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I'm inclined to think that the collapse of other fiat currencies around the world, combined with implosion of those countries economies [subsequent fall in the demand of commodities and such] would probably cause the value of the US Dollar to rise, at least relative to other currencies. It is an irony of sort. People will turn to the dollar because out of a fear for everything else.

But seriously financial advise on this forum? Ridiculous.

Figure out what you believe and then look for the rebuttals to those ideas, then try to find the rebuttals to those rebuttals, and so forth until you reach the end. Macro-econ is one of those fun fields where since nobody agrees on anything, one should in theory be free to come to one's own judgement without being subject to the evil dragon of social proof and appeal to authority.

If Texas did secede and the President wanted to call it treason he very likely could. Secession of a state is similar in character though not in degree to the secession of an individual; the sub-legal entity refuses to recognize the authority/validity/legitimacy of the super-legal entity and so 'declares itself' independent.

The declaration of separation from the super-entity is of importance only in a legal and symbolic sense [though symbolism has a powerful affect on the consciousness and thus action of individuals]. What matters IN FACT is that the sub-entity, the Lonestar Republic in this case, rejects the authority of US Federal law, and above all, US Federal Taxation over them.

I regard the sovereignty of the US Federal government with the same view a regular person holds the sovereignty of rule of MacDonalds; none whatsoever. But a person could look at what Texas' secession would do to federal Tax funds and regard their secession as a fiscal attack upon them, and would thus constitute treason.

I doubt Obama would call it treason in public; that kind of rhetoric would merely vindicate the secession. But he probably could if he wanted to.

I sometimes chuckle at stuck-up-progressives who say "Go ahead and secede Texas, we don't want you anyway", that kind of thinking, if accepted, would undermine their entire national vision.

At 11/16/12 12:04 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

At 11/16/12 02:23 AM, Preternatural wrote: The more special interest groups you have, the worse you are represented in a democracy.

;;;
I believe that ANYONE WHO ISN'T of African Descent, should be held apart from anyone else..

I would say most skinheads are idiots and scum. But this kind of argument is just intellectual masturbation.

1. Common ancestry does not negate the reality of group differences.

2. The existence of group differences does not in of itself necessitate that the groups be separated [i.e. segregated], either by law or by voluntary choice, nor does it provide any moral imperative to do so, nor does it rule out the possibility that doing so would be better for some or all of the groups in question.

At 11/14/12 09:12 PM, Warforger wrote:

At 11/14/12 08:52 PM, LemonCrush wrote: I'm almost 100% sure that everyone from a billionaire, to an isolated tribe in Africa, put value to gold, and are willing to provide goods or services in exchange for it.

Something like salt or copper has more real value as in it can be a resource, gold doesn't have nearly as many uses.

The usefulness of something depends upon the time and place. Diamonds used to be useful mainly only as objects of aesthetic importance, but with modern technology they can be applied to cutting machinery and such.

Prior to 1870[ish] Oil was a total nuissance, a black goo with no useful purpose that would ruin your crops. It had negative value as people would likely have to pay dearly to get rid of it. Today its the single most important reason that you're reading this post right now.

I don't know if an African tribesmen would find copper terribly useful if didn't have the knowledge of metallurgy to make it into a useful tool, unless he simply valued the copper for aesthetic reasons. [Yes, humans love their shiny objects] in which case he might as well go for the gold. [Ha! a pun!]

But the facilitation of exchange is a use in of itself. Money is a lot like oil for a market economy, it enables facilitating production at levels of complexity that would otherwise be impossible. [albeit for different reasons] one which any object could fulfill provided it had certain qualities which are essential for them to be accepted as media of exchange. Divisiblity, portability, identifiability, non-perishability, high price/value ratio.

A currency backed by nothing could work as well as a currency backed by a commodity if the people who handled the currency were responsible, but by the same logic it is also true that dictatorial governance would be stable and orderly as long as the dictator did not abuse his power.

At 11/14/12 07:34 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

It seems strange that those who hate white people so much and lambast them for oppressing blacks would be so adamant in their support for forcing black people live in the same area and under the same economic/legal system as white people.

Looks like we've been watching the same Youtube Videos, again.

Because it is an easy way to shut up complaints.

Now I'm not *sure* if the people who signed the texas petition actually read it. Though I noticed that unlike the other petitions it's not a re-run of the declaration of independence.

The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government's neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it's citizens' standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.

So the petition Neglects to mention the president by name but includes the NDAA.

At 11/13/12 08:47 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 11/13/12 07:00 AM, morefngdbs wrote: & did i mention IT is Rare !

Rarity =/= intrinsic value.

Instrinsic value =/= anything.

First off, the criteria of so-called as a necessary or proper quality of money is absurd. No one would deny, for example, that Gasoline has many practical uses and is justifiably very valuable. Notwithstanding gasoline would make a terrible form of money.

What is all this hubub about Instrinsic value again anyway.

______________

If we're dealing with a commodity money, these are the qualities that make it good from an economic [and non philosophic perspective]

1. Divisible <-- if breaking it into subgroups reduces the value of those individual components [think like sawing a television in half] In addition to something being divisible, it's also good if your money can be anti-divisible. Metals are special in this regard in that they can be melted into separate units but also melted together without losing much metal in the process and without affecting the price one pays per weight of it.

2. Non-perishable <--- You need to be able to store money and not have it disappear on you.

3. High price/weight ratio. <--- Means for any given amount of money less volume of storage in a bank or in a wallet is necessary

4. Limit Quantity that is not likely to randomly rise or fall <--- Again this goes into arguments over whether it is a good thing to have a government with the ability to increase or decrease the supply of money at will as a means of regulating the boom-bust cycle. But most people would agree that you wouldn't want random [i.e. not caused by government] changes in the supply of money if that option was off the table.

