Rats.
Everyone's blogging about all the studies showing (as if it needed to be shown yet again) that vitamin supplementation is not necessary for most people, nor does it decrease the risk of heart disease or cancer, and I can't, at least not yet. Why not? Because my friggin' university doesn't subscribe to the Annals of Internal Medicine! I know! Can you believe it? And, you, my regular readers, know that I never blog a study (or three studies) without having the actual studies in front of me. Abstracts alone, as I've shown time and time again, can be deceiving. So, until one of my partners in crime elsewhere sends me copies of the articles, I'm kind of stuck. [ADDENDUM: I got them overnight.]
Fortunately, even though I hate to be left out of this party, even if for a day or two, there's always plenty more blogging material out there. It's even appropriate, given how recently I wrote about the politics of the antivaccine movement, and how antivaccine quackery is the quackery that knows little in the way of political boundaries, with both sides being prone to antivaccine ideas. True, the right and the left seem to come to their antivaccine ideas from different directions. For example, lefty antivaccinationists tend to come to their views from crunchy beliefs in an idealized concept of what is "natural" and in "natural healing" combined with a major distrust of big business, in particular big pharma. In contrast, righty antivaccinationists tend to come to it through the idea of "health freedom," in which anything resembling government coercion is to be resisted and any attempt to regulate medicine is viewed with suspicion. Besides, after experiencing such an awesome lovefest from my readers due to my belated mention of my ninth blogiversary, it's time for some Insolence again that's likely to tick off someone at least. Orac just can't handle such universal niceness for long. This post is likely to fix that for some, while others will pump their fists and shout, "Hell, yes!" Which are you? Let's find out.
It all started, as it not too infrequently does, when post over at that happy home for wanderingly daft antivaccinationists, the Age of Autism caught my eye a couple of days ago. (Yes, I know it's a bad idea to expose my neurons to such neuron-apoptosing nonsense as the regular content of AoA, but it is at times a convenient source of blog material and my neurons are hardened from years of regular exposure.) It was by a contributor of whom I had never heard before named Adriana Gamondes, entitled Libertarian Backlash against Reason Magazine’s “Corporatist,” “Pseudolibertarian” Compulsory Vaccine Campaign. In particular, Mrs. Gamondes is touting an article published at a website of which I had never heard before, Police State USA. Actually, I must just not have remembered her, because she's definitely contributed to AoA before on several occasions. Indeed, her "work," such as it is, rivals the looniest of the crew at AoA for sheer brain death (of both the writer and the reader, alas). She fits right in, given that according to this post from 2009 she is "the mother of twins who are currently recovering from vaccine-induced GI disorders."
What's interesting is this passage from Gamondes:
Age of Autism is a politically agnostic forum but not apolitical. To quote Herman Melville, “There seems no reason why serviceable truth should keep cloistered because not partisan.” There are rare exceptions to unilateral mainstream news compliance with government demands that critical views of vaccines be censored. PSUSA has done an elegant job ignoring the memo and explaining why compulsory medicine cannot be legitimately argued from a liberty position.
Except that I would argue that AoA is not exactly politically agnostic. After all, several of its members are prominent in the Canary Party, an antivaccine organization that advocates against vaccines, to the point of buying off politicians and lobbying. Fortunately, it has not had a lot of success thus far, but it keeps trying. It also has forged ties with at least one Tea Party-affiliated group in California. Heck, Mike Adams even endorsed them. In other words, AoA tends to lean right, towards the Libertarian end of the spectrum, and Gamondes' likes rhetoric that could have been written by Mikey himself.
But first, let's take a look at what set Police State USA off. It's an article from a couple of weeks ago by Ronald Bailey over at Reason Magazine entitled Refusing Vaccination Puts Others At Risk: A pragmatic argument for coercive vaccination. Now, believe it or not, I actually read Reason. I used to read it more regularly, but then my politics drifted away from that direction, to the point where reading that magazine would actually annoy me. However, this particular article by Bailey actually made sense. Basically, he claims that Libertarianism is not a justification for putting others at risk:
There would be no argument against allowing people to refuse vaccination if they and their families would suffer alone the consequences of their foolhardiness. It would be their right to forego misery-reducing and life-preserving treatments. But that is not the case in the real world.
Correct, and that's what those of us who promote vaccination have been saying all along. Indeed, we've been pointing out that antivaccinationists endanger everyone because they promote the degradation of herd immunity. Bailey agrees, and he dutifully discusses the Project Tycho, which, as I pointed out, shows how well vaccines have worked over the last century. He also debunks some common antivaccine talking points, such as the highly intellectually dishonest trope that "vaccines didn't save us," while listing how much children owe to vaccines, including the newer ones that antivaccinationists like to dump on, such as the rotavirus vaccine and the chickenpox vaccine. Based on herd immunity, Bailey asserts (and I agree):
People who refuse vaccination for themselves and their children are free-riding off herd immunity. Anti-vaccination folks are taking advantage of the fact that most people around them have chosen the minimal risk of vaccination, thus acting as a firewall protecting them from disease. But if enough refuse, the firewall comes down and other people get hurt.
