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tuck frump

Not Like Hitlary is any better

care to revisit that, now that the Donald says he won't respect the outcome of the election?

Given the shit wikileaks / o'keefe provided, why should he?

Because that's how democracy works. If Hillary can win, even with the Wikipedia, etc, it means the American people chose her to lead them, end of story. If someone wants to prosecute her for a crime, thats still possible, even when she's president. It's mainly in dictatorships where someone decides they don't like the outcome of an election and organize an illegal uprising. Or they win the election and put their opponent in jail. Either way, it's not how we do things in America, for better or for worse.

that's a very cute theory, but doesn't work in practice. those people are grossly uninformed, or misled by mainstream media. they cannot make an informed decision. and thus, there is no democracy - it's merely an illusion.

Hillary should've been jailed a long time ago, but alas, the justice system is not exempt from corruption.

Ye its not like the internet exist and u can get informed there. But hey lets keep pretending she should be in jail and thats the problem, so she will not have to be facing her actual issues because her detractors focus on idiotic stuff.

But isn't Hillary jailable? She did broke the law. FBI said she broked the law. She said she broked the law. Did I miss something?

She was judged not guilty. What she was accused of is basically irrelevant in comparison to the legal stuff she did

She did broke the law.

No.

FBI said she broked the law.

No.

She said she broked the law.

No.

Did I miss something?

Apparently.

yes that sounds believable. james comey would never lie. and a politician like hillary would never lie. KappaRoss
are you this naive, or a paid shill?

Feel free to explain to me which law she broke (without random youtube videos if possible).

why would I do that? am I a lawyer now? am I investigating her case and have access to all the necessary data?
nice logical fallacy mate. just because I cannot carry out your inane and irrelevant request, doesn't mean you can say with certainty that she hasn't done any criminal activity. because the FBI said so? lol

random video? lol what. as random as your article with the bureau head lying, I hope.
it's a compilation of her lying, feel free to research all the source videos for yourself. what are you gonna say next, that it's fake? :)
she's on record lying for decades, so is james comey.
common sense says, they are probably lying this time around as well. why the fuck would I believe anything they say?

so my question to you is: on a scale of 1 to incredibly dumb fuck, how fucking gullible are you?

pacmanpl made three simple claims in his original statement. I replied to those specific claims. The source I provided was about his claim that the FBI said Hillary Clinton broke the law. This is false -- the FBI, through Comey, said the exact opposite. How is that a "random" article? It literally proves that my statement (that the FBI did not say Clinton broke the law) is the correct one.

The burden of proof lies with the one making the claim, so I'll repeat: if anyone is going to claim that Clinton broke the law (in this case it was pacmanpl, but for some reason you decided to join the discussion while bringing absolutely nothing of value to it), then I'll be eagerly waiting for that person to submit evidence substantiating that claim, and to mention which law Clinton is supposed to have broken with regards to her use of a private e-mail.

let me guess, you went to law school right? you talk just like a lying piece of shit scumbag politician. how surprising. :)

your random article didn't prove shit, because those ppl have been shown not to be trusted.

who are you trying to impress with your smooth-talking bullshit rhetoric here? lol. I don't give a fuck about shitters like you who believe everything the govt or some other authority tells them.
I prefer to draw my own conclusions after being presented FACTUAL EVIDENCE, such as wikileaks material or the recent project veritas material. granted, YOU won't be seeing ANY of that on CNN aka clinton tv or some other mainstream brainwashing program.
and currently all data suggests that she's a liar, criminal, untrustworthy, powerhungry, all-around awful person.
FURTHERMORE, wikileaks founder julian assange has just commented that he's preparing to release more leaked e-mails which contain enough evidence to indict hillary clinton.
I'd never vote for her under any circumstance and I'd never believe a word she says.
if you can't see that, then there are only 2 possibilities here: a) you're uninformed b) you're a paid shill.
so mr. gullible dumb fuck politico boy, go get fucked and stop wasting my time.

No, I did not go to law school.

You seem to be having some difficulty grasping what the argument is about. The article I linked to is not supposed to prove whether or not what Comey said was truthful. What the article does show, however, is what Comey actually said on the topic of the legality of Clinton's use of a private e-mail address and server. pacmanpl claimed that the "FBI said she broked the law". This is false, because the FBI did not say that. In fact, Comey (the director of the FBI) said the exact opposite, namely that from what he can tell based on the FBI investigation, Clinton did not break the law.

Obviously, you're free to claim that he's not telling the truth, but the point is that this is his (and the FBI's) position on the issue, making pacmanpl's statement false.

Let me help you further in case you're still not getting it:

Person A: "I like flowers."
pacmanpl: "Person A said he didn't like flowers."
Me: "No, actually he said he liked flowers. Here is a source with a direct quote from person A showing he said he liked flowers."
Lacceh: "GRASS IS EVIL AND HERE'S A YOUTUBE VIDEO PROVING IT YOU PAID SHILL."

Now that this is hopefully cleared up, we can move back to the issue of the legality of Clinton's use of a private e-mail address and server. As I said, if you or pacmanpl would like to argue that Clinton broke the law, feel free to 1. point out which law she broke and 2. explain how she broke it.

I thought he said that no reasonable person would prosecute the case ostensibly because they'd have to prove intent. If she intentionally destroyed public records (30,000+) emails or intentionally mishandled classified materials (by using a private, unsecured server), those are both crimes. But the crux is the intent. There's no (???) evidence of intent to break the law. It is then just negligence ("extreme carelessness") which is a lesser issue and I think requires proof of damage (I.e., that the 30,000+ emails were, in fact, work related or that classified docs were compromised).

Intent is indeed key, including with regards to 18 U.S.C. § 793(f).

So that's the crux. Intent. Evidence of intent that separates this case from actionable or not.

Given the history of the Clintons, a long history of dishonesty and toeing the line of what's legal/illegal, plus given the fact that Hillary has already been caught in multiple lies about this case, you can understand why people have a hard time believing there was no intent.

What poorly informed people who've eaten up myths about her believe or not is irrelevant to the facts of the case, which all point to the entire issue being a mix of decisions made out of personal convenience, computer illiteracy, and a lax culture of e-mail use at the State department. There is zero evidence supporting the idea that there was any intent from her part to expose classified information or get rid of the e-mails she was asked to provide -- to the contrary. See this write-up that I referenced below, or even this more straightforward piece.

Not myth. The Clintons have been embroiled in scandal going all the way back to when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas. And how things go with them, you see a consistent pattern.

The intent was not to give state secrets to "the enemy". Only fringe, conspiracy theory types think that. The intent was to avoid FOIA laws because the Clinton Foundation and her work at the State Department were so intertwined. The Foundation was never just a philanthropic organization -- it was a means of influence peddling and income.

I say all this not as a Trump supporter. I voted today and not for Trump, Clinton, Stein, Johnson, or anyone else (I wrote someone in).

She's been the target of GOP smears and fake scandals for decades. That doesn't say anything about who she actually is or her honesty/dishonesty. The quantitative data we do have shows that she is not more or less dishonest than other politicians like Obama, and the same goes for qualitative accounts from people that have covered her closely, such as Jill Abramson. Either way, this is irrelevant to the facts of the case we're discussing.

I addressed your claim about an intent to avoid FOIA requests in my previous post, so I'll just refer you to what I wrote again -- there is zero evidence supporting that claim, and the evidence we do have actually points to the opposite being true. You are also making claims with regards to her e-mails and the Clinton Foundation that are simply not supported by evidence, so there's not much to say there.

I guess she was stepping on delete buttons when she was running under sniper fire.

Okay, so that's interesting. You think that these are all fake scandals or just politics? Despite grand jury investigations, despite both Clintons being caught repeatedly in lies (whether that's about Whitewater, Lewinsky, sniper fire in Bosnia, or no emails marked classified). There is no lie too big or too small. They've told them all. Even completely inconsequential issues they've lied about, like Hillary famously arriving in Bosnia airport under sniper fire. Where is the evidence to support the claim that these are all "fake scandals" part off some "vast right wing conspiracy" (as Hillary likes to call it). And now with the Wikileaks, you get to see some of how this all works. Bernie Sanders said that some of the protesters outside his rallies were fake and hired by someone. Hillary called him paranoid. As it turns out, from what we saw in the DNC email leaks, Bernie was exactly right (the "protesters" were interns w/ the DNC).

In the US, we have a saying (maybe this is also used in Belgium), "that something does not pass the smell test". Something "smells" wrong. And anyone with common sense, and paying attention to the timeline of events surrounding the emails and what Hillary has said can see that there's something wrong. It takes a lot of naivete to think there's not something fishy going on there. Moreover, I think you're very confused about public perception about Hillary's honesty. Most polls throughout this election cycle have public perception about her honesty at 60-70% (60-70% think she's dishonest or not telling the truth). This is eyebrow raising because more than 50% of the country leans Democrat. So it makes you wonder...

You did not address the intent. Are you really saying this was all an innocent mistake? That Hillary really did not know what the "(C)" on documents was? Or that there's no issue with an elected official having total control over what she deems personal and private records? Like I said before, given the long history of the Clintons, it takes some serious naivete to think this was all just an "oops, my bad" kind of situation. Most Americans, even a large proportion of her supporters, think she's been dishonest. Why lie if there's nothing there?

wouldn't waste your time he's fucking delusional

I'm discussing Hillary Clinton, not her husband who isn't on the ticket. Whitewater is actually a perfect example of a politically-motivated "scandal" that ended up not amounting to anything with regards to HRC, so thanks for bringing it up. With regards to Bosnia, while her description of what happened was factually false, cognitive psychology tells us there are perfectly legitimate reasons as to why she may have honestly remembered the event the way she did. She may not have been lying at all, if you consider it necessary to have an intent to deceive for one to be lying. She may simply have reconstructed the memory in a way that had her convinced what she said truly happened. And there are plenty of clues as to why that might be the case. See the following two testimonies from her speechwriter and from ambassador Hill, who were both with her during the trip:


It may seem like a big step to go from "there is a strong threat of sniper fire" to "we were actually under sniper fire", but as I said cognitive psychology has shown it is not unusual at all for our memories to be distorted in such a way, especially regarding stressful situations. That's a very possible explanation of why she recollected the event that way. She may simply have remembered it wrong, and she truly thought she was being honest. She could also have simply gone for hyperbole. I don't know.

With regards to the e-mails, none of them were marked with a "classified" header as they normally have to be when they're classified. Three of them had a small (c) to indicated "confidential" next to individual paragraphs, including paragraphs which only contained information already available publicly. It's possible she missed them. I agree that she was very defensive for some time over the e-mail story, and had to adapt her statements as it unfolded. This is probably because she saw it as yet another witch-hunt, and because she's apparently terrible with computers (see again this write-up that I linked to above) -- I honestly believe she had no real idea what an e-mail server even does.

You seem to be confused about what I'm arguing, though. I am not taking the position that she never lies. What I am saying is that she doesn't lie to a greater extent than any other regular politician, including Obama. She's not less honest than anyone else in Washington. The (imperfect) quantitative data that we do have shows this, and it is corroborated by the testimonies of people who've followed her closely, such as the one from Jill Abramson that I mentioned above. She became secretive after the initial attacks and conspiracies she faced in the 1990s, though, but being secretive is not in itself evidence of wrongdoing. With regards to your question about the endless stream of fake scandals and conspiracy theories about her in the 1990s and since then, see here or here.

I'm familiar with the saying, and likewise familiar with another one often mentioned in reference to her, namely "when there is smoke, there is fire". The problem here is that the "smell", or the "smoke", is often the result of fabrications or hysteria about pretty minor issues, and the fire is almost never there. I'm aware of the state of public perception about her, yet this has zero relevance to the objective reality of her honesty. Again, it's the result of a narrative pushed by the GOP and a media eager to have a horse-race and jumping on every appearance of impropriety because of an eagerness to finally come up with an actual Clinton scandal. In fact, she went from one of the Secretaries of state with the highest approval rating when leaving office ever to her current terrible favorability rating, because she's running for president.

I did address the intent: "there is zero evidence supporting that claim, and the evidence we do have actually points to the opposite being true". The detailed e-mail story can, again, be found here. You are projecting a negative intent purely because of your apriori beliefs about her.

You realize how much you sound like you're rationalizing her behavior? When did we stop caring if a politician lies or not? I can't believe you're going from "all this is fake scandal" to full cynic is only a couple posts. It's okay to lie about being under sniper fire because she was under the impression that could be sniper fire? What a low standard.

No, you did not address intent. She claims there was no intent and that's where it ends. Her claim. But anyone with common sense can see how flimsy this is. To her benefit, our legal system has a very high standard for this issue. There would need to be some written, video, or audio materials of Hillary Clinton spelling out her motivation for doing circumventing FOIA laws. For someone who talks about how knowledgeable she is about public policy, she surely made a huge blunder by having someone go to all the trouble to set up a secret server... Any random person off the street knows how wrong it is what she did. Heck, I've worked in gov't and they make you sign documents that state you're aware and understand the laws about public record. It's everywhere. FOIA is EVERYWHERE. This is not some random, obscure law... It is central to how the public (and the media) can keep our gov't and officials accountable (to a degree that it doesn't interfere with national security).

Activist groups, like Judicial Watch, are relentless with FOIA requests. They can just crank those things out. So it's on everyone's mind, constantly. Are you trying to argue that Clinton was so grossly unaware of this that she could go through the process of setting up a private server, use that private server for multiple years, and then permanently delete (using specialized software) all records off the hardware, and did this all out of ignorance of FOIA laws?

That amount of naivete is nothing short of breathtaking.

Since you're all into cognitive psychology, maybe you should point that analysis at yourself? Why are you so defensive about Clinton? Why are you rationalizing her lies and defending her when it's clear to most anyone (including 60-70% of US voters) that she's lied repeatedly about her server.

She said she never sent and received classified emails. Lie.
She claims she did it out of convenience so that she could use one device. Lie.
She said that Colin Powell advised her to use a private server/email. Lie.

I'm not going to bother linking you to these things because they're everywhere. They're a matter of public record at this point. Not based on the editorializing of some partisan writer.

I'm familiar with the saying, and likewise familiar with another one often mentioned in reference to her, namely "when there is smoke, there is fire". The problem here is that the "smell", or the "smoke", is often the result of fabrications or hysteria about pretty minor issues, and the fire is almost never there. I'm aware of the state of public perception about her, yet this has zero relevance to the objective reality of her honesty.

Just one post ago you made a case about quantitative/qualitative data suggesting she mustn't be as bad (or worse) than any other politician. That there are journalists who support her and think she's an honest, trustworthy person. Now you're saying that when you look at what most people think of her, the perception of her, she's overwhelmingly seen as dishonest and not trustworthy. You can say what you want about public perception, but there's also a long list of people (journalists, politicians, whoever, take your pick) who agree with public perception about the Clintons. Ron Fournier has covered the Clintons since Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas and has said RE - PEATED - LY that the Clintons have a very loose relationship with the truth. Ron Fournier is a very middle of the road kind of guy and says in his articles, always prefacing, "I'm friends with the Clintons, but...". If you've got long-time friends and you can call them out on their poor behavior, that says something.

I mean, how dense do you have to be not to see this? The willing self-deception is astonishing. Even her supporters agree she lied about this! But when confronted with the alternative (Donald Trump), they're willing to back her.

One last comment about my "a priori" beliefs about her. It's really hard not to and I don't see why that's a problem. Should all our opinions and perceptions of people be immediately reset to tabula rasa when they run for President? She's been in public life for 30+ years. I barely remember George H.W. Bush's presidency but I surely remember Bill Clinton's. And Hillary was in the spotlight all the time. These two individuals -- Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton -- have an extraordinary amount of political power in the US. They are THE so-called "establishment". They've been advisors to all sorts of mega-corporations and Wall Street banks. It is fundamentally contrarian to our form of gov't that any one person has so much power. We have checks and balances because of this -- each branch of gov't (legislature, judicial, executive) checks and balances the powers of the others. And yet, with these two individuals, their spheres of influence are enormous. Apparently so enormous that the entire Democratic Party nomination process was rigged to make sure Hillary Clinton ran unopposed. Look at who ran against her: Two people (Jim Webb and Lincoln Chaffee) were complete joke candidates who dropped out after the first debate. The only individual, Bernie Sanders, who had a real attempt to oppose her was perpetually beset by actions taken by the DNC. There's Wikileaks explicitly showing coordination between the DNC and the Clinton campaign in trying to stop Bernie.

You realize how much you sound like you're rationalizing her behavior? When did we stop caring if a politician lies or not? I can't believe you're going from "all this is fake scandal" to full cynic is only a couple posts. It's okay to lie about being under sniper fire because she was under the impression that could be sniper fire? What a low standard.

That's not what I said. I said there was a plausible explanation, put forward by others, to explain why she might have sincerely misremembered the episode. I also didn't go "full cynic" or anything of the sort -- you're not making any actual point, only attempting to strawman my argument.

No, you did not address intent. She claims there was no intent and that's where it ends. Her claim. But anyone with common sense can see how flimsy this is. To her benefit, our legal system has a very high standard for this issue. There would need to be some written, video, or audio materials of Hillary Clinton spelling out her motivation for doing circumventing FOIA laws. For someone who talks about how knowledgeable she is about public policy, she surely made a huge blunder by having someone go to all the trouble to set up a secret server... Any random person off the street knows how wrong it is what she did. Heck, I've worked in gov't and they make you sign documents that state you're aware and understand the laws about public record. It's everywhere. FOIA is EVERYWHERE. This is not some random, obscure law... It is central to how the public (and the media) can keep our gov't and officials accountable (to a degree that it doesn't interfere with national security).

Activist groups, like Judicial Watch, are relentless with FOIA requests. They can just crank those things out. So it's on everyone's mind, constantly. Are you trying to argue that Clinton was so grossly unaware of this that she could go through the process of setting up a private server, use that private server for multiple years, and then permanently delete (using specialized software) all records off the hardware, and did this all out of ignorance of FOIA laws?

