CDZ If you . . .

[martybegan]

Can you give me a specific Right view they are "all or nothing" on?

All of them. The Right has been trained to see virtually everything from a binary perspective.

• If a Republican disagrees on something, they're not a Republican, they're a RINO.
• If a person wants higher taxes than a Trump voter, they're a commie. Or a Marxist.
• If a story comes out that they don't like, it's fake news.
• If someone promotes a social democracy, they want Venezuela.
• Abortion.
• Government programs.
• Health care.

Holy crap. I could go on.
.

Maybe it seems binary because the left is taking such a hard position that you can't see the right is already compromising.

This cartoon is an example of it.

It just seems binary to me based on my direct observation.
.

or maybe the right has compromised to the point that further compromise isn't compromise, but capitulation.

That's way too many uses of compromise in some form or other in one sentence.

Compromise.

So we remain stuck and in decay. That's our choice.
.

So the solution is to let the left dictate the terms on a national level?

 

[rightwinger]

I find it very curious how people can just tow the party line

I believe that would be "toe the party line" derived from "toe the line"...

"Tow the party line" is an eggcorn.

I thought it was
“Tow the party lion”

I did think it was "tow the party line." It makes more sense than "toe the party line." Toeing the line would mean standing ON the line. Towing the line would mean pulling the line, which is much more descriptive as to what you leftists do.

The point is mute

Stop being silly and answer my question about compromise. What issues are YOU willing to compromise on?

Social issues, probably not much

I am willing to compromise on taxes, I am willing to make trade offs on spending priorities. I am willing to work with Republicans on public infrastructure

 

[candycorn]

It’s more worrisome that people either can’t think for themselves, have no idea what their party’s position is but vote for them anyway, or are too scared to say they don’t agree with their party 100% because they feel it will make them look weak.

Newsflash; politics are not your ego; not your life, not your ideology….

 

[martybegan]

It’s more worrisome that people either can’t think for themselves, have no idea what their party’s position is but vote for them anyway, or are too scared to say they don’t agree with their party 100% because they feel it will make them look weak.

Newsflash; politics are not your ego; not your life, not your ideology….

Tell that to most leftists.

 

[candycorn]

It’s more worrisome that people either can’t think for themselves, have no idea what their party’s position is but vote for them anyway, or are too scared to say they don’t agree with their party 100% because they feel it will make them look weak.

Newsflash; politics are not your ego; not your life, not your ideology….

Tell that to most leftists.

I don’t see many republicans or democrats listing their party’s position and stating where they disagree. Its sad.

 

[martybegan]

It’s more worrisome that people either can’t think for themselves, have no idea what their party’s position is but vote for them anyway, or are too scared to say they don’t agree with their party 100% because they feel it will make them look weak.

Newsflash; politics are not your ego; not your life, not your ideology….

Tell that to most leftists.

I don’t see many republicans or democrats listing their party’s position and stating where they disagree. Its sad.

I was responding to your comment:

Newsflash; politics are not your ego; not your life, not your ideology

To me combining your life, your ego, your ideology and your politics is what created the whole snowflake phenomenon.

When someone disagrees with me it doesn't cut directly to my view of myself. I can hear another opinion, and just say "you are wrong"

The snowflake thing is that a person upon hearing an opposing viewpoint takes it as an affront to their very being, and thus cannot even stand to hear of it, because it's very existence is an attack on said person.

 

[Brian Blackwell]

And your positions again requires inhuman humans. It's the same thing as Marxism which requires the same thing, people to not be people, but cogs in someones "perfect" political system.

A right is something inherent in a person that cannot be taken from them without severe consequences.

Rights come from people or god depending on your viewpoint.

Depends on your current adjudicated status

Ok, this is fine. Thank you. I assume on that last question that you're speaking of the practical circumstances, but by your answer to the first question, you believe rights are inherently equal, though the recognition of this fact may vary dependent upon "adjudicated status". So we're good here.

As to practicality (correct me if I'm misrepresenting you here), to say that freedom requires "inhuman humans" implies that immorality (or at least imperfection) is the reason why people need government. Essentially, the "necessary evil" argument. If you believe that rights are inherent and equal, then your position does recognize governmental authority as an evil, since it is - by definition - an inequality of rights. Regardless of the process which purports to justify this, Congress can tax your neighbor, but you can't; so that case is definitively closed. Government, to differentiate itself as government, must claim "rights" to do things that other people don't have a right to do; and things that people don't have a right to do are called "wrongs" (i.e. immoral actions, or evil).