Oliver Wendell Holmes articulated a good libertarian principle when he said, "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." Holmes’ observation is particularly salient in the case of whooping cough shots.
And:
To borrow Holmes’ metaphor, people who refuse vaccination are asserting that they have a right to “swing” their microbes at other people. There is no principled libertarian case for their free-riding refusal to take responsibility for their own microbes.
I'd agree that there's no "principled Libertarian case," but that doesn't mean that there isn't a Libertarian case. It boils down to, basically, "Screw you. I don't care if my decision affects others." Come to think of it, a whole lot of Libertarianism boils down to this in actual practice, the highfalutin rhetoric of the more practical Libertarians like Bailey notwithstanding. Don't believe me? Take a look at how Police State USA puts it. First, it equates the ability to refuse vaccinations with free markets and any sort of mandated vaccination as being anathema to a free market. This is very critical to understanding this sort of thinking. Libertarianism appears to worship the free market above all. Consequently, all a Libertarian like those at PSUSA has to do to justify anything is to try to link it to the free market somehow and link what it dislikes to crushing the free market. Why? Because to this brand of Libertarianism the free market is a Good That Shall Not Be Questioned. Ever. Under any circumstances.
The other Good That Shall Never Be Questioned is utter unfettered individual rights without consideration for others. Indeed, PSUSA complains about any form of collectivism, anything that is instituted for the greatest good for the greatest number of people, specifically objecting to the use of the term "herd immunity," likening it to cattle. I'm only impressed that this anonymous writer refrained from using the word "sheeple." That would have been the perfect topper to this little screed. As it is, I'll have to amuse myself with passages like this:
The only thing more full of holes than Bailey’s doctrine is his ridiculous argument against people having “a right to swing their microbes at other people.” His implication is that the spread of germs is an initiation of force from one person against others, therefore justifying state intervention to mitigate that initiation of force. This cheapens the definition of force to an utterly ubiquitous level. A single person picks up and loses an incalculable number of microorganisms per day. This is done invisibly, without a person’s knowledge, whether he is healthy or sick, without malice, without intent, and without the ability to stop it (even if you try). No one can know how many billions of microorganisms were exchanged in a given day, nor who will be susceptible to them. No one can prove beyond reasonable doubt which person dropped which microorganism.
The stupid, it doth burn. Of course, we all carry microbes and exchange them with each other every day. However, there's a difference between just microbes and microbes that cause serious diseases that can be vaccinated against. If you can prevent endangering others with microbes that you carry or prevent your children from endangering other children by taking a simple precaution that is incredibly safe for you and your child, then why wouldn't that be an assault?
Of course, Reason readers tend to think along the same way that Police State USA thinks, namely, "Screw you! I don't care if what I do hurts you." Just take a look at the Facebook post for Bailey's article. It's peppered with comments like:
Explain how not getting a vaccination yourself puts someone else at risk. If you get sick and they are vaccinated then they won't get sick because they a vaccinated against it right? Oh, vaccinations don't actually protect against getting sick?!? Then why do we get them.
The stupid, it burns. And I do mean you, Parrish Miller, whoever you are.
And:
Herd Immunity is more Bullshit from Big Pharma with NO logic behind it!
And:
How about "I DON'T WANT TO!"? That's about as libertarian as it gets. There is no such thing as a positive obligation in libertarian philosophy and that includes an obligation to be vaccinated.
Which is as good a reason as any as to why I shucked my Libertarian tendencies. (Well, that, and my increasing realization over the last 15 years that an "unfettered" free market is not a panacea.)
Sadly, Ronald Bailey is fighting a losing battle. On vaccines, he really appears not to be in tune with his fellow Libertarians, who are all too prone to denying science when it inconveniently clashes with their worship of the free market and individual freedom above all. As I've said time and time again, the entire "health freedom" movement (a.k.a. the freedom of quacks from having the government interfere with their plying their quackery), of which the antivaccine movement is but a part, is very much at home within the Libertarian movement. Indeed, one can say that it's as pure an expression of Libertarianism as there is: Don't regulate quackery, as the free market will take care of it all (you know, much the way it did so effectively before the creation of the FDA and other regulatory agencies, with wandering snake oil salesmen and pharmaceutical companies bringing drugs to market without testing them) and no one can tell me what I can and can't put into my body (never mind whether it's based on misinformation and false claims or not). Don't require me to do anything that will benefit me and my fellow citizens, such as vaccinating. And, above all, don't discuss the delicate balance between personal liberty and what benefits and harms society. If you do, you'll get the kind of reaction that Ronald Bailey got. That's the problem that Libertarians trying to take a reasonable position with respect to medicine run into that they don't want to admit. Quackery and antivaccine views go together with Libertarianism like show trials and dictatorships. The more scientifically inclined Libertarians know that, and it bothers them. Unfortunately, they are very quickly reminded of it by their fellow Libertarians when they try to make a "principled Libertarian case" for vaccine mandates, as Ronald Bailey was.
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I've gone 'round and 'round with some of my Lib friends on this issue.
IMO they're using the label of Libertarian to justify being sanctimonious, selfish aholes.