Yes, I did address intent: there is no evidence supporting your accusation. The burden of proof lies with the one making the claim. All of the evidence available (and I'm not talking about her word) points to there being no intent to deceive or hide anything, except with regards to the fact that she wanted to use the kind of devices she was familiar with (blackberries). Her e-mails to Colin Powell point to that, her exchanges with her staff point to that, and her actual practice as Secretary of State points to that. With regards to the deletion of e-mails, she's not the one who went through them to separate the professional e-mails from the personal e-mails, and the only ones who were deleted were the ones who had been reviewed as personal by those in charge of making the distinction. She played no part in selecting e-mails for deletion. Now tell me, what evidence do you have of the kind of intent you're accusing her of? I'm asking for evidence, not your a-priori beliefs built on the narrative about her you've eaten up.

That amount of naivete is nothing short of breathtaking.

Since you're all into cognitive psychology, maybe you should point that analysis at yourself? Why are you so defensive about Clinton? Why are you rationalizing her lies and defending her when it's clear to most anyone (including 60-70% of US voters) that she's lied repeatedly about her server.

She said she never sent and received classified emails. Lie.
She claims she did it out of convenience so that she could use one device. Lie.
She said that Colin Powell advised her to use a private server/email. Lie.

I'm not going to bother linking you to these things because they're everywhere. They're a matter of public record at this point. Not based on the editorializing of some partisan writer.

Literally none of those are lies. You either don't know what a lie is or are unfamiliar with the facts of the case.

(a) "She said she never sent and received classified emails" -- that is a false statement, yet not a lie. It would be a lie if she had known she had received classified e-mails. I've already covered why she didn't -- none of the e-mails were properly marked classified.
(b) "She claims she did it out of convenience so that she could use one device" -- how is that a lie? She wanted to use only one device (her blackberry) for both government work and for personal/political correspondence. That doesn't mean she didn't want to use other devices for other uses.
(c) "She said that Colin Powell advised her to use a private server/email." -- she asked Powell for advice on how to continue using her blackberry (thus confirming that this was indeed the reason, not the kind of intent you attribute to her), and he advised her not to use "systems that capture the data".

Just one post ago you made a case about quantitative/qualitative data suggesting she mustn't be as bad (or worse) than any other politician. That there are journalists who support her and think she's an honest, trustworthy person. Now you're saying that when you look at what most people think of her, the perception of her, she's overwhelmingly seen as dishonest and not trustworthy. You can say what you want about public perception, but there's also a long list of people (journalists, politicians, whoever, take your pick) who agree with public perception about the Clintons. Ron Fournier has covered the Clintons since Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas and has said RE - PEATED - LY that the Clintons have a very loose relationship with the truth. Ron Fournier is a very middle of the road kind of guy and says in his articles, always prefacing, "I'm friends with the Clintons, but...". If you've got long-time friends and you can call them out on their poor behavior, that says something.

I mean, how dense do you have to be not to see this? The willing self-deception is astonishing. Even her supporters agree she lied about this! But when confronted with the alternative (Donald Trump), they're willing to back her.

I don't have access to Fournier's articles in the National Journal, but if I remember correctly his contributions in other media he was critical of her responses on her e-mail server story, which I addressed in my previous post: I agree that she was overly defensive about it, and that she changed her statements at different points. Like I said, I suspect that her motivations were that she saw it as a witch-hunt and probably didn't understand the e-mail server issue in-depth to begin with.

And yes, public perception is utterly irrelevant, because public opinion is not how you assess the objective reality of something (except the state of public opinion itself). Show me the data that shows she lies more than the norm. Not that she's more secretive than many others, because I already said she was, but that she's a serial liar. Again, the data we do have shows that she is not.

One last comment about my "a priori" beliefs about her. It's really hard not to and I don't see why that's a problem. Should all our opinions and perceptions of people be immediately reset to tabula rasa when they run for President? She's been in public life for 30+ years. I barely remember George H.W. Bush's presidency but I surely remember Bill Clinton's. And Hillary was in the spotlight all the time. These two individuals -- Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton -- have an extraordinary amount of political power in the US. They are THE so-called "establishment". They've been advisors to all sorts of mega-corporations and Wall Street banks. It is fundamentally contrarian to our form of gov't that any one person has so much power. We have checks and balances because of this -- each branch of gov't (legislature, judicial, executive) checks and balances the powers of the others. And yet, with these two individuals, their spheres of influence are enormous. Apparently so enormous that the entire Democratic Party nomination process was rigged to make sure Hillary Clinton ran unopposed. Look at who ran against her: Two people (Jim Webb and Lincoln Chaffee) were complete joke candidates who dropped out after the first debate. The only individual, Bernie Sanders, who had a real attempt to oppose her was perpetually beset by actions taken by the DNC. There's Wikileaks explicitly showing coordination between the DNC and the Clinton campaign in trying to stop Bernie.

This is a rant containing nothing of substance. Nobody is saying that opinions of people need to be reset at any point. I'm asking for data, for evidence, that she's a serial liar. You don't have it. And the rest is basically you complaining about Sanders losing the nomination, which is again irrelevant.

"they'd have to prove intent"
try to keep up with wikileaks releases

Okay, so we know for sure she lied about everything to the public.
She did have and use a private server.
She didn't use just one mobile device.
There was classified material on the server.
Didn't she then try to destroy data?
Wasn't there some hammer-device action too?

Now, did she lied about all that stuff in testimony?
FBI says no.
Fair enough.

Obviously "I don't recall" is legit defense.
Obviously FBI has nothing to do with politics.

Thanks god for legal shamanics \o/

Guys! She's clean!

V O T E H I L L A R Y

If you're actually interested in learning about the facts of the issue rather than in engaging in gross mischaracterizations, I suggest reading this pretty comprehensive piece. In any case, I'm happy we could clarify that all three of your statements were wrong.

That's a longer read.
For now all I can say it's funny how you say "actually interested in learning about the facts" after looking at the front page of hurr durr Donald Hitler muh democracy ; )

‘Trump did not pull a rabbit out of his hat’

Genious!

I have no idea what you just wrote is supposed to mean. If you think something is inaccurate in the article I just linked, let me know.

The quote is from some article on politico about 3rd debate where "objective" "authorities" "analyze" the debate.

Serious stuff. Fun times.

So utterly irrelevant to what we're discussing. Got it.

Yup, just a sidekek.

Let me see how this democracy idea works. And let's put it in simple terms, because I'm a simple man. If for some strange reason the majority of people voting decide to elect a candidate whose platform is for eburbeck to be buttraped by a horny bull, you're supposed to just lie down and take it because that's how Americans make decisions?

...and when you organize a group of people to stand up against it, you're advocating for a dictatorship?

Clinton isnt advocating violence, trump is. Your analogy should be: if the goverment does something you dont like but not illegitimate, is it anti democratic to rally people and say 'the second amendment ppl should do something about it' and claiming the election is rigged so pay a lot of attention around the voting booths depending who is voting. The answer is in a representative democracy you forfeit some of your freedom like the aggressive use and threat of violence.

Saying "Trump is advocating violence" is a stretch, wow.
Isn't the second amendment in place to prevent goverment taking out freedoms? And let's not pretend the goal of democunts isn't some kind of fucked up new world order bullshitiery.

Stop being retarded/naive.

He's being purposefully vague exactly to promote violent behavoir and sometimes hes not, and straight up advocated for violence in his rallies, because his base likes it and thinks it's dope. The fbi had meetings with him exactly because of that, but hey, it's a stretch.
And yes new a world order taking away our freedoms, lmao. Clearly I am the naive one. But hey the machines are rigged and thats why bush won in 2000

I mean, you have people who openly want to erase borders.
Erase religion. Erase tradition and history. Take guns from Murricunts. Kill babies in wombs. Kill old people.
Good stuff.

How Bush is different from Clinton?
Same wars, same sponsors, same bullshit.

Lmao

>straight up advocated for violence in his rallies

https://youtu.be/5IuJGHuIkzY
https://youtu.be/QNR9FUN98Qg

Tl;dr: Scott Foval (visited the White House during Obama's administration over 340 times, btw) admits democrats have been hiring people to cause violence at Trump's rallies. He was fired shortly after the first video's release.
The first video also features one Zulema Rodriguez talking about this matter. This women is officially on the Hillary Campaing's payroll: http://tinyurl.com/hf8rdnk and has been connected to several events.
The second video shows Shirley Teter, perhaps the most famous "victim of violent Trumpists", changing her statement. The old whore was proven to have been a part of democrat's "bird dogging" tactics.

>fbi

The same FBI that has tried and failed to cover Hill's server fuckup? The same "quid pro quo" FBI?

>violence

When, where? It's obama and hill talking about nuking russia all the time.

>MSM

Donald talks shit just to get some info into the corrupt media. The mentioned Wikileaks, O'Keefe and other stuff. Btw:
https://youtu.be/kVhmX9Afk1A
https://youtu.be/cbA5RE9eK08



Anything you wanted to add?

Yes i'd like to add that u never actually made an argument to deny what I said. You are using the argument thatsince there issome amount of corruption it's ok to condone the worst possible behavoir in a nominee, which is a good way to self destruct.

You know what would be a good way to get a more variety of info throught the media? If he stopped the blatant and costant inflammatory and populist lying everywhere just so everybody is watching him as his main strategy. Be the problem then whine that the system doesnt work for you. Lol.

I took your statements and provided facts and proof. I will be happy to repeat this process, just provide some real arguments.

The worst thing you can say about Trump is "He's mean sometimes". And yes, he is. He knows most media are owned by people connected to Hillary or democrats and he's fucking with them. How's that compared to possibly the most corrupt politican in world's history who also fails at acting like a human and has to wear an earpiece during debates?

https://youtu.be/5sLt_rMCGKk (boost up your volume)

His only prblem is hes mean sometimes and thats it????? Dude i despise hillary greatly but thats so fucking retarded theres no hope you and I can have a fruitable conversation. It reminds me of the futurama episode where they elect the dude from the 80s as the head for the company. The difference is trump is a much more known quanitity.

Well, the reason why we're failing to have a decent conversation about politics is because you're ignoring every point, every fact and every statement I or other people have made and respond to everything with "Trump is bad". You're in deep denial and won't even consider to take FACTS into account to develop a new perspective.

Its the opposite. The topic started as why is trump is bad, and why using the sentiment behind his voters in such way is useless for making progress in democracy. Your only real defense thus far has been claiming world wide conspiracies and claiming his only problem is he says mean things. I have no interest in avtively defending the clintons and you fail to understand it. My position is trump is worse and promoting his message in the way he does wastes whats good and relevant in it, because it's in a pile which is unappealing to almost every single educated person in america due to how poorly they/he presents it and how muddy and unreliable the quality of the information and the so called facts are around those core issues.

In other words, every fact is a conspiracy in your eyes and Trump is really bad, but you won't tell why. You just feel it deep inside your bones and that's why you're willing to ignore everything about Hillary.
Great.

You are not much different from that ukrainian guy calling russians dirty katzaps :D

edit.
C O O L L E R

you ARE naive.
I recommend checking out the latest project veritas material.
it's nicely broken down here for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS40ox_2dqc

This is not naive and should make me change my mind? This is a bunch of facts and not so much facts on which a massive conspiracy is built on. Trump will not lose for a liberal bias of the media, which is present but absolutely irrelevant in this case, or because soros controls the voting machines (does he control the hundreds of pollsters too??). He will lose because of what he says, does and how he behaves.

K.

http://tinyurl.com/zhq3rfh
http://tinyurl.com/h7y2qdp
http://tinyurl.com/jtmfvcr
http://tinyurl.com/gs4q4tg
https://youtu.be/t75xvZ3osFg

Inb4 "shady twitter source" - You can look up the actual primaries results by googling.

Do they also control every single pollster in america, the clintons? Or whydo they seem to predict the leections properly?
This is exactly why I say you waste energy and facts about the legal corruption that is allowed in the us, and the clintons are the posterchildren of in the left, and go after these completely imaginary battles against windmills.

Controlling 1/3 in terms of voting machines across the US is a big deal, especially when connected to one party exclusively. These are no windmills, hence the links. I wonder how your reaction would be if they were Trump's.

"Clinton isnt advocating violence"

That's a ridiculous statement given that she wants to be the head of a state, an entity defined as a monopolist on institutionalized violence.

Regardless, democracy is defined as "majority rule", not "majority rule unless there's violence in the ruling" and I don't see such a proviso in eburbeck's post either, so my question still stands - is it always immoral not to accept the democratic ruling?

"The answer is in a representative democracy you forfeit some of your freedom like the aggressive use and threat of violence."

That isn't the answer, but rather a case of begging the question, unless everyone agrees to use a representative democracy as a decision making mechanism.

You claim something is ridiculous by using a false equivalency, use of violence if elected (not the arbitrary use of it btw, at least internally) is not advocating violence to get elected. Former is democratic and not a form of incitement, latter is dictatorial and inflammatory.
Also you are twisting the donald-s initial position, he is not refusing to accept the democratic process coz he thinks it's immoral, hes not accepting the result of legitimate elections because he claims they are rigging the vote and to enrage his base. Which is at the very list antidemocratic, given that it's a provably false claim, and with the rest of his campaign and message it's part of a dictatorial-like approach.

Although you feel like your questions stand, i'm answering them in this specific context in which mine and eburbek's post are conceived. If you wanna go more on the philosophical and general approach you willhave to wait for sonidow or some other comrade

"use of violence if elected (...) is not advocating violence to get elected."

No, it isn't. So what? It still is at least in some cases illegitimate, unless everyone subject to the decisions agrees to make decisions democratically. Your acceptance of special powers after being "elected" is creepy. I don't see that as a meaningful distinction.

I don't care about the warmongering hag and a marginally less worrying Donald. My point was about the "that's how democracy works and that's how we do things in America, so deal with it". If it brings about something good, then do not recognize the outcome by all means, given that in my view the whole process is illegitimate when the process by its nature entails initiating violence.

I agree that Trump is using dirty tactics, but so is the warmongering hag when immediately associating the Wikileaks revelations with Russia's cyberattacks when there is no proof of that. I wonder where your outrage and claims about "provably false claims" are in this case, given that you hold such admiration for the ruse that a democratic election by informed citizens is.

It's not clear to me at all that the system is based on initiating violence,nor if it's possible to live in a non violent world in the near future, nor if there's any better system than a form of democracy. And not for a lack of trying. So i'm more worried about its undermining (by all parties, but one side worries me more) than a mistaken use of it. if you convince enough ppl of your ideas or your character you can actually change it for the better, anyway, how very illegitimate of it. It's hard to find a more legitimate way to collectively make decisions tbh. If a non trump would run on the basis to refine the system with more than empty conspiracies and not a single alternative scenario, then I would have 0 concerns and would spend my time being very worried that the dems voted hillary and the alternatives were who they were. Even if it was a tool like gary johnson :DDD.

The us officials said there was most likely ruski involvement because of the location and ownership of the servers, plus more evidence that was piled up during an year of prolonged attacks whom the same officials warned the DMC of a long time ago, afaik. Personally I think it was ash and thats why they keep him in captivity.

"The us officials said there was most likely ruski involvement because of the location and ownership of the servers"

lol. some of you ppl in this thread are so fucking gullible, it's amazing to me. like wtf, can't wrap my head around it.
just blame it on russia - of course, oldest trick in the book.
we have not seen any evidence for these alleged 'russian cyberattacks', because... wait for it - THEY HAVE NONE.

so here's how it works. they're trying to do two things:
a) shift the discussion from the actual content of leaked documents TO whether or not these documents should be circulating in public sphere, whether or not they're illegally obtained etc. which is a separate discussion and do not change anything about the content of these documents....
b) shift the blame onto russia. and why not? when you're shit's exposed and you really have no idea what to say anymore, just start talking about russian hackers. seems to fool the average american idiot anyway.



journalist asking questions that need to be asked -> you're badgering women, you sexist pig!!11 the desperation is palpable.

Dude as much as i enjoy you repeadetly callin me gullable and then posting stuff by a convicted con artist as if it's reliable information, you have to understand I won't open your links nor give almost any effort to read your posts because of it, from a little while.

well, once you stop being gullible, I'll stop calling you that, I suppose. quite a simple concept.
just like your response from last time, you're all empty blabber, no facts, no arguments. not being able to spell for shit doesn't help your credibility along either.
that's a very crude excuse as to why you do not wish to look at what I linked to you, you just don't like facts and don't want your illusion destroyed, but that's ok.
who is a convicted con artist?

"a convicted con artist"


@ 23:28

"It's not clear to me at all that the system is based on initiating violence"

Do you think that any from the following list are phenomena that you can opt out of and not be punished by state agents? (that's how I understand an activity devoid of violence. If you have a different definition, spell it out please.)

Income tax, consumption tax, death tax, property tax, legal tender laws, minimum wage laws, military draft, drug prohibition, occupational licensing, product regulations, jury service, being subpoenaed by a state court.

"(...) nor if it's possible to live in a non violent world in the near future, nor if there's any better system than a form of democracy."

That doesn't address the point I was making. The unfeasibility of getting rid of it doesn't change the fundamental meaning of it. It may not have been possible to get rid of slavery in the XII century, but slavery in the XII century should still be defined as having a property right in another person's body, and therefore violent.

Also, notice in what position such line of arguing puts you - you don't think there is a better system and therefore people who may think otherwise are obligated to comply with a democratic ruling. Do you think that is an argument any more than "might makes right" is?

And the fact that a critical mass of people are of your opinion doesn't give an answer to what the best system is. It just gives an answer to what system is put in place.

"So i'm more worried about its undermining (by all parties, but one side worries me more) than a mistaken use of it. if you convince enough ppl of your ideas or your character you can actually change it for the better, anyway, how very illegitimate of it."

I'm afraid that's a very crude and superficial understanding of democracy - not taking into account the system that it has morphed into, where, under the veneer of implementing the consensus of public opinion, it really is a system of implementing the opinion of groups with concentrated benefits, while burdening the public with dispersed costs. This explains why the military industrial complex gets hundreds of billions a year in defense spending thrown at it, while an overwhelming majority of the public wants to end wars. This explains why non-violent weed users are thrown in jails whose budgets roughly depend on the amount of inmates, while a majority of Americans are for doing away with punishing weed.

Also, "if you convince enough ppl of your ideas or your character you can actually change it for the better" is a tautology and applies to every political system. The question is what consitutes "enough people". In a representative democracy, where you have 5 choices (if that), you're essentially voting on bundles of policies. Good luck finding enough support for your issue, given that a bundle representing that issue may be unpopular because of other issues, no matter how popular your initial issue might be. You can have 100% of voters agree on a policy and it may not be implemented.

