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

[navkat]

I think the food-stamp program is fine. Jesus, how the hell did we get into this?

Here you go: here's $500-some-odd dollars per month to feed your family any way you want as long as all you buy is food.
It's perfect. It offers assistance to those truly in need without making their choices for them.

Why are we treating poor people like an enemy, anyway? Why are we treating it like a permanent situation? It's not. "You're one of us, you pay into this system too, here's your help, it's yours."

What I have a problem with is categorizing people as beyond helping themselves and irresponsibly leaving them to die in that shit hole while people endlessly scream "Hey, there's a lot of shit in that hole! You need to put some steak and wine in there, ya greedy bastard!"

[Iason Ouabache]

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think the food-stamp program is fine. Jesus, how the hell did we get into this?

Here you go: here's $500-some-odd dollars per month to feed your family any way you want as long as all you buy is food.
It's perfect. It offers assistance to those truly in need without making their choices for them.

Why are we treating poor people like an enemy, anyway? Why are we treating it like a permanent situation? It's not. "You're one of us, you pay into this system too, here's your help, it's yours."

What I have a problem with is categorizing people as beyond helping themselves and irresponsibly leaving them to die in that shit hole while people endlessly scream "Hey, there's a lot of shit in that hole! You need to put some steak and wine in there, ya greedy bastard!"

Socialist.

[Cain]

Just so you know what happens on the UK "job seekers", ie; unemployed scheme.  You can decide whether or not its a good scheme.

1.  If you have been unemployed for more than 2 weeks (IIRC) then you can apply to a Job Centre for benefits while you look for work.  These benefits are conditional on you actively seeking work.

2.  You go in, are interviewed and assessed.  Under jobseekers alone, you are eligible for up to £60 a week.  I believe there are additional benefits for those with families or children, but I don't know much about them in personal detail.

3.  You also get to charge any trips you make, which are over £5 in cost, to interviews, so long as you confirm it beforehand and get a receipt (I once got screwed out of £150 worth of travel expenses because I didn't confirm beforehand, despite receipts, proof of interview etc etc).

4.  After six months of continuous unemployment, you are put on the New Deal.  This gives you additional funds which you can apply for if you think they are necessary to you getting a job (unless you need something like a laptop, in which case you can fuck off, even if 95% of your applications are done by computer).  It also gives you cheaper travel within your county and forces you to attend mandatory training classes, where such wonderful skills as "writing a CV" or "literacy and numeracy in the workplace" are taught.

5.  If, after a 24 month continuous period, you are still unemployed, the government will place you with a corporate partner (which you are required to comply with, or else your benefits are cut to nothing), subsidize your wages in order to entice said company into this, and you will work there until you find employment elsewhere, or are sacked. 


Personally, I think it sucks.  £50 is what I get from this, per week, and its a quarter of what I can get on the minimum wage.  Because I'm mostly applying locally, travel costs come in at just under £5.  Because I'm paying rent to my parents, there is no help for that, despite most of my benefits going towards that single cost.  Their "training programs" aren't worth shit for anyone with beyond the standard high school qualifications and most people who went into apprenticeships (ie the vast majority of people unemployed right now), and the additional funds have abitrary limits on them that make them worthless.  Finally, if I cannot get a job, a company will be coerced into taking me on (No resentment there, eh?) and I will be paid below minumum wage for whatever monkey work they decide I should do.

The problem isn't that I lack skills.  The problem is the economy is in the shitter and every employer thinks a graduate will cut and run the moment they get a better deal, even when there are no better deals going.  The government works from the premise that there are jobs, its just people aren't finding them.  This isn't the case.  I've applied for factory work in cases where there have been over 200 applicants.  Hell, I've gotten the paper the morning it came out on, rang to find out about a job and found it is already closed due to the sheer volume of applications they now have to sort through.

There are no jobs.  The system was designed on the premise that there would always be jobs and that the only people who couldn't get one are the terminally stupid and useless.  Going by a quick, informal poll of my friends, friends of my friends and their friends, just 3 in 20 of the people who graduated last year have managed to find permament employment suited to their skill level.  And most of those were a matter of luck or connections.

[Fuquad]

That bears no resemblance to what I just said. But whatever.

But it is the result of what you said.

No, its the result of your interpretation and reduction of what I said... What I said had to do with where people lived in relation to other people, not how much money they made. Ass.

One more thing Rat:

You said "I think people should pay for what they use, or choose."

If that was the setup, you do realize a lot of people would choose to opt out of what they in fact use, right?  

