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Libertarians mock the Left, May Day

by Edwin A. Locke Thursday, May. 08, 2003 at 10:44 PM

The giveaway, and the clue to the real motive of today's left and their hangers-on, is that all their protests are against -- they are anti-capitalism, anti-free trade, anti-using the environment for man's benefit -- but they are not for anything.

Celebrate capitalism on May Day
by Edwin A. Locke, Libertarian Party

May Day will once again be celebrated by left-wing and environmentalist protesters united by a single emotion: a virulent hatred of capitalism, especially global capitalism. Why the hatred?

The advantage of a global economy based on free trade and capitalism is so obvious and so enormous that it is difficult to conceive of anyone opposing it. The benefit is based on the law of comparative advantage: every country becomes more prosperous the more it invests in producing and exporting what it does best (in terms of quality, cost, uniqueness, etc.), and importing goods and services that other countries can produce more efficiently.

For example, let us say that Nigerian companies can produce T-shirts for $1 a piece whereas U.S. companies can only produce them for $5 a piece. Under free trade, Americans will buy their T-shirts from Nigeria. This division of labor benefits people in both countries. Nigerians will have more money to buy food, clothing and housing. Americans will spend less on T-shirts and have more money to buy cell phones and SUVs, and the investment capital formerly spent on T-shirts will be put to more productive uses, say in the area of technology or drug research.

Multiply this by millions of products and hundreds of countries and over time the benefits run into the trillions of dollars.

How, then, do we reconcile the incredible benefits of global capitalism with the anti-globalization movement? The protesters make three claims repeatedly.

First, they argue that multinational corporations are becoming too powerful and threaten the sovereignty of smaller nations. This is absurd on the face of it. Governments have the power of physical coercion (the gun); corporations do not; they have only the dollar -- they function through voluntary trade.

Second, anti-globalists claim that multinational companies exploit workers in poor countries by paying lower wages than they would pay in their home countries. Well, what is the alternative? It is: no wages!

The comparative advantage of poorer countries is precisely that their wages are low, thus reducing the costs of production. If multinational corporations had to pay the same wages as in their home countries, they would not bother to invest in poorer countries at all and millions of people would lose their livelihoods.

Third, it is claimed that multinational corporations destroy the environments of smaller, poorer countries. Note that if 19th-century America had been subjected to the environmental legislation that now pervades most Western countries, we ourselves would still be a third-world country. Most of the industries that made the United States a world economic power -- the steel, automobile, chemicals and electrical industries -- would never have been able to develop.

By what right do we deprive poor, destitute people in other countries from trying to create prosperity in the same way that we did, which is the only way possible?

All of these objections to global capitalism are just rationalizations. The giveaway, and the clue to the real motive of today's left and their hangers-on, is that all their protests are against -- they are anti-capitalism, anti-free trade, anti-using the environment for man's benefit -- but they are not for anything.

In the first third of the 20th century, most leftists were idealists -- they stood for and fought for an imagined, industrialized utopia -- Communism (or Socialism). The left's vision was man as a selfless slave of the state, and the state as the omniscient manager of the economy.

However, instead of prosperity, happiness and freedom, Communism and Socialism produced nothing but poverty, misery and terror (witness Soviet Russia, North Korea and Cuba, among others). Their system had to fail, because it was based on a lie. You cannot create freedom and happiness by destroying individual rights; and you cannot create prosperity by negating the mind and evading the laws of economics.

Furious over the fact that their envisioned utopia has collapsed in ruins, the leftists now seek only destruction. They want to annihilate the system that has produced the very prosperity, happiness and freedom that their system could not produce. That system is capitalism, the system of true social justice where people are free to produce and keep what they earn.

The fact that free trade is now becoming truly global is one of the most important achievements in the history of mankind. If, in the end, it wins out over statism, global capitalism will bring about the greatest degree of prosperity and the greatest period of peaceful cooperation in world history.

We should scornfully ignore the nihilist protesters -- they have nothing positive to offer. We should not only allow global capitalism; we should welcome it and foster it in every way possible.

It is time to rephrase Karl Marx: Workers of the world unite for global capitalism; you have nothing to lose but your poverty.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edwin A. Locke, a Professor Emeritus of management at the University of Maryland at College Park, is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California.
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Real Motives

by Meyer London Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 7:19 AM

Good old Professor Locke is sure right about me; my real motive is anti-capitalism. By the way, I can't help wonder why the good professor spent his career at a state-funded university and is now presumably collecting pension checks from the same institution. Why wasn't he out doing something useful - like marketing deoderant for Proctor and Gamble. Or maybe he couldn't get a job teaching at Harvard because it is dominated by left-wing collectivists. How come it is ok to spend public funds on Professor Locke but, according to the Libertarians, wrong to spend it on public libraries, fire stations, relief for the unemployed and homeless, and grants for some of Professor Locke's students, without which he might not have had a job?
Maybe this Social Darwinist/hypocrit should distribute his manifesto among the homeless in downtown LA or downtown Long Beach and see how they react to his argument that they don't know how good they have it under capitalism.
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Meyer your false presumption...

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 7:45 AM

...is that these things would not exist without Government using force to confiscate the labor of Free Citizens to turn it to those ends which you would see done.

Most of the Great Universities of this country were founded under Private Grants and bequests.
The first Fire Departments were All Volunteer with people in the neighborhood chipping in what they could to help make it go.
The homesteaders who turned this country into the Agricultural wonder of the World did so without Government Subsidy. Was life tough? You betcha', it always is. Socialism does not remove the need for tough choices it just takes it out of the hands of the people best equipped to make them - the people most affected.

One of my favorite Schools, Hillsdale College, to this day accepts No Government Money whatsoever. They are funded by their Endowment and by Students paying their own way. Scholarships are available to those in need and of merit - but they are not Government funded. They practiced equal opportunity admissions in the 1880's when the Ivy League was still reluctant to admit Jews and would never accept a Black.

At the time of the founding of this nation the average literacy rate is estimated to have been about 98 Percent. Much higher than todays estimates of 60 to 80 Percent depending upon whose numbers and what standards you apply. The first publicly funded school was not opened until 1840 in Massachusetts.

At the turn of the 20th Century the U.S. had one of the Great Social Safety Nets of the World. All privately funded by individual Philanthropy.

