US Politics: the business of America is business

[Suttree]

I'm the one in the echo chamber? Compared to the lively debate and diverse viewpoints that usually occur in these threads? :lol:

Just going off the fact that your talk points regulaly sound like a Rush mini-me. Shrug...if you really object, by all means make a case. At this point you are failing spectacularly on that count. Notice you still haven't tried to address the points raised against you, if you want to be taken seriously at least give it a go.

[Ramsay Gimp]

Just going off the fact that your talk points regulaly sound like a Rush mini-me. Shrug...if you really object, by all means make a case. At this point you are failing spectacularly on that count.

Like most lefties, you assume everyone who holds a contrary opinion is an uneducated talk-radio hick. "Echo chamber" - talk about projection.

[The Marquis de Leech]

What is with all these strained analogies? The scenario you described is nothing like being refused service at a restaurant. It's like comparing a schoolyard fight to WW2

I was merely engaging in a bit of reductio ad absurdum in order to point out that there exist situations where positive liberty (the right to be provided with something) trumps negative liberty (the right to be left alone). It's no use hiding behind appeals to freedom from coercion if it means you starve to death (you have said that the Government exists to prevent use of force or fraud).

[Lord of Rhinos]

Considering how often Libertarians have posted in the political threads you'd think regular posters would understand basic libertarian principals by this point. It's all about FREEDOM!

[Suttree]

Like most lefties, you assume everyone who holds a contrary opinion is an uneducated talk-radio hick. "Echo chamber" - talk about projection.

Ermmm, I'm reacting to your posts in which you made explicit statements. There's nothing to assume. You're just dodging after being called out. End of.

[Lord of Rhinos]

I'm not gonna bother reading this, since there's no point in actually trying to have a reasonable debate with you. Is there a way I could put you on ignore or something?

Scroll to the top of the page. Beside the sign out button on the top right is your user name. Click it and you should see an option to manage ignore preferences.

[Ramsay Gimp]

Scroll to the top of the page. Beside the sign out button on the top right is your user name. Click it and you should see an option to manage ignore preferences.

:cheers:

[Sci-2]

Chris Christie's Entire Career Reeks: It's not just the bridge

Many of the scandals and mini-scandals and scandals-within-scandals that the national media is salivating over have been in full view for years. Even the now-infamous Bridgegate was percolating for months before it exploded into the first major story of the next presidential race.

Case in point: Last year, just before Thanksgiving, I traveled to Trenton to see Bill Baroni, Christie’s top staff appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, get grilled by state legislators about the closure of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in September. It was clear that something fishy was going on. Baroni gave a command performance, defending the closures as part of a traffic study, but more than that, as a matter of justice. Discussing whether Fort Lee deserved three dedicated lanes during rush hour, Baroni demanded, “Is this fair?” His voice actually cracked with emotion. “And if it is not fair, how do you not study it?”

But there were only a handful of reporters in the room to witness his melodramatics, and it was six weeks before the national media caught on to the story. Outside New Jersey, at least, it seemed inconceivable that Christie, good-government evangelist, scourge of Soprano State shenanigans, could preside over a piece of payback so outrageous and so petty.

[emberling]

You are clearly free from human coercion, yes. You fell down a well, you were not pushed. Nobody is free from circumstance or fate or nature

Why is everything bad being called "force" all of a sudden?

Your consistent failure in this discussion is conflating the state of being free/having freedom with the state of being free from human coercion. If I go to act and a man bars my way, I am not free. If I go to act and a bear bars my way, I am still not free. If I must carefully plan my outings in ways that others do not, and I must avoid certain establishments and even certain regions - because I'm particularly tasty to bears, for instance - they can smell me for miles - so I have to stay out of bear country -- it's not anyone's fault, it's just the bears, but that is still a freedom that I am lacking.

