RE: Federal Government Shutdown
October 8, 2013 at 1:31 am
(This post was last modified: October 8, 2013 at 1:58 am by Creed of Heresy.)
(October 7, 2013 at 10:30 pm)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: -Charities- (in the plural)
<insert your big corporate here (Walmart, for example)>
Right, because it's totally done only for PR and not the delicious tax writeoffs, and they're also done in such sizable quantities so as to cover the entire destitute populace.

(October 7, 2013 at 10:30 pm)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: All 'national' systems can easily be taken over by private businesses (roads and parks? *giggles*).
I detailed what a fucking travesty this would be in another post and why there's a reason private concerns are not likely to provide good services on these affairs to people on an equal scale. They are profit-motivated, and while they can strike deals, how do you expect they're going to profit from city streets? What, is there going to be a toll booth at every light, can we expect competing road-owning companies to connect to one another, to purchase existing roads? And again, how would they profit from this? By charging the businesses and home-owners to pay fees to use those roads? And what happens if you can't pay it? Is your car booted from pulling out of your driveway? Road repair ain't cheap, you know, and nickel-and-dime income from small localities isn't even gonna make the companies break even, let alone profit in any substantial way. And don't even get me started on a private industry of police and firefighters and courts and prisons. That shit has actually been tried in Pennsylvia. How did that turn out?
Yes. They can be taken over by private interests...if our goal is to completely blow up our nation and send it crashing into the ground culturally, socially, and economically.
(October 7, 2013 at 10:30 pm)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: I didn't say that a government wasn't an effective way to get things like this in place... but stating that they are the only method by which any of these might occur is simply false (because there are other ways it might occur... QED and stuff).
They are the only method that a sane individual or voting population would ever consider. Literalism alone does not make a good argument, Vae. If we always went by the list of literal possibilities in every argument we'd never get anywhere. It's generally agreed upon that you only list the reasonable arguments and leave the ridiculous ones out of the equation. Occam's razor.
(October 7, 2013 at 10:30 pm)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: Likely not. Can't say never, but unless it becomes a significant concern... AND short-term profits aren't the focus of the company: it's not going to happen.
Well... health/safety of workers is fairly common in small-scale businesses.
Only because of Federal mandates about workman's comp and mandatory safety protocols. Look back at the Industrial Revolution era, especially in the beginning of the 20th century, if you want a prime example of how little of a shit corporations or even "small businesses" could give about workplace safety or employee well-being without Federal mandates. QED.