Well if the setup were that single sentence, sure. One would think however, that the actual implementation would include more than a single sentence from a internet forum, which might actually address the details of fair use and paying for what you use.

Or we would just use a single sentence and draw all of our conclusions from that.  

Look, you're the one who said "use or choose".  My point is that there is a significant difference and that it would have to be one or the other.  If you give someone the option to opt out based upon what they use or to opt out based upon what they choose.  A lot of people will pick the latter, and a lot of them will choose to opt out of services they indeed use.  

In other words, why don't you clarify, do you want it based upon what they use or what they choose?  Which one is it?  

It's both.
Some things we USE like roads, fire depts, EMS, etc everyone can pay in because everyone uses them
Some things we could CHOOSE to support, like green energy research, some people choose to pay because they think its a good idea, some people choose not to, because they think its a waste of money.

I don't use the roads. I don't use the fire department. WTF?!?!?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

In other words: you can't just take it away from the haves and give it to the have-nots,

We sure as fuck can.  We've been doing for close to a century, and we're still here.

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

Someone help me out here: why does it seem like so many people who call themselves "discordians" (on one sense or another) have anti-libertarian, Progressive views lately?

I'm not trolling around for a quick argument, I just feel really alone lately. I don't fit in with Conservatives for societal reasons and I don't fit with Progressives/Liberals/whatever because of my staunch individualist ideals.

It seems like "Libertarian" has become a dirty word lately. I'm not trying to sound alarmist with my tin-foil haberdashery but the current wave of extreme Progressivism feels oppressive and a little bit fascist to me. I start to wonder if perhaps the Alex Jones set has it all figured out after all...and then I watch some clip of them whispering maniacally about Bilderberg into some supaSecret hidden camera (fnord) and I'm suddenly left with the realization that I may be doomed to live a life curled up and crying in the fetal position in the bottom of my shower for the dreadful loneliness.

Isn't there a fun-loving, fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pance, free-hugs-gay-marriage-and-legal-weed-for-all group of "Conservatives" out there who actually feel an iota of love/acceptance for the people they're screaming about Liberty/Bill of Rights/Less Government beside?

How about the other way? Aren't there any "party people" out there who DON'T feel it necessary to push their "sacrifice individual liberty to achieve common goals for the greater good" ideology on me? Cause as far as I'm concerned; compelling me by force to do shit "for the greater good" is just as bad as making me do shit "because that's what jeebus said."

Am I the only one who sees the current president as a happy-faced, kindhearted supaMan in a glowing, psychedelic BIP?


You can do anything you want, as long as you do the Right Thing.

Protip #1: Conservatives are not conservative anymore.
Protip #2: You are far from the only person who is disenfranchised with both the left and the right.

[rubickspoop]

Just so you know what happens on the UK "job seekers", ie; unemployed scheme.  You can decide whether or not its a good scheme.

1.  If you have been unemployed for more than 2 weeks (IIRC) then you can apply to a Job Centre for benefits while you look for work.  These benefits are conditional on you actively seeking work.

2.  You go in, are interviewed and assessed.  Under jobseekers alone, you are eligible for up to £60 a week.  I believe there are additional benefits for those with families or children, but I don't know much about them in personal detail.

3.  You also get to charge any trips you make, which are over £5 in cost, to interviews, so long as you confirm it beforehand and get a receipt (I once got screwed out of £150 worth of travel expenses because I didn't confirm beforehand, despite receipts, proof of interview etc etc).

4.  After six months of continuous unemployment, you are put on the New Deal.  This gives you additional funds which you can apply for if you think they are necessary to you getting a job (unless you need something like a laptop, in which case you can fuck off, even if 95% of your applications are done by computer).  It also gives you cheaper travel within your county and forces you to attend mandatory training classes, where such wonderful skills as "writing a CV" or "literacy and numeracy in the workplace" are taught.

5.  If, after a 24 month continuous period, you are still unemployed, the government will place you with a corporate partner (which you are required to comply with, or else your benefits are cut to nothing), subsidize your wages in order to entice said company into this, and you will work there until you find employment elsewhere, or are sacked. 


Personally, I think it sucks.  £50 is what I get from this, per week, and its a quarter of what I can get on the minimum wage.  Because I'm mostly applying locally, travel costs come in at just under £5.  Because I'm paying rent to my parents, there is no help for that, despite most of my benefits going towards that single cost.  Their "training programs" aren't worth shit for anyone with beyond the standard high school qualifications and most people who went into apprenticeships (ie the vast majority of people unemployed right now), and the additional funds have abitrary limits on them that make them worthless.  Finally, if I cannot get a job, a company will be coerced into taking me on (No resentment there, eh?) and I will be paid below minumum wage for whatever monkey work they decide I should do.