There are other quirks which undermine your view of democracy, such as logrolling, agenda setting, gerrymandering, tactical voting and so on.

"It's hard to find a more legitimate way to collectively make decisions tbh."

This falls apart under minimal scrutiny, since I can give numerous examples where democratic decision making isn't usually applied and it would produce bad results if it were. Look at family, social relations, scientific discovery, and several others. In fact, most decision making is made in a voluntaristic way. It may take a form of voting (one of a few forms), but it doesn't force those who reject voting in that instance to abide by the decision.

Other than that, this seemingly non-controversial statement assumes some weird things, when applied to large-scale issues...

First of all, it assumes there is one most legitimate way to collectively make decisions. It shouldn't take long to realize the absurdity of such a view, given that different decisions may and in fact do require different approaches. Stock markets, music charts, and, perhaps most importantly but less obviously, the existence of language all spring to mind.

Second of all, if it's really the best or most legitimate way to collectively make decisions, it assumes as desirable to collectively decide on what the scope of collectively made decisions should be, since that scope in a society is a collective decision. What if some activity, in the view of an individual, shouldn't be decided about collectively? Well, tough luck, it's been collectively decided that it should without proving that the collectively made decision will be by any measure better than one made individually.

"Even if it was a tool like gary johnson :DDD."

I've seen you bring up Gary Johnson with me several times. Care to explain? Do you think it's some clever dig, since I have libertarian views and he's a nominee of the Libertarian Party who's made a fool of himself? Since my views are pretty consistent with no support for political parties of any kind, I think this is even more superficial and misplaced than me taking a dig at you because I ate bad italian food last weekend. Or, getting back to politics, since you have democratic views and Trump and Hitler (I assume you dislike both) won the GOP nomination and the general election in Germany, respectively, in democratic processes, I guess the joke's on you.

"The us officials said there was most likely ruski involvement because of the location and ownership of the servers, plus more evidence that was piled up during an year of prolonged attacks whom the same officials warned the DMC of a long time ago, afaik."

It should be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is the case and, beyond that, that "ruski involvement" means "Russian government involvement" and it clearly hasn't been proven. So Hillary is engaging in political scare tactics. Not surprising to me. Too bad she still passes as the factual, evidence-based candidate.

Well we kinda completely departed from the initial issues of reactionary vs democratic ways to get in office, which was what really concerned me. A republic if you can keep it, so I go in order of importance to keep it.

Anyway the collective (actually the person/people addressed by the collective, which is wildly different) can decide to stay out of certain decisions, and does. if you (future politicians and public) decide not to use it and advocate for this position, you settled down for being in a losing position already. Because what's the alternative? if you dont like it you can use the weapons of democracy against its current status quo or against itself without the need of applying physical violence. The notion that this is always true is bogus. What is the alternative that perfectly reconciles freedom and safety again? What is the system that forges and creates the best people and tries to put them in a position they can influence the world positively? Saying that you can still whine about it because it has known flaws and ideally it isn't perfect is just finding an excuse to whine in my view.
It seems to me you want to believe it exist a romanticized way of life where nobody is staying in a position of power over the other, even indirectly, if you consider every consession towards a common ground to be violent appropriation and initiating violence. And you seem to ignore the presence of thugs inside and outside your system.

The dig is a stimulus to clarify your positions mostly, because it's useless to criticize without standing for something (look at all the tools surrogates from the clinton campaign who are made look good by the trump fiasco). and the general hilarity of the failure that gary johnson was, in such a good field for the libertarians. There are also more shallow and stereotypical reasons.

"Well we kinda completely departed from the initial issues of reactionary vs democratic ways to get in office, which was what really concerned me. A republic if you can keep it, so I go in order of importance to keep it."

This never was the initial issue in this discussion. I posed a vulgar reductio ad absurdum towards eburbeck to test whether he claims it's ever non-dictatorial to refuse to abide by a democratic ruling. He didn't reply. You joined the discussion and introduced an unrelated distinction between getting in power using an unilaterally established procedure called elections or using an unilaterally established procedure called coup d'etat or whatever you imagine Trump might do, which is yet another instance of question begging on your part, since I indirectly asked him about the legitimacy of power and you assumed the legitimacy of power and pondered how the power came to being.

"Anyway the collective (...) can decide to stay out of certain decisions, and does."

True, but my point wasn't about what currently is but what follows from what you wrote. If you agree that it's good that not all collective decisions are democratic, then it contradicts your previous statement about democracy being the best collective decision making tool. That's why I spelled out what would follow from that statement, i.e. advocating for all collective decisions to be made democratically.

"if you (future politicians and public) decide not to use it and advocate for this position, you settled down for being in a losing position already."

That's completely unrelated to whether democracy involves violence and if it's ever legitimate to reject a democratic ruling, which was the question I asked in my first post here.


"Because what's the alternative? if you dont like it you can use the weapons of democracy against its current status quo or against itself without the need of applying physical violence."

Let's start at the end of that sentence. Violence has become physical violence. Fair enough, but if you're going there, bear in mind that a mugger doesn't apply physical violence either, as long as you give up your valuables in full compliance. No physical violence, but still violence.

Your argument falls apart once we drop the "physical" type of violence, since making anyone comply against his or her will with a democratic ruling is a violent act.

Secondly, this "argument" can be used when talking about dictatorships. If you dont like it you can use the weapons of a dictatorship against its current status quo or against itself. Physical violence doesn't have to be necessary. If you need a real world example, take a look at the annexation of Crimea in 2014. There was no physical violence but the group in charge switched. There was no voting, either, until later.

Moreover, I like how in order to justify the morality of not being subjected to violence I have to, according to you, go on a quest for the hearts and minds of millions of people. That might be necessary if I want to introduce that as a principle held by the public but not to show the immorality behind one entity forcing another to abide by its rulings, which is, for the n-th time, what began this discussion.


"What is the alternative that perfectly reconciles freedom and safety again?"

First of all, on a practical level, it's rich to even ask that question in defense of democracy, given that there are huge areas in the Western democratic states where crime is rampant and assaults ending in deaths are a daily occurance or given that those states have embarked on a war that ended millions of lives in the Middle East.

So I guess my question to you on this point is what is the evidence to have you convinced that we're anywhere near the perfect balance between freedom and safety or that we're getting closer to it through democratic voting.

More abstractly, even asking such a question as you have assumes several unwarranted things:
1) there are tangible, objective amounts of freedom and safety and an optimum point reconciling the two over an enormous and diverse geographical area under a state's jurisdiction.
2) there is a trade-off between having your own free little sphere and the state overlords taking care of safety for you. 3) there is no willingness for people to use their capacity for voluntary action to take care of safety,
4) the efficient way to provide safety is to create a monopoly on it.

Do you have a reason to assume any of the above? Or did you just fire off a catchy phrase?

"What is the system that forges and creates the best people and tries to put them in a position they can influence the world positively?"

Again, stating it as if it's obvious that there is an objective criterion for evaluating "the best people". Where do you get all those assumptions? What if a minority's understanding of influencing the world positively is different from the majority's? Is it then suddenly OK to force the minority to comply with the majority's vision for a better world? And above all, the collectivist thinking that the goal of a political system is to "forge and create the best people" without providing any justification. It's sound bites that you're throwing at me, one after another.

"Saying that you can still whine about it because it has known flaws and ideally it isn't perfect is just finding an excuse to whine in my view."

Maybe whining is the right course of action? Should I just sweep the flaws under the rug, because most people have not made an effort to look for a system that doesn't have those flaws? And, and this is a theme across most of your arguments, why can't I and other people like me take part in a different system, with different flaws and benefits? You and your ilk can decide on as many issues as you want through voting, provided that I can choose to ignore the outcome of your decision-making. Also, suggesting that I'm looking for perfection is baseless and a lazy criticism.

"It seems to me you want to believe it exist a romanticized way of life where nobody is staying in a position of power over the other, even indirectly, if you consider every consession towards a common ground to be violent appropriation and initiating violence. And you seem to ignore the presence of thugs inside and outside your system."

It seems to me you have no idea what you're criticizing. If there wasn't enough proof of it when you fired off objections containing hidden assumptions that are not made by what/who you're criticizing, this proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I didn't start this discussion to advocate for libertarianism but merely asked a question about democracy, so I have no intention to straighten out your misconceptions of libertarianism. You can find plenty of answers to them on the web, ranging from short articles, through podcasts, academic journals, and all the way to books from major university publishers.

What I deduce from the above passage though, is that your line of thinking is as follows:

It is violence (or power, I assume you used it interchangeably here), but there has to be violence, so it isn't violence.

Talk about wanting to believe in romanticized ways of life...

"The dig is a stimulus to clarify your positions mostly, because it's useless to criticize without standing for something"

Why is it useless? When someone asks me to give an opinion on an act of rape, I'll criticize and the only thing I will be standing for in this situation is "Not rape". I don't have any further position on what the sexual (or any other) relations between the people involved should be.

"(...) and the general hilarity of the failure that gary johnson was, in such a good field for the libertarians. There are also more shallow and stereotypical reasons."

Do you realize how misplaced this is, given that I don't support Gary Johnson or the Libertarian Party?

Also, if there are supporters, whose contortions to explain the various failures of their preferred candidate fall under "general hilarity", it's the Clinton supporters, especially given the latest bombshells.

What "latest bombshells"?

I'll answer your question as soon as you give me the name of at least one Austrian economist whose views on government intervention aren't to a large degree ideological to substantiate the following claim of yours made 14 months ago.

Most [Austrian school economists and enthusiasts] share a distrust of government intervention that is to a large degree ideological.

Until you do that, you're a pro-government ideologue who doesn't substantiate his claims and there is no point in reasoning with you.

Yeah, I figured you weren't going to answer.

I took a page out of your book.

Apparently it did not mention bombshells.

I'll answer your question as soon as you give me the name of at least one Austrian economist whose views on government intervention aren't to a large degree ideological to substantiate the following claim of yours made 14 months ago.

Most [Austrian school economists and enthusiasts] share a distrust of government intervention that is to a large degree ideological.

Until you do that, you're a pro-government ideologue who doesn't substantiate his claims and there is no point in reasoning with you.

Yeah, I figured you weren't going to answer.

One seemingly innocent statement that you thought wouldn't raise an eyebrow and you fucked up so bad that you cannot even bring yourself to saying a word on it, despite your usual fondness for verbosity :)

I try to be emphatic because, let's face it, what conceivably could you say? "Yeah, you got me, I have no name to tell you because instead of actually knowing what I write about I thought my usual mental masturbation with semantics would be plenty enough."

I'd probably shut up as well, if I were in your position.

Nevertheless, here goes:

I'll answer your question as soon as you give me the name of at least one Austrian economist whose views on government intervention aren't to a large degree ideological to substantiate the following claim of yours made 14 months ago.

"Most [Austrian school economists and enthusiasts] share a distrust of government intervention that is to a large degree ideological."

Until you do that, you're a pro-government ideologue who doesn't substantiate his claims and there is no point in reasoning with you.

Here's a prediction: we won't see the name in your reply. I think I'll bet with Jamerio on it.

I have no interest in discussing that topic with you, as was made abundantly clear in the original thread in which it was brought up (years ago?), and we both know you're trying to re-open the said discussion with your question. Here, I was curious to hear which bombshells you were referring to, because using the term seems indicative to me of a lack of understanding about how politics work. If you don't want to answer, that's perfectly fine. Why do you have to be toxic about it? And why are you projecting on me the kind of weird obsession you seem to have over my stance in that discussion? I couldn't care less if you don't answer, which is apparently not the case with you. In any case, I had a perfectly civil exchange with you over PMs a while ago on the situation in Ukraine, so I don't get why you're now being this combative and petty publicly for no apparent reason.

Keep imagining I want to discuss anything related to economics with you. There's nothing to discuss. I asked you to substantiate your claim with at least a single name (I immediately stopped asking you to elaborate on that name in any way) and that's conveniently the time you lose interest to say one more word on the topic.

Seeing as how this is totally anomalous to your usual approach that I've observed here, it tells me you realize that you can't back your claim up and prefer to evade the issue instead of admitting to being overzealous in attacking a position that you disagree with, which to me makes you intellectually dishonest.

Me bringing up this issue isn't about wanting to hash out economic issues, contrary to what you insist on. The internet is full of people who are both more willing to talk and more knowledgeable on economics than you, so it would be a weird use of my time to keep nagging you about that. Instead, this is about me finding out if your posts on other subjects that I am interested in but have not studied adequately are coming from someone who's after the truth but can understandably stumble along the way or a hack who will throw intellectual honesty under the bus if it helps him make his case.

So let me employ the same strategy so that you have the option to feel the same way about me:

Hillary snorted cocaine of a KKK member's buttcrack.

I have no interest in discussing that topic with you any further. You have tried to re-open the discussion in 4 comments already. Stop obsessing over it.

I don't need to imagine that you do, considering you directly proved it on numerous occasions in our exchanges on this very site.

Me giving you the name of an Austrian economist or enthusiast who doesn't "share a distrust of government intervention that is to a large degree ideological" would do little to substantiate my initial point. If that's what it takes to get you to drop the subject and stop weirdly bringing it up in unrelated discussions (and please don't pretend verifying if I'm intellectually honest is what motivates you, considering we both know that's not the case), I'll happily oblige with someone I see as fitting the bill: Ludwig Lachmann.

It's good that you finally gave the name (it shows honesty), but you missed. Lachmann was a classical liberal. You would have an easier time justifying your position if you suggested Hayek.

The things you think you know about my motivations are intriguing.

No, I did not miss at all, considering I'm mentioning him because his analysis of the market process (which argues that equilibrium forces are thwarted by other forces) can hardly be said to be colored by pro-free market (and anti-government intervention) ideological lenses. Now please stop attempting to pick at my answer, as I precisely agreed to respond to your question so that you would move on.

"Clinton isnt advocating violence"

that is simply incorrect. she's a warmonger, it's on record. research for yourself.
currently, she wants a no-fly zone in Syria, that could potentially trigger a war against Russia.


^hopefully you are not afraid of facts.

The use of violence on behalf of the goverment you represent in foreign policy with the goal of protecting it and its people is completely different than reaching power through means of violence theat.
Also let me get this straight, the US might finally push back against Putin and the problem is them pushing back and not putin being putin? We see the world very differently.

that's still advocating violence, just not as blatant as when trump says, I quote: "we need to take out their families". (referring to killing terrorists' families, which is basically advocating a war crime, but again, a lot of bravado, who knows what he'd actually do.)

"with the goal of protecting it and its people"
protecting from... what? also, it has been proven time and time again, that these ppl in power couldn't care less about 'protecting' you. You are either actually this naive, or just desperately trying to hold onto any argument you can come up with. I'm pretty sure it's the latter, and you don't actually believe what you just said.

"the US might finally push back against Putin"
that is insanely ironic, considering the history of US imperialism. :)
push back?... is Russia about to assault the US coast, or?...
or do you consider it to be a direct threat to US that Russia is fighting ISIS in the middle east?

Is it me or didnt putin attack Ukraine, killed chechens, his opposing politicians, shuts down the free press, free market, strictly controls his oligarchs, works with plenty of regimes around the world, doesnt have real elections and is a dictator? Maybe it's me. Or he actually is what you think the US are. This is yet again a matter of the lesser evil, and I much rather have the us and wester eu sphere of interest to expand rather than putin's. And be sure that I dont ignore the facts or apologize for everything the US and its imperialism stood for, but I think the lesser evil is how you go on and keep improving as a nation and in the world. Thinking everything is a massive conspiracy and hopelessly corrupt is naive to me.
As for the difference between the two types of violence, I dont wanna repeat myself.

USA sponsored Ukrainian goverment revolution fuckup.
Not nice.

Well, Russia has done some bad things I'm sure, and Putin isn't a saint - I've never claimed otherwise btw. However, what the hell does this have to do with the US again? Is all of this supposed to justify their actions? Is that the logic you're going for here? Honestly you're grasping at straws(and in a way it's quite hilarious to witness).

Lesser evil?... No... I think I'd rather have neither of them 'expand' beyond their means...

As far as I'm concerned you've failed to provide any solid argument for a) how Hillary is not advocating violence b) any good reason for why the US should continue meddling in the middle east and potentially ignite WW3 (well, other than the reason of controlling the region for its natural resources, of course... )

didnt the democrats pay people off to start shit at trump conventions???

That's a conspiracy theory. Kill yourself you uneducated, chauvinist, intolerant villager.

why dont u suck a massive cock u fucking cunt ill bash ur head in u cunt

<3

LUL

>Wikipedia

Jesus, you dont have the slightest idea what Wikileaks is and what Julian Assange is doing for you, dont you?

And I bet you dont actually know that Donald is only worried about the election being rigged because Soros, who finances Hillary's campaign (along with the Saudis - you might remember them from 9/11) gives her direct orders about immigration and owns voting machines in the US. By the way, he also spent 33m bucks on paying people to cause riots on Donald's rallies.

Get your head out of your ass and inform yourself. Serious shit is going on in your country.

And if you're about morals, start right here: https://youtu.be/-dY77j6uBHI

Where did he said that?
Definitely not on debate.

So you are saying democracy is a system where people chose someone and other people are correcting their choice? Not mentioning mass desinformation through media that is not... fair to say at least.

I agree. God bless America \o/

The media is not fair?
Trump has tried to use and manipulate the media since day one. He says over the top stuff and blatant lies, continuously and dozen of times a day, since day one!, so that they talk about him nonstop, thats how he won the nomination without spending a penny. And the media is not fair and rigged when they push back on the lies and general retardation? Or is it not fair because the people outside his base received his message exactly how it is and it has 0 appeal to them?
Lmao, john paul II bless poland the true beacon of freedom in the world.

I dunno maybe because they colluded with democrats. I dunno though.

For a few weeks now, every time I saw Clinton on TV, I imagined her talking to guys driving a snowplough like she can relate to'em.

It would be nice if there was a way to cancel this upcoming election and just stick with Obama for another 4. He might not be perfect or great in some people's eyes, but any sane person that isn't the result of inbreeding has to see he's far better than any of the potential candidates. First time I can remember actually being a little scared of an election.

