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Yeah, I'd really like to know specifically how he thinks people didn't just starve in the streets before government assistance. Did he think before the big bad government started taxing everyone so much that people had so much extra money that charities were just overflowing with food and nobody went hungry?
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Sep 28, 2013 07:01
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Enjoy posted:Apparently 300,000+ Americans striked and rioted under the name of the "Grand Army of Starvation" after 4 years of economic depression in 1877. Doesn't seem that charity worked so well in the Gilded Age. Thanks for these! There is so much about American history I'm unfamiliar with. This will certainly help with the "no one starved before food stamps" bit, but unfortunately I think he'd say "Food is much cheaper and more available now. Those in poverty are more likely to suffer from obesity-related diseases than starvation." We've argued about politics so much I'm pretty sure I can have a full-fledged debate with him in my head at this point. Parallel Paraplegic posted:Silly things like "statistics," "normal human behavior" and "past efficacy" can't convince a libertarian, for they have the hardened simplistic moon-logic of someone who fundamentally does not understand how the world works. That's what's so attractive about the idea to nerds and such, it's entirely logically consistent, it's just the assumptions that it is based on are false and make no sense if you have any idea how people work at all. Using libertarianism, you can make a rebuttal to every possible scenario that, assuming you are working within the same framework and making the same bad assumptions, will always be true. It's got all the attractiveness and certainty of axiom-based mathematics to a lot of people who don't like the fuzziness of the world otherwise, it's just too bad that it's based on falsehoods. Yes, one of the hard parts about arguing with him is that sometimes we have to boil down to ideologies. His is "it is immoral to force anyone to do anything, everything should be done on a voluntary basis." which to me 'voluntary' is open to interpretation. If the only job you can get is a lovely minimum-wage job, are you really 'voluntarily' working minimum wage? I've said if he doesn't like paying taxes, he could 'voluntarily' go live in the woods and be a recluse, but he said that's not 'voluntary' that would be being forced to remove himself from the non-government-supported parts of daily life too. I argued that basically everything you do is supported by government/societal structures to which he said "exactly" and I didn't really know where to go from there. He has admitted to yes, using public services and whatnot, but only because he has no other options for things like water or roads or whatever. I mean, I can often times see where he is coming from. Maybe that's why I'm a bad debater, I understand his frustration so it makes me sympathetic to his viewpoint at times. Like, yes, it's very frustrating to me that many of my taxes go towards things like bombing the Middle East or what have you. Some of my money has been used to kill innocent people. That is, indeed, a moral outrage. Yes, the government fucks up REAL bad at times and uses our money poorly and in ways we wouldn't wish. But I just don't have an easy time conveying to him that without government, our situation would be much, much worse. Everything from building codes to zoning laws to to public water supply, maybe if I had a list of all the things that only one concentrated body can do effectively it would help. Eh, probably not, he'd say private enterprise could do it better. Uranium Phoenix posted:
Yeah, I realized that when I was trying to look it up. No one bothered to keep track because it wasn't SUPER common. However, saying "hundreds of people died of starvation in this time period" probably isn't a very compelling argument to him because it's just not that many people. He has a viewpoint that people are just more hardy than I think. People wouldn't just let themselves starve, they'd find a way. We had a discussion about how there are lots of people in towns abandoned by industry on disability despite not having a disability because there is nothing else for them. I said it's hard for people to just up and move sometimes, and it's not as though people are living the high life on disability. It's regrettable, but at least they aren't homeless / starving. He said that if they didn't have the disability money they wouldn't just crawl in a hole and die, they'd find a way to live. I mean...maybe? I guess? That viewpoint just reeks of not understanding some people's hardships to me. Parallel Paraplegic posted:Yeah, I'd really like to know specifically how he thinks people didn't just starve in the streets before government assistance. Did he think before the big bad government started taxing everyone so much that people had so much extra money that charities were just overflowing with food and nobody went hungry? I'm not sure, as I said above he thinks people are much more capable of not dying under adverse circumstances than me. In any case, even if charity didn't take care of everyone, he would still disagree with taxes because being taxed is not voluntary. Donating to charity, however, is, and if people really cared about something that's what they'd do. If they don't care, well, that's fine too. I retorted, again, I do care, but I probably wouldn't donate to charity if I wasn't taxed because I, like most other people I know am: 1)Poor myself 2)Kinda lazy 3)If not for taxes allocating my money towards several programs I'd have to determine people's needs myself, find out an appropriate charity and try to determine how much money is appropriate to donate to each individual societal problem. Sounds like a lot of work. I know that it's hypocritical of me, to realize that people starving is bad but I probably wouldn't, on my own, do anything about it. But I think that's the reality for a lot of people and a lot of problems. Hence why we need regulations for things like climate change - people don't care enough to do anything about it on their own, but it REALLY NEEDS TO BE DONE SERIOUSLY. He wasn't convinced.
