Democracy and Freedom

[Unkotare]

Lotta rich folks have already left. Took their money with 'em too.

My gf travels a lot, and she swears the ex-pat is growing in leaps and bounds, specifically those that have left permanently for political or economic reasons.

Good riddance.

 

[georgephillip]

Who are the elite in our country? It is mostly the billionaire class. They have special rights unto themselves, their own tax code, and the ability to pick up the phone and speak to practically anyone. They cannot be voted out or made to answer for exploitation. Direct democracy may not be a good idea as dumbed down and bound by propaganda as we have become but it is a noble thing to work towards. To not work towards greater democracy is to give up the fight against concentration of power, call it fascism or oligarchy or whatever but it is the reward for letting a few unelected people have absolute economic power over our lives.

They cannot hold power over your life unless Politicians help them, How do the wealthy have any power over you? If you are purchasing a product from them then it would be your own fault for dealing with them. If you are electing politicians into office that are corrupt then you will be giving them power over you yourself. Other than that, they hold nothing over your head. Class warfare is fun for you guys isn't it? Tears the country apart and you need this so bad. If the country is divided than they are not unanimously against your cause to bring the system down and rebuild it in a communist utopia.

"The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret..."

"The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day.

"Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy..."

The class war began thousands of years ago.
The bankers started the war.
Why are you afraid of ending it?
Too stupid??

Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion - Bloomberg

 

[Dragon]

We are a constitutional republic, not a democracy.

That's like Australians saying, "We are a nation, not a continent." It's like saying, "oranges are a fruit, not a source of vitamin C." It's like saying, "my bed is made of wood, not a piece of furniture."

There is no conflict between being a constitutional republic and being a democracy. We are, in theory, both.

"Constitutional republic" is a redundancy. All republics are constitutional. Not all republics are democratic, but ours is supposed to be. A republic that is not a democracy is an aristocracy. There is no third kind.

Those who say "we are a republic not a democracy" reveal their support for an aristocracy.

Do YOU support an aristocracy?

 

[Dragon]

It doesn't assume a thing about the concentration of wealth.

Of course it does. Otherwise you would not assume that the income distribution under existing pro-capital law, but before any redistribution through taxes (or other means), is natural and proper. And if you did not assume that, you would not have made the statement that you did.

Income redistribution is a moral issue, not an economic issue.

I disagree. It is a moral issue AND an economic issue, because distribution of wealth has a profound impact on the functioning of the economy.

Redistribution means taking wealth from the people who earned for the purpose of enriching people who haven't earned it.

No, that's what capitalism does. As I noted above, "earning" implies working, and capitalism is designed to reward owners at the expense of earners. Wealth redistribution within a context of capitalism involves efforts to avoid having wealth concentrate to much OUT of the hands that have worked for it.

Since every person in this country has an equal stake in its success

That is not true, and therefore anything you said that is logically dependent on it is not supported.

What you are attempting here is to deliberately obscure the distinction between wealth that is obtained morally, that is wealth obtained through voluntary transactions, and wealth that is obtain immorally, that is wealth that is obtained through force, such as through taxation or theft.

On the contrary, what I am doing is recognizing that many transactions that you put into the first category properly belong in the second. For example, hardly anyone takes a job voluntarily. As the saying goes, a hungry belly makes no free agreements; you might as well say that the laboratory rat runs a maze "voluntarily" for the reward of food.

It's true that the individual company hiring someone has not, all by itself without cooperation from other companies and the government, applied coercion to its employees. However, that means little. Suppose that you and I and a third party are in my kitchen, which is a mess. I offer you a dollar to clean up my kitchen. You refuse. The other guy pulls a gun and put it to your head and says, "Clean up Dragon's kitchen. The pay just dropped to fifty cents." I stand there with my arms folded, saying nothing. You clean up the kitchen at gunpoint, and I pay you the dollar I originally offered.

I, personally, have not coerced you in any way. Nevertheless, your agreement to clean my kitchen for a dollar was not voluntary. The same applies to most employees.

True, enforcing property rights affects the "distribution" of wealth only because failure to enforce them means any thug can come along and take whatever you have earned.

That's true, but there's more to it than that, involving the idea that people who own capital also own what capital produces. This is a relatively novel concept, emerging with civilization and not held by our pre-civilized ancestors, who saw all capital property (land, in those days) as the common holding of the tribe or band, and only goods as being privately owned. For example, the flint quarry was the property of the band, but tools made by the tool-maker belonged to the tool-maker. The tool-maker could not employ others to make tools and own those tools on the grounds that he owned the flint quarry -- he didn't, the band owned it.

We have, purely as a way to defend privilege, gone from a labor-based idea of ownership (the hunter owns the kill, the maker owns the tool, etc.) to a capital-based idea of ownership. There is no natural morality in this and it leads to an excess of greed and the violation of natural morality.

It implies no such thing. That's the Marxian conception of the term, not the moral definition.

