US Politics: Papers of Nefarious Clinton Regime Released!

[ants]

Heads I win, tails you lose. The government creates and enforces monopolies over public services. The government cannot then claim that merely existing in vast territorial area over which they have imposed monopolies over public services that you need to live therefore means that the government has absolute authority to impose its will on you.

Sure it does. Its called "the majority view", "might makes right", "democracy", etc. The simple reality is that powers is ceded to the government by the will of whoever is most powerful - often nowadays the citizens via democracy, but historically often other groups. That is a reality. It is not something that can be avoided.

Assuming we all here agree that democracy is the better option

Even RG admitted that the libertarian model required a government, albeit a small one. Assuming we all here agree democracy is the better option, it is thus representing the will of the majority. And yes, that majority can and will impose rules on the whole.

One of the elements of those rules that has developed, is a view that where it improves efficiency we have devolved to the government the right to make rules that better our lives. So we have them provide public goods to avoid the free loader problem. We have them regulate information and contracts so that minimum standards can be met, health standards maintained, protections entailed.

Now, you may argue that government should't do all that. But frankly, its a pretty stupid argument. Because without standards on things like medicines, food, road rules, public goods, you wouldn't have the infrastructure today, the level of wealth, the cheapness of food, have poorer health outcomes, and not be able to specialise. In short, you would reduce the standard of living of all but a handful of society. This seems - to me - to, as I said above, be a pretty stupid argument. That to gain a little freedom, you will sacrifice our high standard of living.

At the moment, the majority wants that standard of living, and enforces the government to set the rules and frameworks that sustain it. In that context, no, the business owner is not a free entity. Because the majority via the government is saying - and yes, enforcing - that everyone has to follow a certain set of rules to ensure the greater success of virtually all.

But where's the small-l liberal, social democratic courage to just stand up and say: "Not discriminating against people based on their age, sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, etc. is the right thing to do, and the government should be able to force you to stop doing it under threat of violence or confiscation of your personal property, and it's right for them to do that regardless of whether you've consented to it or not."

Yep, chalk me up for that group. As I've said earlier, I believe the common sense and fairest approach is the one that maximises the happiness for the bulk with some protections. Its not "right" because of some morals, its right because it ensures the maximum freedom and fairness in the society. As I said before to RG (below), I can see the argument for the freedom to discriminate. I just don't think the pain of forcing someone to photograph a gay wedding is near the same category as the discrimination since that has been shown when performed by the majority to lead to very bad outcomes for the minority. Real life bad outcomes.

Which gets onto my final point. In my view anti-discrimination laws are right up there with a bill of rights (or equivalent) in being built into the government as one of the most vital parts of a functioning democracy. Because they are the brakes on the majority turning their power into a tyranny. Strong rights and anti-discrimination laws help keep the majority (via the government) making only changes that increase the net benefit, rather than punitive, tyrannical rules. Their not a perfect protection, but an important one.

It's pretty clearly not the only reasonable, common-sense view on the matter. You have already agreed you are fine with racism and bigotry being allowed in the name of freedom, and articles have been presented showing that the death rate, health and economic welfare for minorities suffered during racist periods. So you are in fact arguing that the majority have the right to pursue policies against a minority that leads to their shortened lives, economic impoverishment and mental scars. But its fine, in the name of freedom. As long as no lynchings or internment camps are occurring.

You may believe the above is a common sense outcome. Many of the rest of us do not.

[TrackerNeil]

"Show yourselves bigots! Validate my caricature of you! Righteous indignation is so much easier and self-satisfying than debating this stuff."

You know, I wasn't going to respond to this, but then I got to thinking about it - my mistake - and I decided to have a go.

I don't know if you are a bigot, Commodore, because I don't know you. However, the statement I quoted contains many of the earmarks of a bigoted speaker. Indifference to a history of discrimination and scorn for the underprivileged are part of the foundations of bigotry, in my view, and both are on full display here. I'm dismayed that you seem to lack the self-awareness to listen to your own words. Look at the side you're on, and the measures you consistently support. Seriously. And think about how you'll appear in ten years.

[DanteGabriel]

Ted Cruz Criticized Abortion Protesters for Chanting 'Hail Satan.' This Satanist Is Offended.

So why is their practice of faith less worthwhile than anyone else's? I ask this in complete seriousness.

And think about how you'll appear in ten years.

It doesn't look all that good now.