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Sep 28, 2013 22:06
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The force thing is a paradox, though usually unacknowledged. There are those 'people' using force (taxation, etc.), but for you 'force' is out of bounds as immoral. Furthermore, they do not experience what they are doing as forceful. It is equally a use of 'force' to categorize their actions unilaterally according to your own arbitrary criteria or to intervene in order to make them desist. You are therefore left with dissociated self righteousness and complaint as your response. Since both of these tend to abdicate any actual responsibility for the current condition or response to the current condition they are strategically very convenient. There are other options, but unlikely to occur for someone espousing that particular ideology.
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Sep 28, 2013 22:22
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Salis posted:I mean, I can often times see where he is coming from. Maybe that's why I'm a bad debater, I understand his frustration so it makes me sympathetic to his viewpoint at times. Like, yes, it's very frustrating to me that many of my taxes go towards things like bombing the Middle East or what have you. Some of my money has been used to kill innocent people. That is, indeed, a moral outrage. Yes, the government fucks up REAL bad at times and uses our money poorly and in ways we wouldn't wish. But I just don't have an easy time conveying to him that without government, our situation would be much, much worse. Everything from building codes to zoning laws to to public water supply, maybe if I had a list of all the things that only one concentrated body can do effectively it would help. Eh, probably not, he'd say private enterprise could do it better. twodot fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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Sep 28, 2013 22:44
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Is nature considered immoral by his view? I'm coerced into eating, sleeping, drinking, breathing, blinking, etc. If I want the economy to reflect my perception of the world as an abstract plane across which the unlimited extension of human will plays out, where political correctness is a frustrating and inane social limitation on speech, where taxes are a frustrating and immoral social limitation on my resources, etc., all of which we are immorally coerced into understanding as normative, then why wouldn't I spurn nature all the same?
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Sep 28, 2013 22:49
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Accretionist posted:Is nature considered immoral by his view? I'm coerced into eating, sleeping, drinking, breathing, blinking, etc.
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Sep 28, 2013 23:01
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I'm done with politics.