Yes, yes, it's your right to determine what you do to your body - but that doesn't give you the right to intentionally risk the health of others via your execution of that right - which is what refusing vaccination does.
I have one (now ex) friend who actually said that, "If my not vaccinating myself or my kid causes someone else's kid to die - that's just too bad for them. They should have been healthier. It's not my fault nor my problem."
I was actually speechless.
Stopping after the first paragraph to post this: on twitter, the hashtag #icanhazpdf with the citation often leads to good results.
The reality of this argument against is, "Since people can't tell I'm free-riding on herd immunity, my choice that harms others is perfectly acceptable." They just don't want to admit they are behaving that way.
@Orac - actually, I find Libertarians to be definitely at odds with the "Free Market" i.e. the Corporations and businesses that they presume to support....as a CEO, I would certainly mandate that my employees get all of their vaccinations (in a Libertarian Paradise) and stay up to date or I would fire them.
Unvaccinated employees endanger my profits, since sick employees aren't contributing to the bottom line & certainly put my other employees at risk of the same - so, as an unfettered business man, I should make it a condition of employment to get vaccinated (and if you can't get vaccinated for medical reasons - all the better that all of the other employees who can, do).
If the employees don't like it, they can quit and work somewhere else, right?
Well, I'm happy this morning because 2 hospitals in Tucson swatted this type of nonsense out the door w/r/t flu vaccine for health care workers: http://azstarnet.com/news/local/ua-health-network-makes-flu-shots-manda….
Well, this made me mad, but not at you.
Like Lawrence, I'd argue that not vaccination hurts the "free market" more than it helps, except for maybe those who make money from hospital stays and long-term antibiotics or antivirals, makers of hearing aids, CIs, caskets, and funeral homes. Plus, I tell our employees all the time, while it may be your "right to decide what goes in your body" it is your privilege to work at this hospital.
No one can prove beyond reasonable doubt which person dropped which microorganism
When did "reasonable doubt" become part of epidemiology? Oh, wait, like they are wont to do, they're looking at this from a legal standpoint of how much they can personally get away with, rather than contributing to someone's needless death. It requires entire brain-shifts to think like them, and god it hurts.
The Ron Paul/Rand Paul/Les Paul crowd would have a better shot of justifying their beliefs on the basis of libertarianism if they weren't also chock full of pseudoscientific nonsense.
"I’d agree that there’s no “principled Libertarian case,” but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a Libertarian case. It boils down to, basically, “Screw you. I don’t care if my decision affects others.”
A quoted followup comment states it even more succinctly ("I Don't Want To") but to capture the full flavor of the mature and highly reasoned Libertarian position, it should read "I Don't Want To And You Can't Make Me".
It's basically a spoiled three-year-old's approach to living in society.
a few things...
Gamondes has been around - I've read a few of her more bizarre entries.
ah yes, the free market- tells us about what a stabilising force it has been in earlier days..
lord! next they're being dragging in their fav economic theories to jusify their selfishness
( -btw- low taxes mean that the general population often is ill-educated and public services deteriorate or are non-existent- who wants to live in a place like that? Higher taxes mean that I live in a more civilised environment- AND I have been to semi-tropical, small government 'paradises'- not my cup of tea)
the idea of western democracies being 'police states' is an everyday meme at PRN and NaturalNews
If you want to visit a black hole / sinkhole/ quagmire of libertarianism applied to vaccine ( dis) information, see Robert Schecter's The Vaccine Machine facebook page ( and separate blog). It's hugely popular and very activist.
Mikey takes on the newest research about supplements.
Hello Mrs Woo, glad to see you.
@ Chris Hickie:
I'm glad to hear that! Don't you live in sort of a libertarian-friendly area? -btw- when Adams returned after his hiatus in Ecuador, he lived in Tucson prior to moving to Austin.
Lawrence @4: You imply that Libertarianism is a coherent political philosophy, which assumes facts not in evidence. About the only coherent philosophical underpinning I have been able to discern in Libertarianism is IGMFY (the first three letters stand for I Got Mine; I assume most RI readers can figure out the rest).
Funny thing is is that we can in a lot of cases with molecular epidemiological techniques and contact tracing.
A couple of points:
There is a long tradition of societies coping with infectious disease by quarantining infected individuals. If you have the right to refuse vaccines, then we have the right to exclude you from schools, workplaces, etc. Perhaps a bell around the neck might be useful to warn others that you are a potential hazard.
Your choice to refuse vaccines does not obligate the rest of society to pay for the expense of the consequences. People who refuse vaccines for non-medical reasons could have a clause in their health insurance that denies coverage for illness resulting from that choice.
@Science Mom "Funny thing is is that we can in a lot of cases with molecular epidemiological techniques and contact tracing."
:) That makes it interesting. So libertarians would have no issues with a person who is harmed from microbes dropped* from unvaccinated libertarians suing them through the courts for pain, suffering, ongoing medical treatment, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of earnings potential, etc?
*for some reason, this phrase has me thinking of Hansel and Gretel and breadcrumbs. It's early morning and I have had little sleep.