I must admit, we here in Europe are scared too.. Especially if a guy like Trump were to be elected :D

ya, he's a dangerous idiot.

A monkey carrying a pistol, a very dangerous monkey...

The world survived Regan, I'm sure even Trump can't be much worse

I'm pretty sure Trump could be worse :D

A lot of the problems we're dealing with today, from the war on drugs to economic inequality to mass incarceration to Wall Street's collapse in 08 to copyright issues to corporate monopolies are the direct result of Reagan's neo-liberalism and his policies. I wouldn't be surprised if future historians will point to Reagan's presidency as the starting point of America's decline.

Trump could definitely be worse. My wife is Indian (American citizen, citizen parents, born here) and we're seriously looking at leaving if trump wins for fear of what might happen. He's dangerous, and would be many, many steps backwards for America (despite our shortcomings).

: D
I love the "Hurr durr we're gonna leave the country if XYZ wins" outcry. I cri evrytim.
Does history know a single case where these retards really left? ; )

Where do you get these "dangerous" expectations?
Please :-)

Remember when Jews wanted to leave Germany? Bunch of retards.

How brainwashed you have to be to bring up Hitler in Trump thread? c", )
On one side you have pappa Adolf with his "we are arians, supreme race, ubermensch, let's gas the rest of planet population and make them retarded slaves working for THE GRATE RACE <3. Eugenics FTW!"
On the other side you have a guy with shitty hair, weird skin color, no idea what secrets are hidden in white house and no will to send young men to kill themselves in a desert.

how short-sighted do you have to be to miss my point that "hitler was dangerous-as-fuck" and "trump looks to be dangerous as fuck" (in my view)? it's not an objective analysis, it's my prerogative to make my own decision based on my own opinions when i go to vote in 1.5 weeks. so are you saying it's not reasonable for me to be scared for my country and for my family when i perceive a major threat to one or both, whether or not you perceive that same threat?

i guess i'm also wondering why you think i'm brainwashed - is it because of my estimation that trump is dangerous, or you think i don't understand hitler properly? or both?

edit: this election is a big fucking deal, and it's something i'm very concerned with *in real life* so you acting like a complete asshole about it doesn't help anything, and i probably will just ignore you unless you find a way to be diplomatic and constructive in future posts. i'm trying to have an adult conversation, and i feel like you're not.

Ok, you see Trump as a possible danger. I understand and agree.

But isn't Hillary undeniable danger? She will stand behind killing poor people in deserts. Keep financing ISIS. Keep collecting money from terrorist supporters and big corporations. Threaten Russia with war. Media will go full retard propaganda 24/7 even harder than today. Reality will be even more orwell'ized.

There's just not a single good thing she can bring with her...

yes, i see him as dangerous, that's what i meant when i said "he's dangerous" :PPP but yes, that's the way i see him. and in comparison with hillary, the danger is not to me (not directly, at least) - i know that's simple-minded and selfish, but sometimes that's how life works, that you need to protect yourself at the cost of others. stating it that way perfectly supports the claim that we (the American people) must attempt to choose the lesser of two evils.

now, you say not a single good thing can come from her, but i'd argue that if she can make a good-faith attempt at improving Obamacare, that'd be a good thing, since healthcare is such a mess in America. that's just one thing, i'm sure i could think of more, but of course, at this point, it's all speculation, since neither she nor trump is president and actually taking action yet.

i'm sincerely interested in knowing the good things you see that trump could bring with him. could you help me understand your view on that?

I don't know how Murrican healthcare exactly works and why it doesn't work. But I would guess it's because pharmaceutical mafia colluding with government in order to rip people of money and health.

The thing with Obambocare is - does it exist to help people or is it cheeki breeki attempt to rip people even more when at the same time trying to appear like it's the best thing since sliced bread.
I dunno.

Next question: Is it possible that there could be good-faith attempt at improving Obambocare?
Did democrats ever had good faith? It seems like all they do is trying to figure out how to cheat at elections, keep blacks and other minorities uneducated, importing more minorities that will vote democrats, and obviously working on stuff like TTIP. Because enslaving people is the apogee of democracy.

What Trump can fix/not destroy/stop:
Stopping massive imigration of poor people.
Doesn't USA have a problem with Mexicans sending MASSIVE amount of money back to Mexico? It's just not a good bussiness.
Same with polaks in UK. Getting money out of UK's government and simply sending it back home. Fucking ridiculous.
Not welcoming any amount of "Syrian" "refugees" is also great idea.

Not dropping nukes on Russia seems like decent idea.

Stop growing ISIS. All that desert jazz was made by US - just stop it. Can't we just accept muslim countries are totalitarian shitholes? Thanks.

Rejecting TTIP, dealing with NAFTA, care about entrepreneurs, small businesses, not raping them with taxes and regulation.

Maybe electing Trump would work as a political reset in US.
Democrats would get destroyed because of corruption.
Republicunts got cucked by Trump, try harder next time.

TL;DR
I wouldn't accuse democrats of good will.

he's a wildcard. a buffoon, with a lot of bravado talk. no-one knows what he's actually going to do, not really.
whereas Hillary's record is well known. she's a warmonger.
currently she wants a no-fly zone in Syria, that could potentially trigger war against Russia. this is a fact, you can research for yourself.

haha me too! if those republicans win I am going to move out and live in a country that is more up to date with the world; like Canada or California.

someplace where the people are a little brown, a little ethnic- a little more like the 21st century - can you imagine how bad it would be for global citizens like me if those crazy southerners got their way? :O I think I would get an ulcer if I turned on the TV and didnt see any dark people.

I cant wait to become a minority in a country that used to be 90% white when those BIGOTS were in control - im so glad that me and my wife's son can live in a country with open borders so that he can be raised in a diverse environment :)

I don't see a difference between Obama and Hillary. They are both in Wall Street pocket.

.

Not Bernie Sanders.

.

aka pussy politics.

rofl. yeh, stick with ground troops in the middle east, nsa surveillance and other breaches of privacy, guantanamo "we tortured some folks" bay, bad obamacare, drones killing civilians and hitting the intended target 10% of the time, etc etc.

Bernie far and away the best candidate, much better than Ron Paul was in 2012 too. Ron Paul was excellent on foreign policy and terrible on other issues.

Why not Lenin?
Just go ballz to the wallz or go home.

"Socialism kills" - Ozjasz Goldberg

You're giving me a headache.

I guess we need some free healthcare here
OpieOP

I already have that.

too predictable. :)
'social democrat' btw

Jesus Christ, are you serious? :D

Social democrat is like SSJ2 of red, jewish, commy, mason from Reptilia.
It's the same cancer, same people with different brand.
At least here in Poorland.
Friends in Germany and France also seem like having fun c]:---)

did you watch, pay attention, and comprehend the facts?

#didntwatched
But now I did and there's nothing new.

I know that the idea of socialism is great.
But it's just cool story bro.

Hurr durr gibe more monies so we can give more monies but give monies isn't free so just gibe more monies.
I don't belive it would end on fucking up "the 1%" (if it's even possible) and "free" healthcare.

I knew you were a hashtag spamming little troll monkey, but you are actually fucking retarded, and unable to string words together to form a sensible fucking sentence.

'free' healthcare and college education is paid for mainly by taxing wall street, can you get a clue before you spout nonsense?

BTW let's vote for guy who requires CAPTCHA to enter his site \c", )/

Is it really possible to take the 1% cunts and make them pay for everyone?
Daym, that sounds great.


Is it moral to take monies from richer and give them to everyone while eating some of it through administration?
I can be a dummy but I know it's not how Jesus would do this shit.

M8 I got you. World ain't equal and it sucks. World Jewish Congress wants millions of dollars from Polaks, it sucks. I don't get enough sleep so I'm weak in the middle of the week, it sucks. I have big nose and I can't afford operation, it sucks.

But when I hear about social justice, social equality and free stuff my big nose is starting to shine red.

ok it seems like you just put random words together and waste other ppl's time who look for any sense in them - couldn't find any. I've no idea what that gif's supposed to be either.

as for morality... wow. so you think the ultra rich few dozen ppl got there by being ethical? of course, clearly those businessmen and stock brokers etc. just work that much harder than everybody else. aren't you a fucking genius with these arguments.

> Voting for Bernie
> Looking for sense
ayyyy lmao

But srlsy. Obiously the rich nigguhs are mafia bullshitery. Obviously the invention of monies and the process it developed into printing worthless paper is there in place just to make the world look like it does nowadays.

Now I don't think anyone can do anything to those guys.
If Bernie "Redjew" Sanders can do that, fuckin do eeeet!

But everything after that is socialistic Sodom and Gomorrah, cheers o/

we got plenty of those type of poles down here; aparently you got your share in your country. makes more sense to talk to the wall, than try to sway them with logic and arguments. for the sake of sanity and time management, buy following tip: and stay away from them.

Nice try, Donald.

Sanders is a retard who will screw our economy even more with his "ideas" about inequality.

Sure he will.

Good. We could use a good collapse.

Agreed

Economist making CALCULATIONS to support whatever he wants.
It has never been done before!

Right, as if all those things aside from Obamacare started or only happened during his time in office, please. NSA are amateurs at data collection compared to google, ms, apple, and the likes. And they've all shown they're at the government's beck and call when told. So until people want to drop the tablets, smart phones, apple/fitness watches, they really have no room to complain about what the NSA is doing. Not that they'd complain anyways, that takes effort.

There's something about Bernie that rubs me the wrong way but I can't quite put my finger on it. Apart from that, he also seems like he's in the stage of his life where he forgets his name from time to time.

no of course not, and I did not say that in any way. :) but he was complicit, even if that meant just turning a blind eye and continuation of Bush policies.

candidates are required to do regular check-ups. Bernie's doctor says he's fine. certainly doesn't have alzheimer's as you try to insinuate.

In order to keep an empire going you need some action for your troops. Regarding civilians killed, as long as they are not yours, who cares? It is not like they care about us, you know? If there is one constant in the attitude of these unwelcomed Africans and Arabs who keep pouring to the West, then it is their ungrateful ideas and attitude they bring with them. As long as they act like they are the enemy I don't care for the enemy.

who cares if innocent ppl who had nothing to do with anything die? as long as it's not me... what a brilliant way of thinking, I'm sure it will solve everything and bring peace.

you're a piece of shit, fuck off.

Sanders. Go for Sanders, FFS!

Debt under Obama will be $20 Trillion after he leaves... He's added more debt than the previous 43 presidents combined. Anyone else (except maybe Sanders) can do better than that.

Debt is really not a huge issue. Noone will ever pay their debts, especially not USA

The problem is, you still have to pay interest, which drives up taxes and screws the economy.

You can reprogram your debt as many times as you like and pay smaller rates when youre in a position that USA is in. They are holding all the cards, as noone can force em to do anything. USA having a credit rating of AA+/Aaa/AAA, when it should be much worse, proves this

Actually there's a limit where the devaluation will be accelerating so rapidly that it will be impossible for their infrastructure to keep up. That is when the shit will hit the fan.

[img1]

What does that libertard have to do with anything?

He's visibly saddened by what you know about government debt.

I dont feel like getting too deep into this discussion. All im going to say is that when youre the worlds only real superpower you can do whatever you want and it doesnt even matter. The only people that should really be concerned with US debt are those who borrowed em money.

US should focus more on stabilizing their relations with Russia, Iran and such.

Even if they theoretically could increase the debt to infinity, the alternative use of those resources in the private economy is reason enough to be against the process. It does some good if it's saved and invested with economic goals in mind or even spent on Funyuns by an average citizen, whereas in the hands of the US government it's used to blow up things in the Middle East or subsidize crime and poverty in the inner cities,

Their debt is essentially an outgrowth of a credit bubble, and how quickly those deflate we're witnessing every day with more horrible news from China. You're correct in saying the US are now able to push it further but at some point they'll have to choose between tightening their belts or currency problems.

make cameron a citizen when he leave briton office

goverment debt was 90.6% GDP in 2013, now its 81%, a massive Ł1.56 trillion

won`t have to put up with another bullshit book with will be 4000 pages crying about the EU and the few billion that has to be paid, then goes back to housing and job centre training and charity grants etc to cover the basic EU human rights

everything not middleclass will have EU funding logo at the bottom

#justnewworldorderthings

sounds like you're not F E E L I N G T H E B E R N

.

Ostrich syndrome.

T R U M P 2 0 1 6
R
U
M
P
2
0
1
6

haters gon hate

Trump is basically the zhu of US politics.

Nope not even close

u wot m8?

420

He has the best immigration and economic policies by far. Why wouldn't you vote for him? Any other president will just let even more parasites pour into our society through our borders.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! :>

[-]

Also probation plz.

Lol, probation for agreeing with a mainstream US politician that you don't like

gg

calling people parasites is, shall we say, somewhat disagreeable

Completely fair to say that, they use up social services at a far higher rate, especially ones from Mexico. See:

http://cis.org/Welfare-Use-Immigrant-Native-Households

the sterotype in the UK is that immigrants work harder

Not really relevant here, and we know that the ones in the USA do not.

.

It's a highly insulting term. If you don't agree we don't need to keep discussing :)

I sense you're trying to ridicule me but I don't have much idea on what basis.

My university is very multicultural - lots of immigrants that are all paying (absurdly high) tuition fees and studying hard. So from my view I don't see the need for your racism

.

If someone behaves like a parasite let's call them parasites FUNgineer

we're trying to keep the rapists/trojan horse army from pouring into our country.
Europe seems to be welcoming them. Enjoy sharia law.

immigrants = rapists?

immigrants = bus drivers

In Germany and Sweden they seem to be.

those guys are typical idiots raised by moron parents ...

in germany it is in the news *north african* they never say it was an specific guy from that country ...

The bad thing is, not much ppl helped it seems.


An EU member (Martin Sonneborn) ask the polish EU member about the Collogne *north africans*

http://www.nowtv.de/rtl/spiegel-tv
https://www.youtube.com/user/spiegeltv/search...+Sonneborn

No, the millions that poured into Germany with NO background checks, of course some of them are going to be bad eggs, that's exactly why the rapes of cologne happened but PC lapdogs are too scared to say what it really is.

And now the women of Germany want men to help them after all the man-hating bashing from feminism and them willingly electing Angela Merkel, a left wing retard. I say let them stew in what they created.

The Police has backround checks, but cannot query the database.

The Police Officers for immigration can only access the database used for imigration and status of imigration, to look up if the persoon is already registered in an other country or region of germany.

In the france attacks incident, they where registered multiple times ...

We have Police and suddenly we don't know how to use them ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Police_%28Germany%29

Rapefugees

is problem though, i see this in europe also. hospitals close because illegals must be allowed care. is wrong. illegal must need to enter lawfully and pay taxes. anyone who disagree want free everything. it is wrong.

Meanwhile Mexican aliens are on welfare 70%, and their welfare usage increases over time. See http://cis.org/Welfare-Use-Immigrant-Native-Households

Also radical muslims do not belong in this country, and we have no system for filtering out extremists trying to immigrate or seek "refuge" here. The vast majority of people from the middle east support sharia law: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/...the-world/
And we dont have a system for stopping people who hold these beliefs from coming in.

Inequality is not a problem, the problem is that the top 0.01% who actually matter who are building factories in china and mexico instead of the USA because they dont have to pay as much to manufacture. We didnt have problems with inequality when the people at the top were in a symbiotic relationship with the people on the bottom.

Inequality is not a problem

ye, 62 ppl owning half of the planet, and half of the population living on less than $2 a day is just so cool brah.

We didnt have problems with inequality when the people at the top were in a symbiotic relationship with the people on the bottom.

did you even read what you just said? lemme get this straight, so people at the top(WEALTHY) were in a 'symbiotic relationship' (? lol, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) with people at the bottom(POOR). so you're saying we didn't have problems with inequality when there was a wealth gap between rich and poor. wat.

I'm not gonna get into a debate on immigration cause then we'll be here for hours. FYI I'm actually against muslim immigration - and fortunately in my country we have strong policies against it - but Trump offers no real solution to this complex problem, he's a dangerous idiot and a bigot, just like his redneck followers.

Yes, symbiotic, like when the rich used to create factories (jobs) in the USA. The wealth gap makes sense because the people at the top are doing a job that the vast majority of people couldn't do.

Half the population lives on $2 a day because the societies they live in are not at all advanced. Thats just what happens when some societies ( Europe, European colonies) advance faster and are more successful than other societies ( like the ones in sub-Saharan Africa). You cant blame some people for doing better than others.

And how is his solution different from Hungary's solution? Dont you have a big wall around your country stopping almost all Muslim immigration?

The wealth gap makes sense because the people at the top are doing a job that the vast majority of people couldn't do.

yeh like goldman sachs. doing such invaluable work. makes perfect sense.

Not saying they're all good, or that they all contribute. I should have written "The wealth gap makes sense then". Society is organized around this kind of inequality.

The only problem I have with inequality is when people use it to screw people ( like whats been going on with American jobs being moved into china), but I dont think its inherently bad. Sanders and Trump basically have the same position that shipping jobs into china is bad. The difference is that sander's socialist policies will make it even more difficult for corporations to keep jobs in the USA because even if he puts taxes on them for outsourcing it still would be cheaper because they wouldnt be hurt by his wealth redistribution.

I dont think what Goldman Sachs does is valuable, but I dont think many people could do what they're doing.

But does society have to end up with wealth inequality because the technological progress leads towards it? There's no way people will be able to all have decent paying jobs when the robots and bots come for them. IT companies are going to rake it all in.

Shouldn't that be shared more, considering that the people who rake all the money are only in that position because they were born into a society with the infrastructure for such tech?

Who cares if they're the only ones who can do it. Give me a moral argument why they need to earn more than anybody ever did when there are people who can't afford food and shelter for their kids.

Why should capital be taken from people who are productive and given to people who are not productive? Its immoral to take from people and they owe nothing to others.

People who cannot afford their children are entirely to blame for their situation because they should have realized that they would not be able to afford to raise them, similar to when you buy an expensive car on a loan and will then have to make payments every month to keep that car. They shouldn't be having children that they cant afford. The only victims here are their children, who shouldn't be in their custody if they are incapable of providing for them.