The fundamental premise underlying all Socialis/Marxist systems is that people will not voluntarily cooperate to further the common good without some Government Goon with a Gun standing over their shoulder. History speaks otherwise.

Captialism has many faults. However, it has the advantage of leaving the average ordinary person greater individual liberty than any Socialist Slave State I have ever seen propounded.

The Greatest Mass Murderer's of the 20th Century, one of the bloodiest in history, were all Socialists/Marxists. Stalin, Mao, et. al.,... accounting for in excess of 100,000,000 DEAD and untold misery.

That does not however imply that I am blind to, or supportive of, the kind of blind Devil Take the Hindmost Capitalism that is propounded by some. However, that kind of Capitalism, like the serene placid cud-chewing Socialist Utopia, has never existed. Most people are willing to extend a helping hand. Even those most impovershed will share their meager means to help one even less fortunate.

Liberty and the welfare of the less fortunate are not mutually exclusive. Liberty and the good of the community are not mutually exclusive. However, you cannot have political freedom, and individual liberty, with a Government that feels it has the right to take for any purpose the labor of a citizen for it's own needs. That is tyranny regardless of how many bells, whistles, and flowers you attach.

Socialism is by it's very nature a form of tyranny as it presumes that the Government has the right to take what it wants from anyone for Government desires.

"Never try to teach a Pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the Pig." Anon.
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Philosophy and such

by Libertarian Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 7:51 AM

Government bad, corporations good.
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The Real Libertarian Philosophy

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 8:45 AM

"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
-- Thomas Paine, Commonsense 1776


"Government should not do for the people what they can best do for themselves."
-- Abraham Lincoln (Inscribed on the Lincoln Memorial Enrty Arch)

The essence of the Libertarian Philosophy is that a Free People are capable of taking care of themselves without that "Nanny with a Gun" known as over arching Government.

The reality is that many of the actions taken by our government if taken by an individual Citizen would get them a long Prison Sentence or the "Guest Seat" at the Death House.

The above snippy mischaracterization does nothing to refute the reality that the various "People's Republics" are not run by the people.

As for the constant bugaboo and boogy man of all cant filled Socialists/Marxists "the evil Corpororation" there is a solution for that. Make them illegal. Make the people running the enterprise responsible for their actions instead of allowing them to hide behind that paper cloak known as the Corporation. Remove it's legal personhood and make the operators responsible and you remove their cover for illegal and immoral acts.
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Diogenes

by Corporate CEO Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 8:48 AM

Cool! Without government oversight, my company could trash the environment and not be held liable! Thanks, Diogenes! I am now a Libertarian.
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You are not paying attention,...

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 9:13 AM

or you don't want to get the point. What currently allows Corporations to get away with murder, figuratively and literally, is the myth of legal personhood. That is due to laws passed by State Legislatures and some Court Cases in the 1800's. Corporations are currently treated as individual people even though they have no actual physical existence as a real living being. This allows Criminal Corporate Thugs a shield for their actual personal wrong doing. If you remove that shield and hold them personally accountable then they are no longer protected from prosecution for their crimes. When you punish a corporation you are punishing a legal fiction on a piece of paper. That piece of paper did nothing. Some person committed the crime of which the corporation is accused. Go after the person and take their money and their freedom and you solve the problem. Hold them personally accountable and at the minimum they'll be too scared to committ too many crimes. I am too much of a cynic to think we would eliminate it completely - but I'll bet that if good ol' Ken Lay knew in advance that if caught he would be held strictly personally liable you would not have seen the abuse known as Enron. And that is merely the latest boogie man. I am not a defender of Corporations, I am arguing for the cause of individual liberty. You do not have such under Socialist/Marxist systems which are some of the most controlled and most oppressive systems in existence.

As for Government Regulatory Agencies. What Planet do you infest? Most of the so-called regulatory agencies are wholly owned subsidiaries of the industry they are supposed to regulate. Take an honest dig into the history of Government Regulatory Industries and you will find an open festering Sewer of Corruption.

The FDA is a wholly owned Subsidiary of the Pharmaceutical Industry.

There was a famous letter from the first head of our first Regulatory Agency the Rail Road Administration. The letter was to Andrew Carnegie (if I recall correctly), the head of a large Rail Road Company. The letter basically said this ought to shut up the people calling for reform. And that is the function of most Regulatory Agencies - to shut up the public and provide cover for Corporate Crimes. The surest remedy for Corporate malfeasance is strict Liability Laws which allow them to be sued into oblivion for misdeeds.

There was a move on back in the mid 1980's following the S&L debacle to hold Corporate CEO's responsible in the way the Captain of a Ship is held accountable - absolutely responsible for what the Corporation does under his or her Watch. It was derailed by the very same corporations who fear personal accountability the was a Vampire fears a Cross. They knew all too well their crimes and wanted no chance of being held personally responsible. Which offers Prima Facie proof that personal accountability does scare them and would have the power to curb many of the current abuses.
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Libertarians

by Meyer London Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 9:21 AM

Yeah, there have been a number of famous freedom-loving "libertarians." Like Ayn Rand, who testified at a Congressional hearing about the Commie menace in Hollywood during the McCarthy Era. Or Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve.
Or those libertarian loonies in Great Britain who argued that private individuals should have the right to own nuclear weapons. Or Timothy McVeigh, who was allowed to vote in the 1996 Presidential Election because he had not yet been convicted and proudly announced that he had voted Libertarian.
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Diogenes

by Hello? Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 9:24 AM

Socialism repressive? Gee, I didn't know that universal healthcare was REPRESSIVE!
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socialized meds

by pill Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 9:52 AM

you didn't? you don't know very much then
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"pill"

by KOBE SBM Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 9:53 AM

They know alot more than me!

www.kobehq.com
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To each according to their industry.

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 10:29 AM

To Meyer:


And your point? Does that mean than someone who commits a crime and voted for Bill Clinton is personally approving of the massacre at Waco? By your logic I could just as easily assert:

Bill Clinton is a Democrat.
Bill Clinton authorized the massacre at Waco.
Therefore all Democrats believe in mass murder.

Which of course is absurd but I used your logic.

Do you also think that all of the people who voted for LBJ supported the Vietnam War?