Your political philosophy (in general terms, as I can't know your specific version) hinges on the value judgement that government intervention that reduces any freedom at all is evil, no matter how much other freedom it creates. Which is an entirely defensible position. But what you are doing here, what so many in your camp love to do, is to selectively redefine reality and language until any created opportunities (freedoms) are recast as illusory, unimportant, or even somehow harmful; and then taking that warped comparison and using it to claim that the other side must be in bad faith, must be only out for themselves, must be the evil ones, because their gain is so small and our loss so large. But it is not; it is only that you cannot stomach any loss whatsoever, that any step down gapes like a chasm. If you would argue in a way that acknowledges this - by focusing on why government intervention is wrong, not by focusing on how the problem isn't as bad as they say or on oh it's those poor bigots who are the victims here - then I'm certain your argument would be much better received.

Yeah, not well received. Not here. But much better. I've seen it happen.

Meanwhile, I'll be downloading this app that's supposed to show me where I can probably stop to pee without worrying about being arrested or beaten to death for it. Ah, freedom.

[Shryke]

OK, let's say I buy up all the land around Ramsay Gimp's house, and put mines all through it, because, well it's my property, and no-one can coerce me otherwise. Ramsay Gimp can't leave his house without crossing my land, and getting blown up. So he starves to death.

What a beautiful lack of coercion that is...

Is this an example or a plan?

Cause if it's a plan, it's not gonna work cause he doesn't have to leave his house to post.

And Amazon will use drones to fly him food. :p

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Libertarianism is nothing more than the repackaging of the divine right of kings for an era in which that particular explanation for why the powerful should remain powerful is no longer persuasive. Clearly power should not be inherited based on genes or, heaven forfend, God's approval. Instead, power should be inherited because.property is the fundamental right of humanity, against which we must never transgress. And therefore it is right and just and necessary that Murdoch or Buffet or Gates or Bloomberg have an astonishing amount of money, that their heirs should have an astonishing amount of money (read: power), and so on down through the generations.

[Ser Reptitious]

RG, I'd be curious to hear your response to this earlier post of mine in response to Lord Mord:

Lord Mord said:
what they have materially done to harm anyone: nothing at all. In the same restaurant, someone else will serve you. In the same town, another restaurant has zero people of that particular affliction of prejudice.

My response:

That always seems to be the presumption when Libertarians argue against anti-discrimination laws, but what exactly are they basing that on? There are plenty of low-density isolated spaces (think places like rural Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, etc.) where there may well be only one restaurant or grocery store. So yes, refusal of service in those places could indeed have very dire consequences beyond hurt feelings for those affected.

And even in places with more people and service options, strong dislike of a particular group may well be widespread enough that getting the necessary service again would be very difficult to obtain. The Kansas House of Representatives didn't pass that horrific would-be law (by a wide margin, no less) in a vaccum. There is obviously a significant and well-organized enough part of Kansas' population that was pushing for this law. You (generic Libertarian you) might want to keep that in mind next time you again naively assume that bigots of any kind only make up a tiny proportion of today's population. Wishing doesn't make it so!

[MerenthaClone]

It must be nice, being in a societal position where you can derive all of your political beliefs from principles without regard to the practicalities of any of them.

edit: Scratch that, it is nice, since in most ways, that's where I am too. I won't unnecessarily victimize myself. I just have friends who aren't.

[Lyanna Stark]

That always seems to be the presumption when Libertarians argue against anti-discrimination laws, but what exactly are they basing that on? There are plenty of low-density isolated spaces (think places like rural Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, etc.) where there may well be only one restaurant or grocery store. So yes, refusal of service in those places could indeed have very dire consequences beyond hurt feelings for those affected.

I always assumed that libertarians kind of calculated with some losses and that this was deemed acceptable in the larger quest for Freedom. At least to me, it seems that the general view is that "Well, too bad that some groups/individuals will suffer, but they just have to Pay the Price for the Greater Good of Freedom". Hence groups like POC, gays, women etc. and the people stuck with mines all around their houses or the ones who fall down wells with nobody deeming them important enough to pick up, they are just acceptable sacrifices for the Cause.

I am however uncertain about if there are so many people sacrificing themselves, will the sacrifice itself make it all Worth It? Do you get a gold star or something for Paving the Way to Freedom?