5. Something you wouldn't MIND storing <---- Because precious metals' non-money uses are aesthetic rather than what we might call 'practical' or 'day to day living related' like Wood, Gasoline, Iron, etc. Taking these things out of use to be used as money is less of a cost on society than taking something that is useful. Ergo something with a high "value" in terms of its practical uses would not make a good money unless the cost of taking a given quantity out of use for other purposes is negligible Of course if it is negligible, its probably because the supply of it is very high, which means its price/weight ratio is low.

I'll also add that economics is never concerned with the total value of a good. Value is only of relevance when making choices between alternatives, the idea of comparing the total value of all gold to the total value of something with more practical usage is less economics and more philosophy.

I'm not sure if you took the position that without its history as money Gold would not have been priced as high as it is today. It is probably true that gold prices would probably not be at roughly 1700 dollars per ounce right now, but it would not have anywhere close to the same weight to value ratio as

We can infer this by looking at Diamonds before they were used as industrial cutting tools. Diamonds would not make very good money since they cannot be divided easily. But their price to weight ratio was very likely much higher than other things.

Marginal utility has answered the question of why Diamonds would be priced higher than more 'useful' goods. And the same would likely be true of Gold.

Of course if people were puritanically disgusted by all forms of vanity, then it might be that gold would fetch a very low price.

At 11/13/12 05:58 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/13/12 05:51 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 11/13/12 01:07 AM, leanlifter1 wrote:

To think of money/currency as a true commodity such as Lumber, Steel, Coal, Oil, Fish, etc is a fallacy and actually quite insane and will only lead to complete economic collapse like we are already barring witness to.

Your understanding on the definition of words compromises your position irreparably.

Your understanding or rather brainwashing into thinking money is a commodity is insane and the point in question here not the arbitrary definition of currency. Currency is not a commodity and it never was and will never be a commodity no matter what Wall Street or the Government say.

First of all, please calm down.

Second,
I've pointed out that the word "Currency" and "Money" were both used by people to refer to media of exchange prior to the institution of legal tender laws and fiat currency in various countries across the world.

No one, opponents and supporters of fiat currency, uses your definition of "Money" and "Currency" -- No Dictionary uses your definition of currency and money. No person historically that I know of have used your

All definitions are arbitrary. There's nothing written in the heavens that a word ought to mean something, but since words are a social concept its wise policy to go with social and historical definitions. Especially if those definitions are clear and unambiguous. [Examples of unclear and ambiguous words are Racism and Fascism which because of its history has a separate definition for each person who uses it]

You are more than free to deconstruct the language that people use to discuss ideas. I do it all the time. But deconstructing words is not the same as redefining them. Deconstructing things is supposed to bring clarity, redefining them brings confusion.

Whether or not you decide to call a concept by the name that is generally accepted has no bearing on whether or not a particular idea surrounding that concept is valid or not.

I.E. Even if you DO define Money and currency as Fiat money, which is what you seem to be talking about, it has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not it is a good thing to have.

At 11/13/12 01:07 AM, leanlifter1 wrote:

To think of money/currency as a true commodity such as Lumber, Steel, Coal, Oil, Fish, etc is a fallacy and actually quite insane and will only lead to complete economic collapse like we are already barring witness to.

The Term Money predates the widespread adoption of monopoly-Fiat currencies by state-run central banks.

"Money" simply refers to a medium of exchange. A thing which acts as a common denominator to express exchange ratios of goods and services in a market economy is called money.

"Legal Tender" refers to a medium of exchange that is established by law. I.e. Fiat Currency.

The terms "Fiat Money" and "Commodity Money" exist precisely because money can refer to either of these things.

Your understanding on the definition of words compromises your position irreparably.

Last time I checked the number of states with petitions to secede has grown to 30. I actually signed the petition on my own state. For the lulz.

There's also a petition now to strip the rights of citizenship of those who signed the petition. The only thing I can think of being better than the secession proposals being taken seriously is THAT proposal being taken seriously.

You know, civil wars don't have to be fought with armies.

______________

Let me point out though that seceding from the US Government, if allowed, would in theory mean that the citizens of that state are no longer obligated to service the Federal Debt. And every state that secedes, if this theory is correct, increases the potential tax burden of the debt on those who do not.

Damnit! sorry for the double post. I forgot

21. Government / The State

So we have threads where the OP asks people what they think about political stuff. I'm going instead to ask you HOW you think about political stuff. Now since most people don't ask themselves this question since it involves more thought than most people are willing to engage in that level of introspection and self-criticism.

So I've devised something might be fun for some people [frustrating for others] I'm going to post a number of words commonly used in political discourse. And I want you to define them as they appear to you as concepts in your head, but in terms that are understandable to all. In theory, this will give us a picture of how YOU think about politics.

The general principle is that you want to try and define the word to an alien who was familiar in English but not in Political philosophy / political economy. There are some rules which should help you adhere to said principle:

1. Do not try to define a word using an object or example. All of the words you have to define here are concepts, not objects. So for example, If I asked you to define a conservative do not say ronald reagan.
2. Obviously, do not use the word in its own definition
3. It's Ok to use one of the words on the list in the definition of another but I discourage it, and please don't use circular definitions like defining a liberal as a progressive and a progressive as a liberal.
4. You do not have to define all terms, if you cannot figure out a working definition for a term you can either admit it explicitly or implicitly by excluding it from the list. [You'll see the list is pretty long, if you write long paragraphs for each definition it might take more than one posts]
5. You can use value laden terms if you think that fits with your internal definition, especially since not doing it is but calling something good or bad tells people more how you feel rather than how you think.
6. Do not rely on the dictionary. If your definition of a term happens to correspond exactly with what some dictionary says, then you shouldn't need to visit a dictionary website.
7. For those of you who are perceptive you'll notice a conspicuous absence of qualifiers which makes your job all the more difficult, that's all I'll say about this last part.