Do you see the problem in citing evil as the problem, and also citing evil as the solution? It's a circular situation - Evil is why we need evil is why we need evil is why we need.... Moreover, if you've got a pack of hyenas attacking you, the best solution would not be to inject some of those very same hyenas with super-soldier serum. Government simply clothes some of the people from that immoral throng in immense power; it does nothing to combat the immorality, it simply magnifies it. And it's not even like the best among us wind up in those positions - as nearly everyone agrees - but some of the slimiest, sociopathic mongrels available. The power draws unscrupulous thieves and dominators into their fold.

So when you say that freedom wouldn't "work", you're saying that it would be worse to start out with a level playing field of immoral people, then it is to have equally-immoral giants walking among us. How can this be so?

In addition, consider how nearly all our peace and prosperity results from what freedom yet remains, not from coercive law. Nobody forces people to create, invent, produce, distribute, sell, or buy. Nobody forces you to not kill your neighbor and take his stuff, you do that of your own accord, as do I, and probably 99% of the people you know, the people on these boards, and everywhere else. If centralized control was responsible for peace and prosperity, then by logical inference, high-security prisons would be the most peaceful, productive societies imaginable. Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany would have been utopias.

So how do you say that freedom wouldn't "work", but authoritarianism does? Remember that freedom is not a "system", but neither does it imply "chaos" or lack of organization and cooperation. In fact, only free people can truly cooperate, and humans will organize voluntarily, absent coercion (which they do in a million and one ways even now).

 

[Pete7469]

Maybe it seems binary because the left is taking such a hard position that you can't see the right is already compromising.

This cartoon is an example of it.

That's getting printed and hung on my office wall.


.

 

[candycorn]

It’s more worrisome that people either can’t think for themselves, have no idea what their party’s position is but vote for them anyway, or are too scared to say they don’t agree with their party 100% because they feel it will make them look weak.

Newsflash; politics are not your ego; not your life, not your ideology….

Tell that to most leftists.

I don’t see many republicans or democrats listing their party’s position and stating where they disagree. Its sad.

I was responding to your comment:

Newsflash; politics are not your ego; not your life, not your ideology

To me combining your life, your ego, your ideology and your politics is what created the whole snowflake phenomenon.

When someone disagrees with me it doesn't cut directly to my view of myself. I can hear another opinion, and just say "you are wrong"

The snowflake thing is that a person upon hearing an opposing viewpoint takes it as an affront to their very being, and thus cannot even stand to hear of it, because it's very existence is an attack on said person.

I would comment but I don’t want to hijack the thread anymore than it was already hijacked.

 

[Mac1958]

All of them. The Right has been trained to see virtually everything from a binary perspective.

• If a Republican disagrees on something, they're not a Republican, they're a RINO.
• If a person wants higher taxes than a Trump voter, they're a commie. Or a Marxist.
• If a story comes out that they don't like, it's fake news.
• If someone promotes a social democracy, they want Venezuela.
• Abortion.
• Government programs.
• Health care.

Holy crap. I could go on.
.

Maybe it seems binary because the left is taking such a hard position that you can't see the right is already compromising.

This cartoon is an example of it.

It just seems binary to me based on my direct observation.
.

or maybe the right has compromised to the point that further compromise isn't compromise, but capitulation.

That's way too many uses of compromise in some form or other in one sentence.

Compromise.

So we remain stuck and in decay. That's our choice.
.

So the solution is to let the left dictate the terms on a national level?

I don't know what your solution would be, because I don't know what your goal is.

If you think you can "beat" the Left, if you think you can achieve a permanent national conservative agenda, I guess you just keep doing what you're doing. I dunno.

If you want to find a middle ground, a place where both ends can be satisfied, that will take communication.
.

 

[martybegan]

And your positions again requires inhuman humans. It's the same thing as Marxism which requires the same thing, people to not be people, but cogs in someones "perfect" political system.

A right is something inherent in a person that cannot be taken from them without severe consequences.

Rights come from people or god depending on your viewpoint.

Depends on your current adjudicated status

Ok, this is fine. Thank you. I assume on that last question that you're speaking of the practical circumstances, but by your answer to the first question, you believe rights are inherently equal, though the recognition of this fact may vary dependent upon "adjudicated status". So we're good here.

