Torture is fine providing you are absolutely certain that the person in question is responsible or is hiding something of great magnitude.

You can't be civil to uncivil people.

If you want to argue about ethics then go see some of the beheading videos or innocent aid workers.

You have to fight fire with fire, granted you need to be 100% sure, but that is the problem with the US.

then again, if you were living in a foreign country you would get a lot worse.

All these foreigners have a better life thanks to the west.

You can't moan about a tiny % of mishaps.

If they don't like then they can bugger off back home, they need to understand that being granted asylum at times when there is an enemy within is bound to be tricky.

try and open christian church in Iraq and then see how you feel about ethics.

Far as I'm concenred the west needs to be a lot tougher on immigrantion because they let so much shit in they have no idea about.

A lot of these problems have arised because they have let so many unknown people into their coutnries in the first place.

You can never ever fully trust religious people like that.

Many have been brainwashed and hate the coutries they move too. Says a lot for their homeland don't it.

So we're still bombing niggers according to that video, yet one has been elected as president of the united states.

Nobody gives a fuck about niggers or mulims, its the brainwashed people those places produce that are the problem.

When was the last time you saw millions of people migrate to places all thee immigrants come from?

the problems only arise when they let in droves of different people who then pull in different directions because their family/religious values are still the same from where they came from and they're given an equal voice.

All it does is split countries and cause problems in the long term.

If it takes a war to realise that then so be it, its usally the case when anything of any significance crops up.

You actually don't understand what I'm saying..

nor do you understand that I actually do understand what you're saying.

You're being deceiving by treating an opinion as fact..

..rather than the general consensus of people who view politics the way you do..

..so I'm being productive by correcting you. Simple as that.

This is also a demonstration of my view that, if people are smart enough to spot propaganda when they see it but are too stupid to actually comprehend a clear message such as mine, think beyond one level, and get into an actual intellectual discussion, they should just ignore said propaganda rather than ranting about it.

You haven't. And, unlike me, you haven't given an actual argument as to why anyways.

You just implied that you think I don't get what you're saying. And now you change your mind? What a stupid kid...:>

I don't care if you think my criticism was worthless. It's shallow to treat opinion as fact, so I'm correcting you, which makes my criticism relevant.

Denial.

"Subjective truth" is just your euphemism for "opinion."

My pseudo-intellectual detector is BLARING right now!

The popular opinion, no matter how popular, is still opinion.

I did from the very beginning.

Yes, more poorly conveyed opinions for me to facepalm at. For instance, yours.

I think I've proven my point on that one. No need to argue there.

You're just being lazy now, dumbass.

No, it's what you say to sugar-coat your idea of an opinion so it sounds factual.

I simply clarified myself when I edited them. You're assuming that I actually corrected myself more than once, which is shallow. But at this point, I can't say I'm surprised you'd assume that.

lol? How so? If you had actually gone to school when you were younger and learned to read, you'd realize that that comparison is completely irrelevant to what I'm referring to.

It's really too late to think that we're still in Iraq for oil.

The gas-free car is coming out soon anyways..

..which means that crude oil should eventually become obsolete amongst the majority of consumers within the next generation.

Also, do you really expect trillions of dollars in national debt, all gathered up by this war, to be compensated by a single resource? If so, you are delusional, my friend.

Also, USA was in Vietnam solely for political purposes (namely, stopping the spread of communism in that country). Can't say that industry had much to do with the motive for that war.

I bet you also think inventing money was an evil plot to make people spend it.

The banks failure and need of bailouts was caused by failing mortgages.

Not the other way around.

That means the banks gave money to people who wanted to build a house they could not afford.

And had the banks not given the money, people just like you would have demanded that they give some of their wealth to those who need it ("it" in this case being oversized houses).

Now, if the banks don't have enough money to pay back their own debts they have to raise interests on the mortgages and be less lenient with the terms, resulting in more evictions.

So the bailout also was meant for the small people.