Also note one number might have two words separated by a slash, that means I'm asking you to define the words separately so that the reader could detect some distinction between them. Or if none exists in your mind please state why.

I'm going to post my own working definitions later, mostly because it's very late and good working definitions take time.

Define:

1. Progressive
2. Rights
3. Freedom
4. Equality
5. Political Correctness
6. Partisan / Ideologue
7. Imperialism / Colonialism
8 Socialism / Communism
9. Regulation / [A] Control
10. Tax
11. Moderate / Centrist
12. Extremism
13. Racism
14. Feminism
15. [The] Economy
16. War
17. Politics / Public Policy
18. Democracy
19. Science
20. Religion

At 11/12/12 10:50 PM, orangebomb wrote:

At 11/12/12 07:20 PM, wildfire4461 wrote: But like I said before: It didn't matter who won. Socialist or Fascist. We were fucked either way.

Implying that Obama is socialist and Mitt Romney being a fascist, which is extremely off-base considering that both of them are moderates. I can't seem to understand why people love attaching these buzzwords with people, when clearly that's not the case. That doesn't mean that Obama or Romney were spectacular choices for President necessarily, but they are nowhere near the labels you put on them.

Ah that annoying word Moderate. Who's a moderate anyway? Why does the word moderate have any meaning when the goal posts are constantly being shifted.

But seriously, if civilization can get things done in two monopolistic legal units instead of one why this aesthetic fetish for "Unity"?

At 11/12/12 09:51 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/12/12 09:23 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 11/12/12 08:47 PM, leanlifter1 wrote: "Gold is for kings, silver is for gentlemen, copper isÃffÃ'¯Ãf'Ã'»Ãf'Ã'¿ for the poor and paper money is for slaves.." Unknown

They all have the same monetary source value: humans.

Gold, Silver, Copper & precious metals are not currency. Currency is constantly deflating to the point it will be worth nothing whereas Precious Metals will always have an intrinsic value therefore will always be worth something more or less. Debt based Fiat currency is not based on an intrinsic value there in lye's is greatest fault.

If I didn't know better I'd say someone who vehemently disagreed with the points you are trying to put forward is paying you to troll.

1. Currency just refers to a system of money, Money can be a commodity as in the case of the Classical Gold standard, but it can also be a fiat currency.

2. We don't normally say that a currency deflates to the point of being worthless, we say it inflates.

3. While inflation is a monetary phenomenon, complete devaluation of a currency is almost always a political one.

4. Nothing has any intrinsic value, commodities simply have uses besides their function as a currency which prevents them from ever becoming 'worthless', and the inability to manufacture them at will makes currency inflating impossible. Depending on whether or not you agree with the idea of state run monetary policy you will see this as a good or a bad thing.

Please take a break from the forums, revisit your old sources, try to find people who disagree and politely read their arguments, then read the counter arguments if you can find them, and then come back

Corporate income taxes are inefficient for other reasons, but "Businesses" don't really pay taxes, at least not insofar as you abstract away from the actual

Income taxes levied on individuals, if they are too high, can hit businesses just the same.

1. In theory... If they are so high that they actually reduce the number of hours a person is willing to work for a given salary, then it puts strain on businesses trying to hire people.

2. Less theoretical, Income taxes can either take a bite out of people's savings or people's consumption. Probably affecting savings a bit more given the nature of the income tax and decisions to consume/save.

If you hold to the antiquated view that savings "Mean something" for investment in "The real economy" then income taxes harm businesses trying to find capital.

And obviously whatever proportion of

_____________

In GENERAL if the government is spending 40-50% of a Country's Gross Domestic product, It will probably have to have income tax rates significantly higher than 40-50% on an above-average income earner.

I think unlike in the case of Bush 2004 where the talk of leaving was mostly melodrama, Secession or at least the talk of it will become more attractive within the next four years.

The reason being that the USFG is stuck choosing between a tax-induced recession or a past-the-point-of-no-return debt crisis. [I'm of the opinion we're going to get both] Neither of these two outcomes are favorable to the cause of "National Unity"

I Harbor no delusions about an anti-statist secession tide being motivated by some libertarian ideological renaissance, I simply observe that much of domestic federal spending is oriented towards the states as political entities. People either support "The Union" out of some misplaced sense of self righteousness, or out of a selfish recognition that they get more out of the feds than they pay in taxes.

A debt crisis or a recession changes this dynamic, It doesn't need to be the case that government spending is lower than the tax collections for this to happen, it only needs to be the case that the taxes produce more discontent than the free lunches produce complacency.

When the various satellite states overthrew the Soviet Union, it wasn't because they had all read Hayek, it was simply a combination of discontent and momentum.

Colorado's proposition was the first instance in recent history [That I know of] where the people of a state essentially gave the feds the finger, even if the move was just symbolic.

Other states have certain provisions saying they will secede if the Federal Government does any one of a number of things, such as instituting Martial Law or trying to enforce a federal assault weapons ban.

Obama would never allow it, even if it was initiated by a Northern state like New Hampshire which, ironically, voted for him.

Yes, Critics of secession will call pro-secessionists Racist. And guess what? It probably will be to some extent. Democracy produces racial conflict as self interested and racially conscious groups vote to seize the property of less racially conscious and self interested groups. If desire to protect the interests of one's race at the expense of another, however subconscious one's formulation of that desire, is racist, then so be it. I'm a racist, and probably so are 99% of all people of all races.