@ Denice--I live in one of the zaniest states in the country. Don't get me wrong--I was born in Arizona and I love it here, but there is almost nothing consistent or predictable here when it comes to politics. And yep, there's a libertarian/conspiracy theorist railing away online right now in the comments section on that article I cited above.
And yep, there’s a libertarian/conspiracy theorist railing away online right now in the comments section on that article I cited above.
It could be worse. In the state where I live, these types are too frequently elected to the state legislature. When you have one legislator for every 3200 residents, and more state reps than polling precincts*, it's easy for these people to slip under the radar.
*Our state constitution restricts where district boundaries can be drawn (they must coincide with township or ward boundaries), so multi-member districts are inevitable.
Touching on the vitamin question, I just wanted to be the first to say the phrase 'expensive urine' which was funny when I was first taught it at medical school 37 years ago (but that was in the UK and the vitamin craze never took off there like it did in the US), and is still an excellent way of describing what the average multivitamin provides.
Do you read what is in the vaccines and are you aware of how much it profits pharmaceutical companies to sell more, and are you aware of the success rate or lack thereof of all of these vaccines and the harmful affects of some of the contents of the vaccines? Learn that before commenting that we need all of these vaccines pushed at us. For instance, research, the people most likely to develop whooping cough are those who received the vaccine. For instance. vaccine manufacturers know that shingles (same virus as chickenpox and herpes) can be knocked back by Lysine, an amino acid found in foods. Are we told this? No, it would hamper vaccine sales.
Libertarian believe in following our Constitution. If you think that is whacky, then you are part of the problem that has this country in shambles.
And while we are here, let's look at the difference between Republic and Democracy. The USA is a republic. That means we follow our Constitution. Democracy men as we follow the popular vote. They are not the same. Democracy can sway the whole basis the country was founded upon.
Oh look. Somewhat fresh meat. *Yawn*
Not quite a coverall, CJ, but at least a diagonal in AV bingo.
Now, which ruling determined the constitution included the right to endanger the health of others? I'm on a smart phone, so it's impractical for me to find the one that ruled it wasn't in the constitution, but I'm sure others will.
Also, a hearty [citations needed]
Adriana Gamondes is a poster artist and does much (if not all) of the pictorial layouts for Age of Autism, The Canary Party and its affiliates:
https://www.google.com/search?q=posters+adriana+gamondes&client=firefox…
Who could ever forget this example of Gamondes' talent...which somehow got pulled from Age of Autism?
http://skepacabra.wordpress.com/tag/adriana-gamondes/
A lot of these comments I'm reading are based on the flawed idea that all vaccines are good and do what they are purported to do.
BTW, here are the ingredients, from CDC, of your flu vaccine: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/vaccine-decision/ingredients.html
If I followed western medicine, instead of doing what is right for my health, I would be on at least five different pharmaceutical prescription drugs? Because of looking into how my body works, along with the help of a nutritionist, SpectraCell Labs intracellular testing (not costly), and a couple of Naturpoathic doctors, including Joe Mercola, OD, I am very healthy and pharmaceutical free!
For instance, instead of taking a pharmaceutical drug for slow thyroid/hypothyroidism, I found, from Mercola's site, that our thyroid sneed iodine. The Endocrinologist I saw said nothing about that. She just wanted to write a prescription. I went home, researched, and now take a kelp supplement, chock full of iodine. My hypothyroid symptoms and problem are gone and given the thumbs up from same endocrinologist.
ADD symptoms are gone, along with yearly ear infections and high blood sugar after going off of gluten and dairy. I found this info with the help of a different endocrinologist, and ENT doctor and another Naturopathic/endocrinologist OD, MD.
I had been offered for that block of problems two different amphetamines, a diabetic drug, antibiotics and surgery on my deviated septum.
Many of the comments in this string sound like you accept what you are told without question. If your car repairman came to you asking for money to go to the fix your car, do you just hand it over without question? Or do you think about the variables and everything surrounding it. I do the latter. And I, likewise, do the same with government and with doctors and you should think things through more, too.
I would just like to say that reading the comments made my day. Most people I am around on a daily basis view libertarians as "reasonable" and "not hurting anyone".
And the ones I know that ARE libertarians are or have been on government assistance, pay piddling amounts of taxes, are on Medicare, the whole ball of wax.
A few years back I worked for a company whose psychotic CEO literally had every Ayn Rand bucket of tripe on the shelf... a company started with a government grant.
Oh sweet Jesus I hate libertarians.
I don't think you can correlate beliefs in "natural healing" or other forms of the supernatural with either the political left or right. I don't believe they differ in how they come to their beliefs. There are some things which are orthogonal to politics, and this is one of them. If anything, I'd say that a strong belief in "health freedom" may drive people toward libertarianism, rather than the other way around. Always be careful where you point that arrow of causation. It's sharp!
Lawrence,
I would hope you'd never find someone who believed that a company could base its internal policies on purely libertarian principles. A single craftsman working at his/her/its bench or with an assistant, perhaps. Larger companies are run in a way that would, if they were governments, be referred to as communist.
I'd thought that would be obvious to the most casual observer, but I haven't checked with Libertarians on their view of such things.