But putting the blame on the banks and claiming that the "normal people" are just victims, is short sighten denial.

If people don't realize that they also fueled this (e.g. by absurd credits and mortgages, demand for ever higher interests at banks) nothing will change.

predetory lending huh? How does that work, do you hold the gun to someones head and demand that he borrows some money from you?
Bullshit, the people wanted the money, actually in some parts they even sued when they didn't get a loan.

Yes, I am. You are implying it all started with banks giving away money, while in fact the customers came there asking for money.

both. you can mortgage a house you built, you know?

well then maybe you should try to understand how the financial market on the one side and mortgages on the other side work.

oh really? last I heard was a (admittedly insanely high) sum of 160 Million in Bonusses. But in relation to 160 billion that is only 0,1%. But I suppose you believe the rest went into a random person's bank account...

ahaha, I would love to see the reactions if the government tried to limit the amount of mortgages and credits people can get. Are you the land of the free, etc?

Those people are supposed to be adults, if they take credits they can't afford it, it is their fault.

Sure there was cases with some fraud, and bankers not telling the whole truth, etc. But beieving the little working class is oh so innocent is a load of bullshit.

Maybe they should just receive coupons for meals, a TV set preset to Fox News and a pickup truck every 12 years. Everybody is happy, (even Yeltsin)

the is no "I" in class welfare and that is why it will always be very difficult to achieve.

There is a reason socialism never worked.

please explain to me how you think the banking system really works.

And with that I mean the connections between banks, other banks, coustomers, companies, investors and so on.

Becuase i get the feeling your view of it has some major flaws.

Also, your "pay mortgages" option has a very major flaw. So far its only the distant bankers who get the blame.

What if your neighbor built or bought a huge house with a mortgage for 500.000$ and now it gets payed of in full.

While you still pay rent, so effectively your taxes payed his house.

Would you think that is fair, or would you think some neighbors might become a little upset?

Way to many factual errors.

it's just a parasitic industry, that's based on "earning" money without producing anything.

well, everybody has said that the mortgages were the trigger.

And you just as Lo seems to forget what those bailouts reallly are.

The money did NOT get transferred to everybody.

Much of it was used as loans which will ave to be paid back, or as guarantees to reinforce the trustworthyness of certain banks.

Some if it was also used to buy shares of certain companies.

They did not as you seem to have understood it simply wire a 100 billion$ to everynoe who needed it.

Anyway that statement is in no way equivalent to 13 trillion being "stolen.

While I do agree that 4 trillion are also a gigantic sum of money, I depise discussion where everyone throw around exxagerated numbers like politicians love to do. Makes them look like they have no idea what they are talking about.

This is wrong on so many levels that it's not even funny. You apparently don't understand how the bailout works, where the money goes, why it is necessary and what the situation would be without it.

I'm sorry and I hate to say this, but like I told someone else you need to do some reading on the crisis and then get back to this thread because it's pointless to debate when you're not familiar with what you're talking about.

I'd like to add that you often reply pretty aggressively to becks without understanding what he's saying.

1. Our system would not work without banks. But their activities can (and im should) be cut down to more simplistic system.

2. Banks are interconnected and then connected both to debtors and creditors, which is what I wanted yo to find out by yourself when I asked you to describe your understanding of the banking system.

3. If several banks fall, other banks who gave money to it now need money themselves. they either get new money from creditors, but those might not trust the banks anymore, meaning they fear the bank will go bancrupt and they lose their own money. Or the bank can demand money back from debtors (either through parts of the contracts, or by not issuing new credits.)

4. If the debtors cant pay, they lose the security to the bank, see mortgage crisis

5. So it is somewhat obvious it would be better if the bank instead had new creditors. And to improve the trustworthiness of this bank, the state can offer a guarantee that it will jump in should the bank fail. see bailout

But please write your statements clearer instead of attacking people, because they are ambigious.