[Suttree]

Validate my caricature of you! Righteous indignation is so much easier and self-satisfying than debating this stuff."

Oh th irony. Given the source, this is beyond hilarious.

[Sci-2]

So why is their practice of faith less worthwhile than anyone else's? I ask this in complete seriousness.

Oh it's not. (In fact I'd say Satan and Yaweh could be equally good or evil depending on how you interpret the mythology.)

The Satanist who wrote the article was pointing out why Cruz trying to claim that pro-choicers serve Satan in the name of Evil was disingenous.

[karaddin]

Oh wonderful, we've got some of this whole "FREE SPEECH! RELIGIOUS FREEDOM!" song and dance going on down here at the moment as well. Obviously it's not US politics but maybe you guys could use some solidarity! Apparently having repugnant views about gay people that you admit influences your practice even while you deny it influences your practice shouldn't interfere with your ability to practice as a psychologist, our medical board needs to tread very lightly according to our "human rights commissioner" (which really means Freedom Commissioner, he was the head of a libertarian think tank that is very closely associated with our right wing party).

Mr Wilson said the psychological board needed to be careful.
''He is entitled to his repugnant views, but free speech comes with responsibility,'' he said. ''The issue comes down to if this is a responsibility for the board and they should be wary of imposing their personal standard, basically threatening people's livelihoods on the basis of their repugnant views.
''They of course have the legal right to decide who can practice but they need to consider very seriously whether they think that just because someone expresses extreme and repugnant views, then [is that] sufficient ground to limit their capacity to practice?''

What is so fucking hard to understand about the idea of "he is perfectly entitled to not just hold these views but even express them and run for office, but the views he espouses make his ability to actually help certain people as a psychologist pretty fucking questionable". Oh I forgot, because Freedom.

[awesome possum]

The left's obsession with the (pro-gay marriage, pro drug legalization, anti-spying, anti corporate welfare, uber philanthropic) Koch brothers is something to see.

Wow, the mental gymnastics here is impressive.

But yes, the Koch brothers have become the left's bogeymen. And deservedly so. The tea party wouldn't be what it is today without their funding. They very much deserve to be publicly shamed and damned and tied to the teanuts they helped bring to prominence.

The politics subreddit is all Koch, all the time.

No it's not. Of the top 100 links in /r/politics from the past week, 8 are about the Koch's.

I can't figure out if you're just this dishonest when it comes to politics, or you're that bad with numbers.

[Seli]

Government is force. Dressing it up in flowery language doesn't change it's nature

Compelling a business to serve those it doesn't want to serve is not "people trying to get along," it's a clear imposition of force. Now you may think it's justified on those terms, but I agree with Nestor that the language-twisting is getting ridiculous. Y'all are using "contract", "consent", "force," "coercion" and other words to mean something completely antithetical to their actual definitions

Yes of course government is force. That is one of the reasons our ancestors created traditions, rights, and laws to bind it and try to control it for their own best interests.

One of the ways that force is used is as a lever against free loaders in our societies. Those who make use of the protection of their person, property, business, offered by state and society but refuse to reciprocate.

[Paladin of Ice]

I couldn't tell what you were talking about for the first part of your post, but could you post some of these links? I'm genuinely curious

I assume you mean my most recent post in the first part of your line. What I was saying is that what I always hear from libertarians is that corporations won't do any horrific things to people in an ideal libertarian world because if they do, people will boycott and sue them. Because of that fear of being sued or boycotted, corporations supposedly won't do things like, say, steal money from their employees, make shoddy and unsafe products, or dump toxic sludge into drinking water. In a libertarian world, or at least as I've heard it from most libertarians that I've had the dubious pleasure of encountering, that's supposed to be the control factor in place of government.

Well, in this case you have two people who have an issue with a business and its services whose response is not to try to get the government to change the law or what not, but to go through the courts and sue, the same way that libertarians say people are supposed to do in the ideal libertarian world. So why do you have such an issue with it? (By the way, yet another reason why I think libertarianism is a laughable philosophy that hasn't been thought through; in the ideal libertarian world with barely any government, if a court does find against a corporation when people sue them, how exactly is the court going to enforce any kind of edict on the billion dollar multinational corporation when government is small enough to be drowned in a bathtub?)

