In no particular order:
If you worry about things like illegal immigrants and poor people getting medical care more than you worry about Bankers fucking you in the sinus cavities, then you're the sort of retard the Free Market™ is looking for. Your sense of outrage isn't your own, it's been issued to you, and you accepted it. Well done.
If you make less than $350,000/year, then the Bush-era "tax cuts" COST you money, as every OTHER tax had to go up to cover the income tax reduction.
In that vein, tax cuts have NEVER increased revenue, because all the investment is done overseas, as slaves are cheaper. If you lower income taxes without significantly raising capital gains taxes, then bend over, because you have a surprise coming.
Austerity has NEVER worked. It didn't work in Britain after WWII, it isn't working in Europe right now, and the sequester will demonstrate that it doesn't work here, either. What austerity DOES do is line the pockets of the few at the expense of the many (Germany, for example, is making out like a mad bandit, while every other nation in Europe is essentially burning down). For an economy to function, money has to keep moving at the working class level. Poor people as a group buy more things than rich people as a group. One Bentley doesn't employ as many people in its manufacture as 10 Fords. It's pretty simple stuff.
Blaming the government for our ills is about the same as blaming the overseers for the master's policy on the treatment of slaves...They're guilty, but they aren't the prime movers. Just saying. In addition, the ONLY thing between you and outright slavery is that massive, hidebound bureacracy that everyone keeps bitching about. Without the inertia it provides, there is NOTHING between you and the tines of the pitchforks being carried by companies like Goldman-Sachs and British Petroleum.
More to follow.
Also, on austerity: Our entire economic system is based on expansion. Much like the Roman empire, it's "expand or die". Austerity, by definition, means that no expansion is expected. No expansion means less jobs, which means more austerity. It is, as RAW referred to it, the politics of lowered expectations.
Contrast this with the New Deal, which cheerfully ignored things like debt, and reduced unemployment from 22% in 1933 (the nadir of the great depression) to 10% in 1938. Increased taxation and spending meant increased revenue, both for the rich and the poor.
It also meant higher wages, which raises the bottom line. But as long as the gap between the bottom line and the top line increase, then the bosses are better off, too...Unfortunately, we've learned since then to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Great Depression II here we come, only last time they had soup lines?
Quote from: Pope Partum Depression on March 04, 2013, 09:38:19 PM
Great Depression II here we come, only last time they had soup lines?
Well, just think of it as an exercise in determining how far people can be pushed.
My guess is, a long fucking way.
Corporations exist to make a profit for their shareholders. Their shareholders, way down at the bottom, are those people with 401Ks and IRAs and Mutual Funds. So when a CEO decides to do short-sighted things, it's because everyone wants to make 12%+ returns on their investments. If the CEO doesn't comply, he's out on his ass. If he outsources to slaves in Myanmar or just fucks his employees here at home, he gets a generous bonus. This raises three questions:
1. What kind of CEO is attracted to and/or survives that system?
2. What kind of decision do you think said CEO is going to make?
3. What the hell were you expecting?
FACT: Free Market Slavery isn't just something done TO you. You are also complicit.
The above also implies that capitalism itself is fatally flawed, and can only lead to prosperity when heavily regulated (see: USA, circa 1948-1977). Also note that the failure in the 70s wasn't based on the market strategy, but rather a combination of the bar tab for Vietnam and also an energy embargo. That failure, however, has been used as the excuse for every horrible decision made since.
Bear in mind that today, we are both running up a huge bar tab from Iraq and Afghanistan, AND we're employing a shitty market strategy.
This brings up one other point: We were told that the war in Iraq would "pay for itself". The only way THAT can happen is by nation-state banditry, which did in fact occur. This is OBVIOUS, and the American public LIKED the idea. But I have to ask: what made the American public think they'd get any of the benefits of said banditry?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 05, 2013, 06:00:40 PM
Bear in mind that today, we are both running up a huge bar tab from Iraq and Afghanistan, AND we're employing a shitty market strategy.
This brings up one other point: We were told that the war in Iraq would "pay for itself". The only way THAT can happen is by nation-state banditry, which did in fact occur. This is OBVIOUS, and the American public LIKED the idea. But I have to ask: what made the American public think they'd get any of the benefits of said banditry.
The Reaganchrist Trickle Down Theory.
On deliberately inflicted workplace misery:
"A slave with a bad master wants a good master; a slave with a good master wants to be free."
- Robert E Lee
"What, to a slave, is the 4th of July?"
- Fredrick Douglass
Words to live by. More on this shortly.
So, question: How much patriotism is owed by a person who is treated as a slave, or a serf, or a complete non-entity? I would argue that a free person thus treated by his nation owes his or her nation nothing but scorn.
To argue that you owe fidelity to a nation "because you're free" is a sick joke in today's world. No person is more a slave than that miserable one who believes he is free while he is actively being enslaved.
To any who would demand proof of this slavery, I invite you to cast scorn at any politician outside of a laughably-called "free speech zone". Or merely to investigate the means and conditions by which you make your living and your way though life.