And while I find Ayn Rand’s writings interesting that does not mean that Ayn Rand is the sum total of Libertarian thought. Personally I find her somewhat egocentric and ultimately shallow in that she focuses upon only the individual. That is important but not sufficient in and of itself. Try a sampling of Friedrich Von Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty” or an easier entry would be Milton and Rose Friedman’s “Free To Choose”.

The Web Site Antiwar.com is run by Libertarians.

As a Libertarian I support your right to believe in anything you wish. Complete and total freedom of thought and of action - so long as your actions do not injure another or interfere with their enjoyment of their liberty.

I am not aware many of the Red Block countries having similar beliefs - in practice.


As for Hello?

Helloooooo? Universal Healthcare? You mean one size fits all Government healthcare with somebody else paying for it for you. Right?

This is the Universal Red Herring of the unrealistically Utopian Left.

Nobody sane is against other people being taken care of when they are in need. There is a solution for that - Charity. Until the Government became involved in Healthcare there were privately run Charity Hospitals all over the country supported voluntarily by well intended people such as yourself as well as the “evil rich” (Ever hear of “Bess Kaiser? Johns Hopkins? Mayo Clinic? Children’s Hospitals all around the country? I am here alive writing this because some public spirited individuals started a Children’s Hospital in the City where I was born. My Working Class Parents could never have afforded the many thousands of dollars it took to save my life, but because free people do operate, generally, to the greatest good, without force, I am here annoying you today. Blame them.). Up until Reagan Doctors were given a big tax break for doing Pro-Buono work in these Hospitals and in a wide range of Free Clinics. Many, out of a spirit of true humanity, manned these hospitals taking a much reduced salary from what they could have earned as Private Practice Doctors. These free options for the indigent began to die when government became involved.

However, in the long run there is no such thing as a “Free Lunch” somebody has to pay for it that means enforced exactions i.e., heavy taxes. Under universal healthcare what you have is Government Rationed, Controlled and Defined healthcare inefficiently and ineffectively run. Take a look at both Sweden and England who are now allowing Private Practice again, for those who can pay or are willing to do what is necessary to pay, because their silly Socialized Universal Healthcare schemes were falling flat on their silly face.

What “Universal Healthcare” really means is that some bureaucrat decides what constitutes healthcare and who gets it. Resources are limited and so you will have rationing and with the straitjacket of “Government Approved Treatments” you freeze out low cost alternatives and stifle innovation. Given the nature of large interest groups you can damn well better believe that the AMA would be deciding what constitutes “legitimate medical treatment”. (Given that AMA Doctors are the Third leading cause of death in this country I don’t find that a heart warming prospect.) Already they have tried to stomp out every alternative to their death by drugs treatments. The Pharmaceutical Companies and the Big Insurance companies would also have their snouts in the trough deciding what care you would be ALLOWED to have. Hillary Clinton’s “Healthcare Task force”, which met in secret, was heavily overloaded with representatives from LARGE Insurance Companies and Pharmaceutical Firms.

In a truly free society there would be nothing that would stop you from starting a Cooperative to share costs. Such Groups are already in existence. You could even have charitable outreach to those truly in need. This can be accomplished without the application of Government Force. And never forget Government is at it’s essence is Force. Always lurking in the background are the men with Guns and Badges to enforce the Government’s decisions.

However there is a voluntary way to take part in Universal Healthcare. It’s called Insurance. You send them some of the money you have earned and they promise to cover your Medical Expenses. See, isn’t that easy? And for the indigent you have voluntarily given charity with no strings. Problem solved.
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Diogenes

by Hello? Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 10:34 AM

"...because their silly Socialized Universal Healthcare schemes were falling flat on their silly face."

Unsubstantiated allegation.

It's odd that you think I don't deserve healthcare. You must actually believe that you're better than everyone else.
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Diogenes

by Libertarians are a joke Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 10:36 AM

"The Pharmaceutical Companies and the Big Insurance companies would also have their snouts in the trough deciding what care you would be ALLOWED to have."

Oh, you mean like HMO's?
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Universal Health Care

by Meyer London Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 10:43 AM

The public health service was so popular in Britain that even Margaret "Free Market is God" Thatcher didn't dare try to abolish it, although she would have loved to do so.
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Diogenes

by tl Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 10:49 AM

"However there is a voluntary way to take part in Universal Healthcare. It’s called Insurance."

Believe it or not, SOME people can't AFFORD health insurance. What day is it in YOUR world, Diogenes? In the REAL world, it's Thursday.
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Reports of my death are Greatly Exaggerated.

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:07 AM

To “Libertarians are a Joke”: Hellloooooooooo! HMO’s are a creation of the Far Left. They were the product of Left Wing “Think Tanks” and the primary sponsor of the bill creating HMO’s was Teddy Kennedy. The Bill was passed through a Democrat controlled House and Senate.

You are not going to find any serious Libertarians defending HMO’s. They are Socialized Health Care Lite. Very Lite. Again, HMO’s are a result of Government intrusion into what should be a private matter.


To Meyer: Popularity has nothing to do with effectiveness or fairness. George Bush is popular among many people. (I’m not one of them.) Hitler had widespread Public Support. People are loathe to change that with which they are familiar. At one time “Universal Healthcare” was Universally Derided even among the Hoi Polloi. They had a system that worked and no desire to change it. Many people in the 13 Colonies were perfectly content to remain under the rule of the British Crown. Popular support proves nothing. That does not mean I would argue it should be disregarded entirely but when it entails the imposition of some regime by force I would generally, as a matter of principle, oppose it.


To tl: Learn to read. Let me guess. Your went to a Government School? I covered that in my last post. Voluntarily given Charity and Voluntary Cooperation by human beings cans solve the problem without the use of Forced Support by Government.
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laimc

by fridayinjapan Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:12 AM

"Believe it or not, SOME people can't AFFORD health insurance. What day is it in YOUR world, Diogenes? In the REAL world, it's Thursday."

Assclown.

LA-IMC, block this twits IP.
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Diogenes

by tl Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:12 AM

Where I live, there is no "charity" healthcare. Try thinking with your head and not your ass for once.
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fridayinjapan

by KOBE SBM Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:13 AM

What's an assclown? I'm an asshatted clown. What's the difference?
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tl

by ? Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:16 AM

>Believe it or not, SOME people can't AFFORD health insurance.