When things that unskilled people used to do are automated, everything will be a lot cheaper, so even though they get paid less, they still will have similar purchasing power.

People who can do more valuable work have always been in a higher position than everyone else, this kind of inequality is not really new. The "they're the only ones who can do it" is a moral justification.

Why should capital be taken from people who are productive and given to people who are not productive? Its immoral to take from people and they owe nothing to others.

Ah yes, free capitalism = morality. Any kind of sharing = theft. Who cares that we may be saving starving children, building our future.

People who cannot afford their children are entirely to blame for their situation because they should have realized that they would not be able to afford to raise them, similar to when you buy an expensive car on a loan and will then have to make payments every month to keep that car. They shouldn't be having children that they cant afford.

Some of them are to blame. Others couldn't predict that their sector was going to disappear, especially as they were poor, and their parents were poor, and it's a vicious cycle. But hey, breaking it would break capitalism! Can't argue with that.

I could argue that the children deserve to have their chances despite parents being either dumb or unfortunate... But I suppose that isn't a moral cause that eclipses the importance of free capitalism. This custody suggestion seems fairly irrelevant... You don't want to help out the parents, but you want to pay for child services? I thought any kind of sharing was bad?

There's also the problem where our future is decided in the way we treat new children, whomever their parents are.

When things that unskilled people used to do are automated, everything will be a lot cheaper, so even though they get paid less, they still will have similar purchasing power.

Nope, wealth inequality means that the rich will own a larger portion, meanwhile the poor will have a smaller portion. How the hell did you come up with this idea of stagnant purchasing power in any case anyway? Seems like some bullshit you just mocked up.

People who can do more valuable work have always been in a higher position than everyone else, this kind of inequality is not really new.

I say wealth inequality is the highest it has been and it's growing, and your answer is that it's nothing new? lol

The "they're the only ones who can do it" is a moral justification.

Okay so frankly everything else is irrelevant, here is the crux. Your position is that free capitalism is morality, and anything else thrown into the mix is bad moral theory? Confirm this please so I just know that you're insane and not worth arguing with. Do you even support real free capitalism, lol?

Forcing people to share things that they own is stealing. "think of the children" does not make it into something else. Ideally these people should not be having any children.

How is the idea that automated production = cheaper products wrong? Its now cheaper to produce everything. Of course it makes everyone less equal since someone like an engineer's purchasing power shoots through the roof, but he's just that much more valuable compared to someone who got replaced by a machine he invented.

Wealth inequality is so high in the USA because the Chinese are doing lots of the working class jobs that Americans used to do.. This benefits corporations, but it doesn't benefit the USA (which should be seen as a business, at some level) This is why we need someone as president with a good position on china

You still haven't explained to me why "they're the only ones who can do it" is wrong. Taking things away from others without their consent is bad moral theory. Can you just explain why instead of saying "who cares" or "you're insane"

How is the idea that automated production = cheaper products wrong? Its now cheaper to produce everything. Of course it makes everyone less equal since someone like an engineer's purchasing power shoots through the roof, but he's just that much more valuable compared to someone who got replaced by a machine he invented.

Cheaper products, sure, but people who aren't involved in tech industry and several other related areas will get a smaller and smaller portion of the pie. Such income inequality will lead to bad outcomes in many ways.

Sooner or later the jobs will start drying up, first the manual ones later most of boring white collar jobs too. So people will have less employment and lessening part of the world income.

You think a good positon on China can revert this process?

You still haven't explained to me why "they're the only ones who can do it" is wrong. Taking things away from others without their consent is bad moral theory. Can you just explain why instead of saying "who cares" or "you're insane"

Alright, first of all, can you confirm that you want pure capitalism? Because that seems to be the only possible outcome from not taking any money from "the ones who can do it". I need to know what I'm dealing with.

A good position on china slows it down. And a smaller portion of the pie is relative. The real problem, which we already have now, is that people who arent productive continue to have children. The best solution is not to redistribute wealth to these people, but try and make your society have as few of them as possible (why unskilled workers and refugees shouldn't be allowed in), since redistributing wealth is not sustainable. Its like allowing leeches to drink your blood so they dont die.

I believe in pure capitalism but I dont know why you cant just explain this to me.

Potentially slows it down a bit. Doesn't change anything about IT removing jobs, nothing will.

So you want Anarcho-Capitalism or something? Because without taking anything without consent you can't really have a government, any social security, a state army or whatever else. And then if most people end up in bad situations, that's just what they get for not being the ones "who can do it".

And this is because apparently, redistributing wealth isn't sustainable and taking things without consent is theft. Seems to be working alright for all I know... I'm not sure your ideas are working for anyone.

You're going to have to retract some claims if you think that people still need to pay taxes and keep a government up.

In regards to pure capitalism, there haven't really been any pure capitalist countries, and we need government to intervene with a mixed economy to protect the environment, protect the sick, the poor, educate people, make sure poor people's kids still have any kind of opportunities, support scientific research... Seems to be a pretty good model all the successful countries in the world are running AFAIK.

So since your reason this shouldn't be so ( "taking without consent is theft" ) is inconsistent even with having a government, can you give the real reason you want pure capitalism?

Can't really attack your position on moral grounds until I know the principle under which you would abandon everything that pure capitalism obviously can't provide.

I just believe in capitalism, with a government, but without a welfare state. Paying taxes is an exchange, you get something back from the government, like roads, the fire department, etc. Having your money given to parasites is not an exchange.

When you said "pure capitalisim" I wasn't sure exactly what you meant so I looked it up, I got this definition which I agree with:
http://www2.gsu.edu/~ecomaa/Lecture3.htm
"Pure Capitalism: is an economic system in which individuals own productive resources, and those individuals can use resources in whatever manner they choose, subject to common productive legal restrictions. In other words, it is the private ownership of productive resources including labor and the use of market mechanism and prices to coordinate economic activities. This system concerns the three Ps, prices, profits, and private property. This economic system is sometimes referred to as a laissez-fair system. Producing those goods and resources that people will buy at profitable prices will yield efficiency. In fact, advocates of this system argue that it encourages efficiency, stability of output and employment and economic growth. The government is limited to provide certain public goods such as national defense, basic education, and legal systems."

Alright, so that entails tons of people being destitute, not able to pay for treatment of their diseases, very few people being able to go to college, our environment fucked, things like NASA sacked, unprofitable sciences halted... I could go on and on.

Why? Any moral philosopher I've heard would start from basic rights and what are good outcomes and see how the political system fits them.

Apparently, for you the most important principle is for the rich to have as much as they can make and not a penny less, because that's more important than saving lives, furthering education and creating a better / safer country, saving environment etc... Why?

What is the point of tax money being used for NASA, or unprofitable sciences? What do they contribute?

Insurance still exists- so people would still be able to get treated for diseases.

The society you are imagining is one where a growing class of parasites feeds off of a productive minority- all because nobody should have to justify their existence in society. How is that a good system? Its more important to have a meritocracy where the most productive people have the most power.

What is the point of tax money being used for NASA, or unprofitable sciences? What do they contribute?

Look around yourself. All the technology you see is the result of previous "unprofitable sciences". The productivity of the people you worship is exactly due to unprofitable sciences giving them the means for that.

Insurance still exists- so people would still be able to get treated for diseases.

Yeah, if they / their employer can pay for it.

The society you are imagining is one where a growing class of parasites feeds off of a productive minority- all because nobody should have to justify their existence in society. How is that a good system? Its more important to have a meritocracy where the most productive people have the most power.

You're so stuck in your narrative, lol. Parasites? So if all the transportation, manual labor jobs are gone, suddenly the people employed in those sectors and were hardworking are now "parasites" because the world they live in doesn't match their education/skillset?

What kind of sense do you use to label people as parasites? If there's growing inequality, and technology is bound to lead to that, it's because "some people are parasites and some are the great productive people"? The change is the moral fault of the people who became parasites... By not having the education and skills for a new working environment, where there are fewer and fewer people who have the skills for it?


Your victim blaming without looking at the reason they're victims. Seemingly, you don't care. You just care that the most productive people are as rich as possible... And why? So they have say, 30% more money, because that's going to make their life so much better?

Your grasp of ethics is infantile.

Look around yourself. All the technology you see is the result of previous "unprofitable sciences". The productivity of the people you worship is exactly due to unprofitable sciences giving them the means for that.

Give me an example- things like cars, airplanes, computers, the internet, radio were not unprofitable when they were first being invented. If investing in NASA is so valuable, then there should be an economic incentive for people to invest in it on their own, rather than make everyone pay for their research.

According to you, when someone is successful, they have a responsibility to other people, and when someone isnt successful, they are a victim and being successful is not their responsibility anymore. Transportation, manual labor jobs wont disappear overnight- the people working there have a responsibility to prepare themselves for the new system. Its no different from when many of the manufacturing jobs in the USA were moved over to china.

Maybe property doesn't exist in the utopia that a "moral philosopher" like yourself can dream up, but its only a utopia for people who cant take care of themselves. The outcomes are better for people who dont work, but worse for the nation and the people who are productive, who are the only ones sustaining society. Of course they're more important.

Lol pushing the bounderies of science beyond what the private sector, driven by profit, will do is EXACTLY what a government should do to make humanity prosper in the long run, by propelling new discoveries that might go as far as changing the future of humanity.
Calculators were very expensive and had a vey specific use at start and the initial push of development was made for goverment use. Then the private sector comes in if there is a market for them. The internet was a military project.

And of course there is more, ranging from finding cures for various desieses to the very recent confirmation of gravitational waves which who knows what will bring us to?
Also what is the budget for smething like nasa in america it is actually very very small in percentage points.

Yes, and calculators, computers and the internet had an actual use, namely calculating missile trajectories so a first strike against the soviets would be in the USA's favor and military communications.

Finding cures to diseases is not an unprofitable science, if you cured cancer tomorrow you would become extremely rich selling that cure.

All the things you are talking about except for gravity waves is a profitable science. If gravity waves can make humanity prosper because of some bigger discovery based off of that, then there clearly is an economic incentive for people to invest in its research.

Ye but they werent profitable at start (and the calculators were used way b4 that and in a much narrpwer way) and that's why the private sector didnt develop them. they just had a concrete use, often not related to what they became which is very different from profitability and even having a timetable of when u will have a return of any kind on yor investment.

Having the best military/winning wars isn't profitable? Computers like ENIAC were used to help the USA win WW2. Thats far different from sending people to mars "just because".

The first calculators were used to count people in the 19th century.
Mars missions are like the 100th priority in nasa (i think it dpesnt exists amission to send ppl to mars in nasa actually, it didnt untill a couple of years ago and ppl who want to go there r companies from the private sector. They still have a robot there tho), what nasa does is much more about telescops and no gravity experiments and such to find out new stuff in astrophysics, physics, chemistry, biology and such.
And agai you are stretching the meaning of profitable.

Military use is different from just doing it "for the good of mankind"

Using calculators to count people means you dont have to hire humans to do it manually and you get the job done sooner- that saves money.

U assume they knew if and how and when that would happen and after what kind of investment. And thats why privates cant be the only force pushing for new discoveries and u pay nasa.

You're not making sense anymore. Im assuming they invested in it with the intent that it would make money or have some sort of other use such as national defense.

Give me an example- things like cars, airplanes, computers, the internet, radio were not unprofitable when they were first being invented. If investing in NASA is so valuable, then there should be an economic incentive for people to invest in it on their own, rather than make everyone pay for their research.

hah. How do you even come up with this? What makes you sure that the only valuable science is what can be assessed right now as profitable? Go read some science textbooks and read why early scientists did what they did. Mostly, they did it because they wanted to. Or it was some state-sponsored thing. Most of their impact to the world weren't products that they made and sold, it was the knowledge that other people used.

Even today, most scientists fund their research by teaching students, by government grants and choose these careers over more lucrative careers in industry because they find it more interesting and hope to be more impactful on the world.

The relationship between any specific branch of science and profitability is very unclear, and the people who profit from it are mostly not the ones who did the science, often many years later. That's why we need state-sponsored science. Because we know science will benefit us, but the incentives to do it aren't naturally there. Without taxing people and funding science this way, we won't reap the benefits.

Here's an article on why this profitability based approach would lead to negative outcomes.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/why-sc...le4210388/

According to you, when someone is successful, they have a responsibility to other people, and when someone isnt successful, they are a victim and being successful is not their responsibility anymore. Transportation, manual labor jobs wont disappear overnight- the people working there have a responsibility to prepare themselves for the new system. Its no different from when many of the manufacturing jobs in the USA were moved over to china.

Maybe property doesn't exist in the utopia that a "moral philosopher" like yourself can dream up, but its only a utopia for people who cant take care of themselves. The outcomes are better for people who dont work, but worse for the nation and the people who are productive, who are the only ones sustaining society. Of course they're more important.

I'm not proposing any utopia, I'm not a moral philosopher (although it'd be a cool career... if only the state sponsored more of them :P), I'm just talking basic moral principles and what sort of realistic political decisions would lead to good outcomes in terms of these principles. The fact that you see my support of standard western policies as some sort of utopia shows how sheltered your American mind is.

But your understanding of ethics is even worse.

but worse for the nation and the people who are productive

So if everyone gets decent opportunities for education, healthcare and isn't extremely poor so doesn't need to turn to crime just because he was born in the wrong (poor) family, the end result is worse for the nation? Are you serious? Do you really think that giving decent opportunities to people results in a worse outcome for the nation?

All that human capital is only a waste right, better not have the kids inheriting a fuckton pay any in taxes, that would be immoral.

As for it being "worse" for the people who are productive... Oh yeah, I bet 20% extra taxes would really hurt them. Like having one less yacht would be essentially a death sentence. Totally worth not giving young people born in the wrong family any opportunities over that, the extra yacht benefits the world way too much.

You are right about a lot of the people doing the inventing did not
care for the money- but all the investors that created the airline,
radio industry certainly did.

If science creates new, profitable things that will make everyone's
life better, then it should make just as much sense to investors as it
does to the government that science is worth investing in. Investing
in science that isnt directly useful goes beyond the role of the
government.

We have people who will give out grants to start-up companies even
though most of them will fail on the off-chance that one of them will
be the next big thing- why should we see things like scientists
working on gravity waves any differently?

So if everyone gets decent opportunities for education, healthcare
and isn't extremely poor so doesn't need to turn to crime just because
he was born in the wrong (poor) family, the end result is worse for
the nation? Are you serious? Do you really think that giving decent
opportunities to people results in a worse outcome for the nation?

I Don't know where you're getting the idea that all services
like schools and hospitals disappear when we stop allowing people to leech off the system. Tax money still gets used for an education system. Health insurance still exists.

Ideally the government should pay for things like abortions so that people who cant afford children wont have them. The fact that the USA subsidizes the parent encourages poor people to have more children than they should normally have.

Decent opportunities are different from handing unproductive people welfare checks- decent opportunities can be created by bringing low-class jobs back from china and mexico, and by giving scholarships to people based on their academic merits. Right now there are so many people in poverty in USA because they cant find any work, and they need jobs, not cash relief which does nothing to solve the problem.

Im not talking about the 0.001% of people who can afford a yacht in the first place, but normal people who have jobs, where 20% of their income is much more meaningful than "oh no I cant buy another yacht". That's a strawman and only applies to a tiny minority.

You are right about a lot of the people doing the inventing did not
care for the money- but all the investors that created the airline,
radio industry certainly did.

If science creates new, profitable things that will make everyone's
life better, then it should make just as much sense to investors as it
does to the government that science is worth investing in. Investing
in science that isnt directly useful goes beyond the role of the
government.

We have people who will give out grants to start-up companies even
though most of them will fail on the off-chance that one of them will
be the next big thing- why should we see things like scientists
working on gravity waves any differently?

That just doesn't work. You'd end up relying on rich people who support this as a hobby. That would skew science at best, or mostly kill it. Seems like you didn't grasp the fact that you can't predict which science is productive. For some sciences you can, for most you can't. Period.

Decent opportunities are different from handing unproductive people welfare checks- decent opportunities can be created by bringing low-class jobs back from china and mexico, and by giving scholarships to people based on their academic merits. Right now there are so many people in poverty in USA because they cant find any work, and they need jobs, not cash relief which does nothing to solve the problem.

The jobs aren't coming back. Even if they did, they won't be good jobs. The people working them would be unhappy, perhaps radicalized, unsafe, bring up children badly, won't have opportunities for education. There's no way you get the shittiest jobs that the US got rid of back and "solve" the issues poor people have. That's a joke.

I won't even reply to your abortion point, that's a joke and it's never happening. Especially not in America rofl.

Your model for capitalism shouldn't support healthcare or higher education, or insurance that was affordable. But seems like you're willing to let that go. First of all, they're not really functioning well right now. To make them affordable for more people, you'd have to tax more, which you seem to be opposing.

Secondly, what do you think taxing for healthcare, higher education and infrastructure provide? They make sure everyone gets opportunities, rather than a select few. They aren't really different from welfare checks - the people who get them are better off and more productive (or at least not dangerous!) in society. The poorest people end up not as poor, and everyone benefits.

You have some weird belief that there are these "horrible" parasites that just want to leech off of welfare, and I don't think that's true. Nobody wants to be on welfare, it doesn't pay much and it's embarrassing. Everyone wants to have at least some job.

Now, how do we pay for this? You seem to have missed the point a bunch of people tried to point out to you. We don't need to tax "normal people who have jobs" for 20% of their income. The top 1%, 10% and 20% earn enough so that if we tax them, not much changes for them. And for that money you can have affordable university education, universal healthcare and welfare so that the poorest are not destitute and have a chance to become productive in the society, bring up their children better or at least not get radicalized. If you can't see people as a value in and of themselves, you'll at least see the value in not having them turn into criminals.

That just doesn't work. You'd end up relying on rich people who support this as a hobby. That would skew science at best, or mostly kill it. Seems like you didn't grasp the fact that you can't predict which science is productive. For some sciences you can, for most you can't. Period.

That doesn't make it something that everyone should be obliged to invest in. And making scientific research backed by corporations instead of our government does not really change science that much. Corporations already invest in scientific research and its fine for the government invest in research that directly helps people, like medicine.