To be an assault the person would have to know they or their child is ill and intentionally expose someone else.. Like a parent taking a child to a chicken pox party and then to school, exposing others so that they'll get natural immunity (and in torts you'd call it battery). Just not taking the precaution is negligence. For an example not in the vaccine context, from the laissez faire days, see Smith v. Baker, 20 F. 709 (C.C.S.D.N.Y. 1884) - infection with whooping cough.
As a point of discussion, how far does the principle go?
Let's assume the general proposition that by not getting vaccinated (in the absence of mitigating circumstances) one has, in effect, swung one's fist far enough to at least brush the tip of another person's nose. Refusing to pay one's taxes (as determined by current tax law - though I make it clear that this would not include taking every deduction and opportunity to reduce one's taxes allowed) might be also be considered in the same vein.
What other behavior might the government be justified in mandating/restricting for the same reason?
"If your car repairman came to you asking for money to go to the fix your car, do you just hand it over without question?"
No, I go to random websites and listen to advice from people with no training in car repair, plus uncorroborated anecdotes from Internet forum posters.
My car's wheels were loose and wobbly and terrible noises were coming from the engine compartment. But after pouring Miracle Glurge into my crankcase, I not only solved those problems but turned my old Saturn into a Porsche!
And you can't prove me wrong.
Slight correction: The Canary Party has collaborated with Tea Party groups outside California. About a year ago, the Canary Party participated in a "Maine Liberty Summit" that also included the Maine Tea Party Patriots, the John Birch Society, and the Young Americans for Liberty (i.e. Ron Paul supporters). Ginger Taylor helped organized the event and promoted it on her Facebook page.
Speaking of Ginger, her Facebook profile lists her as **the** campaign manager for Mike Wallace, who was a Republican candidate for Maine's state senate in the 2012 election. He was defeated.
Cj: "If I followed western medicine, instead of doing what is right for my health, "
So you should be okay with the DTaP and varicella vaccines since they were developed in Japan. Also Japanese researchers worked on statins and colonoscopy.
The term "western medicine" is fairly racist.
Also Marcela is not an optometrist (OD), but an osteopathic (DO). Though now he is just pseudoscience shill.
@Darwy,
I am very curious - had the person said "What if I vaccinate myself or my kid and I get an honest to gosh vaccine injury that leaves me scarred, arthritic, or dead (say from anaphylaxis)?", what would have been your reaction?
Note: the odds of any such occurrence are very small and and based on relative risks well worth the risk. And I have certainly gotten plenty of immunizations over my life. But I'm curious what the answer would be.
Stupid tablet autocorrect, "Marcela" was supposed to "Mercola."
In other anti-vax news:
(@ PRN) Null and Gale critique Project Tycho, in a new article which the former read aloud
a. they find it lacking
b. Null doesn't know how to pronounce 'Tycho'; wonder what he does with 'Brahe'?
No, based on my "research" I'd first try chelating the car every three or four hours for years to remove the mercury that no one can convince me is not responsible for the problem, but if my car is a nonresponder I might try using industrial bleach just in case it's worms.
Oh goodie, a live one.
Yes.
Yep: not a whole lot. You are aware that the profit margins on vaccines are so crappy the government has had to pay them to keep making them, right? As far as volume, they are not even in the top 10. Statins and dick pills, that's where the money is.
You could have looked that up. Either you are lazy or you are a liar. Which one is it?
Yes. I noticed a distinct drop in sales of iron lungs since the 1960s, for example. Or the eradication of smallpox. Or the drop of measles deaths and permanent disabilities. I can do this all day.
We all see how you phrased that, weasel. Yes, there are awful things in vaccines that you can die from in the right dosage. Like water. On the other hand, none of the ingredients and pollutants and contaminants and byproducts present in vaccines are in a high enough dosage to do harm.
But again, you could have looked that up. Lazy or liar?
Oh for crying out loud. Do we really have to throw in basic statistics for you? No vaccine is 100% effective. Let's say it's 80% effective. Let's take a 100 people and give the vaccine to 98 of them. Now let's expose all of them to the virus. Assuming no herd immunity, and 100% communicability, you'd see 19 vaccinated sick people and 2 unvaccinated sick people.
Which group do you want to be in?
Yes, I have. In addition to antigens specific to the infectious disease they are designed to address. they contain known amounts of preservatives, adjuvants and other excipients which improve their efficacy, as well as trace amounts of some chemical entities remaining from their manufacture None of which are present at concentrations demonstrated to be toxic or otherwise endanger health.
yes: not very much. The return on investment assoiciated with vaccines is less than that for other pharmaceutical products. It would at much more profitable for a company to sell the antibiotics needed to treat infection once acquired than it is to sell vaccines to prevent the infection from occurring.
Yes-- in terms of saving lives and preventing suffering vaccines are arguably the single most successful medical intervention we as a species have ever developed. (The only intervention I can think of that might challenge for the lead would be the development of surgical anesthesia.)
Adverse events associated with vaccines are both quantifiable and well understood: those that are common are minor and transient (soreness at the site of injection, mild fever, etc.) while those that are serious (GBS, encephalopathy) are all but vanishingly rare.