Who? Name names.
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?

by tl Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:19 AM

The last time I checked, MILLIONS of Americans were uninsured.
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tl

by ? Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:20 AM

Ooooh. Millions.

So what's their names? Name one.
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tl

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:21 AM

Then get off your ass and do something about it. I am not opposed to community efforts to make life better. I am opposed to one size fits all Government Mandated, AMA and Insurance Company approved, shoved down your throat medicine.

Show some iniative. Make it happen. If there is a need then people will help. It may require some hard work and engenuity but it can be done. It has been done before.
Just don't always expect somebody else to do it for you. Or try to force somebody else to pay for something that is for your benefit.
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?

by KOBE SBM Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:23 AM

You're even more of a moron than I am.

www.kobehq.com
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tl/KOBE SBM

by ? Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:24 AM

You said millions. Certainly you know one.

Com'n. Give me a name.
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?

by KOBE SBM Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:28 AM

I can't because I know no one. I'm a loner whose passions are cyberterrorism and kiddie porn.

www.kobehq.com
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tl

by ? Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:36 AM

KOBE SBM / tl / Darwin / occasional writer / Hypocrite Slayer / Fake Bush Admirer / Fake Simple Simon / Fake daveman / etc………..

You’re why I never worry about liberals. Get cornered and you haul ass as far as you can.

You said millions. Just one name. Com’n. How tough can that be for such a “smart” liberal like yourself?
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?

by KOBE SBM Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:37 AM

I'm a CONSERVATIVE, asswipe. Try reading "Politics for Dummies."
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KOBE SBM

by ? Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:41 AM

I've seen your website. Your further left than Noam Chomsky times infinity.
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?

by KOBE SBM Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:43 AM

Here's my website:

www.kobehq.com

Now, if you think that's any further left than fascism, you definately need to read "Politics for Dummies."
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KOBE SBM

by ? Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:47 AM

Fascism is left. You definately need to read "Politics for Dummies." Everyone knows Hitler was a liberal. So was Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot. All of them were great leaders of the left. Were they alive today, the Green Party would nominate them all to run as their presidential candidate.
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?

by Dan Quayle Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 11:49 AM

AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Hitler, a liberal? AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! "Politics for Dummies" isn't going to help you at all. You are BEYOND help.
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KOBE SBM

by ? Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 12:02 PM

Hitler was the darling of the left. Still is. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, all believers in a strong central government. They all believed the government should take care of you from cradle to grave. Things like universal health care was a government program right up their alley. If you can't comprehend that, there's not a lot of hope for you. Even "Politics For Dummy's" is too wordy a read for you. It's also further evidence as to why the liberals don't control The White House or the US Senate or the US House and were wrong about 500,000 dieing in the war and the oil fields being lit and causing environmental damage for the next million years or that Saddams military would defeat the US, etc.... The list goes on and on. Your decisions are based on emotions, not intellect. The world doesn't turn on feelings. That's why it's a man's world, not a woman's. You lady's on the left have too much estrogen to make an analytical decision.

And tl can't even name one person who is without healthcare in the US. Oh, there's millions, but when asked for proof of even one name, tl can't produce, can you?. And then liberals expect to be taken seriously. No, we'll just continue to ignore you, come here and make fun of you on a daily basis, spit in your face when we see you around town. But listen to you? Not going to happen. You're all intellectual lightweights. Look around. You can't even run your own lives. Be damned if you'll run mine. Sunshine.
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Here's your name

by tl Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 12:08 PM

John Smith, uninsured American.

You might want to try looking up the word "fascism" (the form of government embraced by Hitler) in the dictionary. Well, since you're probably not capable of doing that, I'll do it FOR you.

Fascism- a form of extreme RIGHT-WING ideology that celebrates the nation or the race as an organic community transcending all other loyalties.
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tl

by ? Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 12:12 PM

Sorry, I'm much too simpleminded to understand your post. I'm a conservative.
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Fascism is actually a rather...

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 12:46 PM

...inchoate term. Per Mussolini the father of moder Fascism it represents the Merger of State and Corporations. He said that another term for it would be Corpratism.

Fascism glorifies war and conflict and views war as a normal state of affairs - one to be lauded as it allows for and promotes opportunities to be heroic.

Like it's mirror twin on the Left Marxism/Leninism it is simply another form of ultimate Government where the individual is reduced to a cog in the "great" machine.

Both are forms of tyranny and I reject both.

As much as the Totalitarian Left would Like to Deride Fascism as a creature of the Right and glorify the Totaltarian Left they are really in many ways similar.

Question: Is there any real difference between being a slave in a Left Wing Totalitarian State and being a slave in a Right Wing Totalitarian State? Does it really matter if you have been made a slave by one or the other which it is? Are you more of slave in one or the other? Or are still just a slave?
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Philosophy and such

by Libertarian Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 12:53 PM

Corporations good, government bad.
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Idiot

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 12:58 PM

Freedom good, Marxism bad.
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Freedom

by Meyer London Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 2:13 PM

Freedom from poverty, economic insecurity, unemployment, mini-tyrants called bosses and landlords, homelessness, exploiters called hmos, hospitals and rich physicians, slums, sales and production quotas, corporate-dominated culture and the worship of money and commodities is good. Capitalism is bad.
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Meyer London

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 2:16 PM

Sorry, I'm much too simpleminded to understand your post. I'm a rightwinger.
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Marxism

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 3:56 PM

Kommissars, petty bureaucratic tyrants, shortages, no choices, your profession is the one the state allows you to have, Gulags, more Gulags, summary executions for speaking freely, more shortages, now do what you are told or be shot.
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Philosophy and such

by Libertarian Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 5:39 PM

Corporations good, government bad.
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More on Marxism

by Diogenes Friday, May. 09, 2003 at 8:19 PM

Kangaroo Courts, extreme Censorship, Militarism, misery, priviledges for the Commissars - because "all are equal but some are more equal than others", brutal Secret Police such as the old KGB or NKVD, a bullet in the head for speaking out, Pollution ( the old Soviet Union was the most Polluted Nation on Earth), Universal Healthcare - if you have the time to wait, and wait, and wait , and wait, and wait, no alternative healthcare because it is forbidden by the state.