Earth fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Sep 28, 2013 23:06
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Sogol posted:The force thing is a paradox, though usually unacknowledged. There are those 'people' using force (taxation, etc.), but for you 'force' is out of bounds as immoral. Furthermore, they do not experience what they are doing as forceful. It is equally a use of 'force' to categorize their actions unilaterally according to your own arbitrary criteria or to intervene in order to make them desist. You are therefore left with dissociated self righteousness and complaint as your response. Since both of these tend to abdicate any actual responsibility for the current condition or response to the current condition they are strategically very convenient. There are other options, but unlikely to occur for someone espousing that particular ideology. I have no experience in formal debate, so the semantics and the weaving around argument structure is new to me. This seems a likely scenario why I often come out on the downside of arguments. For instance, the fact that I am hypocritical in that I think some things are important but would likely not fund them without taxation apparently means I automatically lose. However, I see it as 'that is reality, and in reality it is also bad for people to starve, which I acknowledge, so I am okay with paying taxes.' Maybe there is some better way to phrase this so I don't sound so...bad? twodot posted:Is he arguing that a society which did not force people to pay taxes would be more moral or more good? It's pretty easy to take "thou shalt not force" as a moral axiom and from there conclude that taxes are morally bad. There's nothing wrong with this line of reasoning, even if I don't personally agree with it. Saying that "if we did not force people to pay taxes, the same number or less people would die from starvation" is an entirely different argument. In this argument, the morality of force is wholly irrelevant, and it should be obvious that, barring some massive inefficiency in government charity, that forcing people to give money to feed people will always result in more food than asking nicely. (edit: and since people do in fact die from starvation having more food will always result in less starvation deaths) We have had arguments he has concluded with "perhaps taxation makes some people better off via government programs. However, I should not be forced to contribute to these. It is regrettable that people are in these bad situations (he also thinks the majority of bad situations come from taxation and government regulation, as an aside), but no one should be mandated to help them if they don't wish to." If he himself didn't donate to charity, give food to homeless people when they ask, etc. I would find this viewpoint reprehensible. However he lives what he preaches, so I can't knock him for that. Unfortunately, if taxation wasn't around not everyone would be like him and people would suffer. To him, that's okay because as you mentioned, he believes 'force=bad'. However he also happens to think that if there was no government things really wouldn't be that bad. Accretionist posted:Is nature considered immoral by his view? I'm coerced into eating, sleeping, drinking, breathing, blinking, etc. While I've never taken this argument to him, I imagine his rebuttal would be "that's asinine, nature is nature and everything else you mentioned are human constructs."
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Sep 28, 2013 23:07
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Earth posted:He's a Randian, and even worse it sounds like this guy is a true blue Randian. The best cure for Randians is eating a large slice of humble pie. Different forms of humble pie could be anything from losing his job/his wealth/gaining a disability/you breaking up with him because of one of those things/etc. Basically have something happen which would show that the current system doesn't work everyone. He's not a big fan of either the Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. He thought they were pretty stupid. The thing is, if it wasn't for the Affordable Care Act allowing me to still be under my parents insurance right now, I would be SUPER screwed. I make less than 15k, no benefits. I also am on chronic medication and have a nasty habit of getting UTI's that I need antibiotics several times a year for. I'm also about to get a necessary, semi-expensive dental procedure done that would be impossible for me to get without insurance. I've mentioned this, and he admits the health care system is bad. However he thinks it is bad because there are so many government regulations and there is no real competition. Me having no idea what kind of regulations are currently in place or how they affect the pricing given, have a hard time arguing. I know, you can't be a rational buyer when it comes to your own health, but he still thinks that under a COMPLETELY free market system things would not be so expensive. I argue that it doesn't matter if they're cheap, some people will still have a hard time affording them while also keeping a roof over their head and food in the cabinets. But because there doesn't appear to be any model of an actual developed country having a completely free market healthcare system that I know of, I can't back that up.
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Sep 28, 2013 23:12
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A "free market" is like one of those rare elements on the table of elements. It exists for a brief moment and then turns into something else. Capital concentrates, oligopolies form up, the average person is crushed and so they push for regulations and social programs... it just can't stay "free" for very long. At least not by libertarian standards. The funny thing is that they are usually against anti-trust laws and the like so they really have no way of stopping this.
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Sep 28, 2013 23:17
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I'm done with politics.
Earth fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Sep 28, 2013 23:20
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twodot posted:What does this have to do with anything? I recently spoke to an exemplary example of this. He supported total rejection of vaccination programs, even historical ones for small pox and polio, because of concerns regarding bodily freedom. How are vaccination programs worse than polio and small pox? By only thinking in terms of, "You want to do something to me that I don't want and that's immoral." He figured that we must, at a very basic level, not violate certain rights. Herd immunity? Irrelevant, not considered. It's just immoral, thus invalid. Serious, communicable disease like small pox is an individual matter, right? Sponging off herd immunity doesn't affect others, right? At some point, he transitions from reality to unreality, unless he'd chide even nature and/or god. In that case, it's turtles all the way down. *Unless one's down with the consequences. Like if the above guy was all, "Well, I'm okay with increased mortality and disability rates attributable to these diseases because those are my values."