As to practicality (correct me if I'm misrepresenting you here), to say that freedom requires "inhuman humans" implies that immorality (or at least imperfection) is the reason why people need government. Essentially, the "necessary evil" argument. If you believe that rights are inherent and equal, then your position does recognize governmental authority as an evil, since it is - by definition - an inequality of rights. Regardless of the process which purports to justify this, Congress can tax your neighbor, but you can't; so that case is definitively closed. Government, to differentiate itself as government, must claim "rights" to do things that other people don't have a right to do; and things that people don't have a right to do are called "wrongs" (i.e. immoral actions, or evil).

Do you see the problem in citing evil as the problem, and also citing evil as the solution? It's a circular situation - Evil is why we need evil is why we need evil is why we need.... Moreover, if you've got a pack of hyenas attacking you, the best solution would not be to inject some of those very same hyenas with super-soldier serum. Government simply clothes some of the people from that immoral throng in immense power; it does nothing to combat the immorality, it simply magnifies it. And it's not even like the best among us wind up in those positions - as nearly everyone agrees - but some of the slimiest, sociopathic mongrels available. The power draws unscrupulous thieves and dominators into their fold.

So when you say that freedom wouldn't "work", you're saying that it would be worse to start out with a level playing field of immoral people, then it is to have equally-immoral giants walking among us. How can this be so?

In addition, consider how nearly all our peace and prosperity results from what freedom yet remains, not from coercive law. Nobody forces people to create, invent, produce, distribute, sell, or buy. Nobody forces you to not kill your neighbor and take his stuff, you do that of your own accord, as do I, and probably 99% of the people you know, the people on these boards, and everywhere else. If centralized control was responsible for peace and prosperity, then by logical inference, high-security prisons would be the most peaceful, productive societies imaginable. Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany would have been utopias.

So how do you say that freedom wouldn't "work", but authoritarianism does? Remember that freedom is not a "system", but neither does it imply "chaos" or lack of organization and cooperation. In fact, only free people can truly cooperate, and humans will organize voluntarily, absent coercion (which they do in a million and one ways even now).

You divide things into freedom and authority, without understanding that the world doesn't work in an aristotelian fashion. Again you keep talking about theoreticals that have never happened in real life.

In the absence of some form of government, things have always degenerated into chaos. I am not talking about a small commune here, I am talking about macro scale organizational levels.

And you try to treat taxes as something other than payment for a service, which when it boils down to it, it's all it is.

 

[martybegan]

It’s more worrisome that people either can’t think for themselves, have no idea what their party’s position is but vote for them anyway, or are too scared to say they don’t agree with their party 100% because they feel it will make them look weak.

Newsflash; politics are not your ego; not your life, not your ideology….

Tell that to most leftists.

I don’t see many republicans or democrats listing their party’s position and stating where they disagree. Its sad.

I was responding to your comment:

Newsflash; politics are not your ego; not your life, not your ideology

To me combining your life, your ego, your ideology and your politics is what created the whole snowflake phenomenon.

When someone disagrees with me it doesn't cut directly to my view of myself. I can hear another opinion, and just say "you are wrong"

The snowflake thing is that a person upon hearing an opposing viewpoint takes it as an affront to their very being, and thus cannot even stand to hear of it, because it's very existence is an attack on said person.

I would comment but I don’t want to hijack the thread anymore than it was already hijacked.

Then start another thread in the CDZ and we can continue.

 

[martybegan]

Maybe it seems binary because the left is taking such a hard position that you can't see the right is already compromising.

This cartoon is an example of it.

It just seems binary to me based on my direct observation.
.

or maybe the right has compromised to the point that further compromise isn't compromise, but capitulation.

That's way too many uses of compromise in some form or other in one sentence.

Compromise.

So we remain stuck and in decay. That's our choice.
.

So the solution is to let the left dictate the terms on a national level?

I don't know what your solution would be, because I don't know what your goal is.

If you think you can "beat" the Left, if you think you can achieve a permanent national conservative agenda, I guess you just keep doing what you're doing. I dunno.

If you want to find a middle ground, a place where both ends can be satisfied, that will take communication.
.

it would take as a start a return to federalism, or get enough people to agree with you to amend the constitution to support your view.

as an example, if you don't like the 2nd amendment, work to repeal it, don't try end runs around it and hope to get a judge or a legislature that agrees with you.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

That depends on your definition of socialism. Bernie Sanders' definition, for example, is the Euro-social democracies. Not Venezuela.

