Is it just me or is distaste for Libertarianism contradictory to discordianism?

[navkat]

That's why I usually just say "Left-leaning Libertarian" to keep people from giving me an ice-cream headache from all the frozen stupids they throw at my head.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That's why I usually just say "Left-leaning Libertarian" to keep people from giving me an ice-cream headache from all the frozen stupids they throw at my head.

I am a reptillian-leaning mammal.   

[navkat]

It has and it hasn't. If you remove all the brown people we fucked-over from the equation, you could say it worked here for a little while...but not really.

The truth is, it's never been successfully pulled off but I can't stop trying because the alternative is to either accept the shit they put in front of us or live in a constant state of either war, or someone getting fucked as we vacillate wildly between alternating groups revolting and taking power then oppressing and murdering those who oppressed them.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It has and it hasn't. If you remove all the brown people we fucked-over from the equation, you could say it worked here for a little while...but not really.

The truth is, it's never been successfully pulled off but I can't stop trying because the alternative is to either accept the shit they put in front of us or live in a constant state of either war, or someone getting fucked as we vacillate wildly between alternating groups revolting and taking power then oppressing and murdering those who oppressed them.

Doesn't work.

Something new is required.

[navkat]

What is that new thing? I'm all ears. If it makes me small-minded or something that I can't think of it, I'm willing to accept that but I want to know.

We need a system where:
1. Resources belong to everyone and can not be hoarded or owned past a person's lifetime - no more winning the uterine lottery
2. Corporations are permitted to do business by The People and can be disbanded at-will if they fuck shit up and/or fail to toe-the-line.
3. Business is truly competitive and fosters innovation over stupid shit like market share.
4. Banks BELONG to the people.
5. Medicine is relatively non-profit while good practitioners and innovators are rewarded moderately.
6. Everyone gladly pays taxes for shit like education, food cleanliness, waste management, social programs and defense programs that don't encourage dumbshits to go around raping other countries. DEfense, not Offense.
7. Unions are encouraged and lauded but kept in-check and made to adhere to human rights standards.
8. Government is truly representative and representatives are Public Servants, not career-hustlers and shills. Term limits and "Vote of no-confidence" come readily to mind.
9. There exists a built-in plan to handle scientific and technological advances which embraces its benefits in a way which favors popular application instead of the top-down model that's been developing.
10. People at the smallest unit are at liberty to do and say and eat and fuck and write whatever/whoever the fuck they want without hurting anyone until and unless it becomes a problem or an essential need is identified that lies in contradiction.
11. Socialized resources are encouraged and enjoyed and seen as wise: If 20, 000 people each have one book, they each have a book. If we pool them, WE have a library.

There's some other stuff but that's where I'm at.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What is that new thing? I'm all ears.

You tell me, you're the one out to fix things.

All I'm saying is that you are continuing to attempt something that doesn't work, in response to a problem.  If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.  If you keep trying, it still won't work, because it can't work.  Something new should be tried.

TGRR,
Is, at the moment, content to let the world burn.

[AFK]

What is that new thing? I'm all ears. If it makes me small-minded or something that I can't think of it, I'm willing to accept that but I want to know.

We need a system where:
1. Resources belong to everyone and can not be hoarded or owned past a person's lifetime - no more winning the uterine lottery
2. Corporations are permitted to do business by The People and can be disbanded at-will if they fuck shit up and/or fail to toe-the-line.
3. Business is truly competitive and fosters innovation over stupid shit like market share.
4. Banks BELONG to the people.
5. Medicine is relatively non-profit while good practitioners and innovators are rewarded moderately.
6. Everyone gladly pays taxes for shit like education, food cleanliness, waste management, social programs and defense programs that don't encourage dumbshits to go around raping other countries. DEfense, not Offense.
7. Unions are encouraged and lauded but kept in-check and made to adhere to human rights standards.
8. Government is truly representative and representatives are Public Servants, not career-hustlers and shills. Term limits and "Vote of no-confidence" come readily to mind.
9. There exists a built-in plan to handle scientific and technological advances which embraces its benefits in a way which favors popular application instead of the top-down model that's been developing.
10. People at the smallest unit are at liberty to do and say and eat and fuck and write whatever/whoever the fuck they want without hurting anyone until and unless it becomes a problem or an essential need is identified that lies in contradiction.
11. Socialized resources are encouraged and enjoyed and seen as wise: If 20, 000 people each have one book, they each have a book. If we pool them, WE have a library.

There's some other stuff but that's where I'm at.

Heh, if you aren't factoring REAL people in the equation this might work.


Maybe you can get it to work in a Sims game.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

What is that new thing? I'm all ears. If it makes me small-minded or something that I can't think of it, I'm willing to accept that but I want to know.

