(September 22, 2013 at 3:51 pm)Koolay Wrote: If market freedom gives us economic growth, why not ditch parasitical violence so we can have maximum economic growth? You see this is what I do not get, how can you recognise that fascism is morally wrong and grossly inefficient, but be okay with half fascism?
For one thing...parasitical violence was used by factory owners against their laborers when the laborers went on strike during the industrial revolution because they were demanding better wages so they could actually live the American Dream and not the Capitalist Nightmare. Strikers were beaten, threatened, extorted, and sometimes killed by thugs and cops bought off by the factory owners in an attempt to scare the workers into working again. The American National Guard had to be called in to threaten the thugs, purchased cops, and factory owners with martial retaliation to stop the violence. The peaceful laborers were given better wages . The concept of the worker's union is an idea that the workers, who provide the backbone of the business-owners, are, by their numbers, valid in their rights to demand better conditions from their employers. Free market's been trying to crush these unions, been trying to keep workers from daring to demand their own share of a company's success in an actual, tangible form. "We're doing great this quarter, in thanks, here's a bonus check! All of your bonus checks combined are a pittance against what the execs will pocket individually, but hey, scraps! Trickle-down economics!" I am not espousing fascism of ANY sort. Not full, not half, not even slightly. What I'm espousing is the idea that either the guys at top pay higher taxes to provide for the nation and all of its services that enable their success and that everyone else uses as well, or they pay their laborers much better wages to narrow the income gap. They want to do neither. And given how tax breaks and cuts on top of breaks and cuts don't give any incentive whatsoever to business owners to hire more workers or pay them better or give them better benefits, I see no reason why I should give the 1% any more slack. I see no reason to lower taxes on them, and I see no reason to trust them whatsoever, and therefore I see no reason to further allow deregulations of safety standards. You say that those five nations with highest economic freedom are the "best" or something but, they still have unemployment and poverty that aren't really that far off from the US was when we had MORE regulations AND taxes during the Clinton Administration. In fact during that time, our economy was surging! Higher regs, more taxes, yet our economy was suddenly taking off. Your arguments ring hollow in the face of the evidence of historical fact.
Quote:It is not logically consistent, either using violence to achieve your means is right or wrong, you can't just make up circumstances you want. Like, I can't say that "Rape is wrong, except under circumstance x, y, z" it would be insane. Either rape is wrong or it is not.
Again, I am not advocating violence at all. I abhor violence. I am of the opinion that violence against another is a despicable, loathsome act, but at the same time, sometimes, I can see what it's initiated if it's out of desperation. I lived in Detroit, dude. I've seen firsthand was the "free market" did to that entire city and all those people. It found a way right to Mexico and China and left hundreds of thousands to fall into squalor and destitution because the jobs that the metropolis had been built on were completely gone. All those people were made desperate by the free market. Glory to it, right? It'll stop violence. Except it won't.
Quote:The non aggression principle, has to be applied to everyone. Genuinely, I do not understand how you do not see this.
In what way do I seem like I advocate violence?
Quote:So people voluntarily trading goods and services with each other is a 'rampage' but, a small group of people holding the monopoly on violence forcing everyone to submit money to them is not?
Ah. Here we come to it. The idea that any sort of taxation is wrong because it is enforced with "violence." What you are essentially saying now is that the businesses who have benefited so heavily from the infrastructure laid out by the government using taxpayer money, as well as the police forces and military forces that have kept their interests safe, along with all the other services provided that everyone, businessmen and entrepreneurs, laborers and charity workers, all of them have all benefited from...they should not pay taxes, because they enforced by "violence." See, there is a sort of social contract; you use the public services, you pay taxes to upkeep, maintain, and upgrade them for everyone's usage. If you refuse to pay the taxes, you are in violation of the contract and must serve a fee...in this case, jail time. And if you resist, you are restrained and taken by force to be sentenced and imprisoned. I would not call restraining someone and escorting them to serve their penalty "violence," especially not if they are not physically harmed in the process unless they initiate violence first, in which case it becomes self-defense, which is when violence is legitimate. It's almost like a business arrangement; you use the service, you pay the fee. You use more of the service for your possessions? You pay more of a fee. Are you paying more than what the service would cost? That's because in the interest of keeping things fair and trying to prevent the richest from getting richer and the poor from getting poorer, we use that money to give them opportunities by providing them with education and means of transportation, healthcare provisions, and security by law enforcement.
This is basic shit necessary for the functioning of a stable society. I would love to see a case-by-case addressing of all these points by any libertarian individual but the funny thing is I just end up with bleating cries of transgressions against their own idealism, an idealism which is just simply not in tune with the realities of the in-between world of civics and economics. You want to push more weight to economics than civics. You want to upset the balance. I want the balance corrected. This is the difference between your ideology and mine.
Quote:Well listen, if you can not understand that 2+2=4, then you are getting something fundamentally wrong about math. If you can not realise that principles, especially moral principles need to be universalised, then me discussing the details is ignoring the problem.