As for our prior postings, in the previous politics thread, you posted the following about the news of Obama and Hagel proposing cuts to the military budget:

The liberal dems and the tea party should generally support less military spending - it will be the neocons pushing hard against it

And I responded with this:

Logically, one would think the tea party would be against military spending, given how much it costs and how much they talk about national debt, (not to mention how much tax revenue has to be raised to support it), but I feel a very predictable backlash coming from that sector, who will soon be talking about how Obama wants to weaken the country and let our enemies win or something along those lines.

You then assured me that there were sharp divisions on the right on the subject and that there would be plenty who agreed with cutting the military. A day or two later, I posted some of the early feedback from the right.

First up, Allen West: "Hagel is a traitor, Obama is intentionally attacking military families"

Jeniffer Burke from Tea Party News Network: "Hagel a "Republican" anti-war tool of the leftist Obama regime"

Nikki Haley: "This is a slap in the face"

What do the writers at Breitbart have to say?

Overall, major defense cuts come with a serious price: the price of emboldened enemies. Unfortunately, the cuts contemplated by Chuck Hagel and company have already borne fruit in an emboldened China in the South China Sea, a resurgent Vladimir Putin-led Russia, an aggressively Islamist Middle East. The problem with military cuts is not merely that they decrease American capacity to make war, though they surely do. The problem is that purposeful and large-scale military decreases send a message to the rest of the world that America is in retreat.

Sadly, under the Obama administration, that signal is both clear and correctly interpreted.

What do the guys at free republic say?

It took sixty-nine years to build America into the world's only superpower; it has taken Obama less than six to flippantly throwaway America’s national influence and unilaterally disarm America through a conscious and treasonous hollowing-out of America’s military capability.

Tea Party tribune?

Seething…I’m actually seething as once again the very people who lay their lives on the line to keep us safe and free at home are being both dishonored and put in harm’s way as muslim sympathizing, Obama-loving Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is recommending major cuts to our military

...

this downsizing includes the loss of battleships and fighter planes including the retiring of older weapons such as the U-2 spy plane and the A-10 attack aircraft…leaving the U.S. homeland and our foreign interests more vulnerable to enemy attacks. And these cuts are disproportionately being done to our military budget over any and all other department’s budget cuts…can’t dare cut the freebie and handout programs now can they…

So, contrary to what you said would happen, we have everyone from tea party politicians to self identified tea party internet journalists and commentators laying into the plan, and trust me it's just the tip of a very big iceberg. Do you have any positive tea party reactions to report?

[DanteGabriel]

So, contrary to what you said would happen, we have everyone from tea party politicians to self identified tea party internet journalists and commentators laying into the plan, and trust me it's just the tip of a very big iceberg. Do you have any positive tea party reactions to report?

Thank you for collecting and laying out all that stuff. Supporting defense cuts and engaging in less foreign adventurism should be right up the purported alley of the Tea Party. This is the Tea Party's chance to prove it really is about spending and government run amok, and not about a scary blackMuslimSocialistBlackPanther in the White House.

[Ormond]

My only goal in this thread is clearer and more honest discussion!

Legally - I think whether a business can discriminate will likely come down to whether or not what they do constitutes "expressive" conduct protected by the first amendment.

Philosophically - I think businesses should be allowed to discriminate against people because that's consistent with the non-aggression principle that underlies my philosophical anarchism.

Practically - I don't have much of a problem with anti-discrimination laws because I fear that the results of my philosophical position would lead to some bad, and some really bad, consequences and I'm not sure I'd rather live in that society.

So consider me confuzzled.

You know, your "confuzzlement" is a sign that you are maturing.

Research by developmental psychologists like Jane Loevinger shows that many people go through a stage in their life where a particular philosophy or ideology is paramount in their self-concept. But for those who remain intellectually engaged, the normal path is to begin to see the flaws and liabilities in one's own ideology and to pay more attention to the areas where a 100% imposition of any ideology is inadequate.

There simply is no philosophy or ideology -- whether it be anarachism, libertarianism, liberalism, communism, socialism, atheism, Christianity, Islam, etc, -- which will always result in a world where justice and happiness are maximized for all human beings. Elevating one ideal over all others in every situation, whether it be "Freedom", "Equality", "Happiness", or anything else, is always going to be inadequate as a guide for decision making in the end and would lead to "really bad consequences," as you are realizing in regard to your own philosophical position.

The real world is a confusing place full of paradox, and realizing that is a sign of intellectual and emotional maturity.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

You know, your "confuzzlement" is a sign that you are maturing.