No. It's the natural human definition, the normal concept adopted by people in their pre-civilized tribes, that people naturally and normally tend to adopt when not corrupted by capitalist training. Marx certainly did not invent the idea, he merely re-adopted it.

To "earn" something is to receive it through a voluntary exchange.

Setting aside the fact that capitalist apologists call exchanges "voluntary" that are anything but, this is actually a modern redefining of natural moral considerations.

The point of capitalism is to ban the use of force from human relations.

LOL. This statement is so absurd it hardly merits a reply. Capitalism ENSHRINES force in human relations, weaving it seamlessly into the system so that the system cannot operate without it. Capitalism is institutionalized theft and enslavement, a system that turns the majority of the population into lab rats running mazes for food pellets.

In the pre-capitalist past, most people were their own masters, owning their own small farms or small craft businesses. Turning freedom (by which I mean the state of not having a boss) from the norm into a rare privilege was the essence of creating a capitalist economy. And it was all done by force, force enshrined in law, force applied by the state.

Capitalism is theft.

 

[georgephillip]

Do you see the institution of chattel slavery as a necessary precursor to capitalism?

I've always believed private fortunes would not have been possible without it.

 

[Contumacious]

Capitalism ENSHRINES force in human relations, weaving it seamlessly into the system so that the system cannot operate without it. Capitalism is institutionalized theft and enslavement,

This statement is so absurd it hardly merits a reply.

OK Retardo, what is the name of that certain socio-economic system which completely recognizes individual rights and which bans physical force from human relationships,?

.

 

[Dragon]

what is the name of that certain socio-economic system which completely recognizes individual rights and which bans physical force from human relationships,?

.

There is no such system in the real world.

I realize that what you call "capitalism" is, by definition, exactly what you just described, but what you call "capitalism" is a fairy tale. I was referring to real-world economic systems meeting the usual and normal definition of the word.

 

[Contumacious]

what is the name of that certain socio-economic system which completely recognizes individual rights and which bans physical force from human relationships,?

.

There is no such system in the real world.

I realize that what you call "capitalism" is, by definition, exactly what you just described, but what you call "capitalism" is a fairy tale. I was referring to real-world economic systems meeting the usual and normal definition of the word.

But from your standpoint parasitism/government supremacy is real and paradisiacal.

Fuckers like you make it a complete necessity to resist any and all laws infringing upon our right to bear arms .

.

 

[Dragon]

But from your standpoint parasitism/government supremacy is real and paradisiacal.

It's just as inaccurate to call what I advocate "parasitism/government supremacy" as it is to define capitalism as an economic system that 'completely recognizes individual rights and which bans physical force from human relationships."

In both cases, you are letting your emotions, and what you either want to believe or fear may be true, override reason, evidence, and common sense.

 

[Contumacious]

But from your standpoint parasitism/government supremacy is real and paradisiacal.

It's just as inaccurate to call what I advocate "parasitism/government supremacy" as it is to define capitalism as an economic system that 'completely recognizes individual rights and which bans physical force from human relationships."

In both cases, you are letting your emotions, and what you either want to believe or fear may be true, override reason, evidence, and common sense.

The reason Capitalism is a fairy tale is because of motherfuckers such as yourself who are always willing to violently impose your will on others.

.

 

[peach174]

But from your standpoint parasitism/government supremacy is real and paradisiacal.

It's just as inaccurate to call what I advocate "parasitism/government supremacy" as it is to define capitalism as an economic system that 'completely recognizes individual rights and which bans physical force from human relationships."

In both cases, you are letting your emotions, and what you either want to believe or fear may be true, override reason, evidence, and common sense.

Ah yes, Dragon - you are one of those that wants a new Constitution, so that your socialism can take over.
The Constitution that we have now is what stops you socialists from taking over the government completely.

What needs to be done is getting money out of the hands of the lobbyists (crony capitalism) and getting rid of Government subsidies. Not a new Constitution.

The definition of Capitalism without the liberal spin;
Ownership of land and natural wealth, the production,distribution, and exchange of goods, and the operation of the system itself, are effected by private enterprise and control under competitive conditions.

Socialism has corrupted the system by government control of subsidizing companies, instead of private competition.

 

[georgephillip]

Corporations are corrupting this government.

1886 is a good starting point that involved Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad in a simple matter of tax law. Instead the decision has become a bedrock principle of corporate person hood, and to make matters worse, SCOTUS did not rule on issues of corporate personality.

The decision was incorporated in a headnote, or short summary, written by a court reporter.

Who was the court reporter?

"The court reporter, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, J.C. Bancroft Davis, wrote the following as part of the headnote for the case:

"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does..."

Except SCOTUS never addressed the issue in its ruling.
Who was Chief Justice at the time?
Morrison Waite. US Grants 7th choice for the top SCOTUS spot, and a veteran corporate lawyer who had earned a fortune litigating on behalf of railroads.

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Governments become corrupted by the actions of their richest citizens.
Not socialists.