Not that this formulation of racism has much of anything to do with the desire to deprive others of their lives, property, and free action.

To the other 1% , I say to you, the price of appeasing your sense of self righteous piety is too high. And society's toleration for it will fall as their situation becomes increasingly desperate. Nobody will care what names you call them if they are desperate to the point of leaving the Sacred Union.

Talks of "uniting" people strikes me as meaningless chest pounding. And ignores the war is the continuation of politics by other means. Few people talk about it in these terms but the reality is, at least, subconsciously understood.

Within the republican and democratic parties there are a greater number of ideological divisions. If you want people "United" -- which presumably means all agreeing to do the same things even if they disagree with what is being done.

Getting rid of the parties won't bring people together. It won't make people part more happily with their tax dollars or their free lunch, or their pet programs. Eliminating the parties won't unite anyone, it will simply break up the subgroups that were already united under the parties.

REAL labels that refer to real beliefs and real positions divide us, because people seldom agree on anything especially when self-interest is involved.

Fake labels that refer to club membership and little else unite us.

Look forward to race wars in the future.

Obama and Regean do have one thing in common. They're both beloved mostly because of their mystique rather than what they actually managed to accomplished, or what they *Think* he did but never actually occurred.

The main difference is that unless the post 2016 era is absolutely dismal, and somehow the president escapes blame for it, then he will not be held up in history as a model president.

I'm not calling Reagan a model I'm just saying with Obama from a superficial perspective it's too clear that he's not.

At 11/10/12 06:58 PM, Ravariel wrote:

At 11/9/12 11:03 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Is it "wrong" for me to pour acid on your face?

Depends on the context.

You see the problem is that my atheism runs so deep [thanks a lot Drakim] that I disregard these questions as having actual answers.

See, this is why, even when I disagree with you, I do enjoy reading your posts. You do understand, unlike most, that there is a wealth of context, nuance, and complexity underneath these hot-button issues we tend to argue about in strict black-and-white terms.

Danke.

But beyond what you've already stated as issues that complicate this argument (especially about staism as a whole) there is something I think you've not yet learned to take into consideration: psychology. Specifically social psychology, and evolutionary influences.

I know a bit about evolutionary psychology. But [I think] what I am getting at and when you are getting at are two different things.

What you are saying [correct me if incorrect] is that people's moral assessment of an issue changes when context is changed. Now when I was asking questions about throwing acid on people's face I wasn't trying to fool people, I just meant casually going up to someone and throwing acid on their face for no reason. [What we might call the trivial context] I was asking the question: What does it actually mean to say that something is "wrong"

What I am saying to the OP is that normative claims are not truth apt, and even people with simple minds partially recognize this when normative claims are restated in terms of the emotions of the speaker.

I don't think you're wrong, and certainly evolutionary psychology endows people to hold similar enough views on what actions are acceptable and which ones are not within certain contexts that you can have civilization [i.e. the cooperative enterprise of cities]

Is something that is a well-known psychological effect. People will often hold contradictory views of moral stances.

"Murder is wrong..."

"...except in self-defense."

My second point t the OP was that the indignation of what might be called moral double standards [The IRS versus a Mafia Boss] is historically recent Which is similar to your notion of context except when people say 'the context' of an action, they do not consider the person committing the action to be part of the context.

Put that together with the evolutionary social structure literally bred into us over millenia, that looks to create society, create hierarchy, delegate responsibility, and use individual resources for the common good (the hunter who threw the killing spear was not the only one who got to eat that night, even if he may have been offered the choicest cuts)... and you have a species for whom governance, States, taxation, and all the bullshit attached, is inevitable.

There will be delegations of authority always, but the existence of natural authority doesn't prove that all authority is warranted. Warranted authority meaning that the person's authority in X is some function of X.

So when we ask is, or rather, was, Steve Job's authority in Apple a function of his ability to act as a Brilliant CEO of the company? Most would say yes.

When we ask is the TSA's funding and power [In this case we can define power as the amount of stripping, rifling, and groping of "private property" the agency is permitted to engage in] a function of their ability

People's projection of authority on to the state has nothing to do with individual citizens pulling out a calculator and graph paper and figuring out whether program X has achieved some desired end at a reasonable cost. Rather it is derived from social proof, tradition, appeals to guilt, appeals to racial/religious/ethnic nationalism, and so on and so forth.

Or in other words, the state is a product of a glitch in our psychology.

The act of governance is a feature that will never be bred out of humanity.

I don't view anti-statism as a product of people behaving more decently towards one another. The vision is not utopian because it does not ask that people behave 'better'.

If people can stop believing in deities they can stop believing in "Good government"

There are always things that people are willing to compromise on in order to gain a similar result in an easier way. A purely economical mode of society and governance would be HARD. States, and Democracy is WAY easier (Dictatorships, even more so than that). So we compromise. We hold conflicting views. We have exceptions.

I'm not sure what is meant by easier except that it conforms more to the views that people hold, I could be misreading this.

I could likewise say that an islamic theocracy is easier in a situation where the majority of people are Muslim rather than liberal-secular. But is this a permanent feature of the human condition or not?

Even in the Stateless societies that I have heard you (and to a lesser extent Sadistic and his retarded brother leanlifter) posit would, in effect, replace elected governance/states with purchased ones. I think we may have done this dance before so we probably don't have to do it again, but I have trouble determining the difference between the two aside from some mechanical minutia. Regardless, that is likely a discussion for another time.

The TLDR Explanation is that all goods and services that are handled by the state, including the provision of law, are opened to competition. But putting it in these terms naturally strikes people as insane, in part because "Government" is viewed as something that must be one thing done by one entity.