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Sep 28, 2013 23:21
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Salis posted:We have had arguments he has concluded with "perhaps taxation makes some people better off via government programs. However, I should not be forced to contribute to these. It is regrettable that people are in these bad situations (he also thinks the majority of bad situations come from taxation and government regulation, as an aside), but no one should be mandated to help them if they don't wish to." Accretionist posted:*Unless one's down with the consequences. Like if the above guy was all, "Well, I'm okay with increased mortality and disability rates attributable to these diseases because those are my values."
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Sep 28, 2013 23:39
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I'm done with politics.
Earth fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Sep 28, 2013 23:39
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Earth posted:It doesn't matter if he enjoyed the books or not. He may just not enjoy reading, or he may have actual taste in writing styles. Having reprehensible opinions on how the world should work doesn't mean an individual doesn't have good taste for fiction. I've read Rand's books, and to be blunt they really are terrible writing. But think of it this way, there are a lot of religious people who buy into her belief structures don't buy into her atheism. Even though one of Rand's famous quotes states that you MUST completely buy into her philosophy and not just pick and choose what suits you. I think this is the one you are looking for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSjGouBmo0M This was going around a lot.
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Sep 28, 2013 23:43
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I'm done with politics.
Earth fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Sep 28, 2013 23:49
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Earth posted:It doesn't matter if he enjoyed the books or not. He may just not enjoy reading, or he may have actual taste in writing styles. Having reprehensible opinions on how the world should work doesn't mean an individual doesn't have good taste for fiction. I've read Rand's books, and to be blunt they really are terrible writing. But think of it this way, there are a lot of religious people who buy into her belief structures don't buy into her atheism. Even though one of Rand's famous quotes states that you MUST completely buy into her philosophy and not just pick and choose what suits you. I'm not actually sure that's what she's saying in that quote. Maybe there's more context, but it seems like she's attacking Hegel and, by extension, Marx. I might be giving her too much credit, though. Kant was beyond her powers, so it's doubtful she'd have the intellectual firepower to tussle with Hegel even assuming she'd bother reading him. It's kind of weird she was so hostile to Kant. I mean, the Kantian antinomies introduced a scenario in which reason was ineluctably drawn into certain kinds of contradiction -- which may be a no-no for her -- but Kant's idea was that reason, therefore, simply cannot decide, as of course there could be no contradiction in the objective world. Hegel's idea was 'what's the problem? There's contradiction everywhere.' Maybe her idea is to retreat to Aristotle but Hegel in some ways does this too, praising Aristotle for having genuinely dialectical insight over Kantian... oh, gently caress it. I'll consider Rand's contribution as a philosophical commentator after I'm done with the contributions of everyone else, including non-philosophers and literal inanimate objects. A brick wall could hold a better discussion about Hegel than Rand.
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Sep 29, 2013 00:02
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twodot posted:If your trap simply requires one to say that they are ok with bad things happening (especially when their original argument had nothing to do with the prevalence of such bad things) then it's not a very good trap. Also traps are stupid rhetorical devices.
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Sep 29, 2013 00:02
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I'm done with politics.
Earth fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Sep 29, 2013 00:17
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Salis posted:I've mentioned this, and he admits the health care system is bad. However he thinks it is bad because there are so many government regulations and there is no real competition. It's important to mention that the only reason that competition exists in the first place in a "free" capitalist market economy is because of government regulation. Capitalist economies, by their very nature, trend towards either monopolies or oligopolies because of the growth drive (the need for constant expansion, increasing profits, etc.), which pressures companies into buying out or defeating the competition in some way. The end result of this is individual markets with high barriers to entry (imagine trying, to use a crude example, to break into the mobile phone industry with a brand new company today), preventing the emergence of the competition that theoretically forms the core virtue of capitalism.