The point of bringing manufacturing back isn't to give "fun" jobs- its work. You should have to work for a living, weather you enjoy working or not. Higher Education opportunities are provided by merit-based scholarships, and the poor can go to trade school for a somewhat higher salary. Putting people back to work reduces the chances that they will commit crime.

You have some weird belief that there are these "horrible" parasites that just want to leech off of welfare, and I don't think that's true. Nobody wants to be on welfare, it doesn't pay much and it's embarrassing. Everyone wants to have at least some job.

This is true in Europe, its not at all true in America. This is the current state of welfare in the USA: http://www.statisticbrain.com/welfare-statistics/

35.4% of the population is on welfare. In 39 states living off welfare pays more than an $8 an hour (usually the minimum wage) job. In 8 states it pays more than being a teacher. Living off of welfare is a completely viable choice for most people who don't want to work for a living. Europe might not have this problem, but there are groups of people here that completely accept this as a way of life.

Taxing rich corporations just furthers incentives to move jobs out of the country. And it does not pay for what you're proposing, especially when you consider that more people will be out of work, and more immigrants (who use twice as much welfare as natives) will be coming into the country with a president like Sanders.

That doesn't make it something that everyone should be obliged to invest in.

Yes it does, provided we actually care about our future.

The point of bringing manufacturing back isn't to give "fun" jobs- its work. You should have to work for a living, weather you enjoy working or not. Higher Education opportunities are provided by merit-based scholarships, and the poor can go to trade school for a somewhat higher salary. Putting people back to work reduces the chances that they will commit crime.

But it's not going to solve anything. You think taxes will make companies leave the US? What about making them hire Americans for twice as much as the Chinese.

35.4% of the population is on welfare. In 39 states living off welfare pays more than an $8 an hour (usually the minimum wage) job. In 8 states it pays more than being a teacher. Living off of welfare is a completely viable choice for most people who don't want to work for a living. Europe might not have this problem, but there are groups of people here that completely accept this as a way of life.

The 34.5% get below a 100$ of welfare a month... The other 65% can afford that, I assure you.

If the amount of welfare here is worse than a low paying job, well then probably you need to make finance some education that will make them more attractive to employers... And I'm not talking about a few scholarships to the best several %. Again, if the people can't get a job better than welfare, then it's nature and nurture at fault, not their free choice.

Of course, this isn't really solvable. The lowest rung of jobs will continue to get worse because robots will work for cheaper. So at the end of the day, you're going to have to accept welfare. And it won't break the economy.

Yes it does, provided we actually care about our future.

If its so important, then you can donate on your own.

But it's not going to solve anything. You think taxes will make companies leave the US? What about making them hire Americans for twice as much as the Chinese.

Tariffs will make it harder for them to get Chinese goods into the country.

Its not below 100$- and even if they could, why should they? Nobody has an obligation to those people. Robots will probably automate all the low skill factory jobs eventually- but trades like plumbing and construction will be somewhat harder to replace. The best thing to do is keep low-skill jobs in the country and stop any low-skill immigrants from entering.

Maybe it wont break the economy 80 years down the line when automation makes things really cheap - but it provides no benefit to society.

If its so important, then you can donate on your own.

With that kind of logic we might have a donation system for roads and electricity infrastructure.

Its not below 100$

$131,900,000,000 total spent on welfare
divided by
110,489,000 recipients of welfare
divided by
12 months in a year
so what's the number that we get? Because I got less than a hundred dollars.

why should they? Nobody has an obligation to those people.

but it provides no benefit to society.

Okay that's our problem right there. I'm talking about a value system that values the experiences of all people in the state, including the poor ones, and wants to bring them up so the entire state moves forward better. Same point with investments into science, education and children.

Everyone is obligated to everyone, to a point. This is an important point in both any moral discussion and any political discussion.

If your first point is to say that no one is obligated to anyone else, well you might as well be advocating anarchy at that point.

Maybe it wont break the economy 80 years down the line

Yeah, we got however many times more productive than we were in the beginning of the 20th Century, but I guess our economies will collapse if we distribute some welfare.

Yes, because If we don't build rockets, then its going to be as bad as taking away electricity. Great logic there. And we do have a donation system for electricity. You know how you have to pay the power company for power or else they turn your lights off?

Because I got less than a hundred dollars.

Alright, im 52 cents off. You got me there.

If your first point is to say that no one is obligated to anyone else, well you might as well be advocating anarchy at that point.

You can obligate people by exchanging things with them. When you buy something from the store, you are obligating the salesperson to give you the product by paying them.

But obviously telling someone to give you money because you dont have as much of it as them doesn't mean they're obligated to give you anything.

I dont get where the "anarchy" comes from. Do you think the police only do their job from the kindness of their hearts, or because we pay them?

Yes, because If we don't build rockets, then its going to be as bad as taking away electricity. Great logic there.

I don't even. You must be trolling. I can't believe you're this silly about the impact science has.

But obviously telling someone to give you money because you dont have as much of it as them doesn't mean they're obligated to give you anything.

Alright, I'll say this once and not repeat myself anymore. A political system is directly tied to ethics. Your grasp of ethics is laughable. No political discussion is possible until you fix that.

Politics is about who has power over who and how society gets organized- not really about ethics.

Politics is about who has power over who and how society gets organized-

And how do you decide that? Even your posts revolve about what rights and obligations are. That's ethics mate. You just can't tell that you're doing it, and doing it in a shitty form. Confused as hell.

Still, if you wanna ignore ethics in how you want democracy to be shaped, go ahead and say that up-front in every discussion on politics. Every time you try to convince one of your friends (assuming you haven't isolated yourself from sane people) about anything in relation to politics, go ahead and start the discussion with I don't care about what is right, what is just and whether people flourish or suffer. Then they'll know there's no point in discussing with you.

I refuted the point about science earlier. Obviously understanding my refutation takes some basic understanding of how science works and the impact it has on our future. You're going against what is common sense for any half-educated person in the west, so how about you make your move instead of forcing me to repeat myself?

Your refutation is basically "science will die the companies dont care about science and will kill it". Even when lots of scientific innovations happen in companies that try to improve their product, or even when companies like spaceX get a billion dollars in funding.

I wrote that its not really about ethics because you seem to be using that as a way to not explain yourself- when I point out something very basic, like "its not their property, so they dont have a right to it", you say that I have "bad ethics" and then call me a name. I really dont think you have any kind of answer since you've used that card many times. Just because 20% of your paycheck could help make someone happier doesn't mean that they have a right to it, and I dont think you understand this. To you self-interest over group interest is "crazy", and I cant understand why you wont look at these things rationally.

Your refutation is basically "science will die the companies dont care about science and will kill it". Even when lots of scientific innovations happen in companies that try to improve their product, or even when companies like spaceX get a billion dollars in funding.

They can't care. There's no linear relationship between science and profitability. And still you haven't even tried to dispute this.

[PS. you might want to look up how much of that 1B is from the US government]

I wrote that its not really about ethics because you seem to be using that as a way to not explain yourself- when I point out something very basic, like "its not their property, so they dont have a right to it", you say that I have "bad ethics" and then call me a name. I really dont think you have any kind of answer since you've used that card many times. Just because 20% of your paycheck could help make someone happier doesn't mean that they have a right to it, and I dont think you understand this. To you self-interest over group interest is "crazy", and I cant understand why you wont look at these things rationally.

Indeed, I'm using ethics to cover up my weak claim that I want as many people to be as well off as possible, all children to have decent opportunities, etc. Definitely just using the word ethics to cover up my weird ass random claims.

Good thing you have a good grasp of it.

Just because 20% of your paycheck could help make someone happier doesn't mean that they have a right to it, and I dont think you understand this.

Yeah, not taxing people is the fundemental right. Nothing beats that.

They can't care. There's no linear relationship between science and profitability.

Right, because all the work that the engineers and researchers who work for big companies do has no relationship with the companies profit.

Definitely just using the word ethics to cover up my weird ass random claims.

You're using it to say that anything that puts self-interests over group interests is inherently wrong without acknowledging things like property. Is private property unethical to you?

I've already answered you about taxes.

Right, because all the work that the engineers and researchers who work for big companies do has no relationship with the companies profit.

So some R&D instead of all the science we have? Great!

You're using it to say that anything that puts self-interests over group interests is inherently wrong without acknowledging things like property. Is private property unethical to you?

Huh? I said that taxing the rich extra to eliminate poverty, improve and cheapen education would be good. The moral decision being some percentage of money from the richest who aren't going to feel it vs all that. Quite an easy one, presuming you can do it.

I've already answered you about taxes.

Yeah you did, the problem is that you're inconsistent about it. Taxes to fund education and infrastructure - alright. Taxes for welfare - HOW DARE YOU INFRINGE ON THE MOST FUNDEMENTAL OF RIGHTS, THE RIGHT TO NOT BE TAXED!!!!!

I have been consistent- Things like infrastructure help the person who pays the taxes, but things like welfare or your precious telescopes dont help that person. Its not in a taxpayers interest to have their money spent on things that dont help them.

People should be able to choose weather they want to support poorer people or not, instead of having the government blow their tax money on people who dont contribute without giving them a choice.

I have been consistent- Things like infrastructure help the person who pays the taxes, but things like welfare or your precious telescopes dont help that person. Its not in a taxpayers interest to have their money spent on things that dont help them.

Actually they do. You're just very shortsighted, thinking of what helps you now instead of in the future.

People should be able to choose weather they want to support poorer people or not, instead of having the government blow their tax money on people who dont contribute without giving them a choice.

So how is the choice is different on infrastructure? The same way you pretend to not benefit from science, I could say I don't benefit from better roads in my city because I sit at home. Clearly this ignores the way roads impact me indirectly, but it's the same with education and not having poor people unskilled, radicalized and children, who could potentially grow up to be the next leaders in any nation, instead not receiving proper care.

Either way, you're skirting around my main question, do I need to repeat myself again?

People should be able to choose

WHY? Why is the ability to choose here so fundemental? Why is it more important than the right to not fucking starve?

Whats going to help in the future are the things that companies will be making in the future. Im not pretending to not benefit from science, just pointing out that the government shouldn't fund things that arent going to be helpful. Its helpful if the government does cancer research, but how does it help us to send robots to mars?

Right now poor people who can work can use things like trade school to get out out their situation, even if they have to take out loans they will eventually get out of debt with a better job, like plumbing.

WHY? Why is the ability to choose here so fundemental? Why is it more important than the right to not fucking starve?

Because its their property that they worked for- why should they not have a choice about something that isnt essential for society?

The starving children is a strawman- children starving (or anyone really) is not an issue in the USA. Charities and soup kitchens are people who chose to help is probably why.

Whats going to help in the future are the things that companies will be making in the future.

What makes you so sure about that? Experience?

What is it exactly that makes you want corporations to rule over your life, instead of elected representatives of the people?

How is that statement anti-democracy? Its about scientific progress.

Imagine your life, but without products made by corporations (like your computer).

Obviously if you have to follow laws then you should be able to vote on those laws.

I didn't say it is anti-democratic per se. You seem to advertise a primate of economics, although this takes away control from you completely.
Whereas I would go [back] to a primate of politics, where your vote has an impact on the way things go.

Imagine your life, but without products made by corporations (like your computer).

Do you think only big corporations are able to produce goods? The means of production don't magically disappear without the corporations, you know?

I would go [back] to a primate of politics, where your vote has an impact on the way things go.

I don't know how that would work. Even in a democracy, whoever controls the media, or has the most advertisement money, can get people to support a candidate.

I also don't think that everyone's vote is equal, since everyone has a different amount of investment and contribution to the society they live in.

The means of production don't magically disappear without the corporations, you know?

I do know, but most things are made by large corporations now, and I dont see that changing anytime soon, which is why I think whatever they are going to be making is what we will be using in the future.

[...]whoever controls the media, or has the most advertisement money, can get people to support a candidate.

There are politicians running for president in the U.S. right now who want to change that. Sounds too good to be true tho, right?

Regarding your last point, this is so oversimplistic I almost can't be live you're not taking a piss here.

"Well, it's the way things go right now, so, I think it will be the ways of the future."

How do you think that will change in the future, then? We had large corporations 100 years ago, and we still have them today because nothing has really come up that has reorganized society in such a way.

What do you think is going to happen that will reorganize society?

Are you comparing big companies from a hundred years ago with companies from today?

They're similar enough to be compared to each other if we're just talking about the means of production. They both produce lots of things, and their products dominate the market.

just pointing out that the government shouldn't fund things that arent going to be helpful.

Well you have no idea what is helpful, and it's evident to anyone with a clue about science

The starving children is a strawman- children starving (or anyone really) is not an issue in the USA.

Exaggeration, point still stands

Because its their property that they worked for- why should they not have a choice about something that isnt essential for society?

oh yes their property that they *gasp* WORKED for, or inherited of course, but whatever. We're just done here. You'll just keep on repeating your blind narrative based on *whatever capitalism leads to is actually the only just thing*, which you don't even fully believe yourself.

Again, please follow my instructions before your next political discussion and say I don't care about what is right, what is just and whether people flourish or suffer. Then explain how capitalism is the only justice.

We're just done here.

Yes, if you're going to have an outburst over the idea of private property, then we are done.

over the idea of private property? How'd you come up with that?

.

What about people who inherited their money? How does inheritance fit into all this? Theres plenty of incapable people with lots of money, simply because they are born in to it. Actually most of one percenters were born into money

Its an investment by the person who died. At some point someone earned the money and taking it away from what they invested in is wrong.

Ye from a standpoint of the deceased its a legitimate investment, but its a head start to the one who got it and that completely fucks up the equal opportunity idea of free market capitalism.

Since when did capitalism have anything to do with equal opportunity? By that kind of logic any form of investment is bad.

Then whats the point of capitalism? Its no different than feudalism if after some time some are born rich and some are born dirty poor. What is the redeeming quality of capitalism if there are no equal opportunities?

The point of capitalism is to create a hierarchical society where the most productive people have the most power. There is enough of an economic incentive to find very productive people inside the lower classes for being born into the lower class to not stop someone who is capable from getting to the top of the hierarchy. This is why in the USA if you score high enough on standardized tests and do very well in school, higher education is either free or costs less.

So out of the poor on the top few % can achieve anything, but complete waste of human flesh that was born into a rich family can live like a king while hardworking average people need to fight to survive. Also are you aware that the richest people on earth gained their wealth on slavery, feudalism and such. They got a head start using methods no one today is allowed to use.

Capitalism is great: https://www.instagram.com/danbilzerian/

I think we've gone over why thats an investment, not that its a good one, but whoever gave him that money had the right to do that.

You can use slaves today, just produce everything in China and India.

We could go on and on about this and we wont agree. Its not a matter of understanding the system, its just different moral values we hold. I personally cant stand that there are children dying of starvation while the "king if instagram" is wasting oxygen and spending money like a retarded monkey. In a just world that fucker would be fed to lions and his money would be used to build schools and hospitals

Looked him up and his dad who got him the money is in jail... Its not really fair to use a criminal as your representative of capitalism since you are right, he shouldn't have that money.

Hey, children starving is a better outcome than a rich person having to pay 5% more taxes! /s

Your premise is incorrect. With increases in automation there is a long term trend of substituting creative jobs for repetitive ones. More here.

Economists like these models for some reason, but they're build the wrong way.

Let's count jobs by the percentage of humans that are doing them. How many jobs were created and kept since 20 thousand years ago? Soon you'll realize that until the industrial revolution, the rate at which jobs were created and later exchanged by others is very slow.

The pace once again got much much faster with advances in industry, and, most importantly, computers and the internet.

So essentially, we've been removing and replacing jobs like crazy since the industrial revolution and then even more after widespread electricity, computers and internet.

Since the rate is accelerating like crazy, how can you assume that it's going to continue?

You could look at this from the other side, experts believe automation will remove large swaths of the current economy, and AI researchers predict human-level AI with 50% chance by 2045 and >90% chance by 2100. We don't even need human level general AI to make most people unemployable, we just need a bunch of close-to-human level task-specific AI's.

At which point, humans will only be employed for non-pragmatic reasons. What kind of pay could they expect? We're going to need to distribute wealth way before then.

The other side of the coin is wealth inequality. People who make these technologies will accrue insane wealth and influence, this has only been accelerating. Unlike the creation of jobs, this doesn't need to stop. Do you really think this is a good outcome for humanity as a whole?

There is no 'model' per se in the article. Those are just charts with numbers across time - absolute on the left-hand side and relative to population on the right-hand side. The right-hand side is precisely your preferred metric from the second paragraph.

"The pace once again got much much faster with advances in industry, and, most importantly, computers and the internet.

So essentially, we've been removing and replacing jobs like crazy since the industrial revolution and then even more after widespread electricity, computers and internet."

I agree with every word. The reason I am optimistic is the insurmountable 24-hour day for everyone, no matter how rich or skilled.

Let's take a look at your end-game where the only jobs performed by humans are some IT things to keep the productive machines going (I think you're overlooking some stuff here, but more on that later), Let's say that's 5% of the population. They would probably have to work 24/7 and have no time to consume their wealth. What I claim would happen in such a case is the employer would find it profitable to fund education for the unemployed, hire them and rotate the work hours, because in order to keep someone at work for, let's say, 16h/day he/she would have to offer disproportionately higher wages (more than twice compared to an 8-hour workday because of a diminishing marginal utility of another hourly paycheck and a rising marginal utility of diminishing leisure).

The thing you are overlooking are the creative jobs. Ask yourself if such professions as comedians, progamers, podcast hosts, yoga teachers, chefs, etc. could exist in a dirt-poor society and how many similar ones can arise when in the future humans are able to produce the "current standard of living" in a fraction of the time and have all that leftover income to patronize other businesses.

So there are two countermeasures to the problems you bring forward. Firstly, the increasing "demand for leisure" with rising incomes that makes it economical to hire less productive people and new professions that are not profitable when billions of people in poor countries spend their whole days fullfilling the most basic needs.

There is one more thing, the significance of which is growing when the general population is getting wealthier - the resulting premium for hand-made products. Machines will not be of much help in those cases. I'm not saying that it surely will be a major thing to run an economy on, but it is a strike against the fear of machines making human labour obsolete.

"You could look at this from the other side, experts believe automation will remove large swaths of the current economy, and AI researchers predict human-level AI with 50% chance by 2045 and >90% chance by 2100."