Start by not thinking of "government" as a single thing: and it is worth pointing out that the institution known as state does things today that were not done in the past, and did things in the past that are [usually] not done today.

Instead look at government from the perspective of a mechanic or engineer. And ask the for each activity the state is engaged in [road building, defense, welfare]

1. What does the state claim it is trying to achieve by engaging in this activity
2. How does the state set about to achieve this end?
3. Is it possible that this activity could be provided more effectively?

But if we look at the vast number of things that, for example, USFG does, there are some cases where even people who are not crazy like me could come to wonder why one institution needs to do all of these things. So for example, why does the USFG need to have a monopoly on first class mail delivery? and what exactly does this have to do with why it operates, for example, nuclear missile silos. And why do we call both of these things "Government" If FedEx delivers packages why are they not also called "government"

Taking the things the state does and calling them government immediately makes any advocacy of 'buying' government instead of having it bought for you sound stupid. But treating "Government" as simply a mixed bag of goods and services that are monopolized by the state, begs the question "Why is the monopoly necessary"

There ARE strong arguments in favor of a monopoly for some of these things, and some not so strong arguments for others. But that's where you would need to begin.

At 11/10/12 07:27 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 11/9/12 11:03 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

stuff

I just mean it's a miracle you changed your mind while I was gone haha.
Well. WE'LL SEE.

You see the problem is that my atheism runs so deep [thanks a lot Drakim] that I disregard these questions as having actual answers.

Yeah pretty much.
People use words like "ethical", "wrong", "legal" etc. to try and tell others what they should do. Wow, something is LEGAL? Oh and it's IN THE CONSTITUTION? Shit! Sounds LEGIT.

The destruction of western civilization will fall squarely on the shoulders of these people.

Haha not really since they're also mainly the ones interested in science, conservation, education, facts, civil rights etc.

1. Conservation of what? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnWmd8tqTTs
2. Christians are fine with science as long as it doesn't contradict the bible, the same is true of these people http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9FGHtfnYWY <--- Rushton was a Scientist, Suzuki was a fundamentalist. Whether or not either of them believed in a metaphysical god not withstanding.
3. See above
4. See above paragraph. The word "Right" just means "Ought", If I say "I have a right to free speech"-- It doesn't mean your attempts to sensor me will necessarily fail. It just means "I ought to have free speech".

I think it's way more obvious that no one wants "running the country" as a job on top of their job. I don't need anyone to "guide" me, I just wish I could elect someone to manage the damn place without screwing up while the rest of us get shit done.

Most people feel exactly the same.

Nothing to contradict here

But what I do know is you're better off starting with the economic theory first and moving to morals second.

Yeah pretty much.

At 11/7/12 08:37 PM, DaKnOb3 wrote: Well do you? It is not as ridiculous a question as it might seem on the surface. In 1968, which is not so long ago third party candidate George Wallace made a speech in which he said, "Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever!" He won the Alabama governorship with the same line 5 years prior. In that election George Wallace won five states and 13.5% of the vote. That was only forty four years ago and I wonder how much we have really progressed on the issue since then.

Schools are basically as segregated now as they were in the 1960s, if not more so. And I suspect the same is true of most residential areas. The cold hard reality is that any time minorities move into an area and come to represent more than an insignificant proportion of the population, the whites generally leave. And my impression of the whole civil rights anti-discrimination movement during that period was that it had almost nothing to do with an African American desire to actually interact with white people. Just the indignation of paying the same taxes for different 'public services'.

I don't think people today are uncomfortable with other races operating together in cosmopolitan business areas, but the more residential it becomes the stronger the inclination to be with ones own kind. This "Racist" inclination is not a conscious one.

But these observations about human nature are unacceptable to egalitarian-evangelists who are trying desperately to make the world flat.

At 11/9/12 09:47 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 11/9/12 03:39 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Before I write anything let me say that I held the position you held about two years ago.

It's a miracle!

Is it "wrong" for me to pour acid on your face?
Is it "wrong" for you to pour acid on my face?
Is it "wrong" for Barrack Obama to kill Pakistani children?

You see the problem is that my atheism runs so deep [thanks a lot Drakim] that I disregard these questions as having actual answers. I can tell you that I would feel guilty if I poured acid on your face, that I would prefer it if you didn't pour acid on my face, and I can tell you I get angry when I hear that the man who calls himself the president of the united states is spending tax payer dollars killing 50 pakistanis for every 1 so-called terrorist; I get angry at that, and at the same time I generally loath the Islamic religion.

Most people, including atheist-social-demokratz can't handle that red pill. They have their own spiritual fetishes; Democracy, Equality, Social Justice, "Rights", etc. God is dead but somehow we still managed to find the true holy spirit, the zeitgeist as I believe it is called by Richard Dawkins. These people took the distinctively christian notion that all souls are equal in gods eyes, and ran with it even after all talk of theology was abandoned. The destruction of western civilization will fall squarely on the shoulders of these people.

But as you may notice if you think really deeply about it, the only factual basis behind my feelings is that they are what they are. People who say that Abortion is wrong, or that a woman has a right to choose, are not saying anything about the real world, they're telling you what their feelings are. Morals aren't real and that was my first point to the OP. As such his talking of Taxation being theft, while factually true, is not going to convince people. [I'll get into that in your second sentence]

My position on statelessness hasn't changed. Barrack Obama, the Congress, SCOTUS, the bureaucracy, the military: these people are not holy or magical, they are either elected by or appointed by the people who are elected by the citizens who are supposedly weak and inferior and thus need paternal guidance.

Public goods are the main thing, and a decent debate on public goods can be had provided the arguments are in good faith and any skepticism is balanced. But really if you took a modern socialdemocracy eliminated all spending that wasn't clearly on a public good, the new government would be unrecognizable to what it had been.