Gosh sounds like paradise don't it?
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I agree with ?

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 2:24 AM

Except for this:

"You lady's on the left have too much estrogen to make an analytical decision. "

It's testosterone. Bull-dikes have too much testosterone.
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That's a bullshit definition tl...

by Max Thrasher Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 2:30 AM

let's try the real one from Merriam Webster's:

Main Entry: fas·cism
Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
Date: 1921
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
- fas·cist /-shist also -sist/ noun or adjective, often capitalized
- fas·cis·tic /fa-'shis-tik also -'sis-/ adjective, often capitalized
- fas·cis·ti·cal·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb, often capitalized

let's see that again folks:

"stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and... yes, that's right...

social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition."

Sounds just like the American leftwing to me. Didn't read a fucking thing in there about the conservatives.

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Max Thrasher

by Funk & Wagnall Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 7:01 AM

Our definition is correct. Yours is bullshit. Oh, wait! You're a conservative! You want to tell other people what they can and can't do with their own bodies. Now, you want to control definitions of words. You're pretty power-hungry, Maxie.
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"what they can and can't do with their own bodies."

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 7:05 AM

Really? Since when do conservatives want to tell other people what they can and can't do with their own bodies, when it doesn't infringe upon the rights of others?
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Eric

by Funk & Wagnall Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 7:20 AM

I'll say it slooooooowly so you can understand. DRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUGGS.
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Words of an addict.

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 7:30 AM

How many innocent victims have been claimed by drugs?

I'll say it slowly for you:

Drug users impinge upon MY RIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Eric

by Funk & Wagnall Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 7:36 AM

If I decide to smoke marijuana in MY OWN HOME, how exactly is that impinging upon YOUR rights? This ought to be good.
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So you think...

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 7:43 AM

It should be legal to do drugs in your home, and illegal to do them outside of your home. Is that it?

Okay. I don't have a problem with that as long as you don't have any children, any roomates or family that object to your drug use, you don't turn your music up so loud while you are hitting your bong that it annoys the neighbors, you don't make any crank telephone calls for entertainment while you are stoned, and you have a drug test performed that shows that the drugs are completely out of your system documented certified prior to you coming out of your home or apartment, prior to you operating a car or any equipment, and prior to you coming to work.

That should just about do it. Let's compromise. If you can agree to all of those things, I'll agree that you should be allowed to smoke pot in your home.
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Eric

by Funk & Wagnall Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 7:48 AM

Oh, so you don't have a problem with people getting DRUNK in front of their children, only STONED. Every scenario mentioned in your post happens REGULARLY when people get drunk. But I don't see YOU calling for a ban on alcohol.
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Yes, I do have a problem with that.

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 7:51 AM

I am now publically calling for a ban of alcohol. As I have done many, many times.
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Eric

by skinhead Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 7:54 AM

You'd make a great Hitler. I'm nominating you.
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yes, but you still haven't told us

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 7:57 AM

how much they pay you boardops over at IMC?

We're very curious.
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Fuerher Eric

by Anti-fascist Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:05 AM

I smoke weed. I'm ready for the firing squad, Eric.
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and you deserve one

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:15 AM

I'd like to be one pulling the trigger.

BTW, how much do they pay?
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Eric

by Anti-fascist Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:19 AM

You're a sick man.
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Yes, I am.

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:23 AM

I like telling people what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.

Right now I'm telling you to bend over so I can take you down the hershey highway.
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Eric

by Anti-fascist Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:27 AM

Wow. You want to ban all DRUGS, but NOT homosexuality. You're a strange breed of fascist.
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heh heh.

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:27 AM

He said "breed".
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Eric

by George W. Bush Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:29 AM

Wow. You're even dumber than me.
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are you implying...

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:30 AM

that drugs and homosexuality are somehow interlinked?
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Eric

by Anti-fascist Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:34 AM

You want to tell people what they can and can't do with their own bodies. That would INCLUDE sexual behavior, you genius, you.
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I think you're just projecting...

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:35 AM

in the psychological sense of the word.
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I think you wouldn't know logic...

by Anti-fascist Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:40 AM

...if it bit you on your cellulite-laden ass.
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obviously, you've never seen my ass.

by Eric Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:41 AM

It's very firm. Round and plum also. And it smells like strawberries.
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Eric

by Eric's blow-up doll Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 8:47 AM

Stop lying. Your ass is flabby and smells like baby shit.
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Capitalism saves us from tyranny?

by Meyer London Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 11:00 AM

Yeah, Diogenes, having the workers own and control the means of production and distribution instead of absolute dicators called capitalists, and guaranteeing everyone the right to a job, housing, medical care, free education at all levels, and a decent income will start us all on the slippery slope leading to gulags, firing squads and statues of Stalin. Strom Thurmond could not have said it better. Neither could Ronnie Reagan or G.W. Bush.
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Pop quiz

by daveman Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 11:33 AM

Name a successful, long-lasting socialist/Marxist society whose citizens have the same freedoms enjoyed by capitalist societies the world over.
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daveman

by Max Thrasher Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 11:34 AM

Freedom? Oh, you mean the freedom to do what you want to your own body? THAT freedom?
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Hush, fake guy...

by daveman Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 11:44 AM

..people with functiong neurons are talking.
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daveman

by concerned for your mental health Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 11:45 AM

Look out!! The fake guy is behind you!!!!!!
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A few comments

by Diogenes Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 4:35 PM

So Meyer who pays?

“having the workers own and control the means of production and distribution instead of absolute dictators called capitalists, and guaranteeing everyone the right to a job, housing, medical care, free education at all levels, and a decent income will start us all on the slippery slope leading to gulags, firing squads and statues of Stalin.”

“I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature.”
-- Sidney Hook, Out of Step

And by and by there will be Pie in the Sky. Excuse me I don’t mean to be brutally sarcastic, but while it sounds pretty on paper Socialist/Marxist Governments are about the closest to Hell on Earth I can think of. My primary objection to any Socialist/Marxist Government is that it is inherently repressive and unfair. Like an Economic Vampire they suck the lifeblood of the Working Classes whom they allegedly Serve. Ha, ha - broiled perhaps? When they function at all it is because some people still continue to work and produce despite having most of their labor confiscated by the Government. Fundamentally they are unsound because the punish people for achieving and reward people for sitting on their butt. It sounds nice to say everyone is guaranteed a job, but that doesn’t guarantee they will work - without the suggestion of someone with a Gun. Marxist Regimes in the 20th Century were among the most brutal and repressive governments on the Planet. Now, I know that has probably got your teeth grinding already but I am sorry that is how it has worked in practice.