Any rational risk versus benefit assessment overwhelmingly indicates that the risks of being vaccinated are orders of magnitude less than the risk of remaining vulnerable to infection.
Consider measles: measles infections cause encephalopathy in about 1 out of every 1000 cases, while the risk of encephalopathy associated with the MMR vaccine is less than 1 out of every one million vaccinations(seehttp://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046738.htm).
I’m sorry, but this statement is false. During an outbreak children who’ve been fully vaccinated against pertussis are 6 times less likely to become infected than children who have never been vaccinated against pertussis (and when they do become infected they typically experience less severe illness than those who have not been vaccinated).
What’s confusing you is that because so many more children have been vaccinated than remain unvaccinated the absolute number of cases in vaccinated children may exceed that in unvaccinated children.
Citation needed.
If that were all they believed in there’d be no problem. Unfortunately, they seem also to oppose the government’s constitutional authority to regulate commerce, provide for the welfare of the nation’s citizens, etc., should be ignored.
Actually the US is a constitutional democratic republic. While representatives are democratically elected to govern a constitution defines how the government is structures, establishing checks and balances, limiting government powers and authority, vesting citizens with individual civil rights, etc.
Oh goodie, a live one.
Yes.
Yep: not a whole lot. You are aware that the profit margins on vaccines are so crappy the government has had to pay them to keep making them, right? As far as volume, they are not even in the top 10. Statins and dick pills, that's where the money is.
You could have looked that up. Either you are lazy or you are a liar. Which one is it?
Yes. I noticed a distinct drop in sales of iron lungs since the 1960s, for example. Or the eradication of smallpox. Or the drop of measles deaths and permanent disabilities. I can do this all day.
We all see how you phrased that, weasel. Yes, there are awful things in vaccines that you can die from in the right dosage. Like water. On the other hand, none of the ingredients and pollutants and contaminants and byproducts present in vaccines are in a high enough dosage to do harm.
But again, you could have looked that up. Lazy or liar?
Oh for crying out loud. Do we really have to throw in basic statistics for you? No vaccine is 100% effective. Let's say it's 80% effective. Let's take a 100 people and give the vaccine to 98 of them. Now let's expose all of them to the virus. Assuming no herd immunity, and 100% communicability, you'd see 19 vaccinated sick people and 2 unvaccinated sick people.
Which group do you want to be in?
They know no such thing. The people that "know" this are usually places that sell Lysine supplements. What does that tell you?
...when it suits you. We know cupcake.
Please explain how the country is in shambles, and specifically how not following the constitution is responsible for that.
This is pig-ignorant in so many ways I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Are you saying democracies do not have constitutions?
Are you saying democracies do not have checks and balances?
Are you saying the constitution cannot be changed?
Are you saying that in a republic majority votes do not affect the constitution and its application?
But they do. This is not really up for discussion, moron. Seen a lot of neurologically damaged children limping down the street in braces because of polio lately?
This is a random, bald assertion that vaccines do not work as advertised, and until such time as you attempt to provide ANY EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER contradicting the mountains of basic statistics of disease incidence decreasing after vaccination for them was instated, you are just blowing smoke.
Yes, and you still haven't really gotten to what's so scary. Is it all the dihydrogen monoxide?
Let me guess. It's formaldehyde, right? Aluminum? Which one scares you the most, cupcake?
Holy false dichotomy, Batman!
But hey, you, intrepid warrior of the 101st Keyboarders, have found out that the real mission of every medical school is to NOT do what is right for the patient's health.
Do you even realize how deeply insulting that is?
[Citation seriously fucking needed]
Oh, hang back people -- this is one of the Special Snowflake(TM) contingent, whose body works differently than anybody else's.
And you are totally NOT shilling for properly capitalized SpectraCell(R) Labs(TM) intracellular testing. Also, Joe Mercola does not make any money shilling things. Also, I am very healthy and pharmaceutical free, but a doctor would totally prescribe a drug rather than a supplement. The doctor has a COI, not Joe Mercola or SpectraCell(R) Labs(TM), who are totally not costly. Did I mention they are totally not costly? You should totally check them out.
There are other things in your body that need iodine, jackwagon.
I am sure you asked her if there were nutritional options rather than sitting there like a muppet, going home and raping Google in an attempt to prove her wrong. I'm positive. You seem so unbiased!
I do hope you go back for actual tests every now and then, because by doing this you're putting yourself at risk for hypothyroidism and autoimmune thyroiditis.
Oh, never mind. Good.
So you found out you have allergies! Bully for you, cupcake!
Yes...?
Maybe you should learn how to talk to your doctor. Also, in what universe does a gluten-free diet cure a deviated septum?
All together now:
IT'S ALWAYS PROJECTION.
How much have you questioned what SpectraCell(R) told you? Or Joe Mercola? It sounds like you didn't question what they told you at all.
No, but you do. Good thing SpectraCell(TM) is so affordable. Good thing Joe Mercola is always right.
Right?
Bull fucking shit you do. You found an article that said "thyroid issues? buy our kelp!" and what did you do? You sure as hell didn't think about variables. You didn't think about anything other than a nice, easy, clean fix that did not involve them evil western medicine doctor people or the government. Because that's what you wanted to believe in the first place.