I never understood how people could figure that taxation was unfair but being born a millionaire in a system where everyone else pays for your infrastructure and defense is.

Having debated you before I told the OP what response he could expect... copypasting from the above.

1. Acknowledge it as wrong but regard it as a lesser evil compared to the evil of the consequences associated with a failure to take other people's money by any means necessary.
2. Acknowledge the double standard but regard it as acceptable.

I don't think you, or really anyone, actually thinks that death and imprisonment is a "positive good" -- to use John C Calhoun's language, just that the results it yields are enough to justify the act. What sort of crazy person doesn't want roads, or education, or FEMA?

I think my assessment was correct, though I'm not sure whether you're going to agree.

But what I do know is you're better off starting with the economic theory first and moving to morals second. That moral segment doesn't involve putting forward some silly concoction of 'secular ethics' -- it's simply deconstructing 21st century progressive-universalist moralism. But economic theory for most people is a Gordian knot with no sword to cut it, any claim you make is contested because progressivism is a multilayered set of assumptions. Just as generic small-government libertarianism is.

At 11/9/12 05:32 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/9/12 04:53 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 11/9/12 03:57 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/9/12 03:39 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Before I write anything let me say that I held the position you held about two years ago.

But you did not give anything solid as to why you changed your stance 2 years ago. All moral ethics are automatically thrown out the window IMO when living under a society ruled by the gun. That being said I personally choose to stand up and voice my opinion and uphold "Secular Ethics" as the one true model to live by IMO.

You can make people realize that there's a double standard between the state and regular citizens, but they will very likely do one of two things.

All filler words aside lets sum it up herein that "Subjugation" is in fact 100% voluntary but whats the point of fooling ourselves that we can choose to be free from oppression when you are staring down the barrel of a gun the Gun and barrel representing the "State" the "Nation and the "Dictator" and finally the Gun representing the Police and Military that represent and uphold/enforce the previously denoted "Holy Trinity"under the guise of a "Peoples Republic". My overarching point is that we are not free as a people and we never have been and furthermore we are now "Economic Slaves" and if anybody does not think so then I challenge them to stop buying things and start to take care of themselves for once in there lives.

You need to step back and figure out the difference between observations [sometimes misleadingly called facts] and opinions. I am commenting on what I believe to be observationally true, not what I believe to be moral, or even good from the perspective of civilization.

These are some other points

1. I am not in approval of what the State does.
2. I do not believe that acts of state are voluntarily imposed on the citizens
3. I do not believe that convincing people that "Taxation is theft" [Which is mostly true, to explain why it's not 100 percent true would take a large paragraph, so i'll skip it] will actually get them to stop supporting taxation.
4, If your goal is to convince people to stop supporting taxation, telling them that taxation is theft will not on its own do anything.
5. While I do not believe acts of state are voluntary, the existence of the state itself has operationally universal support, I infer this from the fact that while individual laws are enforced violently upon citizens, the states own existence is a product of people believing in large enough numbers that the state is, at least, a necessary evil. They pay taxes to the state which allows said state to enforce laws which could not do so otherwise.
5. In a world of what we may call moral inequality, there is nothing unusual about people projecting some authority onto a group or individual that allows them to do what other people are not allowed to do. This is not a matter of right or wrong, it is a matter of truth.

You're not defining welfare v. insurance. You're defining group v. individual insurance.

There is no such thing as individual insurance, probability theory can only calculate the risk of something occurring to a group. If the group is relatively homogeneous an insurance company is able to price things so as to avoid adverse selection. If it is heterogeneous in any way where different groups are known to have different risks, adverse selection occurs, and you have a wealth transfer.

If insurance providers are operating in what is colloquially referred to as the "free market", this latter situation would never last long [the insurers would either have to separate the groups or go bankrupt]. With the state, it can be sustained by threats of kidnapping and execution [what you call a mandate]. And in its sustained state, it more closely signifies welfare, hence, why I call it welfare and not insurance.

Let me also add that it may be the case that the group is not actually homogeneous and one group systematically benefits at the expense of another. This is fine so long as neither winners nor losers are aware of this fact. Insurance is basically gambling except instead of gambling on the outcome of a single event, you're gambling on the outcome of a number of them. It ceases to be gambling once you get your hands on a crystal ball that says your odds or winning are better or worse than what other people think they are.

I argue since it more closely signifies Welfare, we should call it welfare and run it like welfare.

If someone has a pre-existing condition, *forget insurance*, and either have the government give them the money directly, or, as is becoming increasingly popular, let them die. It's their choice.

This is why I and others regard pre-existing conditions not as an insurance problem, but as a welfare problem.

But the system we have in place now where the government tries to glue already sick people to private system and make insurance clients pay for it. Private insurance is basically messed up as a result of this [it perverts incentives]

Separating the two would make each of them work more the way we would at least hope them to.

AKA

1. Allow insurance companies to price insurance policies based on all risks, including
2. People with prior conditions who can't afford the premiums should receive cash directly from the government to pay for the health care they need.
THUS
3. Young people benefit with affordable rates that reflect their risk and insurance companies can incentivise better lifestyles through the price system, and poor sick people benefit so long as the government chooses not to let them die.

Now I prefer a total free market, [as i define it] especially since the system I described above, though cheaper than the status quo, still needs to solve problems of actual HEALTH CARE being made expensive before actually being able to compete head-to-head with a single payer system.

[This is an aside, but rising health insurance costs consist of two components, one is that health care itself is more expensive which becomes magnified through premiums through what actuaries call leveraging. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIZUtonBpII and the second is that the health insurance system itself incentive's bad lifestyle behavior and reckless consumption of scarce health care products [i.e. lack of cost benefit analysis]

But I do not want to make a case for changes to other aspects of the health care system generally, so assume these last three paragraphs are wrong and thus do not need refutation you. :D]

And now I'm going to eat dinner.