Under the benign regime of those great humanitarians - Lenin and Stalin the cowering masses of the Worker's Paradise retreated into highest per capita consumption of Vodka in the world. A signal achievement. Need I cite Siberia, or the "liquidation" of the Kulaks. Perhaps you prefer Mao's famous comment that "Political power comes from the barrel of a gun"? I like the running joke in the old soviet Union- the Russian sense of humor: “Under Capitalism man exploits man, under socialism it is vice versa”.

The Crimes of Marxism in practice are many, varied, and horrific. How about the liquidation of the Polish Resistance at the end of W.W.II by Soviet forces - under Stalin's cultured hand? The Katyn Forest massacre of the Polish Officer Corps, and many Troops, is a matter of historical record. Stalin made Hitler's 13 million or so look like small change. And Mao was even bloodier than Stalin. While estimates vary, the the death toll of the “Cultural Revolution” alone is in the range of 20 to 30 MILLION. Pol Pot was not a Capitalist.

“[T]he Soviet has allowed its people to starve by the thousands...made itself a monopoly of monopolies...restored serfdom...indentured servitude...kept wages low and labor intense...It has pitilessly industrialized its women under the pretense of emancipating them...crowded the population into dingy quarters...stifled the growth of democracy...waged a class war against peasants, tradesmen, and mental workers...there is no opportunity for the expression of the public will...it has oppressed with unsurpassed barbarity men and women guilty of no other crime than the prosperity attendant upon enterprise industry, intelligence and thrift...it has refused the rights of habeas corpus, of trial by jury, of equality before the law; it has sent its secret police into a million homes...it has terrorized the public with marching armies, secret police, merciless penalties, and a million spies. It has deported or shot hundreds of thousands of men and women solely for political heresy and non-conformance...It has subjected to censorship every drama and every book...it has prostituted the press, the radio and the stage...It has suppressed all freedom of speech or assembly.”
-- Will Durant, The Tragedy of Russia, Simon and Schuster

[As a side note; in a free Society you are perfectly free to start a Worker owned company. Nobody is preventing you from doing it. (Although I do have a qualifier on that which I’ll get back to.) I do not object to worker owned companies and farms. In fact I think it is a great idea - as long you don’t try to use force to impose your designs on other people.]

“One difference between libertarianism and socialism is that a socialist society can't tolerate groups of people practicing freedom, while a libertarian society can comfortably allow people to choose voluntary socialism.”
-- David Boaz - Creating a Framework For Utopia

The Government of the United States began as a Representative Republic but has evolved into a Plutocratic/Socialist State. While most people labor under the mistaken impression, sold in Government Controlled Schools, that we have a Capitalist Economy in the formal definition of Capitalism, as an Economist would define it, the United States is not a Capitalist Country. We have a myriad of laws protecting established interests and prohibiting the type free market which a true Free Market Capitalist Economy requires. What we have is a hybrid of Plutocracy (Rule by the Rich), which is a Political System not an Economic System, and Socialism. It is one of the interesting facts of History that Lenin was heavily subsidized by Wall Street Bankers as was Hitler.

I have a novel idea - let's try freedom for a change. Both Socialism and Plutocracy share a common means of bringing about their ends FORCE. Raw naked FORCE - men with Guns enforcing the Governments edicts (or plans if you will). As much as the Far Left (or Far Right for that Matter) would like to avoid it the two are really in many ways very similar. Both use a feudalistic command structure from those who “know best” to order the “proletarian hoi polloi” and that means you and me. Whether you call it the “Board Room”, “The Club”, or the “Central Committee” the result is the same - do as you are told or die. The dogma that “the people control it” is to put it bluntly horse shit. It has NEVER worked that way in any Socialist/Marxist Regime you care to name. Ask the 10 Million Free Farmers (Kulaks) Stalin Starved to Death when they did not want to give their farms to the State in Stalin’s forced Collectivization of Agriculture. (Which was a complete failure as Agricultural Productivity collapsed. Although you’ll be glad to hear that Stalin never went hungry as millions starved.) Ask the Millions who died in “The Great Leap Forward” how benign their Government was. Read what Solzhenitsyn had to say - “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch” is enough to chill your bones. When everybody owns everything nobody owns anything. And the People holding the reigns of Political Power run the Circus. You jump through the Hoop or you get the whip. Everyone is equal. Yeah, right, sure, you betcha’ - NOT. “Everyone is equal except some are more equal than others.”

More Similarities:
Socialism relies upon using the power of the central government and taking from those who do to give to those who don't.
Plutocracy relies upon buying control of the government and using the power of the central government to take from those who do to take for those who don't.

Socialism creates a great sea of slaves beholden to bureaucrats to provide their daily bread.
Plutocracy creates a great sea of slaves beholden to private interests for their daily bread.

Does the slave really care about the difference?

What makes a Socialist Fascist State preferable to a Plutocratic Fascist State?

What makes a Plutocratic Fascist State preferable to a Socialist Fascist State?

Is there any difference in being a slave to the state or a slave to some remote Plutocrat?

Pray tell what is the fundamental difference? Are you still a slave if the government owns you? And when the government can take from you what you have produced, your earnings, by force you are owned and are a slave. The average working American now pays between 40 and 55 percent of their earnings in some form of taxation. So, you are to that degree an economic slave.