I'm afraid I concur.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on March 05, 2013, 09:09:27 PM
I'm afraid I concur.
I've spent most of the day reading Lysander Spooner, Fredrick Douglass, and - oddly enough - Robert E Lee.
This is superb. I will have things to say on this, later.
This is very much in line with my view on the subject. Spooner makes some fantastic arguments that slavery by chain and slavery by law are different in name only. International travel has really opened my eyes to the "freedom" I was used to and the "freedom" people in other countries are used to. None of us are really free, but the US sure doesn't earn the title "Land of the Free" over and above most other nations. Its just propaganda at this point.
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on March 06, 2013, 01:57:26 PM
This is very much in line with my view on the subject. Spooner makes some fantastic arguments that slavery by chain and slavery by law are different in name only. International travel has really opened my eyes to the "freedom" I was used to and the "freedom" people in other countries are used to. None of us are really free, but the US sure doesn't earn the title "Land of the Free" over and above most other nations. Its just propaganda at this point.
If they have to keep TELLING you you're free, you're not.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 06, 2013, 02:07:47 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on March 06, 2013, 01:57:26 PM
This is very much in line with my view on the subject. Spooner makes some fantastic arguments that slavery by chain and slavery by law are different in name only. International travel has really opened my eyes to the "freedom" I was used to and the "freedom" people in other countries are used to. None of us are really free, but the US sure doesn't earn the title "Land of the Free" over and above most other nations. Its just propaganda at this point.
If they have to keep TELLING you you're free, you're not.
This.
They DID stop putting the Liberty lady on coins about fifty or sixty years ago, but that's the only honesty points I can give them.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 06, 2013, 02:07:47 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on March 06, 2013, 01:57:26 PM
This is very much in line with my view on the subject. Spooner makes some fantastic arguments that slavery by chain and slavery by law are different in name only. International travel has really opened my eyes to the "freedom" I was used to and the "freedom" people in other countries are used to. None of us are really free, but the US sure doesn't earn the title "Land of the Free" over and above most other nations. Its just propaganda at this point.
If they have to keep TELLING you you're free, you're not.
This is the quote of the year, in my humble opinion.
One basic problem is that people have been sold a new definition of freedom. They have accepted that the first and foremost measure of freedom is commerce. The critical mistake with that, of course, is that there is no "leading indicator" of freedom...You are free, or you are not. And your ability to starve to death in a cottage industry, or the ability of magnates to keep every dime of income they have, isn't an indicator at all.
When considering the American revolution, for example, the taxation involved was not the cause for rebellion...The cause was that the colonists were being asked to shoulder all the responsibilities of their society (taxation, etc), while enjoying none of the rights (representation in parliament, etc).
This is further reinfored by the constitution and the bill of rights. Commerce is largely mentioned only in article I, which allows the very regulation hated by those types who put "read the constitution" bumper stickers on their F350s..
As far as the bill of rights, in order, they go something like this:
Quote1. You can say what you like, write what you like, and believe what you like, with no retribution from the government.
2. An armed population is more condusive to freedom than a safe population.
3. Your home is your own; the government may not use it as a barracks.
4. Your property and your communications are private. To interfere in them in any way, the government has to show probably cause.
5. Your rights cannot be taken without due process.
6. Due process shall consist of a fair trial.
7. That fair trial shall include a jury.
8. You have the right to not be tortured, nor held on ridiculous or out of proportion bail.
9. You have rights that haven't been mentioned; your list of rights is inclusive.
10. The government has no rights that haven't been mentioned; its powers are exclusive.
You will notice that there isn't much in there about commerce. It mostly has to do with your right to rant your guts up, and the steps that must be taken to convict you of a crime.
Of course, nobody pays attention to that, anymore. It's
easier and
feels safer to view liberty as a counting house stub, a cheap substitution of material goods - or rather, the
implied promise of material goods, for actual freedom.
Which is, of course, a mess of pottage for the latter day Esau.
Damn. That was well put. Wonder what the HFT would say about that?
That is a really useful summary of the Bill of Rights.
Quote from: deadfong on March 12, 2013, 04:15:44 PM
That is a really useful summary of the Bill of Rights.
This. I like it, Rog. I hadn't thought much about how we see commerce as a mark of freedom.
Can I post this elsewhere (with attribution, of course)?
Quote from: Juana Go? on March 12, 2013, 04:44:24 PM
Quote from: deadfong on March 12, 2013, 04:15:44 PM
That is a really useful summary of the Bill of Rights.
This. I like it, Rog. I hadn't thought much about how we see commerce as a mark of freedom.
Commerce is not freedom; it is maintenance. It allows a life with enough excess production to
allow freedom.
Quote from: Juana Go? on March 12, 2013, 04:45:14 PM
Can I post this elsewhere (with attribution, of course)?
Certainly.
I want to post it too. The Bubbas needs to see it in contemporary english they can (maybe) comprehend, at least before their "NOT SEAN HANNITY - REJECT!" mechanism kicks in.
Anyone feel like formatting that into pretty, printable poster, along with Roger's comments about commerce?
I feel like it needs to go up around town.