Stop lying to yourself. You're not fooling anyone else.
(Holy hakalela. I swear, I did not even read ahead. How about that for predicting a thought process?)
Why distrust the government and every single accredited physician but not SpectraCell(TM) and Joe Mercola?
Where do you buy your kelp supplement?
As a follow-up to Science Mom's post...we are able to determine the "index case" in a measles outbreak, via trace back investigations and by genotype:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6013a6.htm
"....The investigation determined that the index patient was a U.S.-born child of Somali descent, aged 30 months, who developed a rash February 15, 14 days after returning from a trip to Kenya. The patient attended a drop-in child care center 1 day before rash onset; measles developed in three contacts at the center and in one household contact. Secondary and tertiary exposures occurred in two congregate living facilities for homeless persons (four patients), an emergency department (two patients), and households (two patients). A virus isolate from the index patient was genotyped at CDC as B3, which is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa...."
We are also able to determine the "index case" during tuberculosis outbreaks, via DNA fingerprinting of a culture positive sputum specimen and by SNA (Social Network Analysis):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3650219/
Not only is that poster offensive, but it's also a completely crappy photoshop job that wouldn't pass muster at Fark.com.
While my long answer is in moderation, just for entertainment, read this page without guffawing (I dare you)
http://www.spectracell.com/patients/patient-micronutrient-testing/
I'm guessing that by "mandatory" vaccination they actually mean vaccine requirements for attending taxpayer-funded schools, right? Wouldn't the Libertarian position be that there shouldn't be taxpayer-funded schools to begin with? You have the kids, its your responsibility to pay for their education, not mine. Also, most of the Libertarian philosophy I've read states that the gov't has a responsibility to protect its citizens from force or fraud, and that definitely includes regulating claims made by people pushing supplement and other forms of woo.
I have been interested in Libertarianism off and on for awhile now, but keep running into the same problems repeatedly mentioned above: it sounds good in principle, but its easy to see that pure Libertarianism would have profoundly negative consequences in practice. And after you've made exceptions for all of the things for which pure free-market Libertarianism wouldn't work - health care, protecting the environment, the rights of children, etc - there's not a whole lot left.
CJ, none of the ingredients listed at the link you provided have been shown to be harmful at the exposure levels you could receive as the result of vaccination.
For example, aluminum is one of the most ubiquitous elements on the planet and infants are exposed daily to much, much greater amounts of aluminum from dietary and environmental sources than they could possibly receive as the result of immunization. To put it in perspective, over the first 6 months of life an infant could be exposed to a maximum of 2.5 mg of aluminum as the result of routine immunizations. During those same 6 months it would be exposed to 10 mgs of aluminum if breast feeding; if receiving formula instead we're talking about a 40 mgs of aluminum, and as much as 120 mgs if it's receiving a soy-based formula.
The theoretical maximum exposure to formaldehyde from immunization would be at the scheduled 6 month visit, when the child could potentially receive up to 4 immunizations (HepB, DTaP, IPV and possibly influenza). This would expose them to around 310 ug of formaldehyde. That's less formaldehyde than you're exposed to simply as part of a normal diet (10,000 to 20,000 ug/daily) and in fact less than you'll receive when by eating a single apple, (between 430 and 1100 ug formaldehyde). A normal liver produces more formaldehyde daily than you’d ever see due to vaccines.
Egg proteins? IF you’re allergic that would be a problem, which is why people with egg allergies cannot receive some vaccines (and which is why the rest of us can should be vaccinated, to maintain the herd immunity those with allergies rely on to avoid infection).
@Sarah: the very easy checklist you can use:
What about
- National defense
- Fire deparments
- Police
- Hospitals
- EPA
- OSHA
- Car safety regs
- NTSHB
- Building codes
- Local environmental code enforcement
- ATF
- FDA
- Educational standards (look up ACE)
Heck, there's more, but start with those.
Oh, no, you've heard of her.
Orac wrote:
The usual response to which, IME, is "how would I know I'm not one of the exceptions? Better to take supplements to be on the safe side."
(Going to a doctor and getting tested for deficiencies could be one way of finding out, but doctors, being motivated solely by money derived from pharmaceuticals and not at all from such derived from supplements*, would likely lie about any positive tests in the hope you end up with a serious condition requiring prescription meds.)
(* No, I don't know why supplements prescribed as treatment for a deficiency wouldn't count as "pharmaceuticals".)
BTW, The Federal government and States do have "police power" for involuntary quarantine/isolation of patients infected with highly infectious diseases:
http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-quarantine-and-isolation-stat…
I've actually seen cases of MDR TB where the patient is non-compliant and put under court order. Police officers are directed to pick up the patient and deliver him/her to the County hospital to be placed in strict respiratory isolation with 24/7 guards outside the hospital room.
As a libertarian parent, I give my baby the choice to eat lead or non-lead paint chips. After all, it's in the spirit of personal choice/freedom and a free market economy.
Larger companies are run in a way that would, if they were governments, be referred to as communist.