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Sep 29, 2013 00:31
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Accretionist posted:How's it a trap? I don't think you can really decouple the consequences of not having had small pox and polio vaccinations from having had small pox and polio still kicking around. If you are dealing with someone who literally thinks that reducing vaccinations won't lead to more sickness, I think the polite thing to do is to give them a lollipop and go about your business.
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Sep 29, 2013 18:02
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Really, I think an important lesson that this thread can state in general is: Don't worry about trying to win an argument with everyone, especially people whose beliefs are based on a fundamental irrationality. Like, yes, it feels good to educate people or win these semantic debates, but the amount of effort and heartache you have to pour into doing so could be far better spent writing a nice academic paper or putting together a YouTube video or quite literally doing anything else to convince a much broader range of people of an idea.
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Sep 30, 2013 04:51
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Vermain posted:It's important to mention that the only reason that competition exists in the first place in a "free" capitalist market economy is because of government regulation. Capitalist economies, by their very nature, trend towards either monopolies or oligopolies because of the growth drive (the need for constant expansion, increasing profits, etc.), which pressures companies into buying out or defeating the competition in some way. The end result of this is individual markets with high barriers to entry (imagine trying, to use a crude example, to break into the mobile phone industry with a brand new company today), preventing the emergence of the competition that theoretically forms the core virtue of capitalism. We've had discussions on monopolies before, though I can't quite remember all of his arguments. His main points were: -If you hate monopolies so much, why do you like government institutions (such as the police force)? That is a complete monopoly and they do a terrible job because no one can threaten their existence. -Amazon is basically a monopoly and they're awesome. -Government regulations make it hard for people to enter into markets so it's their fault monopolies exist anyway. -If people don't like monopolies they can just stop giving them money, which you can't do with the government. I tried to retort about natural monopolies like control over water sources, but he didn't see why two different companies couldn't use said water sources and I have no idea how those actually work so I could only say "I'm pretty sure any company interested in making money would guarantee only they could use the water by purchasing all the viable land around it." But I have no idea. Earth posted:But the point to drive home is that he doesn't buy into the social contract in the first place. And probably doesn't buy into the belief that a community should take care of its own and that helps the community out greater than the individual. It is seen in many papers that those countries that offer single payer health care are doing measurably better than the U.S. health care system. Does this mean that there isn't a better system? No, there may be a better system, but those systems closer to Single Payer result in a happier and healthier community than those closer to the libertarian style. I actually semi-won an argument on health care saying that, all the evidence we have points towards single-payer being the best system available. There are two options: 1) Attempt a "free market" of healthcare with NO government oversight for which there is no data on the efficacy of such. 2) Go to what every other developed nation has, single-payer, for which all evidence supports its vast superiority over our system now. He, however, believes America is exceptional in its government corruption and so it wouldn't work here. Also because we're too big. And too diverse. So I said fine, roll it out on a state level first and see how it works, which he didn't really have much of a response to. But thanks to the recent light shed on inefficiencies in the VA, I don't think I'll ever convince him it's a good idea. And I've seen that video before and I enjoyed it. I mentioned to him how we pay more in taxes for healthcare than other countries with single-payer and he didn't believe me. I couldn't really explain HOW that is, so we had to move on from that point. Vermain posted:Really, I think an important lesson that this thread can state in general is: Don't worry about trying to win an argument with everyone, especially people whose beliefs are based on a fundamental irrationality. Like, yes, it feels good to educate people or win these semantic debates, but the amount of effort and heartache you have to pour into doing so could be far better spent writing a nice academic paper or putting together a YouTube video or quite literally doing anything else to convince a much broader range of people of an idea. It would be one thing if I was winning arguments we had and he always had to fall back on "FORCE IS BAD" though I have gotten to that point with him before. But he seems to not only think it's just an irrational ideology, he thinks it's the best thing that we can do and that it will actually improve people's situations. That's why I continue to argue, because I feel certain if I could show him that his ideology actually HURTS people more in reality than using the evil "force" of taxes, he might change his tune. He certainly isn't stupid, but he HATES the government so fervently, for various good reasons, that it's leached over into hating even the things they do well. I made pretty good headway with him one time where I said even if he believes force=bad, you NEED force to enforce property rights, you NEED force to prevent other people from using force against you because there will never be a point in time in human history where there isn't a person out there looking to take advantage of others. He said it could be potentially kind of utopian and it's probably "not something the world is ready for right now." But yet it still influences all of his current political opinions which I don't understand.