In those democracies, government does not own and control sources of production and distribution, which is the REAL definition of the socialism.

So until we can agree on terms, we won't get anywhere. And that will require honest communication.
.

You do realize that no one plans for Venezuela, it just kind of happens, right?

I understand, sure, but I'm confident our Constitution will prevent that.

So, the question remains, where along the continuum we choose to be.

As long as everyone is screaming and no one is listening, I suspect we'll just keep seeing these wild swings back & forth.
.

Our constitution is supposed to preserve, RKBA, but in some States it is in name only.

Constitutions only work when the people under them follow the rules set out by them. Once that goes, the end of the system is in sight.

Well, that's already happening. We have a country that can't even agree on facts. We have a press (across the spectrum) that can't be trusted. We have people who refuse to communicate, opening the door to "divide & conquer".

If your point is that a tyrant can rise from such an environment, I guess I can't disagree. But this would be a self-inflicted wound. If we ended up like Venezuela, it would be because of our people, not our Constitution.
.

I'm sorry but I see far more at fault with the left in this case than the right. Maybe 50 years ago the right was more about squashing dissent and playing hard and fast with the constitution as written, but to me it's all the Left now going for broke with their "my way or the highway" viewpoints.

Now there are exceptions, but when someone on the right disagrees with someone, their typical worst response is, "you are an idiot"

When someone on the left disagrees with someone, the typical worst response is "you are evil, and your position is not valid, therefore we need to ruin you any way we can"

I tend to agree.

50 years ago, the left was based upon liberal ideology, and based positions on this ideology. It was usually the righties who stuck to arbitrary positions as if they were gospel. If this forum is any reflection of greater society, that tendency has completely switched. Because of identity politics and political correctness, it is now the left that simply falls into line espousing various views without understanding and the right more capable of reason and forming opinions around an ideology.

Far too many people have no idea WHY they hold certain views. All they know is that they are rewarded by their little peeps if they espouse one view and punished if they espouse another. It isn't about ideology. It is about tribe.

 

[martybegan]

You do realize that no one plans for Venezuela, it just kind of happens, right?

I understand, sure, but I'm confident our Constitution will prevent that.

So, the question remains, where along the continuum we choose to be.

As long as everyone is screaming and no one is listening, I suspect we'll just keep seeing these wild swings back & forth.
.

Our constitution is supposed to preserve, RKBA, but in some States it is in name only.

Constitutions only work when the people under them follow the rules set out by them. Once that goes, the end of the system is in sight.

Well, that's already happening. We have a country that can't even agree on facts. We have a press (across the spectrum) that can't be trusted. We have people who refuse to communicate, opening the door to "divide & conquer".

If your point is that a tyrant can rise from such an environment, I guess I can't disagree. But this would be a self-inflicted wound. If we ended up like Venezuela, it would be because of our people, not our Constitution.
.

I'm sorry but I see far more at fault with the left in this case than the right. Maybe 50 years ago the right was more about squashing dissent and playing hard and fast with the constitution as written, but to me it's all the Left now going for broke with their "my way or the highway" viewpoints.

Now there are exceptions, but when someone on the right disagrees with someone, their typical worst response is, "you are an idiot"

When someone on the left disagrees with someone, the typical worst response is "you are evil, and your position is not valid, therefore we need to ruin you any way we can"

I tend to agree.

50 years ago, the left was based upon liberal ideology, and based positions on this ideology. It was usually the righties who stuck to arbitrary positions as if they were gospel. If this forum is any reflection of greater society, that tendency has completely switched. Because of identity politics and political correctness, it is now the left that simply falls into line espousing various views without understanding and the right more capable of reason and forming opinions around an ideology.

Far too many people have no idea WHY they hold certain views. All they know is that they are rewarded by their little peeps if they espouse one view and punished if they espouse another. It isn't about ideology. It is about tribe.

I got this effect at a birthday party last week. I live in NYC, so of course when the discussion went to politics the talk was 100% "Trump sucks", and I was smart enough just to nod banally and not join in.

Not that I am ashamed of my views, but that I didn't want to ruin my friends party.

 

[Brian Blackwell]

And your positions again requires inhuman humans. It's the same thing as Marxism which requires the same thing, people to not be people, but cogs in someones "perfect" political system.

