan was the international equivalent of firebombing a whole apartment-block to get to that one, creepy, leering jackass on the fourth-floor that no-one likes, but everyone's too afraid to do anything about because he's got a poo poo-ton of guns and a bad attitude. Nothing about that is okay, and trying to turn it, post hoc, into a humanitarian intervention on behalf of the Afghan people against their oppressors, much like the US tried to do in Iraq after WMD failed to manifest there is taking being economical with the truth to the point of parsimony. ... I'm saying it's a lie. A rationalization after the pooch was well and truly screwed. We broke it. Which means we bought it. And we did it for no. drat. Good. Reason. TLM3101 fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Sep 27, 2020 |
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Sep 27, 2020 18:41
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I'm actually gratified to see people like TLM and Caros lose all patience with jrod and his many identical incarnations. He's become more succinct, but he's still just as bad of a person. As I said, I reread this thread from the beginning starting some months ago and I knew what kind of person he was as soon as he said that he didn't give a drat about inequality, but I can understand why others took longer. I've said before that there are essentially two kinds of freedom-fetishist libertarians that worship the market, and they essentially come in two flavours: the disciple and the sociopath. One can sometimes redeem the former, but almost never the latter. When someone's world view is based entirely on an -ism, in this case classism/capitalism as the two are inseparable, there's no changing that person's mind. It's the same as racism/jingoism/nazism and the like where one type of person is supposed to rule over the rest due to inherent superiority, and they are all equally odious. On another note, I noted something with slight dark amusement not long ago. I never read anything jrod posts because, well, why would I? However, after I posted about how I had COVID and it permanently affected me and that I live in one of the worst regions in the worst country in the world, I was scrolling past jrod's reply to that and I could not help but note the words "my fault". I didn't go back and read the post (see above as for why) but it reminded me of how jrod constantly defended companies and such that ruin the environment and hurt people, but can't be held accountable because "You can't prove it was my pollution." Anyone with half a brain can see that the government did not do enough to address the pandemic, he supports the government doing as little as possible, and therefore he is ideologically implicit in a lot of harm. I realise that he did not infect me personally, but he's also the sort of person where if someone doesn't shout "I am intentionally trying to shoot you!" then they can't be held responsible for the bullet from their gun entering my body. Part of me would have liked to hold him down and cough on him while I was struggling to breathe for weeks on end, but if I could get that close to him I would rather just choke him out.
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Sep 28, 2020 02:31
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JustJeff88 posted:Part of me would have liked to hold him down and cough on him while I was struggling to breathe for weeks on end, but if I could get that close to him I would rather just choke him out. That same part of me wants me to go to anti-lockdown protests, puke in a bin, and start coughing wet and phlegmy on anyone with a Q shirt Under libertarian belief this would be fine, if they didn't want to get my sputum on their philtrum they could have done more to not interrupt my cough spray's freedom of movement
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Sep 28, 2020 02:39
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Somfin posted:That same part of me wants me to go to anti-lockdown protests, puke in a bin, and start coughing wet and phlegmy on anyone with a Q shirt The libertarian answer to this is to privatize all public right of ways and rely on enlightened capitalists to ban sick people from being able to go outside their houses* and permit them enforce that mandate with private security forces who are authorized to shoot you on sight if you sneeze. But it's on their property so your human rights are being respected. *Offer not valid if you rent, in which case get ready to be thrown into the ocean if the IR cameras in your apartment indicate to your landlord that you may be getting a fever
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Sep 28, 2020 19:08
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Realistically though killing your own workers and customers for being sick is bad for profits, so capitalists will just force everyone to work and spread misinformation and denialism to encourage consumers to shop, so at least capitalists get their money before they die. Theoretically I guess if all capitalists enforced a quarantine on the privatized roads at once that would be more profitable for them collectively since the pandemic would quickly be controlled, but since it would always be in any individual capitalist's self-interest to cheat on the quarantine themselves that collective action would never happen lol
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Sep 28, 2020 19:16
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VitalSigns posted:Realistically though killing your own workers and customers for being sick is bad for profits, so capitalists will just force everyone to work and spread misinformation and denialism to encourage consumers to shop, so at least capitalists get their money before they die. This can't be a libertarian answer because it doesn't use tortured logic to explain how having unaccountable oligarchs making all the decisions is actually the best possible mechanism of governance for everyone.
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Sep 28, 2020 19:18
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Well also it started with the word "realistically", letting you know what follows is not a Libertarian argument 
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Sep 28, 2020 19:23
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Incidentally, I was reading a book about money laundering, and New Zealand came up, so I'd like to mention it here. Apparently there was some scheme where a bunch of shell companies all paid a woman working at burger king  each to register as their director. This jives with the fact that New Zealand ends up on top of a few "ease of doing business" metrics. It's easy to make a company with no questions asked, so it's easy to hide things behind a corporate facade, and you don't actually even need to be in New Zealand to create a New Zealand corporation to hide behind.I know asking about New Zealand is more just part of the thread's whole "notice me" routine to try to get an actual libertarian to poo poo out their terrible views, but it's worth remembering that a lot of libertarians, what they care about more than anything else is the ability to evade taxes. They're very petty. I know that the anarcho-communist people here don't even want to acknowledge the validity of the use of money, and so don't really want to defend the idea of taxes, but that's a big chunk of it. And on top of the fact the importance of taxes, there's the fact that money laundering and tax evasion hides where money comes from, directly incentivizing crime by making it easily possible to hide all the money while still being able to spend it. At least, so long as you steal enough money to be able to afford accountants who will do crimes for you to help you with your crimes. That's how way more money gets stolen by white collar crimes than by burglary or mugging. And the white collar criminals who hurt people are side by side in their money laundering with larger scale criminals like oligarchs, autocrats, and dictators who the international community otherwise tries to suppress or contain. If you wanted to go after the most powerful and terrible people, money laundering is where you'll find them.
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Sep 28, 2020 21:50
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Within the state system taxes are a "good" thing in that they represent the enforcement of the social contract on the wealthy. My objection is really more that the state system doesn't do a very good job of not letting rich people avoid paying them and tends to spend them on lovely things But taking money from rich people in theory is a very good thing, because the gigantic black hole of wealth accumulation that is basically the sink which all the wasted labour into society drains into, is something you want to combat. I would suggest that taxes are not a super effective way to do that because rich people just don't pay them but the thought is a very good one.
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Sep 28, 2020 21:54
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