“Where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation.” Friedrich Von Hayek - Austrian Economist - From “The Road to Serfdom”

Tyranny begins when some individual, or group, conceive that it is easier to achieve their ends by taking from somebody else rather than engaging in honest labor to accomplish something. This has, through history, come under a variety of names “The Divine Right of Kings, The Imperial Caesar, Fascism, Marxism et.al,... They all have one thing in common - you have a group of self styled leaders who believe it their right to take the labor of other people for their own benefit. It is usually gussied up in terms that sound lofty but the reality is that to institute a system where you take from one person to distribute to another, however high or low your motives it is tyranny. You can dress it up in all the pseudo intellectual drivel you want but in the end when you strip away the high falutin’ verbiage the one common theme is force and it’s imposition on other people to make them do what you want. I reject utterly that kind of TYRANNY. That we have an elite few running the show for their own sick benefit does not justify replacing them with a different sick elite few of a “different” political persuasion. Lenin, Stalin and Mao were responsible for murdering upwards of 100 MILLION PEOPLE in their workers’ paradise. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that that is offered as a defense of Capitalism - which has it’s faults too. I simply find it less objectionable than the alternatives. I don’t approve of murdering bastards at either end of the spectrum. The real secret is decentralization - the democratization of power - in the hands of individuals secure in their possessions - including the right to spend their own labors as they choose - this isolates other groups from the predatory actions of a few. The model you would seem to propose is the same tired “one size fits all” Marxist totalitarianism. Like most people who think they oppose Capitalism you make the mistake in assuming that because some people behave badly, and are allowed to get away with it that Capitalist organization is some how bad. However what we both abhor is the corruption that allows the criminal, however Suited, to get away with buying a few crooked Judges and Politicians to grease his/her way.
And I am not necessarily opposed to large businesses. Size alone does not determine goodness or badness - it comes back to the people running the organization - if they are good then they will accomplish good if not....
It is not necessary to use force to have most people behave decently and in an orderly fashion. Most people, examine your own experience, are more than willing to extend a helping hand to their fellows. That is why we still have, despite a tax load bordering on outright confiscation, many privately run and supported charities. it is the minority who behave in an ill mannered and evil fashion. That is why we have laws. To protect the decent majority against the predation of the evil minority

In a free society Capitalism will occur naturally as a consequence of being free. And without economic freedom political freedom cannot last.

Capital is nothing more than an Economic term that means the wherewithal to produce a useful product which can then be exchanged with someone else for whatever good or service the producer deems needed or desired. This is a form of freedom - economic freedom.
When a laborer takes his knowledge and skills (a form of capital) and produces a fine chair he or she can then take that chair and sell it, or trade it, for whatever the market will bear. This is economic freedom. You produce something, you sell it, you use the proceeds to buy something - or just save it. You own your own labor and industry. At the moment someone else, or some government, starts taking some of what you produced you are that much less free. The Mafia calls it “Protection Money”, the Plutocrats call it “Income”, the government calls it “Taxes”. But, to the degree that it is done against your will, at the threat of a gun, you are that much less free.

“Wages are not paid for labor expended, but for the achievements of labor, which differ widely in quality and quantity.”
Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Action Within the World

At the turn of the last century we had a better social safety net than we do now - but it was in private hands and was thus accountable to the people who supported it. It had no means to force people to contribute. Perform in bad faith and the money dries up.
With government programs perform in bad faith, that is run a program that fails or is even counterproductive, holler that you don’t have enough money to do it and raise taxes to cover the supposed difference. But never ever demand that the program justify itself by measurable positive results. That would be “too harsh”. (Excuse me while I vomit.)

in a true Free Market Economy “you eat what you kill”. Which is a rather grotesque way of saying that you are rewarded to the extent you produce. No production equals no income equals Soup Line.

Very few people, on a relative basis, are likely to go to bed hungry in America tonight. I am not saying that some will not but compared to other lands the percentage is miniscule. Again do not mistake me I am not indifferent to the plight of those living in abject poverty. However, in a free economy there is a universal solution. You want more you work harder or smarter or both. If you are unable to do so Charities exist to help people and with a smaller tax load they would be amply funded. Again, most people are more than happy to extend a helping hand, voluntarily and without coercion, to help someone in distress.
Historically the people of the United States are among the most giving and caring you will find anywhere. It would take a very long list to include all of the organizations that are doing good and charitable works that are both private and supported by donations from American Citizens of all Classes.
If you want to flourish and prosper you avoid engaging in contra-survival behavior like alcoholism, drug abuse, or having children you cannot support. (The welfare system that rewards young women for out of wedlock births is a crime against those women as it rewards them in behavior contrary to the own best interests and perpetuates the cycle from generation to generation. The current phenomenon of the “American Underclass” is result not so much of Capitalism but of a Socialist Welfare System that rewards people for irresponsible behavior. Have a baby at 14? No problem we’ll support you in your irresponsibility and help you to ruin your life as you learn that all you have to do is stay pregnant and the checks keep coming. You may think that a cruel statement but I believe the system that creates it is the cruelty. If it makes you squirm and try to avoid it that is because you know it to be the truth. If you don’t accept it at as true dig into the numbers - the rise in out of wedlock births exactly parallels the growth of the Welfare System.)

I could go on but this post is already longer than I planned. Please feel free to rebut.
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This thread has a lot of garbage in it but.........

by Bush Admirer Saturday, May. 10, 2003 at 5:26 PM

This thread has a lot of spam type garbage in it. However, Professor Locke's opening article is brilliant.

Meyer London's posts, on the otherhand, are sheer stupidity. In fact, if you want to know what stupidity really is, all you need to do is read London's drivel.
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Libertasrianism has been tried

by Meyer London Sunday, May. 11, 2003 at 1:00 PM

In 19th century Britain. Just read the novels of Charles Dickens and you will see how it really operated in practice. Or try a good scholarly history of London like that of Stephen Inwood. Anyone who doesn't know that libertarian brings suffering like that along with it is ignorant of history; anyone who knows it but want such a society anyway is sick.
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It's funny

by impartial observer for Satan Sunday, May. 11, 2003 at 1:18 PM

Bush Admirer doesn't do reading unless it's
Ann Coulter the chicken head.
He's such an expert.
Good points, Meyer.
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To Meyer

by Diogenes Monday, May. 12, 2003 at 5:33 AM

Dickens' England is in no fashion a good model of Libertarianism. It was a time of Industrial and Agricultural dislocation. Politically it was still largely run by the Hereditary Aristocracy. Please explain how that fits into Libertarian Thought? The time frame is in the early Industrial Revolution when many people were leaving the Countryside and the oppressive remnants of the Manorial System and flooding into the Cities, not just London but Birmingham and Liverpool as well, and seeking jobs in the Factories of the New Industrial Class. Read James Burke’s “The Day the Universe Changed” for a basic introduction. As bad as it was, and it was pretty atrocious it offered more freedom than the Countryside they fled (A commoner could not even move from one County to another without the consent of the Authorities.) Dickensian England was dominated by the Aristocracy and Mercantilist Bankers, Industrialists, and was rife with control and injustice. It was however dirty and brutal an improvement.