A right is something inherent in a person that cannot be taken from them without severe consequences.

Rights come from people or god depending on your viewpoint.

Depends on your current adjudicated status

Ok, this is fine. Thank you. I assume on that last question that you're speaking of the practical circumstances, but by your answer to the first question, you believe rights are inherently equal, though the recognition of this fact may vary dependent upon "adjudicated status". So we're good here.

As to practicality (correct me if I'm misrepresenting you here), to say that freedom requires "inhuman humans" implies that immorality (or at least imperfection) is the reason why people need government. Essentially, the "necessary evil" argument. If you believe that rights are inherent and equal, then your position does recognize governmental authority as an evil, since it is - by definition - an inequality of rights. Regardless of the process which purports to justify this, Congress can tax your neighbor, but you can't; so that case is definitively closed. Government, to differentiate itself as government, must claim "rights" to do things that other people don't have a right to do; and things that people don't have a right to do are called "wrongs" (i.e. immoral actions, or evil).

Do you see the problem in citing evil as the problem, and also citing evil as the solution? It's a circular situation - Evil is why we need evil is why we need evil is why we need.... Moreover, if you've got a pack of hyenas attacking you, the best solution would not be to inject some of those very same hyenas with super-soldier serum. Government simply clothes some of the people from that immoral throng in immense power; it does nothing to combat the immorality, it simply magnifies it. And it's not even like the best among us wind up in those positions - as nearly everyone agrees - but some of the slimiest, sociopathic mongrels available. The power draws unscrupulous thieves and dominators into their fold.

So when you say that freedom wouldn't "work", you're saying that it would be worse to start out with a level playing field of immoral people, then it is to have equally-immoral giants walking among us. How can this be so?

In addition, consider how nearly all our peace and prosperity results from what freedom yet remains, not from coercive law. Nobody forces people to create, invent, produce, distribute, sell, or buy. Nobody forces you to not kill your neighbor and take his stuff, you do that of your own accord, as do I, and probably 99% of the people you know, the people on these boards, and everywhere else. If centralized control was responsible for peace and prosperity, then by logical inference, high-security prisons would be the most peaceful, productive societies imaginable. Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany would have been utopias.

So how do you say that freedom wouldn't "work", but authoritarianism does? Remember that freedom is not a "system", but neither does it imply "chaos" or lack of organization and cooperation. In fact, only free people can truly cooperate, and humans will organize voluntarily, absent coercion (which they do in a million and one ways even now).

You divide things into freedom and authority, without understanding that the world doesn't work in an aristotelian fashion. Again you keep talking about theoreticals that have never happened in real life.

In the absence of some form of government, things have always degenerated into chaos. I am not talking about a small commune here, I am talking about macro scale organizational levels.

And you try to treat taxes as something other than payment for a service, which when it boils down to it, it's all it is.

Ok, so I rob your wallet at gunpoint, then mow your lawn. We good? You “paid for a service.”

I wish you would actually address the arguments made instead of waving them away as “armchair philosophy”. I made a case for the impracticality of your position, not just a moral claim (which really should have been sufficient on its own - tsk, tsk).

Right now, you are the southern plantation owner telling the abolitionist, “Freeing the slaves will never work. We’ve never had a successful economy without slavery. Who will pick the cotton, after all? Keep your theoretical nonsense to yourself, that’s not how things are in the “real world”.”

Meanwhile, not only was it immoral, but once freedom became a reality, it worked better. Innovations were made that would have never been invested in while the nation was so heavily invested in slavery. Machines now do the work of a thousand slaves in half the time, and those people are freed up to contribute to society in other ways.

Philosophy and morality ARE practicality. That’s what you’re missing. It works on the root cause level, instead of on the symptom/effect level, so people miss the connection. You really should think about why you don’t have answers to my objections. Not for me, but for yourself.

 

[rightwinger]

I understand, sure, but I'm confident our Constitution will prevent that.

So, the question remains, where along the continuum we choose to be.

As long as everyone is screaming and no one is listening, I suspect we'll just keep seeing these wild swings back & forth.
.

Our constitution is supposed to preserve, RKBA, but in some States it is in name only.

Constitutions only work when the people under them follow the rules set out by them. Once that goes, the end of the system is in sight.

Well, that's already happening. We have a country that can't even agree on facts. We have a press (across the spectrum) that can't be trusted. We have people who refuse to communicate, opening the door to "divide & conquer".