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Sep 30, 2013 14:45
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Salis posted:-If you hate monopolies so much, why do you like government institutions (such as the police force)? That is a complete monopoly and they do a terrible job because no one can threaten their existence. -Police forces are, in the end, accountable to people through mayoral (or whatever level) election. Moreover, they actually do an excellent job in almost every part of the country, and keep the other parts from degenerating into warzones. -Amazon is not even close to a monopoly. They are huge, and fairly unique, but if I want to buy, say, books, I can get an e-reader from Apple or Barnes & Noble, and I can get books either locally or from any of a number of other online retailers. -Government regulations present barriers like "paperwork" and "making sure you're not selling poison in the baby formula." Monopolies present barriers like "we can offer the same product at a quarter the price because our primary objective is to drive you out of business." -The whole point of monopolies is that you can't just stop giving them money, if you still want the product they sell. If I want internet, I have to go through Time Warner Cable, because there are literally no other options where I live. It sounds like this person doesn't actually understand what a monopoly is, especially with the second and third parts. A monopoly is not a big company: it's a company that is the only provider of a given product.
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Sep 30, 2013 14:52
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Something which occurred to me might be useful for this thread is the book "Straight and Crooked Thinking" by Robert Thouless (a psychology professor at Cambridge in the 1930s). He covers a huge range of dishonest tricks used in argumentation and rhetoric, and suggests counters to each of them. It's an absolutely invaluable resource for any political debater. http://www.amazon.com/Straight-Crooked-Thinking-R-Thouless/dp/1444117181
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Sep 30, 2013 17:23
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Salis posted:We've had discussions on monopolies before, though I can't quite remember all of his arguments. His main points were:
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Sep 30, 2013 18:25
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How is a Governmental monopoly which is (theoretically, in a Western democratic country at least) designed to safeguard the intrests of the people who vote for said Government somehow worse than a Corporate monopoly which is designed (primarily at least) to benefit the stakeholders and generate as much money as possible for said stakeholders? If I had to chose one over the other Id like the one at least semi accountable to the most people. I dont think this line of reasoning would work on anyone, but its something Id always considered myself.
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Sep 30, 2013 18:39
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Touchdown Boy posted:How is a Governmental monopoly which is (theoretically, in a Western democratic country at least) designed to safeguard the intrests of the people who vote for said Government somehow worse than a Corporate monopoly which is designed (primarily at least) to benefit the stakeholders and generate as much money as possible for said stakeholders? Another way to look at this is the mission statements: would you rather have a monopoly from someone whose stated goal is the benefit of the people, or whose stated goal is "more money for us, gently caress you?"
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Sep 30, 2013 18:41
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Muscle Tracer posted:Another way to look at this is the mission statements: would you rather have a monopoly from someone whose stated goal is the benefit of the people, or whose stated goal is "more money for us, gently caress you?" Thats a much more to the point way of saying it, and yes I still think if anyone should have a monopoly it should be governments. Because at least they give a poo poo about other peoples opinion and not just profits (sadly this is slowly becoming less and less true it would seem).
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Sep 30, 2013 18:44
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I am wondering about the 'taxation is force' argument and how it fits with the 'all (financial) transactions are voluntary' argument.