You see the German word "funktionieren" means that something works in its intended sense. Meaning that I understood that you wanted to say that the central bank would fulfill its task. Which is (among others)to keep the currency stable. Arrantly "to function" in English means only to work in any sense?
If so that misundertanding is certainly my fault, yes.

Writing "idiot" is certainly yours though. Or would you rather discuss this in German and let me call you idiot for every mistake?

that is your opinion and it is not the official conscensus about its function.

I pretty much did call you ignorant, as in I do not believe you know enough about the topic to form an educated opinion.

I also pointed out some of the reasons that let me to that assumption, which you have not disputed thus far!

Therefore any conflicts between what you want to achieve and the results of your proposed solutions are easily explaned without any mental disorder.

About the anarchy part I would not call my assessment of your statements a cognitive dissonance, not at all.

I think you know a lot about the basic concept of anarchy to like it a lot. I does sound great in theory.

And then you were (as everyone else, including me in some discussions years ago) confronted with the practical problems of maintaining and even worse establishing such a system.

Those problems caused some of your suggested solutions which in my opinion contradict the general concept of anarchy.

However, I am convinced that is not a sign of cognitive dissonance but rather of an ongoing thought process.

When I try to connect Lo's statements I don't get the feeling that anarchy is what he really wants, but instead a strong government that cracks down on everything remotely illegal or immoral.

If have having conflicting ideas at least once at any points of a project means someone has a mental illness you would have to send all engineers I know to an institution ;)

that is not the point. The point is that if you simply use functioning you are supposed to mean the conscensus. If I say that the smart is a functioning (but imperfect) car, I can't claim I really meant that it is a piece of shit.

I did not ignore what you were saying, I said what you were saying is wrong on a factual basis and that you should learn more about the topic. (Which you still did not dispute) If I am not allowed to say that, what am I allowed to say. May I even disagree with you or does that hurt your fellings as well?

Imagine this: A 16 year old want to explain calculus you, even though you have an education in this and he keeps making mistakes. How would you reply? (Please keep in mind, that if you question his knowledge he will call you immature!)

if you would stop cutting every sentence the refenrence should be quite easy to see. But to make it clearer: The assumption that you did not do extensive research in the field of economics and more specifically finance.

neither. I think you are trying to make ends fit that won't fit. You just really want them to. (While that is admirable in a way it does look, forgive me, quite funny from here ;) )

well, that is of course a matter of opinion, but I don't think any of the historical examples is an adequate basis for evaluation.

- relativelively small groups, compared to the entire populitions of earth

- quite homogeneous groups with similar cultural background, language, ethnicity, etc.

- regional, I think organisation over the whole world would be much more difficult, and today our society is e.g. not sustainable without oil (tractor fuel, fertilizer)

- and most importantly: a very short time frame

I did not mean discussions here but much longer ago (say ten years) when I was more pro anarchy. I still like it in theory, just to see how it will ever work on a grand basis and for a long time, for me the final argument was that people simply are always competitive and envious.

I am pretty sure that you have not tried to explain that to me specifically. Maybe to someone else?

And I do still not understand, so please answer this simple question: Do you want a state or statelike entity to be in charge of e.g. health care or do you not want it?

good that you are convinced, I just believe you want something specific and you want to name it anarchy.

If wanting to call something differently were a sign of mental illness then yeah I'd think you are ill, but so would I and everyone else.

Do I understand this correctly? Are you saying your ideas contradict each other?

If so why the hell have you been attacking me for saying the exact same thing?

So you think your opinion is that definition of everything? Well, at least you have no problem with self esteem.

already did that a while back, everything about where the money goes about what mortgages are there for, how banks and companies are financed is wrong or at least oversimplified.

But apparantly you were to busy whining about that ad hominem to even notice.

to clarify I did say back then and will repeat it here, your shortcomings in this field are too many, too deep and too basic.

But you obviously can't stand someone telling you that.

#63

and then in reply to number 177 you declare having a neighbor with a $500.000 mortgage hypothetical without any reason.