If your point is that a tyrant can rise from such an environment, I guess I can't disagree. But this would be a self-inflicted wound. If we ended up like Venezuela, it would be because of our people, not our Constitution.
.

I'm sorry but I see far more at fault with the left in this case than the right. Maybe 50 years ago the right was more about squashing dissent and playing hard and fast with the constitution as written, but to me it's all the Left now going for broke with their "my way or the highway" viewpoints.

Now there are exceptions, but when someone on the right disagrees with someone, their typical worst response is, "you are an idiot"

When someone on the left disagrees with someone, the typical worst response is "you are evil, and your position is not valid, therefore we need to ruin you any way we can"

I tend to agree.

50 years ago, the left was based upon liberal ideology, and based positions on this ideology. It was usually the righties who stuck to arbitrary positions as if they were gospel. If this forum is any reflection of greater society, that tendency has completely switched. Because of identity politics and political correctness, it is now the left that simply falls into line espousing various views without understanding and the right more capable of reason and forming opinions around an ideology.

Far too many people have no idea WHY they hold certain views. All they know is that they are rewarded by their little peeps if they espouse one view and punished if they espouse another. It isn't about ideology. It is about tribe.

I got this effect at a birthday party last week. I live in NYC, so of course when the discussion went to politics the talk was 100% "Trump sucks", and I was smart enough just to nod banally and not join in.

Not that I am ashamed of my views, but that I didn't want to ruin my friends party.

No cake for you!

 

[martybegan]

And your positions again requires inhuman humans. It's the same thing as Marxism which requires the same thing, people to not be people, but cogs in someones "perfect" political system.

A right is something inherent in a person that cannot be taken from them without severe consequences.

Rights come from people or god depending on your viewpoint.

Depends on your current adjudicated status

Ok, this is fine. Thank you. I assume on that last question that you're speaking of the practical circumstances, but by your answer to the first question, you believe rights are inherently equal, though the recognition of this fact may vary dependent upon "adjudicated status". So we're good here.

As to practicality (correct me if I'm misrepresenting you here), to say that freedom requires "inhuman humans" implies that immorality (or at least imperfection) is the reason why people need government. Essentially, the "necessary evil" argument. If you believe that rights are inherent and equal, then your position does recognize governmental authority as an evil, since it is - by definition - an inequality of rights. Regardless of the process which purports to justify this, Congress can tax your neighbor, but you can't; so that case is definitively closed. Government, to differentiate itself as government, must claim "rights" to do things that other people don't have a right to do; and things that people don't have a right to do are called "wrongs" (i.e. immoral actions, or evil).

Do you see the problem in citing evil as the problem, and also citing evil as the solution? It's a circular situation - Evil is why we need evil is why we need evil is why we need.... Moreover, if you've got a pack of hyenas attacking you, the best solution would not be to inject some of those very same hyenas with super-soldier serum. Government simply clothes some of the people from that immoral throng in immense power; it does nothing to combat the immorality, it simply magnifies it. And it's not even like the best among us wind up in those positions - as nearly everyone agrees - but some of the slimiest, sociopathic mongrels available. The power draws unscrupulous thieves and dominators into their fold.

So when you say that freedom wouldn't "work", you're saying that it would be worse to start out with a level playing field of immoral people, then it is to have equally-immoral giants walking among us. How can this be so?

In addition, consider how nearly all our peace and prosperity results from what freedom yet remains, not from coercive law. Nobody forces people to create, invent, produce, distribute, sell, or buy. Nobody forces you to not kill your neighbor and take his stuff, you do that of your own accord, as do I, and probably 99% of the people you know, the people on these boards, and everywhere else. If centralized control was responsible for peace and prosperity, then by logical inference, high-security prisons would be the most peaceful, productive societies imaginable. Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany would have been utopias.

So how do you say that freedom wouldn't "work", but authoritarianism does? Remember that freedom is not a "system", but neither does it imply "chaos" or lack of organization and cooperation. In fact, only free people can truly cooperate, and humans will organize voluntarily, absent coercion (which they do in a million and one ways even now).

You divide things into freedom and authority, without understanding that the world doesn't work in an aristotelian fashion. Again you keep talking about theoreticals that have never happened in real life.

In the absence of some form of government, things have always degenerated into chaos. I am not talking about a small commune here, I am talking about macro scale organizational levels.