At 11/9/12 03:13 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 11/9/12 02:19 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: But just because this is true does not change the "insurance" scheme into a de-facto wealth transfer, i.e. Welfare program.

To make an analogy...

In a gambling game of some kind there will be winners and losers, now ignoring 1. cheating 2. the effect of 'the house' 3. the idea that people are gambling for fun and not for money, no one knows with certainty whether they will win or lose, such uncertainty is an essential feature of insurance because no one would willingly enter an insurance pool if they had certainty.

What we're saying with pre-conditions in healthcare is, we know who the "winners" and "losers" are before the game begins

To have a game where such information was known would not be gambling, and no one would agree to play such a game, you would have to force them down and make them play. No one would call this gambling, they would call it wealth transfer with the facade of a game.

The major problem with that is the pure expense of medical care.

Non health insurance policies can cover financial risks in the millions if they are structured properly, but they still differ from what we are talking about because they do not involve a prior known group making another prior known group pay for something.

Second you still seem to be of the impression that by arguing that compelling people to pay into a system an thereby making it financially sustainable, this proves it is insurance.

Third, the payments of the young are not being set aside for them. The only way, for example, Generation B [located between generations A and C] can be 'advantaged' by the system is if the total money they spend on healthcare when they are older exceeds the total money they lost paying for the health care of Generation C. We also conclude that in order for B to benefit from the system, generation A has to pay more to generation B then B paid to C.

And if you're following this logic, you realize the system only benefits anyone if health care spending increases continuously over time, and the burdens on the young increase to greater and greater extents.

We know in real life, however, that in the case of social security, the benefits [defined SS benefits minus taxes paid over life time] were highest to those who began in the system and have gradually decreased over time.

Fourth, SS was actuarially unsound well before the Bush Administration. AFAIK entitlement taxes were never at any point in their history set aside, they were immediately spent. SS was doomed to fail so long as this prior condition, held. Demographic shifts, A neoconservative presidency, and a recession simply pushed it faster along. The differences in the degree of indebteness might have differed depending on which political party instituted which taxes increases and which benefit cuts but none would have classified as something other than 'heading towards total bankruptcy'. None of these, unless the entitlement taxes were saved [which is politically inexpedient and thus unexpected] could have done anything but delay the inevitable.

The closest thing to a proposal that would have saved SS would be what this guy proposes at the end of this video; having individuals buy treasuries in their own name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMGAi8aGeYM

If in your situation they were actually paying for their own generation's health insurance, then, like life insurance, the rates would start out low and would remain relatively low as the payments continued and the 'savings' accrued.

And as I think I mentioned before this scenario does not fit the OP's idea of preexisting conditions and thus should, in theory, not require a mandate UNLESS wealth is knowingly being transferred from one group to another. [Again see my gambling analogy]

Likewise, compelling people who will never be among the "pre-existing conditions group" --> because they've passed the point where such is possible, to pay 'premiums' to cover the risks of said pre-existing condition group, which entails paying for their medical procedures for as long as they live, is no longer about risk; as soon as we know that someone has a pre-existing condition, we know we'll have to fork over some amount of money for life-saving procedures.

So? That's what the insurance is meant to bet against.

Insurance has no time to bet against it. The "event" is NOT illness, it is having a pre-existing condition. It cannot be bet against because it already happened. If people buy insurance well prior to getting some condition then there is no serious problem; but this is exactly the opposite of what is capable of happening based on the scenario of the OP.

Also, you're only comparing this to other insurance, not the lack of health insurance.

I explained above why the monetary degree of coverage has nothing to do with whether we are talking about real insurance or de-facto welfare that is simply called insurance.

I'd like that. Streamline the system.

I would too, that's why I advocate, if we live in a statist society where the government has to do these things, that it be called welfare; because that is what it is.

And group risk is not taken into effect either? if it is, voila, you have insurance.

The group must be homogeneous relative to our knowledge of which factors affect risk, or at least enough that differences within the group are too small to affect decisions whether or not to voluntarily participate. The government could calculate the risk that a given proportion of the population will be on food stamps and raise taxes accordingly, but in the context of collecting taxes within the course of a year, the people who are net tax payers and the people who are net welfare recipients already know who they are.

With the pay-go system nobody is paying these taxes to hedge against the risk that THEY will be impoverished, their simply paying for whoever happens to be impoverished at the time, and no one's tax rate ever actually reflects the risk that they as a member of a relatively homogeneous group will need welfare.

Continued in part 2

At 11/9/12 04:15 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/9/12 04:10 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I don't understand why any state would want it's citizens to have to carry the USFG's debt load. Makes no sense to me.

When the US adopts the "Amuro" all debts will be wiped clean.

I wasn't aware the US Government was naming it's currency after the first Gundam Pilot.

In all seriousness while I'm sure there are people in power who would love a more centralized currency, I don't think it has the time to occur, and even if it would I doubt it would have as a policy wiping all debts clean. Monetizing them PERHAPS, but not declaring them void.

Remember that a sovereign currency's power lies in the faith lenders have that it will facilitate increased borrowing by other people AND that the debts owed to lenders will be paid back. If banks and other financial institutions felt that the currency had an effect of not transferring wealth to them on net, they would withdraw their support for said currency.

At 11/9/12 03:57 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/9/12 03:39 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Before I write anything let me say that I held the position you held about two years ago.