When that arrives, ALL human labour is obsolete, because machines will service one another and come up with new inventions. At this point we leave the world of material scarcity, with the exception of time, which still is scarce. So if there is all this abundance of goods with no effort from humans, do you think people will not share it between one another, in case someone is in need? I am not holding my breath for those times but if they arrive, the entire discussion becomes moot, as we have nothing to worry about.

"The other side of the coin is wealth inequality. People who make these technologies will accrue insane wealth and influence, this has only been accelerating. Unlike the creation of jobs, this doesn't need to stop. Do you really think this is a good outcome for humanity as a whole?"

That's why people who favour free societies always claim the dominant ideology plays a big role. Unless by 'influence' you mean the legal ability to initiate aggression against someone without criminal punishment, which obviously is a cause for concern, other kinds of 'influence' that I can think of are entirely benevolent. You can think of a highly respected person in a given discipline having lots of influence (e.g. rapha in Quake circles or Stephen Hawking in physics), but that is entirely different than someone 'influencing' the state to shut down his competitor or to take money from people to subsidize its business.

The bad kind of influence can justifiably be worrying, although, on the other hand, in poor societies the freedom from such influence for the population at large is usually more limited (in today's world and in history).

So far I have almost entirely disregarded the aspect of charity, although the amount of charitable giving predictably is higher in richer societies (US total for some perspective). If there is an impetus for caring for the poor, charities should be expected to be more efficient than governments, which, as I'm sure you will agree, have become, in no small part due to prevalence of the negative kind of influence I've decribed above, an engine for enriching the politically connected at the expense of the common man. This is not by accident but an expected result of being financed through coercive taxation. Few people would patronize a charitable organization that gives money to rich people for personal consumption.

Seems like we agree on what happens in the case of strong AI assuming it doesn't just destroy humanity and just keeps us as pets or is caged but controlled by ethical humans, but I disagree with your views on inequality. Rich people right now seem to be mostly using it for their benefit. They run businesses, which are good for the economy of course but in the end they don't benefit the poor as much as you'd want.

Hopefully the abundance (essentially the end of scarcity) and charities make sure everyone is doing good in that case. I agree that that is likely. But the inequality will still be there, and the people who created strong AI might be richer than the rest of the world combined. If the AI is subservient, they might just use it to do literally what they want, and I don't think you can rely on people to do the right thing.

It'd take an absurdly good structure of AI caging and supergenius benevolent control for this to not fuck most people over.



As for the case of specialized AIs, I think 5% is too high a number. Even if you rotate them, this won't be a significant portion of the population. Of course, this depends on how smart an AI we're talking about, but I think you can look at history with this and conclude that it'll be an ever decreasing number.

Creative (assuming you want humans to do it for non-pragmatic reasons, because bots will be just better than humans) and handmade jobs are good and fine, but they're inherently top-heavy in the sense that only the best / most attractive do very well with them, and most do quite poorly.

Hopefully the abundance of everything is such that most people do well with charity and non-pragmatic jobs. It wouldn't really make sense to make people do such meaningless work if they don't want it though. If charity isn't enough, people should definitely get welfare. What most people will want to do will probably not be the kind of creative / handmade work that gets them good money.

It'd be just immoral to not let people spend their time on whatever they want if we had absurd amounts of money, which we will in this scenario.

In any case, this leaves financial inequality. It's a bad thing. We won't significantly dampen the rewards by sharing the wealth very heavily assuming close to human level task-specific bots are available.

"Rich people right now seem to be mostly using it for their benefit. They run businesses, which are good for the economy of course but in the end they don't benefit the poor as much as you'd want."

I don't know of any way how you can measure that. It seems to me to be totally arbitrary on your part. In the other post from this thread I've given an example of Walmart paying out 4,5 billion dollars in wages and being looted for 2,5 billion in taxes in 2014 (actually here in several line items it says 8,6 billion in taxes so I may have looked up the wrong number before) Then I posed a rhetorical question whether this is more than the owners consumed in a year.

If we add that it generated 473 billion dollars in sales, which the mostly middle- and lower-class customers must have handed to the company voluntarily and expected to get a product that benefits them at least marginally, you're setting the bar unrealistically high for not benefiting the poor(er) sufficiently.

"Hopefully the abundance (essentially the end of scarcity) and charities make sure everyone is doing good in that case. I agree that that is likely. But the inequality will still be there, and the people who created strong AI might be richer than the rest of the world combined. If the AI is subservient, they might just use it to do literally what they want, and I don't think you can rely on people to do the right thing. "

Couple points here. Firstly, the AI-derived income doesn't have to be concentrated. In fact, given the vast amount of resources necessary to invest in such technologies, it's most likely that it will be done by a publicly traded company and not some private equity company that only rich insiders hold a stake in. Sure, nowadays the poorest people do not own stocks, but middle-class Polish people do in their retirement accounts and this trend is rising when national income increases. Before we reach the scenario we're talking about here, share ownership can easily be more widespread, and certainly not restricted to the very wealthiest.

Secondly, even if we do assume that only the rich earn income from the AI sectors, this doesn't mean the money will be made through enslaving or inflicting harm upon the rest of the population. With mass production, the big money is made catering to, well, the masses and not to a handful of rich guys. If you can make a fortune providing the common man with fancy food, internet access or a tablet, you can earn even more by using the machines to provide him with security.

As an aside, there is a contradiction in your viewpoint here (or at least an implied contradiction, if you assume that some kind of state action can correct the undesirable outcomes you bring up). If you are anxious about a group of malevolent people imposing their will on others, the state is precisely the vehicle to be most efficient at it. There is virtually no legal recourse from the state you live under.

"It'd be just immoral to not let people spend their time on whatever they want if we had absurd amounts of money, which we will in this scenario.

In any case, this leaves financial inequality. It's a bad thing. We won't significantly dampen the rewards by sharing the wealth very heavily assuming close to human level task-specific bots are available. "

It would be immoral (for you and me, at least), but in my opinion it doesn't necessitate state action. Firstly, because there is no reason to expect state agents to act with the public's interest in mind and not their own so we might end up in a state of affairs worse than before, but secondly because moral obligations are specific to the individual and because of that can only be acted upon by individuals. We can imagine a scenario (not a common one, I freely admit) of a billionaire who suffers a great psychic loss by being expropriated. I don't think it'd be moral to hurt such a person in the name of wealth equality. But, on the other hand, if a wealthy person wants to lead an ascetic life and give away all of his or her possessions happily, by all means.

Finally, I do not share your opinion on the importance of financial inequality. Why would inequality of looks, intelligence, family life, talents, friendship, love or any other aspect of life be less important? Again, it's for the individual to decide the appropriate mix between all of the above and many others that I have not mentioned, given that going for one of those by definition sets one back with respect to attaining any or all of the others.

you're setting the bar unrealistically high for not benefiting the poor(er) sufficiently.

They have most of the money in the world, I want them to solve the biggest problems. It's not an unfairly high bar. They have the money for it. And they don't really need the money from themselves.


You're right to be wary of the state, but a state is something people can, in theory, manage. You just need it to be transparent and subservient to the wishes of the votes, unlike the US is now.

Obviously, not ideal, but better than letting people who come into riches do whatever they want. We won't have any control over them.

Firstly, the AI-derived income doesn't have to be concentrated.

Technology in general and IT especially has lead to increasing income inequality, with more and more money focused on the innovators. If strong AI isn't developed by a state which gives everyone equal shares despite taking progressive taxation, there's no way it doesn't lead to the creators of it being the riches people on earth, assuming that they want the wealth. That's just how technology is, why would it be any way different?

Now, for most, it's obvious that the technological innovators are just single actors participating in a process that is going to happen anyway barring an existential threat coming to fruition... The only thing they truly do is make it happen faster, or better or whatever. And we should reward them for it... But do we really need them to earn more money than the world has ever seen without sharing it, leaving the rest without any power at all? I can't think of a reason why we might do that.

We can imagine a scenario (not a common one, I freely admit) of a billionaire who suffers a great psychic loss by being expropriated. I don't think it'd be moral to hurt such a person in the name of wealth equality.

Well I'll give you a more common one: poor people suffering all the time because they have no control over their lives. Some, as sensitive as the billionaire in your example, might have terrible mental anguish, but the rest are just normal people in a bad situation. We don't even need for them to be mentally weak to suffer, they just will.

You're not arguing that the rich will suffer more than the poor do if we redistribute their wealth some, are you? They'll still be rich.

Finally, I do not share your opinion on the importance of financial inequality.

Well this is what everything hinges on, doesn't it? We cannot redistribute to solve any other types of inequality that you mentioned without threatening the pupose of the type. But we can with money, without serious harm. So I don't think the comparison fits.

"They have most of the money in the world, I want them to solve the biggest problems. It's not an unfairly high bar. They have the money for it. And they don't really need the money from themselves."

They (however arbitrary the cut-off point for "them" is) don't have the most money in the world. Warren Buffet does not have 67 billion dollars of idle cash on his bank account. His net worth is calculated using a formula that tries to estimate the discounted sum of cash flowing from the assets he owns decades into the future. You can increase it by 30% if you assume a lower interest rate in the mathematical formula but it doesn't mean he has become 30% more wealthy all of a sudden.

The way you seem to think about the nature of wealth, you could willy-nilly exchange his 67 billion dollars for 67 billion loaves of bread, assuming one loaf costs 1$. That's incorrect. The 67 billion is just a number that's entirely dependent on the context the assets are placed in (again, the discounted sum of cash flows decades into the future). If you put the factories, railroads and whatever else he owns in the middle of a desert, Warren Buffett is worth virtually zero, because the physical assets have no chance of bringing in cash. He is worth so much precisely because he’s benefitting the masses by offering them products in exchange.

But even if, and from the previous paragraphs you can know that I’m assuming a lot here, he had 67 billion dollars in his bank account and decided to burn them or bury them in his garden, that would essentially mean he spent a lifetime of offering some beneficial product to people poorer than him in exchange for money and in the end consumed nothing material, which means a lot of material things being available to people for free. What’s more, the billions he destroyed or pulled out of circulation and into his garden would mean that every other dollar is now worth a tiny bit more. There aren’t many ways to imagine someone being more beneficial to the general public (in the economic sense at least), and this is precisely what you seem to have against rich people – them having pieces of paper and consuming a tiny fraction of the material stuff they could potentially consume.

"You're right to be wary of the state, but a state is something people can, in theory, manage. You just need it to be transparent and subservient to the wishes of the votes, unlike the US is now.

Obviously, not ideal, but better than letting people who come into riches do whatever they want. We won't have any control over them."

This "management" you speak of requires such unrealistic assumptions that we may as well assume rich people donate everything above subsistence income to charity and we've as much “wealth redistribution” as possible, barring rich people dying of hunger, without any state coercion and wasteful administrative costs.

First of all, you need unity of interest among "the people". You can look at a random Facebook discussion group to find out if that's the case. You can also ask yourself if, for example, the producers and the consumers of pharmacological drugs have the same idea of what’s good in general.

Even if somehow the interests are similar, there’s knowledge to be gained about how society works and what is the best way to bring about those desired interests. A great majority of voters would have to invest time into obtaining that knowledge, so that their solutions are not counterproductive. Sorry to be blunt, but people are clueless on these subjects. They have their own busy lives and I don’t expect them to become experts in social sciences.

Coming back to the drugs example – who do you think will be more motivated to shower benefits on the rulers and influence state policy with respect to the drug market – politically organized established pharma companies that can gain millions from a law limiting competition in their field or millions of disorganized consumers, each of whom will see an additional expense of 10$ a month on average? Well, to prevent a group of lobbyists storming state agencies and cartelizing their respective markets (which I hope we both see as a bad outcome) you need it to be the second group. Unlikely and factually incorrect.

If that’s not enough, you obviously have to assume that people are concerned with the general welfare, even if it were at odds with their personal goals. And I don’t even mean being selfish in the most negative sense. It’s not crazy to expect a lawyer being in favour of limiting entrance to his profession in order to have more income and send his daughter to college, even if this were to increase prices and decrease quality of legal services for many people.

You need to assume that state agents refrain from influencing the opinions of voters, even if such influence could bring them great benefit as rulers. State education, censorship and licensing of press prove quickly how untrue that is. Imagine if Walmart were by law the only entity responsible for educating people and disseminating information. You would expect it to propagate knowledge that’s beneficial to the existence of Walmart, wouldn’t you? So would I and I maintain this reasonable stance when it’s the state that’s in this position.

Those were theoretical objections that should point in one direction – the state cannot realistically be managed. Now look through history and find me a single example of a state that has concerned itself only (or even primarily with) the general well-being and not the well-being of its agents..

“Technology in general and IT especially has lead to increasing income inequality, with more and more money focused on the innovators. If strong AI isn't developed by a state which gives everyone equal shares despite taking progressive taxation, there's no way it doesn't lead to the creators of it being the riches people on earth, assuming that they want the wealth. That's just how technology is, why would it be any way different? “

You missed my point. There is nothing that stops ordinary people from buying stocks in those high-tech companies and profiting from the advancements in technology. Your view that poor people get their income solely from labour and rich people solely from capital is just not true. Granted, you need to have enough savings to buy the shares but we have established a few posts ago that the absolute level of income is rising and that a growing number of people can indeed afford to invest in financial assets.

“Well I'll give you a more common one: poor people suffering all the time because they have no control over their lives. Some, as sensitive as the billionaire in your example, might have terrible mental anguish, but the rest are just normal people in a bad situation. We don't even need for them to be mentally weak to suffer, they just will.

You're not arguing that the rich will suffer more than the poor do if we redistribute their wealth some, are you? They'll still be rich. „

So what is your point, then? Do we establish morality based on statistics? It’s moral to rob the sensitive rich guy and give to a poor drunkard or a low-level thief, just because MOST rich people will not mind and MOST poor people do not behave in deplorable ways? Your counterexample strengthens my point – it’s about the individual and without knowing how the state stealing affects the victim and the beneficiary, you cannot claim you’re on the good side of morality just because there’s an income difference between people.

One more point on that. If you claim it’s moral to take indiscriminately from the rich against their will, would you personally do it if given the chance? If no, what is it that makes the act suddenly permissible when a group of people called “the state” do it?

“Well this is what everything hinges on, doesn't it? We cannot redistribute to solve any other types of inequality that you mentioned without threatening the pupose of the type. But we can with money, without serious harm. So I don't think the comparison fits.”

To me this seems like an ad-hoc explanation, which even applies to financial inequality so it doesn’t differentiate this particular realm of inequality from the others. The purpose of financial inequality is for the richer people to have more purchasing power than poorer people. In the same way, the purpose of inequality of looks is to have more and less attractive people.
Moreover, I can imagine many ways of eliminating inequality of looks, intelligence or free time (which is a very valuable good to most people). You can have pretty people work in a field or a coal mine and devote the proceeds from their labour to improve the looks of ugly people. You can pay intelligent people to watch stupid TV shows all day long and expose dumb people to education or higher culture. With free time it’s so obvious that I won’t even go there.

Lastly, your point about stealing money from one person and giving it to another without any harm. Why is your opinion on the degree of harm levelled the arbiter here? What if a person gives up family life, friendship or free time for a life of monetary riches and you claim it will not inflict serious harm to undercut him and give to a poor person who decided to choose those intangible values instead? You are painting with a very broad brush here and claiming moral superiority.

You seem to be pretty good at finding reasons we can’t do any of this. The state is not in any way manageable, we can’t tax the rich because their money is in business, we shouldn’t tax the rich because they provide goods and services for their money earned and you can’t interfere with that. The poor can apparently, also invest into stocks, which you claim I overlooked. Heh.
Then you also claim that my idea of moral justice coming from some redistribution is just like, my opinion, man.

Which are all fairly disingenuous claims. Seems like you badly want this to be true and ignore whichever degree to which this is obviously possible. None of this means that human wellbeing hasn’t improved, doesn’t mean there are no differences between it for countries, and doesn’t mean we can’t see benefits through political activism in the future, like we have previously.

In terms of states and common voters, let me tell you why I believe that we still need to have them decide things. It’s not because they’re very competent, efficient or smart. It’s because the alternative is people who aren’t beholden to anyone at all. So we can either have an improved state improve things, or we can give up and just turn the other cheek, which isn’t going to benefit any of us, including the rich, down the line. It’s not unrealistic, it’s the only course of action that can be taken to benefit people. The alternative is chance, and I have no idea how these pure capitalism guys can claim it’s going to work out well.

People are, of course, fractioned, but there are studies showing that the common people’s opinion doesn’t change policy in the US right now. So maybe they’d have more convergent opinions if they felt like theirs mattered.

The rich do have insane amounts of money any way you measure it. You don’t need to break up companies and take away assets to still tax shitloads of money.

There aren’t many ways to imagine someone being more beneficial to the general public (in the economic sense at least)

Yeah there are.
There are big benefits they provide with their companies, but I’d argue that most of it is just opportunity. The tech companies are making insane amounts of money, but if they didn’t do it, other companies would take their place. If Apple hadn’t made an iPhone and Google hadn’t countered with Android, maybe we’d be much worse off in terms of smartphones right now, but in the end we’d still have them.
What I’m saying is, they deserve a lot, but most of the work done for this is the opportunity (the entire scientific, technological and social progress that lead up to this point), a small portion of this work done is by everyone in those companies and then a tiny portion is the guy who took the gamble and invested his money. Is he benefiting the world? Sure, but it’s mostly not him and we can have him repay the world more without breaking up his ability to innovate.
The poor investing thing is a joke. The reason I didn’t even mention it isn’t that I’m not aware of it, but that it’s just a theoretical ability. The whole income inequality thing won’t get solved by this. You might as well just say “why didn’t they go to silicon valley and get involved somehow”.

Income inequality is different to the other stuff because it:
1) Is the kind of thing that has been managed by states in many ways
2) Can be managed by states practically
Not to call you a troll, but how the fuck can you honestly think the other types of inequality are comparable? The types of management you suggest are impractical and just a joke. Management of income inequality through progressive taxing and the like is popular and effective practice. So I do have to doubt your sincerity here.