A better model of Libertarianism would be the 13 Colonies of the United States at the time of the Revolution and for the next 30 to 50 years thereafter. Taxes were insignificant, regulations were insignificant, and the people of the 13 Colonies enjoyed the highest standard of living in the World even then. With Trade and a growing agricultural base the people of the 13 Colonies (States) lived in nearly complete freedom and the nation flourished.

Dig into the history. Were there defects. Well, yes. And your point? Utopia exists only on a piece of paper. In the real world things do get messy from time to time. However, I would rather live amidst messy freedom than in the ordered Ant-Hive existence of some Marxist-Totalitarian State.
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Cynicism

by The Dog Monday, May. 12, 2003 at 6:59 AM

Oh yeah, the utopia of the 13 American colonies...

Slaves bought and sold as property in the South, women and men without property didn't have the right to vote, and people who couldn't pay-off their debts were sent to debtors prison.

Even so, the Founding Fathers acted in decidely anti-Libertarian fashion when they did address economic injustice. Consider this defense by Benjamin Franklin on of the conditon of the poor in Colonial America:

"Add to this, all the laws made to discourage foreign manufactures, by laying heavy duties on them, or totally prohibiting them, whereby the rich are obliged to pay much higher prices for what they wear and consume, than if the trade was open: These are so many laws for the support of our labouring poor, made by the rich, and continued at their expence; all the difference of price between our own and foreign commodities, being so much given by our rich to our poor; who would indeed be enabled by it to get by degrees above poverty, if they did not, as too generally they do, consider every increase of wages only as something that enables them to drink more and work less; so that their distress in sickness, age, or times of scarcity, continues to be the same as if such laws had never been made in their favour."

So if you think the colonies are even the faintest shadow of a Libertarian utopia, you must be a wealthy, white land owner -- were you anyone else, your opinion didn't matter.
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I never said...

by Diogenes Monday, May. 12, 2003 at 9:19 AM

...it was perfect. I said it was a better model. Please point out and demonstrate where a "Perfect" Social Organization among humans was every achieved?

It is the empt Set. No such animal exists. Ideals are something we aim for, reality is what we get. That does not relieve us of the obligation to try and make things better.

Go back to scratching fleas.
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philosophers and dogs

by Sheepdog Monday, May. 12, 2003 at 11:40 AM

just my two cents...
It seems to me that the problem is control of resources
by the few at the unfair expense of the many. Yes, we all
have individual motivations, talents and abilities but a privileged
few now command the policies of the rest of us to provide self
enrichment at the endangerment of our species.
All humans deserve equal opportunity to fail or succeed.
This means equal primary resources to all who would use them to
endeavor in the struggle for success. Health, housing, food and education
it seems to me, are the basic tools that should be available in a society
as rich as ours, to anyone.
The vast majority of humans on this earth wish only to live and work and
prosper so their children may enjoy a better world.
It’s not the accumulation of wealth or the wish to enjoy the fruits
of ones labor that is the problem as I see it, but the accumulation
of power passed to undeserving sons and daughters from criminal
enterprise to produce an unrestrained ruling class that is killing this
earth and our future.
Where is the counter balance to inherited privilege and power that
purposefully excludes the advancement of less opportunistic or ruthless
enterprise?
Without the informed consent of the majority we will always be led down
the road of wars and eventual slavery to the most vicious, the most
dishonest the least moral. The scum now always rises to the top of the
pond, smothering all the other life. So what shall be the instrumentality of
social interaction to prevent so much power coming into the hands of
a criminal elite with their secret deals payoffs and overt/covert violence? It must reside with majority consent.
Any political labels just confuse the issue.
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Libertarians in Britain

by Meyer London Monday, May. 12, 2003 at 12:16 PM

The people who were causing these massive social dislocations were exactly the same people whose wishes Libertarains think should never be interfered with: wealthy landowners, merchants, and industrialists. Property rights were given priority over human rights to food, shelter and to life itself. The "stakeholders" (those who had the most property) were assumed to have the best right to run society, and any attempt to tax their ill-gotten wealth (based partially on piracy and the slave trade) was condemned as an outrageous assault on the sacred principle of "liberty." Sounds a lot like the Libertarian Party to me. If anyone had the temerity to suggest that it was unjust for some people to live in palaces and others (who did most of society's work) to live in shacks, hovels or slums, the standard response was that no one can expect "utopia" or a perfect society. Hmm, where have I read that before? The genocidal starving of the Irish population during the Potato Famine was shrugged off by the British ruling class and their intellectual lap dogs with the explanation that government shipments of food woud interfere with the sacred principe of free trade, the laws of supply and demand, and the responsibility of each person to provide for himself/herself.
Ah, nostalgia for the 13 colonies and their successor states. Again, one can't expect perfection. The vast majority of the adult population could not vote? So what? Indians, Blacks, women, and poor white men may have made up the vast majority of the population but the rights of the people who really counted - property-owning white males - were protected. Isn't that what liberty, and Libertarianism, are all about? Anyway, those troublesome Indians had to be exterminated or moved out of the way; their weird collectivist notions of no one being able to own land would have made the development of capitalism impossible. Besides, their strange, incomprehensible practices seemed to make a mockery of the idea that capitalism and competition for goods comes right from human nature. For example, when hunting parties went out, some Indians, out of luck or skill, brought down more game than others. But when they returned to the village, the results of the hunt were shared out equally! Outrageous!
In any event, let us all be grateful that heroic enemies of collectivism have arisen frequently in both Britain and the US to fight the menace of free housing or workplace democracy; this pantheon of glory includes the Duke of Wellington, Herbert Spencer, John C. Calhoun, Jeff Davis, Henry Ford, John Wilkes Booth, Calvin Coolidge, Margaret Thatcher and Ronnie Reagan. All hail the heroes!
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