But you did not give anything solid as to why you changed your stance 2 years ago. All moral ethics are automatically thrown out the window IMO when living under a society ruled by the gun. That being said I personally choose to stand up and voice my opinion and uphold "Secular Ethics" as the one true model to live by IMO.

I accidentally hit post before I finished my thought, but I didn't include that.

On ethics please read; http://specterofreason.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-im-moral-non cognitivist.html

The view of the author is essentially mine.

I'll just add that there are plenty of people who uphold secular ethics, and most of them think that they think that they have a "right" to healthcare, and not care if you argue that making their notion of "right" a reality entails threats of kidnapping and execution.

___________________________________________________

Now I want to elaborate on what I meant in the previous post...

You can argue that the state violates inter-subjective criteria of legitimate ownership and use of property or everyone except the state, but this is essentially the definition of the state. The reason people permit the state to violate these intersubjective norms is because the hold to a variety of strange views of the state as an institution qualitatively superior to all others. Unfortunately this view enforces itself, as the governments ability to own property by decree [a product of people's beliefs of the state]

You can make people realize that there's a double standard between the state and regular citizens, but they will very likely do one of two things.

1. Acknowledge it as wrong but regard it as a lesser evil compared to the evil of the consequences associated with a failure to take other people's money by any means necessary.
2. Acknowledge the double standard but regard it as acceptable.

If the idea of option 2 seems unfathomable to you it's because you're not operating on the assumption that different people [notions of equality are almost always and everywhere false] can be permitted by society to do different things based on implicit or explicit notions of superiority.

Such 'different people' being permitted to do 'different things' can include;

1. Treating African Americans as second class citizens
2. Giving husbands guardianship over their wives
3. Allowing parents to physically discipline their children
4. Allowing people over a certain age threshold to drink, drive, smoke, or engage in sexual activities. [albeit not all at the same time :P ]

Just because person X is allowed by society to do A to person Y does not mean society will tolerate the reverse.

In western societies today, we GENERALLY hold to the idea that 'everyone is equal' and as such several cases where differences in acceptable behavior were prevalent, the were removed. As such Most western societies have eliminated 1-3. In cases where such differences are of practical necessity, [i.e. #4] they have been maintained and people pragmatically ignore the fact that these legal arrangements violate the central mythos of the 21st century.

Libertarians take the notion of moral equality to it's rational conclusion and so become market anarchists who oppose all forms of statism and difference of legal standing.

Cultural marxists take the notion of general equality to it's rational conclusion and so wage war on tradition, genetics, healthy sexual relationships, the family, etc, in the hopes of creating an individual free of all influences that might render them unequal in any way to anyone else for any reason what-so-ever.

Now in comparing these two I'm not saying that libertarians are as bad as cultural marxists. I still regard libertarians as generally a force for good, and cultural marxists a force for evil. [If we define good and evil in terms of the degree to which they allow civilization to flourish and crumble, respectively]

TLDR: In reality, throughout most of history, and still to this day, society countenances some people to do things that others cannot.

________________

THAT SAID! Just because such differences in acceptable behavior exist, does not mean that they are necessarily productive or not.

Take patriarchy for example. Male dominance and paternalism of women made sense in a world where;
1. Marriage for a woman occured at the same age when girls today enjoy the likes of Miley Cryus.
2. The economy was premodern and wealth was mostly acquired through hard physical labor.
3. Lake of contraception, effective abortion, and paternity tests made female promiscuity extremely dangerous for the woman.
4. Housework was a full time job [it still is but without modern appliances, house work is a 2X full time job] making any other kind of employment difficult.

In a world of condoms, washing machines, day care, and more intelligently based employment, what we call 'patriarchy' is unnecessary for women. Mind you all of these things that liberated women were invented by males.

In the case of what we might call "Statism" -- I do not believe that statist mentality has ever really been good for society. The justification for adults having power over their children is one of superior intelligence and wisdom which comes with age. The justification for Statism is that one class of adults is superior for some reason to another group.

In the past this justification had some quasi-logical basis, the head of state was some religious authority; God, Demigod, chosen by god, divinely sanctioned, etc.

But today the only valid justification for a state is "of, by, and for the people" Any other government is at risk of being decimated by the pentagon. But if our government is "of, by, and for" the people, how can it maintain this superiority?

Four years ago I abandoned my belief in the state, as I define it, as a "necessary" institution. The above paragraph being the central [but not single] reason for this.

Two years after that I gradually realized that normative claims are empty and meaningless and people who use them are either deliberately manipulating others, or have simply drunken their own koolaid; the latter being more likely.

However you don't actually need a notion of state superiority to invoke the need for a state. You *COULD* argue that society needs to delegate someone, anyone, the sole authority over a territory to enforce dictates in the case of public goods It doesn't matter if the state is less competent than other members of society, all that matters is that the laws are in place to compel funding for essential public goods.

I have arguments against this above view but mentioning them here is off topic and serves no purpose.

I don't understand why any state would want it's citizens to have to carry the USFG's debt load. Makes no sense to me.

Before I write anything let me say that I held the position you held about two years ago.

"Legitimacy" -- is whatever people believe to be legitimate. In some places in the middle east, forcing a woman to marry the man who raped her is not only seen as 'legitimate' but as proper. In the west, our views are somewhat different.

It is true that most everyone in society regards the essential features of taxation [threat of violence and imprisonment] as illegitimate

To make a biblical analogy. Most Christians regard god as being good, and they regard him as good despite the fact that it states that he killed nearly all of the humans and animals by a giant flood. Yet if a normal individual today were to try and kill a smaller number of people, say a small town, by flooding it [perhaps blowing up a dam or something] or by some other means, no Christian would call this person 'Good'.

This seems contradictory to someone who doesn't hold to a moral relativism where mortals and gods adhere to different morals than mortals.