And you try to treat taxes as something other than payment for a service, which when it boils down to it, it's all it is.

Ok, so I rob your wallet at gunpoint, then mow your lawn. We good? You “paid for a service.”

I wish you would actually address the arguments made instead of waving them away as “armchair philosophy”. I made a case for the impracticality of your position, not just a moral claim (which really should have been sufficient on its own - tsk, tsk).

Right now, you are the southern plantation owner telling the abolitionist, “Freeing the slaves will never work. We’ve never had a successful economy without slavery. Who will pick the cotton, after all? Keep your theoretical nonsense to yourself, that’s not how things are in the “real world”.”

Meanwhile, not only was it immoral, but once freedom became a reality, it worked better. Innovations were made that would have never been invested in while the nation was so heavily invested in slavery. Machines now do the work of a thousand slaves in half the time, and those people are freed up to contribute to society in other ways.

Philosophy and morality ARE practicality. That’s what you’re missing. It works on the root cause level, instead of on the symptom/effect level, so people miss the connection. You really should think about why you don’t have answers to my objections. Not for me, but for yourself.

Not really the same. One can always find some remote uninhabited island to live on if one wants to be free of government.

If you want to live around other people however, our current society has decided one has to pay for the overhead, i.e. government.

And you keep talking about a society that has never existed, and could never exist without devolving into the "bad" anarchy we see when government fails.

Your objections have been noted. however you have no real solution to them, and as an Engineer, that makes me dismiss your positions as unworkable, and thus not really worth debating that much.

 

[martybegan]

Our constitution is supposed to preserve, RKBA, but in some States it is in name only.

Constitutions only work when the people under them follow the rules set out by them. Once that goes, the end of the system is in sight.

Well, that's already happening. We have a country that can't even agree on facts. We have a press (across the spectrum) that can't be trusted. We have people who refuse to communicate, opening the door to "divide & conquer".

If your point is that a tyrant can rise from such an environment, I guess I can't disagree. But this would be a self-inflicted wound. If we ended up like Venezuela, it would be because of our people, not our Constitution.
.

I'm sorry but I see far more at fault with the left in this case than the right. Maybe 50 years ago the right was more about squashing dissent and playing hard and fast with the constitution as written, but to me it's all the Left now going for broke with their "my way or the highway" viewpoints.

Now there are exceptions, but when someone on the right disagrees with someone, their typical worst response is, "you are an idiot"

When someone on the left disagrees with someone, the typical worst response is "you are evil, and your position is not valid, therefore we need to ruin you any way we can"

I tend to agree.

50 years ago, the left was based upon liberal ideology, and based positions on this ideology. It was usually the righties who stuck to arbitrary positions as if they were gospel. If this forum is any reflection of greater society, that tendency has completely switched. Because of identity politics and political correctness, it is now the left that simply falls into line espousing various views without understanding and the right more capable of reason and forming opinions around an ideology.

Far too many people have no idea WHY they hold certain views. All they know is that they are rewarded by their little peeps if they espouse one view and punished if they espouse another. It isn't about ideology. It is about tribe.

I got this effect at a birthday party last week. I live in NYC, so of course when the discussion went to politics the talk was 100% "Trump sucks", and I was smart enough just to nod banally and not join in.

Not that I am ashamed of my views, but that I didn't want to ruin my friends party.

No cake for you!

the funny thing is the person who's party it was knows my viewpoints exactly, and while she disagrees with them she still hangs out with me.

it's some of her friends that are the close minded type that would probably scream NAZI and make a scene due to my views.

 

[Brian Blackwell]

And your positions again requires inhuman humans. It's the same thing as Marxism which requires the same thing, people to not be people, but cogs in someones "perfect" political system.

A right is something inherent in a person that cannot be taken from them without severe consequences.

Rights come from people or god depending on your viewpoint.

Depends on your current adjudicated status

Ok, this is fine. Thank you. I assume on that last question that you're speaking of the practical circumstances, but by your answer to the first question, you believe rights are inherently equal, though the recognition of this fact may vary dependent upon "adjudicated status". So we're good here.