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Sep 30, 2013 18:58
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Muscle Tracer posted:-Police forces are, in the end, accountable to people through mayoral (or whatever level) election. Moreover, they actually do an excellent job in almost every part of the country, and keep the other parts from degenerating into warzones. -He would laugh at the notion that people have any say in government. Candidates will say whatever they need to to get elected and then do whatever they were going to do anyway. I had mentioned that the impending decriminalization of marijuana is an example of the people influencing their government, but he said that's just an example of government taking decades to actually catch up to the will of the people, and without government marijuana would never have been an issue. Also he believes the police are basically useless and aren't there to defend your rights - they're only there to collect money (via tickets and drug busts or whatever.) I don't know how many times we've argued about police. He says if you're getting robbed police won't get there in time to make a difference, if you get things stolen they won't really spend any time looking for them, in Detroit police don't even come when you call anymore, police hurt the people more than they help them (the fact that only the terrible poo poo cops do get reported doesn't help me with that one), etc, etc. (This is funny coming from a guy who has never had any legal trouble, is a middle class white guy, got his car stolen and the cops returned it to him, albeit almost 8 months later.) -Good point about Amazon. Didn't think about that about that. -He would say that if the monopoly is offering things at a quarter the price, then that's exactly what we want them to do. Sell us poo poo for cheap. -You'd have to make the conscious decision as a consumer to no longer partake in their product. Muscle Tracer posted:Another way to look at this is the mission statements: would you rather have a monopoly from someone whose stated goal is the benefit of the people, or whose stated goal is "more money for us, gently caress you?" He would say the real mission statement of government is "more money for us, gently caress you" and mission statement for corporations is "money for us, assuming we continue giving you a product that you enjoy and get a good value out of. If not, then I guess we go out of business." I know, that's very idyllic but he has a very romanticized view of business and a very frustrated one of government. It's hard to switch that when there are so many bad things the government DOES do, but I suppose my view is "keep the good, essential stuff, work on getting rid of the rest" while his is "scrap it all."
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Sep 30, 2013 19:18
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Sogol posted:I am wondering about the 'taxation is force' argument and how it fits with the 'all (financial) transactions are voluntary' argument. Taxation is force mostly because these people dislike the consequences of not paying them yet still benefitting from services tax money gives you. Go live in a tent in the woods without running water or electricity and by all means pay no taxes (Im kidding, there will be still be some taxes you should be paying in all liklihood, unless you were also born there).
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Sep 30, 2013 19:24
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Salis posted:-He would laugh at the notion that people have any say in government. Candidates will say whatever they need to to get elected and then do whatever they were going to do anyway. I had mentioned that the impending decriminalization of marijuana is an example of the people influencing their government, but he said that's just an example of government taking decades to actually catch up to the will of the people, and without government marijuana would never have been an issue. Occupy got a few people elected too, and look at the giant rush of Democrats put into office in 2008 after Bush made everyone mad at Republicans, or the rush of Republicans in 2010 after the Tea Party wharrgarbled loud enough. Not all of them kept all their campaign promises but for the most part they held consistent ideas and didn't just pull a total 180 once they got into office. Does your boyfriend ever actually try rallying or protesting or does he just whine and complain when things don't go his way? Salis posted:Also he believes the police are basically useless and aren't there to defend your rights - they're only there to collect money (via tickets and drug busts or whatever.) I don't know how many times we've argued about police. He says if you're getting robbed police won't get there in time to make a difference, if you get things stolen they won't really spend any time looking for them, in Detroit police don't even come when you call anymore, police hurt the people more than they help them (the fact that only the terrible poo poo cops do get reported doesn't help me with that one), etc, etc.  