Research by developmental psychologists like Jane Loevinger shows that many people go through a stage in their life where a particular philosophy or ideology is paramount in their self-concept. But for those who remain intellectually engaged, the normal path is to begin to see the flaws and liabilities in one's own ideology and to pay more attention to the areas where a 100% imposition of any ideology is inadequate.

There simply is no philosophy or ideology -- whether it be anarachism, libertarianism, liberalism, communism, socialism, atheism, Christianity, Islam, etc, -- which will always result in a world where justice and happiness are maximized for all human beings. Elevating one ideal over all others in every situation, whether it be "Freedom", "Equality", "Happiness", or anything else, is always going to be inadequate as a guide for decision making in the end and would lead to "really bad consequences," as you are realizing in regard to your own philosophical position.

The real world is a confusing place full of paradox, and realizing that is a sign of intellectual and emotional maturity.

I really walked right into that one.

[TrackerNeil]

There simply is no philosophy or ideology -- whether it be anarachism, libertarianism, liberalism, communism, socialism, atheism, Christianity, Islam, etc, -- which will always result in a world where justice and happiness are maximized for all human beings. Elevating one ideal over all others in every situation, whether it be "Freedom", "Equality", "Happiness", or anything else, is always going to be inadequate as a guide for decision making in the end and would lead to "really bad consequences," as you are realizing in regard to your own philosophical position.

The real world is a confusing place full of paradox, and realizing that is a sign of intellectual and emotional maturity.

YES. The map is not the territory, as we should try to keep in mind when we find ourselves saying, "The map doesn't show a river here, so what's with all this water?"

[Jackson5tributeband]

Wow, the mental gymnastics here is impressive.

But yes, the Koch brothers have become the left's bogeymen. And deservedly so. The tea party wouldn't be what it is today without their funding. They very much deserve to be publicly shamed and damned and tied to the teanuts they helped bring to prominence.

No it's not. Of the top 100 links in /r/politics from the past week, 8 are about the Koch's.

I can't figure out if you're just this dishonest when it comes to politics, or you're that bad with numbers.

What are you arguing exactly? That the left side of politics in the U.S., specifically the Democratic party, has less money to spend on political campaigns than the right? This is demonstrably untrue as the past two presidential elections have proven the opposite. I guess what I'm asking is whether your objection to the Koch brothers spending their millions supporting right wing candidates and causes is about the corrupting influence of money in politics in general or are you just advocating that the side you oppose should be denied all funding from rich donors?

[Shryke]

What are you arguing exactly? That the left side of politics in the U.S., specifically the Democratic party, has less money to spend on political campaigns than the right? This is demonstrably untrue as the past two presidential elections have proven the opposite. I guess what I'm asking is whether your objection to the Koch brothers spending their millions supporting right wing candidates and causes is about the corrupting influence of money in politics in general or are you just advocating that the side you oppose should be denied all funding from rich donors?

How many people that money comes from is hugely important.

[lokisnow]

Senate map has gone from bad to worse. Prediction now is 48 dem, 49 republican and 3 toss ups. YIKES!

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/senate-update-domino-effects/

Luckily, Nate Silver relaunches on Monday, which will probably be a similarly dire prediction and put the fear into dem fundraisers. Not that it mattered in 2010, Silver predicted that catastrophe for over a year and the dem party didn't give a shit.

At least recruitment of candidates went pretty well due to the government shut down, that may staunch the bleeding of the 2014 cycle somewhat, and may be our only saving grace.

[Commodore]

What about billionaires Tom Steyer (pledges $100 million to help Dems in 2014) and Mark Zuckerberg (spending millions pushing amnesty) and Michael Bloomberg (spending millions pushing gun control)?

[Suttree]

There is a serious need for campaign finance reform. We need big money out of politics regardless of what side of the spectrum it falls on.

[ants]

What about billionaires Tom Steyer (pledges $100 million to help Dems in 2014) and Mark Zuckerberg (spending millions pushing amnesty) and Michael Bloomberg (spending millions pushing gun control)?

Didn't Bloomberg run as a Republican?

[Commodore]

There is a serious need for campaign finance reform. We need big money out of politics regardless of what side of the spectrum it falls on.

http://youtu.be/E8rvjq-Gdio

Campaign finance regulation hurts poorer challengers that don't have the means to comply with them, and in fact incumbency and incumbent spending disparity has increased since campaign finance regulation started in the 1970s.