We can and routinely do establish morality based on statistics and sociology, because we have no better alternative. You can try and minimize the point by claiming some edge cases about psychologically unstable rich guys, or by claiming “it’s just my opinion”. But it’s not. The poor are disadvantaged and badly impacted by the lack of money, and for the rich percentages of money don’t make that much of a difference. It’s quite absurd the way you’re trying to minimize this point as if it’s not flat out obvious.

If you claim it’s moral to take indiscriminately from the rich against their will, would you personally do it if given the chance? If no, what is it that makes the act suddenly permissible when a group of people called “the state” do it?

Do you mean if I’d donate the money, or go up to rich people and steal it?

.

You can tax imports from other countries, you know. Its the country's job to make enough money, and when there is a huge trade deficit and unemployed people, then they arent making as much money as they could be.

and at the same time, those 62 people you have no problem with are paying 0-15% tax compared to an average American's 30%+?

I agree with you about this, you could read the tax plan Trump is proposing: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/tax-reform

.

Dividends are paid out from after tax profit, so the effective tax rate on them is (1-0.65×0.8)=0.48 or 48%, given the 35% CIT in the US.

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If the company didn't pay corporate income tax, your dividend would be that much higher if it decided to pay out the same proportion of income as dividend.

Warren buffet is lying.

.

You stopped reading when you got irritated instead of pointing out a flaw. That's a great way to refine your viewpoint on anything.

"Google/FB CEOs have an income of $1. So they pay 0% income tax"

Irrelevant since I said nothing about CEO income for their labour.

And also a red herring because you picked a few richest of the rich and not broader, more representative groups to illustrate whatever point you were trying to make. The real picture looks more like the first page of this. If you can show how the richest 20% of Americans can earn 50% of national income and account for 70% of federal taxes while having a lower tax rate than people poorer than them, math Nobel should be introduced and given to you. The relationship is not as extreme for the top 1% (presumably those fat-cats who get their income primarily from capital taxed at a lower rate) but would still require upside down math to jive with your narrative.

"You talk about corporation tax again but nobody gives a shit. Even with the companies paying corporation tax, Buffett still makes millions per year from dividends and only has to pay 20% on it. A large chunk of that remaining 80% then gets re-invested to generate more & more while still only paying 20%."

I'll just paste this and hope you won't get impatient before the end. (7:25 into the video till the end)



"But yeah. Reduce corporation tax to 5%. Reduce income tax to 5%. I'm sure everything will be fine & dandy and no services will be affected"

What a great piece of reasoning. Let's raise all taxes to 100% then. Imagine all the quality and quantity of services. Because we accept as gospel that services can be provided only through tax money and they're way better than any potential alternative.

I am sorry but you can blame them when they are rigging the game by buying politicians.

Yes, but his disagreement starts at "They have more money than me", not "They're buying politicians to become rich". I do agree with you there.

"ye, 62 ppl owning half of the planet, and half of the population living on less than $2 a day is just so cool brah."

Can I use this quote as my go-to reference to a somewhat deluded egalitarian? It's just so good for this specific purpose, my man.

I'm not an egalitarian at all. well, unless you asked what I thought of modern day feminism. then I'd say, well, fuck those retarded cunts, I'm a gender egalitarian. but that's neither here nor there.

with that said, I don't have to be one to be on the opinion that the extreme wealth gap is absurd and wrong. this doesn't have to be a black and white issue.
accumulating wealth way beyond your needs isn't inherently wrong. except when you're doing it while others are actually lacking those basic necessities of life, and as a result, they suffer / die. then it becomes a moral issue.
all the extreme wealth-hoarding could be traced back to a psychological problem - it's just a form of addiction.

also, where does the delusion part come in? what you quoted isn't incorrect.

Well, if someone wants to use state coercion to combat wealth inequality, that is a hallmark of egalitarianism. I'm not saying you are after complete equality but you see expropriating the wealthy to benefit the poor as a goal worth striving for.

I think your perspective on what the wealth's function is is incorrect. Excluding cronyists like Goldman Sachs who make a living from political entrepreneurship rather than economic entrepreneurship, the billions of, e.g. Sam Walton represent his stake in Wal-Mart, which increases the standard of living of the people much poorer than Walton. You could easily not regard that as 'his' wealth, because it's continuously taking part in the economic structure that's creating wealth for other people and he consumed very little of it.

So if only a small part of a wealthy person's possessions are consumed by him/her and the great majority is used to increase others' wealth, I'd say wealthy people should be appreciated and the moral concern should be the absolute fate of the poorest, not their relative position against the rich. And on this front the much-maligned world has had a good deal of success.

The World Bank data indicates that in 2012 12,7% of people lived below 1,90$/day, down from 44% in 1981, so on that front your quote isn't correct.

lal @ economist, with higher ed training, disregarding and skewing data for his liking.
1.90 $ in 1981 = 4,80$ in 2012. you most likely heard about inflantion over 1000 times/a year during your studies. but its nice to alter data to justify your policy operating on injustice.
sam walton may not be able to consume his wealth, but he owns it. same as he owns ppl working for him. same way as a pharaoh cannot consume stones or ppl that build his pyramids. you are striving to reintroduce a system in which we will end up in several generations with only a few pharaohs i surely cannot see any sense in that. and you cannot deny tremendous accomplishments of that era. they build civilisation, some branches of medicine and science where flourishing, slaves were well fed as oposed to neo-slavery we have got nowadays. and the pyramids. man those are impressive as Fook even today.
i can only congratulate you on your luck of draw (being wellborned), hope you never find realisation that you aint soo damn special or god chosen (but simply lucky), and keep on having good mood till you die in prosperity.
unfortunately there are people with a lot less luck, which elitist ppl like you seem to not be aware of. and often its not their fault that they cant finish economics by the age of 24 on a ivy league uni.
world aint fair, but as richard dawkins said' introducing social darwinism would result in terrible society'. something that the privilidged ones of your sort are willing to introduce, cause it doesnt affect them negatively at all.
live long and prosper.

"The World Bank, which gathers data on income from people around the world, defined absolute poverty as living on less than $1.25 per day. This is measured in international dollars that are adjusted for the fact that people in different countries face different price levels (PPP adjustment). It is also expressed in real terms to adjust for price changes over time."

Maybe next time you'll have better luck, Polish anon ;D

sure it was luck, as i do not click your propaganda stuff, (as it was my mistake in the past).
since i did some gig for the world bank recently, i did click this one. but back to the merit. I mean you can call scraping 2-4x 1,25$/day by working a 60hrs shits /week in southeast asia (that is the main factor in that 'economical growth destroying the poverty' success that you are hereby announcing. i call it exploitation. something your dream system is based on, proudly. so they did an upgrade. form poverty to poor. wow. great success. now disband everything you got going here and move to china. (why china? well the 'poverty drop' is mainly on the 'southeast asia' part, and begun evidently alongside the reforms in late 70's allowing the exploitation of cheap chinese labour in name of western profit) dont be a financial market bubble guy, dont clog the true capitalism, move to china and contribute to economical growth oldschool style, surely you want to belong to that working poor class in their sweatshops that are responsible for those impressive chinese numbers. drink, eat and breath polutions.+ there are other factors. somehow that graph by max roser (c) doesnt really correlate with the capitalists wet dreams, but it somewhat does with scientific progress. especially with chem-revolution of the 50's, that healed and fed the world. im all about science, mate. and progress. but in my world the drainage of bright wouldnt be limited to only the ones that can afford college. see the difference?
growth doesnt bring people from poverty, social policies do.
gini coefficient shows better how the cake titled 'economic growth' is shared. and over time only one group exhibits constant, uninterupted and quite rapid growth of controlled wealth; all the rest have relatively less and less of said cake. but thanks to science, and people who invent stuff (not the ones that prosper of those inventions), life is relatively easier than in past.
(though aparently this generation is 1st one that stops the trend of offspring having it easier than parents).
and i cannot emphasize it enough. the ones that invent, truly do the main work; are not the ones that sip all the cream from said inventions and progress. its the 'i drink your milkshake' ones that do.
Shkrelies of the world or some heirs; whose work is often just on paper, who more often risk other people's money than their own. you can call them bad apples, for me its more like norm vs only a few 'good apples'. i truly cannot see how advantages of letting humans gain infinite fortunes can outweight the flaws of that.
anyways
to quote from that report "Economic growth together with the expansion of the government’s effort to redistribute to the country’s poorest people, Brazil halved the share of people living in absolute poverty over this short period of time. Similarly to other industrializing countries, this reduced the income inequality (measured with the Gini coefficient) over this period."
key world: REDISTRIBUTE - something your school of though is adamently against.
but as people are stupid; same brazilians that just recently crawled from poverty into lowmid/upperpoor, now elected their first right winger into office, and soon they will probably go the path that argentina went recently. history is repeating. those jackasses will promise them upper middle class lifestyles, but in the end their policies will inadvertedly increase the poor ratio. as we will find out in few decades... once again. mark my words.
it's like your bunch forgets that those stats, growths and numbers should serve not the number's sake, but human's sake.

I don't really trust those numbers. after about 10 seconds of goggle search I was able to find stats closer to my numbers, one of which was from UN website. maybe I'll look into it when I have the time and inclination.

as for the wealthiest making other ppl wealthy too and increasing their standard of living... yeeeaaa sure, for SOME, not those that'd actually need it. this trickle down bullshit evidently doesn't work.

If you give the links, I'll look into it. So far, what I've been able to find on the UN website is this. Key excerpts:

- 836 million people still live in extreme poverty
- About one in five persons in developing regions lives on less than $1.25 per day

and it is consistent with the World Bank data (it may even be the source)

I also looked up your "62 people" figure and it got me to the Oxfam report. I'll quote from it and let you judge if the data corresponds with my view that "everyone is getting richer" or the Bernie Sanders view that "rich get richer, poor get poorer".

From Oxfam:

The size of the global economy has more than doubled over the past 30 years.In 2014, its value reached nearly $78 trillion. As production and output continue to grow, there have been absolute increases in gross domestic product (GDP) – one of the main indicators of economic prosperity – in every region of the world over
this period. In South Asia, combined GDP in 2014 was more than five times what it was in 1985.

Over the past 30 years, average annual GDP growth has been higher in low- and middle-income countries than in richer ones. Average incomes in poorer countries are catching up with those in richer ones, and inequality between nations is falling.
Emerging economy powerhouses are leading this catch-up
process: China and India, for example, have driven much of the dramatic increase in the combined GDP of Asian countries. Between 1990 and 2011 economic growth in the region helped nearly a billion people to escape extreme poverty; 700 million in these two countries alone. The proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty fell from 36 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2010, such that the Millennium Development Goal to halve extreme poverty was met five years ahead of the 2015 target. Encouraged by this progress, in 2015 the world’s leaders committed to eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Global wealth stocks, the total value of all assets – financial and non-financial – minus total debt, have also seen robust growth, nearly doubling over the past 15 years from $160 trillion in 200015 to $267 trillion in 2015.16 While the 2008 global financial crisis had a negative effect on wealth stocks, every region in the world experienced growth over the period, with some of the biggest increases being in low- and middle-income countries. Wealth stocks in Latin America and Africa more than tripled, as did wealth in China and India, two of the fastest-growing emerging economies.

So it seems that the world is getting richer. But wait, that's not good enough, apparently. It's not about relative growth rates for the authors of the report -they strive for absolute growth rates to be more equal. More from the report:

Looking at the growth rates of the poorest income groups compared with the average, as the new SDG 10 sets out to do, fails to address the stark and growing gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ in absolute terms. Even if the incomes of the poorest people grow at the same rate or faster than the average, the absolute gap between the rich and the poor will continue to grow.
The incomes of the poorest are so low to start with that any growth in their incomes remains small in absolute terms, while for those with extremely high incomes even low growth in percentage terms can result in huge absolute increases.

This may come from the erroneous belief that economic growth just happens in and of itself and our overlords can direct it towards various social groups however they want or simply from envy. I don't know. What it certainly isn't is a group concerned with the plight of the poor who are being robbed by the rich.

And an almost obligatory objection for the use of the emotionally non-neutral groupings such as "bottom 10%", "top 1%" or, oh heavens, "the 62 richest people". In the methodology report, here's what Oxfam has to say:

The wealth of billionaires can fluctuate dramatically by significant amounts, even day to day, as reflected by the update to Forbes billionaire rankings which track wealth in real time. The wealth
of the richest 62 billionaires which we analyzed includes different individuals year to year.

(bold added by me)

"Bottom 10%" in 1980 are not the same people as "bottom 10%" in 2014. They're 24 years older (the alive ones) and very likely in higher income deciles. I bet you Bernie Sanders doesn't inform his voters during speeches about those distinctions.

"as for the wealthiest making other ppl wealthy too and increasing their standard of living... yeeeaaa sure, for SOME, not those that'd actually need it. this trickle down bullshit evidently doesn't work."

First of all, I like how a group of Bush senior and Reagan cronies, through their statist policies and free market rhetoric, created a whipping boy for leftists out of a legitimate economic theorem.

Anyway, back to your dismissal of my argument, how can you claim that on any basis other than what you believed up-front? According to their 2014 Annual Report, Wal-Mart paid out 4,652 billion dollars in wages that year. Do you think Sam Walton, whose family owns roughly 50% of the company, consumed 2,3 billion himself in 2014 (or even the entire family, however numerous it is?). I have only contrasted the wage benefit that Wal-Mart provides with owners' consumption and disregarded each incremental increase in wealth for every customer, since trickle down malarkey has always been about job creation.

Your response will probably be that Americans have a great standard of living anyway and could live without Wal-Mart. True, but Wal-Mart still contributes positively to their already high standard of living, even with the available competitors. And it's been expropriated by the state for the amount of 2,55 billion in legal plunder called taxes while doing that.

If you are concerned with the inhabitants of 3rd world countries and whether or not companies improve their life, I hope you'll be more receptive to supporting sweatshops, which, upon opening up a factory in a given country, offer wages several times higher than average. I don't mean the instances of slave labour of course. No matter how high a wage is offered then, it's still involuntary and diminishes the standard of living of a slave worker.

Yeah Ika but don't speak the truth because it doesn't agree with the politically correct leftists of the world!!111!

You're right make America great again, help the indians cleanse their homeland from all the colonists ! :D

i gonna take a wild guess here and claim that you and your family are also immigrants

Great website. More fun than these comments, for sure.

.::lol::.

All this comments on CNN how great this *censored* is ...

I don't care, we have our own problems ...

Hillary’s Bern Notice | Unfilter 174
Posted on: February 3, 2016
http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/93431/hill...ilter-174/

I don't care about political debate, like I said. We could debate your glibness, though.

ahh, you refered to the website not ESR, misunderstood you ...

Donald Trump is the only hope for an implosion of the Republican party.What's not to like about that?

"Oh no he wasn't a real republican, he just happened to be part of the republican party." (c) republican party after trump fucks up

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-35515472

Just thought I'd share that the aforementioned Trump is quoted as saying: "I would bring back waterboarding. I'd bring back a hell-of-a-lot worse than waterboarding"

Never go full trump.

.

I really hope you're trolling, because otherwise you are quite an unpleasant person. And I'm not baiting, I actually don't really want to talk to you

.

Kek, people can be really unpleasant. We should not feed them : )))

this is why I have stopped replying :>>

just wanted others reading to know I disagree strongly with this empty-headed Dird's view

This topic has just transformed into a political brawl.. perfect :D

\ :D /

It was inevitable :p

Murican politics is such great entertainment. You have only 2 sane people (Bernie/Hillary) still running and one of them is clearly corrupted. All of the remaining republicans are different types of crazy, the only relatively sane republican running was Rand Paul and to be honest calling him sane is a bit of a stretch. You vote any of the republicans and it's the beginning of the end or you vote Hillary and nothing changes. Bernie Sanders is the only rational choice you got.

spot on.
anybody with a few working braincells only has to watch one republican debate to see how pathetic it is. a reality tv show with no substance, where crazy religious fairytale-believing muppets queue their personal attacks and dangerous 'brilliant' ideas one after the other.

American retarded politics quite accurately explained in one video:

bunga bunga XD

I'm not saying that the italian political scene is less retarded than the american one. It's just a different kind of retardness.

Why Donald Trump?

...I never saw a president getting assassinated live. :D

clutch or uninstall imo

Because Clinton wanted to make violent vidya games illegal. Literally Hitler

I knew Rubio had no thought of his own, but this is just too good to be true.

Let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Obama
Let's dispel with this fiction that Obama
This notion that Obama
This notion that Obama

"He knows exactly what he's doing!"
:D

Trump is really smart and knows exactly what to say to get people like ika all fired up. He doesn't believe in any of his positions beyond the fact the he knows that it is devicive / what you want to hear..

Isn't it called democracy?

So Merkel gets on the front of time and gets a nobel peace prize nomination for inflicting misery on her citizens and probably starting civil war in Europe.

And trumps the bad guy for saying you're fucking idiots and suggesting something is done, or not following the same suit.

USA rep has dwindled big time since Bush and Obama have been in charge. Obama just hides away these days and comes out once in a while when a negro gets shot to maintain his 98% vote among black demographics, cos' racism is ok when its done by black people.

Trump will win and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

Would you like to bet money over Trump's victory/loss? He will not be the next U.S. president.

If not him, who? D:
I know Murricunts are fat and stupid but not enough to vote for Hillary...?

https://youtu.be/IrSsjdzlUSw

Good thing he didn't take you up on that bet.

Too bad for him, but I wouldn't have cared much about losing money compared to the incredibly sad news of Trump's victory.

Worry not, you can claw back your good humour and earn some money by going all-in on Hollande's reelection.

Why are you being toxic?

fuck off clinton bot, you got owned.
pretty fucking good news in my book that US will try to cooperate with Russia, instead of starting a nuclear war.
your continuous denial of hillary's utter corruption despite of overwhelming evidence from wikileaks facts, is beyond ridiculous. there are only two possibilities here: cerebral insufficiency, or spineless worm paid shill. gtfo

Feel free to substantiate your posts with evidence and we'll discuss it.

wikileaks documents. it's all there. and WE KNOW they are legit because multiple ppl lost their job over it. donna brazile, debbie wasserman schultz. it's all there, you simply refuse to look at the facts, you'd rather have your blinders on. and that's the end of it.

"we'll discuss it"
no we will not. don't talk to me anymore, you turd.

I'm glad we could establish that you were not going to substantiate your posts with evidence.