So they actually helped him the one time he encountered crime, and he still thinks they're useless? Does he count the fact that the entire rest of his life has been crime-free as a product of the police, or does he think that crime is a weird, rare anomaly and the police don't constantly work to thwart it causing it to be way lower than it otherwise would be?Salis posted:-Good point about Amazon. Didn't think about that about that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if Amazon were a real monopoly e-commerce would effectively be impossible for anyone else and the prices of everything would be much higher - a monopoly only has to lower prices when its trying to destroy competition, otherwise you pay what they tell you to pay or you don't get your thing. Salis posted:-You'd have to make the conscious decision as a consumer to no longer partake in their product. Let's all just make the conscious decision as a consumer to no longer partake in police and fire services, healthcare, basic food staples, driving, having a house, using the internet, watching TV, etc, to the point where the monopolies can't stay afloat because literally nobody in the world is eating, committing crimes, getting sick, driving, living in a house, going on the internet, or watching TV. That'l show em'. quote:He would say the real mission statement of government is "more money for us, gently caress you" and mission statement for corporations is "money for us, assuming we continue giving you a product that you enjoy and get a good value out of. If not, then I guess we go out of business." Corporations do not exist to make products, they exist to make money for shareholders by any means. People are not rational actors, and spend money for weird reasons or because they cannot afford to change their habits - this is why Wal Mart is so massive despite generally selling crappy plastic poo poo and bad food. Is Wal Mart a good value, or just cheap and massively pervasive? The government generally has to account for the money it spends, it can't just sit on it like a dragon on a pile of jewels - it has to spend it on government operations, social programs, etc. It has no profit motive other than covering its own ability to run all of its functions. Shame Boy fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 23:06
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Is there any basis behind the idea of "Obamacare is causing businesses to lay off/hire less workers"? I know it's not even a credible argument, what I want to know is where people are getting this idea outside of disingenuous sources such as Fox News, Drudge Report, Free Republic, etc. My mom adamantly believes in that idea, and while I always try to avoid arguments with my parents due to the drama it often causes, it's something I'd like to shut down with more than just a useless "Fox/Drudge/Freep are not legitimate sources" comment if we ever seriously get into the subject.
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Oct 1, 2013 03:42
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miscellaneous14 posted:Is there any basis behind the idea of "Obamacare is causing businesses to lay off/hire less workers"? It is true. But there's a catch. The catch is it's being done strictly by businesses who are ideologically opposed to Obama in general. They are doing it out of nothing more than spite, they are not doing it because of anything that actually happens. It is like when that one company threatened to fire their employees if Romney didn't win the election.
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Oct 1, 2013 03:46
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At around the 50 employee mark, a company starts incurring penalties for not providing insurance to full time employees. This means that a company that might want to expand past 50 has a new hurdle. My thinking is that if your business model isn't good enough for you to find a way to provide insurance to your employees, your business isn't really ready for the big leagues anyways. This affects big companies in a different way, I think they can avoid a lot of penalties by keeping every employee at part time. Screw those businesses, they can afford to pay for the insurance but they get more profit when they don't.
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Oct 1, 2013 03:52
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Install Windows posted:It is true. But there's a catch. That's about what I've heard, and why I avoid the companies were childish enough to do that, such as Papa John's. Dr. Arbitrary posted:At around the 50 employee mark, a company starts incurring penalties for not providing insurance to full time employees. I imagine the penalty you're referring to is the basis of their argument, and that's easy enough to shut down considering any businesses successfully employing 50+ full-time staff could probably afford the insurance. I think that answers my question well enough. miscellaneous14 fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Oct 1, 2013 |
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Oct 1, 2013 03:53
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:This affects big companies in a different way, I think they can avoid a lot of penalties by keeping every employee at part time. I mean, it's hosed that that's what they'll do, but it's still a completely foreseeable outcome.
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Oct 1, 2013 04:29
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I agree, I just mean "screw them" in the sense that they are not tge victims here; they're the villains.
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Oct 1, 2013 04:34
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:I agree, I just mean "screw them" in the sense that they are not tge victims here; they're the villains.
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Oct 1, 2013 04:38
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