As to practicality (correct me if I'm misrepresenting you here), to say that freedom requires "inhuman humans" implies that immorality (or at least imperfection) is the reason why people need government. Essentially, the "necessary evil" argument. If you believe that rights are inherent and equal, then your position does recognize governmental authority as an evil, since it is - by definition - an inequality of rights. Regardless of the process which purports to justify this, Congress can tax your neighbor, but you can't; so that case is definitively closed. Government, to differentiate itself as government, must claim "rights" to do things that other people don't have a right to do; and things that people don't have a right to do are called "wrongs" (i.e. immoral actions, or evil).

Do you see the problem in citing evil as the problem, and also citing evil as the solution? It's a circular situation - Evil is why we need evil is why we need evil is why we need.... Moreover, if you've got a pack of hyenas attacking you, the best solution would not be to inject some of those very same hyenas with super-soldier serum. Government simply clothes some of the people from that immoral throng in immense power; it does nothing to combat the immorality, it simply magnifies it. And it's not even like the best among us wind up in those positions - as nearly everyone agrees - but some of the slimiest, sociopathic mongrels available. The power draws unscrupulous thieves and dominators into their fold.

So when you say that freedom wouldn't "work", you're saying that it would be worse to start out with a level playing field of immoral people, then it is to have equally-immoral giants walking among us. How can this be so?

In addition, consider how nearly all our peace and prosperity results from what freedom yet remains, not from coercive law. Nobody forces people to create, invent, produce, distribute, sell, or buy. Nobody forces you to not kill your neighbor and take his stuff, you do that of your own accord, as do I, and probably 99% of the people you know, the people on these boards, and everywhere else. If centralized control was responsible for peace and prosperity, then by logical inference, high-security prisons would be the most peaceful, productive societies imaginable. Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany would have been utopias.

So how do you say that freedom wouldn't "work", but authoritarianism does? Remember that freedom is not a "system", but neither does it imply "chaos" or lack of organization and cooperation. In fact, only free people can truly cooperate, and humans will organize voluntarily, absent coercion (which they do in a million and one ways even now).

You divide things into freedom and authority, without understanding that the world doesn't work in an aristotelian fashion. Again you keep talking about theoreticals that have never happened in real life.

In the absence of some form of government, things have always degenerated into chaos. I am not talking about a small commune here, I am talking about macro scale organizational levels.

And you try to treat taxes as something other than payment for a service, which when it boils down to it, it's all it is.

Ok, so I rob your wallet at gunpoint, then mow your lawn. We good? You “paid for a service.”

I wish you would actually address the arguments made instead of waving them away as “armchair philosophy”. I made a case for the impracticality of your position, not just a moral claim (which really should have been sufficient on its own - tsk, tsk).

Right now, you are the southern plantation owner telling the abolitionist, “Freeing the slaves will never work. We’ve never had a successful economy without slavery. Who will pick the cotton, after all? Keep your theoretical nonsense to yourself, that’s not how things are in the “real world”.”

Meanwhile, not only was it immoral, but once freedom became a reality, it worked better. Innovations were made that would have never been invested in while the nation was so heavily invested in slavery. Machines now do the work of a thousand slaves in half the time, and those people are freed up to contribute to society in other ways.

Philosophy and morality ARE practicality. That’s what you’re missing. It works on the root cause level, instead of on the symptom/effect level, so people miss the connection. You really should think about why you don’t have answers to my objections. Not for me, but for yourself.

Not really the same. One can always find some remote uninhabited island to live on if one wants to be free of government.

If you want to live around other people however, our current society has decided one has to pay for the overhead, i.e. government.

And you keep talking about a society that has never existed, and could never exist without devolving into the "bad" anarchy we see when government fails.

Your objections have been noted. however you have no real solution to them, and as an Engineer, that makes me dismiss your positions as unworkable, and thus not really worth debating that much.

The solution is for YOU to be a moral person, then go out and council the same transition in other people. As it stands, you're willing to put aside morality as impractical, and support the enslavement of my children to allay your own fears of what freedom will yield (thanks for that, by the way).

The most ironic part of all this is that you understand gun rights. And what's at the core of the anti-gun position? "If we let people have these weapons, God knows what they will do with them, so we have to infringe upon their freedom for the sake of security." And here comes Marty with his argument for government, "If we let people have true freedom, God knows what they will do with it, so we have to infringe upon their freedom for the sake of security."

I'm working toward a cultural shift in consciousness, whereby more and more people recognize (and actually care about) the immorality of government, will see the gradual replacement of government with voluntary (and voluntarily-funded) organizations to meet the needs of society. That is the solution being proposed, and it's a solution that you currently standing in the way of.