We need a system where:
1. Resources belong to everyone and can not be hoarded or owned past a person's lifetime - no more winning the uterine lottery
2. Corporations are permitted to do business by The People and can be disbanded at-will if they fuck shit up and/or fail to toe-the-line.
3. Business is truly competitive and fosters innovation over stupid shit like market share.
4. Banks BELONG to the people.
5. Medicine is relatively non-profit while good practitioners and innovators are rewarded moderately.
6. Everyone gladly pays taxes for shit like education, food cleanliness, waste management, social programs and defense programs that don't encourage dumbshits to go around raping other countries. DEfense, not Offense.
7. Unions are encouraged and lauded but kept in-check and made to adhere to human rights standards.
8. Government is truly representative and representatives are Public Servants, not career-hustlers and shills. Term limits and "Vote of no-confidence" come readily to mind.
9. There exists a built-in plan to handle scientific and technological advances which embraces its benefits in a way which favors popular application instead of the top-down model that's been developing.
10. People at the smallest unit are at liberty to do and say and eat and fuck and write whatever/whoever the fuck they want without hurting anyone until and unless it becomes a problem or an essential need is identified that lies in contradiction.
11. Socialized resources are encouraged and enjoyed and seen as wise: If 20, 000 people each have one book, they each have a book. If we pool them, WE have a library.

There's some other stuff but that's where I'm at.

Yeah, well you can think of all the perfect-world scenarios you want, but there's just one problem: US. Who's going to be in charge of making sure all of this Gets Done? Why would these people be immune from corruption? Who's going to watch the Watchers, that is? And who's going to watch the Watcher Watchers? And so on.

Who gets to decide how much one person "needs" to survive? Who decides what "compensated moderately" means? I mean, the ideals here are great, but you might as well make a one-sentence Constitution that says "We the People hereby establish a System that Doesn't Suck Too Much," get it ratified, and then send it sailing out into the Real World to be smashed and devoured by a bunch of pissed off apes.

[navkat]

It's utopia and utopia hasn't worked yet so Roger's right but I believe that the formation of a society under the acceptance these basic values would go a long way towards achieving at least a little less of a chasm between levels of privilege.

And this goes for each and every one of us, even at the lower levels. A dude working as a surgeon for some multiple-six-figure salary believes himself (and WE tend to push the idea too!) entitled to a vastly (disproportionately) higher level of socioeconomic privilege simply because he went to school for six years, put in a lot of work and effort and does a job that's highly skilled, somewhat altruistic and very essential. But it ceases to be altruistic, the moment he demands a higher station and I daresay, it ceases to be of as much value to society when it becomes cost-prohibitive to a good portion of society and further widens the chasms between us.

I agree with profit-as-a-motivator and I believe that his hard work and altruism should be rewarded with a bit more in the way of buying power and societal benefits but in a more organic way. He must negotiate the costs and value of his services with the people who need to purchase them and they must be reasonable. This is preservation of liberty that is meaningful. He's free to sell his services in a way that earns him a higher level of comfort but not an inordinate amount of power.

I also believe that his investment costs (IE: his education) should be far lower. It is of benefit to us all to ensure we make becoming a doctor a more accessible venture to people who want to do that. Just this one thing will reduce the exclusive nature (and sense of entitlement) of his little club.

But the biggest thing we need to address is the getting people to accept that anyone who toils in labor for someone for 40 hours a week is entitled to a living. Period. If you like the cheeseburgers enough to eat them and facilitate someone flipping them then the person flipping them is of value enough to spend his days making your burger and therefore, deserves a living wage. If you can't afford $10 for a cheeseburger, the company will eventually face the need to either lower their prices and accept a more realistic profit margin, or go out of business but we will not accept their paying Paul the burger-flipper a pittance, dumping their waste into the groundwater, evade paying taxes and continuing to turn any sort of profit. Attempts to circumvent the rules results in sanctions and disbandment so there's a lot of motivation there between the stockholders and the employees to ensure the rules are followed. You can sell or eat anything you want but you can't fuck people over to do it.

This is trickle-UP economics.

What we have now is a perception of liberty that rewards entities for what they can "get away with" and then protects them from having anyone address the issue when it becomes a problem. Not only are they entitled to keep the spoils, but also are they allowed to establish the perpetuation of their abuses as entitlements under the flag of "Liberty." "What I'm doing is oppressive but you can't stop me because that would be oppression!"

A flexible system that puts the power back into the hands of the people, represented by union leaders instead of aristocratic representatives over whom they have little control, under the direction of use of common sense but with adherence to a central code of basic human rights and liberties forces people to stop choosing their favorite racehorse, locking themselves down and rooting for that motherfucker even after it's thrown the rider and is trampling everyone in the stands.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It's utopia and utopia hasn't worked yet so Roger's right but I believe that the formation of a society under the acceptance these basic values would go a long way towards achieving at least a little less of a chasm between levels of privilege.

And this goes for each and every one of us, even at the lower levels. A dude working as a surgeon for some multiple-six-figure salary believes himself (and WE tend to push the idea too!) entitled to a vastly (disproportionately) higher level of socioeconomic privilege simply because he went to school for six years, put in a lot of work and effort and does a job that's highly skilled, somewhat altruistic and very essential. But it ceases to be altruistic, the moment he demands a higher station and I daresay, it ceases to be of as much value to society when it becomes cost-prohibitive to a good portion of society and further widens the chasms between us.

Um, that's not privilege, that's earned.

Now, how he GOT into college or how he PAID for it may be related to privilege, but a medical doctorate is not by anyone's standard "privilege", as privilege is something that happens to you, and an MD is something you attain.