That didn't answer my question. And also, now you are arguing for objective morality? You might as well be wishing that the entire earth was made of gold, steaks grew on trees, and that we all had a genie we could make ten wishes from while you're at it. You're arguing now in the face of human nature. THAT is a force not you nor anybody else will ever be able to tame, not by any means. War, peace, economy, civics, religion, science, it's just never gonna happen. All you can do is just work for improving the lot of others and hope that it mitigates the violence and problems in the world, at least to an extent where it isn't really that big of a problem anymore. I get that you want a capitalist utopia...but utopias just do not work.
Seek balance. Not perfection. The former is obtainable. The latter is not.
Quote:Me skipping universally preferable behaviour, and explaining economic behaviour would be like teaching someone math, finding out that they think 2+2=5, then going to algebra. It's just glazing over the misunderstanding, ultimately it would be a waste of both of our time. So, I wont discuss economics with you, only philosophy. If your end conclusion is just going to be use violence to achieve ends, then there is no point in me trying to convince you to accept otherwise. If you point guns at me, I am just going to submit. I won't pretend someone who wants to initiate violence has any interest in a rational discussion.
Again. Violence isn't necessary. Not even in the form of paying taxes. See, if you do not like the system of taxes...you can leave. Yeah! You can opt out of it, but in doing so, you will have to leave the country, because the country cannot just make you immediately exempt. And the problem is, everything that's been laid down, everything that is used? It's all owned by the government, it's all public property. Public, because we are a democratic republic, where power is not supposed to be in how much money you make, but in the idea that everyone should have equal say. Unfortunately, money seems to be usurping that and more and more, people are starting to think that violence will become necessary because the richest members of our economy seem to think that fewer people should hold more power just because they're provided a service to other people that other people paid them their money for. That, my friend, is an oligarchy, and it is just another form of that despotism that you hate so much about North Korea. The names of the position may be different; "Great Leader of North Korea," or "Chief Executive Officer of the United Corporation of America," but they both mean the same thing: Man with all the power given legitimacy by disregarding the people below him as little more than slaves, fodder, or resources to be used as he sees fit.
Do you argue with that? Do you argue that the idea of a few men taking power away slowly but surely, inexorably in fact, from the many whose constitution was set up to prevent such tyranny from taking place? Do you argue that the many who have enabled such men to be as successful as they are would be wrong in initiating violence against them, even if it's to save themselves from becoming meaningless tools in a corporate, faceless empire in which they have no say in the workings of other than the meager salaries those at the top may deign them worthy to earn if they're REALLY lucky? I mean, we're already seeing that kind of thing in practice RIGHT NOW. Look around you, look at the constant income gap, at how [ugh I hate using buzzwords and soundbytes...] the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. This isn't because of government interference or welfare programs meant to save people who get fucked over by life and the marketplace, it's because the marketplace keeps demanding less and less interference when it is in fact an entity specifically designed to do little more than accrue more and more power. Left unchecked, that power can become damn near limitless.
This in a nation where we are supposed to have a guaranteed, constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, where all humans are born equal and should be respected as equals; as human beings. Even if you're born a complete retard, barely capable of functioning, you're still a human being, beholden to the same rights...even if by physical and/or mental defects you cannot fully exercise them. If by some means you end up being of mind and/or body to be able to do so, then you are, as a born human being and citizen of the US, entitled to those rights immediately.
It stands to reason that you try to replace these guarantees with a view that money trumps everything and can buy whatever it wants and do whatever it wants, and less than 1% of the population is trying to make our system EXACTLY that, and that essentially people are being pushed more and more towards becoming debt slaves and economy-pawns and little else because of the forces of the free market, then eventually when you push hard enough and people become desperate because their lives are steadily being driven into ruination [something that is all too common a theme these days], they're going to rebel against the forces causing this...violently.
Let the scales balance. Let civics and economy keep each other steady. Your constitutional rights as an American citizen are not being infringed upon by taxes and regulations. Your private life is supposed to be guaranteed to be private. Your PROFESSIONAL life, however, never was. You want to push for the government to also stay out of professional life, even when professional life is something that directly and indirectly affects potentially huge numbers of people?
You will not have my support on that. Because I want the scales balanced. I don't want the government intruding on everything. I want the government to serve the people as it was meant to do, and if that means we all gotta pay taxes that are matched from labor-effort to-quality-of-life and finally to after-tax holdings that are sufficient for a man to still have much, so that those of ill fortune may regain their footing, or those who cannot take care of themselves because of conditions or illness or injury are cared for all the same? So be it. Such is the humane route.
All I hear anymore out of libertarians is "those billionaires deserve every penny, and fuck the ones who are devoid of anything, they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps!" when it comes to social safety nets and taxes and how taxes fuel those programs. That's what it all amounts to. Whining about not being enough of a millionaire or billionaire by sitting on your ass at a desk while others do all the grunt work for you at far less pay than you make while there are millions in this nation are starving and dying and devoid of shelter without care, or receive insufficient care, or are barely living any kind of life in dilapidated slums with barely any of the modern conveniences that most of us take for granted.
You want to talk about morality? Check your own compass first...you'll notice it's completely shattered.