What if your neighbor built or bought a huge house with a mortgage for 500.000$ and now it gets payed of in full. While you still pay rent, so effectively your taxes payed his house.

What if a lender made a bunch of risky investments and got bailed out and its already rich CEO got payed a $500,000 bonus, afterward. you still pay rent and effectively your taxes payed his bonus.

And start with the insults.

That's surely the most important piece of evidence showing why it's not capable of working in the present modern world?

If it was a world wide success and capable of achieving growth while maintaining social cohesion then why didn't it last?

Destroying other societies and cultures has nothing to do with being civilised.

Anarchism can only cope with and support small populations living rather basic lifestyles.

For it to work will require vast technological advances first. I agree that it's "better" but it doesn't "work" at this present moment in time

(Unless everyone agrees to drop civilisation and return to tribal life)

unless everyone agrees to drop civilization and return to civilized life

on 4. not "duh". You are grossly underestimating the effects of such an event . If almost no credit lines are renewed a huge amount of companies will become insolvent. Compared to that the current crises is a mild summer breeze.

Were did I say high risks or even big risks?

I said the investors fear they might lose their money.
Fear is not rational and since the financial market is never 100% transparent that fear can simply not taken away by the bank itself. Everything they could offer would be part of the insolvency mass anyway. And if they would of prioritized paybacks their other creditors might opt to back out. Therefore and outside stabilizer has to come in.

c) The guarantees are usually connected to certains demands should the bank really need them, such a shares or high interest paybacks, and for example here in Germany clear cutbacks on the salaries of managers.

Oh and one central banks run by bureaucrats. Are you sure that's a working system?

The government controlling every private investment?

I think you need to decide between Anarchy and high governmental control on of these days.

oh and gold sucked big times as a basis for currencies which is why it was abandoned. (read up on Bretton Woods, and how it tends to fuck with countries with fast growing economies)

Oh and just for shits and giggles, imposing a system with fixed exchange rates for everyone is the opposite of what anarchy stands for ;)

whenever you have a fixed system that is supposed to work globally you will need an authority to impose it and that is what collides with the idea of anarchy.

And actually I view your "position" as immature in the literal meaning because it does not seem as if you have made up your mind on where you really want to stand.

So I was supposed to assume that or what?

Also, if you call me immature, I don't see why I can't say that your position does not seem matured to me. After all that is an opinion not an assumption.

And actually I view your "position" as immature in the literal meaning because it does not seem as if you have made up your mind on where you really want to stand.

it does not seem as if you have made up your mind on where you really want to stand.

And I am now forming the opinion that a discussion with you is pointless, because you jump around a little to much for my taste.

also, please explain how morality can be applied to politics?

You can't be seriously suggesting that morals, a totally dynamic, vague, undefinable product of the humans thought is just as fundamental, empirical, and universal as physics?

To take your 'physics' example. For simplicity, morality would be like the strong force. And the strong force has nothing to do with planets movement. Although it holds molecules together.

Why not?

And why not?

You think those are the same and is your answer the same for both?

Eh, don't make the mistake of thinking morality is a strict system like the laws of physics.

"Morality" is a concept of human creation.

Morality is a human concept. It has no corporeal basis.

Just because it is a human creation does not mean it is without utility.

For this reason, we have, as a thinking and intelligent animal, created society and laws to help us coexist.

We can reject social hierarchies and still not be in anarchy.

Anarchy is unworkable.

There is no way it can provide any cohesive moral or ethics system.

If you're looking for ways to de-stratify our social classes -- or rather bring everyone to an equal standing -- then you'll have to look at removing private property ownership (which is the biggest attribute to differing social classes).

From an individual perspective, it isn't comfortable seeing those less competent in our society making a better living for themselves.

However, from a societal perspective (and from the sovereign's perspective), social classes serve an important function.

you implied, that anarchy worked in catalonia.

if you take that as an example of a working anarchist society, i'd like to know how it worked.

that's what i would like to know from you. :)

How DID it work?