The problem isn't that I lack skills.  The problem is the economy is in the shitter and every employer thinks a graduate will cut and run the moment they get a better deal, even when there are no better deals going.  The government works from the premise that there are jobs, its just people aren't finding them.  This isn't the case.  I've applied for factory work in cases where there have been over 200 applicants.  Hell, I've gotten the paper the morning it came out on, rang to find out about a job and found it is already closed due to the sheer volume of applications they now have to sort through.

There are no jobs.  The system was designed on the premise that there would always be jobs and that the only people who couldn't get one are the terminally stupid and useless.  Going by a quick, informal poll of my friends, friends of my friends and their friends, just 3 in 20 of the people who graduated last year have managed to find permament employment suited to their skill level.  And most of those were a matter of luck or connections.

That is a really shitty situation, Cain. That sucks that such a small minority of college grads can find real work.
Wouldn't it be great if there were more jobs to be had, if the world economy wasn't so fucked up?
I, too, am unemployed. But because I've never been employed continuously by one company for more than a year, I can't even draw unemployment. The only job I have been able to get since I dropped out of college was in business to business sales, getting payed straight commission for selling Chinese shit that no one wants or needs. That was worse than being unemployed.
But I'm going to USMC basic training in a couple of months, so I won't have to worry about money anymore. I think its worth selling 4 years of my life to my fucked up government to be financially set for the rest of it.

[Cain]

That is a really shitty situation, Cain. That sucks that such a small minority of college grads can find real work.
Wouldn't it be great if there were more jobs to be had, if the world economy wasn't so fucked up?
I, too, am unemployed. But because I've never been employed continuously by one company for more than a year, I can't even draw unemployment. The only job I have been able to get since I dropped out of college was in business to business sales, getting payed straight commission for selling Chinese shit that no one wants or needs. That was worse than being unemployed.
But I'm going to USMC basic training in a couple of months, so I won't have to worry about money anymore. I think its worth selling 4 years of my life to my fucked up government to be financially set for the rest of it.

I've seen some of those sort of jobs going and, as you say, it is worse than being unemployed (being interviewed by one is where I lost my £150 in travel expenses, too, so I also hate them for that).

Yeah, when nothing else seems to work, the military isn't always a terrible choice.  Though personally I would advise someone other than the Marines, since they tend to get deployed more than other units, IIRC, and so increases your chance of ending up in some shithole doing exercises in advertising for international arms dealers.

I've considered the military, it definitely meshes with my training and I could probably even get funding from them to do further education, but

1) I don't want to join the British military, ever.
2) To apply to the Australian military, I have to be in Australia.  Which requires money.  And if I fail, then I can't go home and would have to live with my godawful grandmother.
3) I'm really, really bad at following orders.  At best I'd end up some sort of military maverick, at worse I'd be a rogue element needlessy endangering others.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm not trolling around for a quick argument, I just feel really alone lately. I don't fit in with Conservatives for societal reasons and I don't fit with Progressives/Liberals/whatever because of my staunch individualist ideals.

You don't even know what the fuck a liberal is, do you?

Tell a classic liberal like Patrick Henry that he wasn't an individualist.  Then he'll push your face out the back of your head and then shit down your neck.

[rubickspoop]

I'm going into the Marines as a musician (French horn, specifically), so I have a pretty low chance of getting sent into the desert to fight terrorism. They'll need me at home inspiring patriotism with my heavenly tones. I'm joining the Marines because I want the most intense and highest quality combat training available to me. I don't expect to have a whole lot of fun, but I do expect to learn a lot, and I think it will be good for me. The shittiest part so far is keeping my piss clean.

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

Good luck in Afghanistan.

[Cain]

Didn't that guy in the Cryptnomicon join the Navy as a musician, and then his ship got sunk or something?

I know exactly where I'd be sent if I joined the Army, since my dissertation was on failed states, counterinsurgency and organized crime.  Which is why I really don't want to join.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm going into the Marines as a musician (French horn, specifically),

Have fun in Afghanistan.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Didn't that guy in the Cryptnomicon join the Navy as a musician, and then his ship got sunk or something?

I know exactly where I'd be sent if I joined the Army, since my dissertation was on failed states, counterinsurgency and organized crime.  Which is why I really don't want to join.

Waterhouse played the Glockenspiel for a boat that was sitting in the dock at Pearl Harbor.

Synchronicity, I'm currently reading the Baroque Cycle which covers the 18th century Waterhouse family. So far, its been awesome.