[ants]

RG,

I think the complaints about attack and an echo chamber are slightly unfair. Although some have obviously simply made disparaging remarks, you do tend to avoid many of the more pointed arguments.

Example 1: you claim your position is obvious via first principles, Seli below made a strong argument against that, and there has been no response.

I don't see how you can get to your position from first principles. At least not the ones I'd use.

1 Keep it simple

2 Individual freedom (which stops when you hurt others)

3 Simple hierarchy of needs (survival over feelings^*)

This would indicate to me that the right to deny service because of feelings is trumped by the right to receive service.

^*NB! the eternal discussion on what is feelings and what is immutable part of the individual means that defining protected classes is compatible with these first principles under the keep it simple section.

Example 2: I pointed out your position allows atrocities that you agreed were morally reprehensible. But your only defence was that those wouldn't occur in the current environment. I pointed out though that your position does allow it, and puts no protections against it happening. The only defence is a hopeful "well it won't happen". If you have a stronger defence please present it.

Taking it to the extent of death is unlikely right now, the economic part is very much real in many areas. But your argument justifies those positions. To say you want that to be possible, but it's ok since its unlikely to occur is very faulty logic.

And Seli pointed out the flaws when you come from first principles.

Example 3: It took pages and pages for you to respond that the laws provisions with respect to government services, despite people pointing to them again and again. At least you finally acknowledged that question with a quick - ok that part of the law was bad. But it felt like you dodged that question as long as possible.

All this really gets to the point of why you are getting some vitriol. You, and your fellow libertarians, duck the hard practical questions. I'm reminded of another US Politics thread in January where someone agreed that the position you're presenting was terrible if performed at an extreme (e.g. Nazi's, apartheid) but continued to argue for it at a lower level. When I pointed out that dichotomy and asked what was the criteria for a switch from bad to ok I received no response. Similar to your lack of response.

And this happens again and again and again. I've been posting in the politics threads over 10 years and believe me it gets pretty annoying when people come in, say we're in an echo chamber, put up some arguments and then when hard questions get asked just disappear again (it was one of the reasons so many of us liked FLOW - he'd argue his positions even if we disagreed with his positions).

It gets frustrating and leads to a lot of snarky comments.

[awesome possum]

:bawl: :crying:

Awww, it's okay. I would throw a little pity party for myself too if it meant my bigoted views were called out and smacked down for the ignorant bullshit that they are.

[aceluby]

Moronic. Free association is like legal murder?

No, it's showing the absurdity of talking about law and stating 'legalities aside'... There is no 'legalities aside' when talking about law and discrimination.

[TrueMetis]

What does this mean? The U.S. Government as originally founded was rather close to the ideal I stated (yes, yes, slavery and lack of rights for women were major marks against that period)

The US government formed cause they believed that white male landowners in the US deserved taxation with representation. In what way is that not shaping beliefs and ideals?

Like most lefties, you assume everyone who holds a contrary opinion is an uneducated talk-radio hick. "Echo chamber" - talk about projection.

Yeah sure, it not that your argument isn't convincing anyone. No it our fault cause obviously we couldn't just disagree with you. And it certainly couldn't be that these exact arguments come up time and time again never changing and it get tiresome for the people debating them.

[Sci-2]

Like most lefties, you assume everyone who holds a contrary opinion is an uneducated talk-radio hick. "Echo chamber" - talk about projection.

I don't think you're an uneducated talk-radio hick. I think you've managed to find a distorted meaning to the concept of freedom, likely based around the lack of discrimination faced in your own life.

It's a terrible precedent that would be impossible to set limits on once allowed.

[TrackerNeil]

The main point you're ignoring is that we already tried what you're proposing. It resulted in massively negative consequences for minorities, the ramifications of which are still being dealt with today and which will continue to affect minorities for decades to come. The only reason you can even think about saying that it wouldn't happen now is because of 50 years of law that prohibited it from happening, so you presume that the present is the new normal.

Yup. It's like, "My diabetes has been fine; I don't need this insulin any longer."