[navkat]

It's utopia and utopia hasn't worked yet so Roger's right but I believe that the formation of a society under the acceptance these basic values would go a long way towards achieving at least a little less of a chasm between levels of privilege.

And this goes for each and every one of us, even at the lower levels. A dude working as a surgeon for some multiple-six-figure salary believes himself (and WE tend to push the idea too!) entitled to a vastly (disproportionately) higher level of socioeconomic privilege simply because he went to school for six years, put in a lot of work and effort and does a job that's highly skilled, somewhat altruistic and very essential. But it ceases to be altruistic, the moment he demands a higher station and I daresay, it ceases to be of as much value to society when it becomes cost-prohibitive to a good portion of society and further widens the chasms between us.

Um, that's not privilege, that's earned.

Now, how he GOT into college or how he PAID for it may be related to privilege, but a medical doctorate is not by anyone's standard "privilege", as privilege is something that happens to you, and an MD is something you attain.

Okay, I'm misunderstanding something. Does he not earn himself a higher level of privilege that stays with him perpetually thereafter? Or is privilege limited to that inherent to factors he can not change like birth status and age?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It's utopia and utopia hasn't worked yet so Roger's right but I believe that the formation of a society under the acceptance these basic values would go a long way towards achieving at least a little less of a chasm between levels of privilege.

And this goes for each and every one of us, even at the lower levels. A dude working as a surgeon for some multiple-six-figure salary believes himself (and WE tend to push the idea too!) entitled to a vastly (disproportionately) higher level of socioeconomic privilege simply because he went to school for six years, put in a lot of work and effort and does a job that's highly skilled, somewhat altruistic and very essential. But it ceases to be altruistic, the moment he demands a higher station and I daresay, it ceases to be of as much value to society when it becomes cost-prohibitive to a good portion of society and further widens the chasms between us.

Um, that's not privilege, that's earned.

Now, how he GOT into college or how he PAID for it may be related to privilege, but a medical doctorate is not by anyone's standard "privilege", as privilege is something that happens to you, and an MD is something you attain.

Okay, I'm misunderstanding something. Does he not earn himself a higher level of privilege that stays with him perpetually thereafter? Or is privilege limited to that inherent to factors he can not change like birth status and age?

Privilege is when you enjoy benefits that you didn't earn, as I understand it.

Example:  Not being born in Darfur.

Example:  Being born a white male in a middle class family.

[Cain]

What is that new thing? I'm all ears. If it makes me small-minded or something that I can't think of it, I'm willing to accept that but I want to know.

We need a system where:
1. Resources belong to everyone and can not be hoarded or owned past a person's lifetime - no more winning the uterine lottery
2. Corporations are permitted to do business by The People and can be disbanded at-will if they fuck shit up and/or fail to toe-the-line.
3. Business is truly competitive and fosters innovation over stupid shit like market share.
4. Banks BELONG to the people.
5. Medicine is relatively non-profit while good practitioners and innovators are rewarded moderately.
6. Everyone gladly pays taxes for shit like education, food cleanliness, waste management, social programs and defense programs that don't encourage dumbshits to go around raping other countries. DEfense, not Offense.
7. Unions are encouraged and lauded but kept in-check and made to adhere to human rights standards.
8. Government is truly representative and representatives are Public Servants, not career-hustlers and shills. Term limits and "Vote of no-confidence" come readily to mind.
9. There exists a built-in plan to handle scientific and technological advances which embraces its benefits in a way which favors popular application instead of the top-down model that's been developing.
10. People at the smallest unit are at liberty to do and say and eat and fuck and write whatever/whoever the fuck they want without hurting anyone until and unless it becomes a problem or an essential need is identified that lies in contradiction.
11. Socialized resources are encouraged and enjoyed and seen as wise: If 20, 000 people each have one book, they each have a book. If we pool them, WE have a library.

There's some other stuff but that's where I'm at.

I notice nowhere on that list is "and have a BIG FUCKING ARMY, preferably backed by nuclear weapons with a second strike capacity".

Because that's what you'd need to keep any of this.

[navkat]

An adequate navy isn't enough?

[Cain]

 

That's a no.

You do know what happens to countries who try to kick corporations out or effectively seize their assets?  Subversion, terrorism and coups.  And then rounding people up and mass deaths.  Torture.  Rape normally figures somewhere into the scheme of things.

Of course, having a big army may not necessarily be enough.  Can you really trust your officers?  Allende couldn't.  Are your institutions developed enough that a potential coup can be offset by civilian led government working with loyalist elements of the armed forces?  Venezuela didnt, and it was only because the coup plot was betrayed before it started that Chavez was able to hold onto power.  Nuclear weapons are the only way to guarantee any kind of kids gloves style treatment, because the status quo is always preferable to free range nukes, however distasteful (see: Pakistan, Russia defaulting on its debts in the 1990s for more).

As soon as you start fucking around with FDI, people with lots of money in Beijing, and Moscow, and Frankfurt and London, get "concerned."  That concern somehow ends up magically taking the form of spooks and mercenaries running amok causing maximum disruption.