Actually, they would be called dictatorships, though I will grant you that this is how nominally Communist governments generally operated in practice. This is because Communism, like Libertarianism, is a political belief system which sounds great in theory but whose successful implementation depends on counterfactual assumptions about human nature.
re my # 32 above:
The article is called ' Bill Gates' Project Tycho and Vaccine Voodoo" which can be found at Green Med Info amongst other places.
I wrote a long post responding to the criticism of Bailey. He's absolutely right on this one. I'm a libertarian and believe in free markets but I don't see that free market has anything to do with this. It's just a mantra being thrown out to justify rotten behavior. Jeffrey Singer wrote a response to Bailey that Reason hosted but I had trouble following it because it seems like just a bunch of libertarian words strung together.
This is what happens when people chase good idea into a corner, when they decide that they have to be the absolute purest brand of X, whatever political philosophy X is.
Did CJ remember to list dihydrogen oxide on the list of "toxins"?
I'm Libertarian. I also have Tea Party sympathies (the "Taxed Enough, Already" part, mainly).
That said, I was vaccinated as required by the laws in place during the 1960s. And I vaccinated my kids.
As I see it, an unfettered free market isn't a Libertarian tenet. Neither is the 'right" to refuse vaccinations. To think otherwise only reveals radical thinking. I find those individuals at both ends- and the middle- of the political spectrum.
In the end, it's all about the greater good vs. utter stupidity.
I have often said that this is exactly the reason why so many libertarians are global warming deniers. In particular, there is no natural way in which CO2 emission creates a cost signal, so there's no way the free market alone can address this problem successfully -- "market-based solutions" only work if governments step in to create artificial disincentives. This is anathema to free-market fundamentalists, and the effect is to push them into wild contortions of motivated reasoning, so that the karma doesn't run over their dogma.
Excellent. Out of mod @36 (currently).
I'd like to say, once more, that people should realize that this is one of the least moderated blogs dealing with vaccinations in existence. AND THIS GOES BOTH WAYS. What other blog would tolerate #17,, #21 and #36? AoA sure as Shinola would not.
Then, by the definitions currently used by self-styled libertarians in the US today... you, sir, are No True Scotsman(TM).
That being said, what are your views on the random set of issues as I threw out @42?
Stu and JGC, thanks for your thorough takedown of Cj. I only had time a quick response before turning off the tablet, and getting to the mall to pick something up just as it opened and there was parking. Only to have the person in front of me refuse to drive his car through the four-way stop intersection. At least until I and all the cars behind me honked our horns. AAargh.
By now I have an image of Cj, as the libertarian driver who decided to stake out his own spot next to one of the four stop sighs. Because driving rules are to be ignored, just like public health rules.
Can't even use the tablet as an excuse: "stop sighs" is "stop signs"... sigh.
Even as a libertarian, I'd say the reasons most people have for adopting that political philosophy aren't very rational, or at least well thought-out. Someone said, "nothing hurts more than a bad argument for a position you hold dear". I cringe every time I see anti-vaccination rhetoric coming from libertarian publications, primarily because it identifies them as being illiterate, intellectually lazy, and biased in the extreme. The truth is that their opposition to vaccination is based primarily on their political bias and not on any research showing harm or inefficacy (those are cherry-picked, as an afterthought). It's a very similar thing to the Liberal's and GMO's.
Reason has touched on vaccines in the past - back in 2010, they did an expose on the vaccine-autism myth http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/06/reasontv-do-vaccines-cause-aut which got a lot of comments from the usual crowd, including a fellow who used to post on this blog at length.
It's worth noting as well that the libertarian Popehat blog was one of the supporters of Kathleen Seidel when antivaccine activists tried to silence her some years back.
P.S. Cj - thanks for reminding us that government regulation requires that the ingredients of vaccines be printed on the insert, you big old state-worshipper you....
Two things:
With regard to the idea that refusing vaccination and shedding potentially fatal microbes at random is okay because there's no aggressive intent toward the people who get sick, there are the concepts of criminal negligence, involuntary manslaughter, and depraved indifference to human life.
As for the worshippers of republics and haters of democracy: Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and Franco's Spain were republics. Canada and Spain today are democracies and not republics. I know which ones I'd choose.
P.S. Cj – thanks for reminding us that government regulation requires that the ingredients of vaccines be printed on the insert, you big old state-worshipper you….
Just the CDC isn't to be trusted! Liars! Pharma shills! Cover-ups! Brainwashing! Well, except for the VAERS, of course. *sarcasm*
@AOP - or anything related to the CDC or FDA that they feel supports their position.....
@ Stu - Is the list at #42 supposed to be a list of things libertarians would have a problem with? B/c I know they don't have a problem with national defense or police (both come under the rubric of protecting citizens from force), and I imagine some agencies such as the FDA would be considered an acceptable part of the government's responsibility to protect its citizens from fraud. As for firefighters, hospitals, etc - citizens would be free to provide those services either for profit or on a volunteer basis, but I think most libertarians would object to paying for them using tax dollars (at least at a federal level.) Of course, I'm still talking about abstract libertarian philosophy. In practice, it seems most people who call themselves libertarian want to keep the things that benefit them while getting rid of the things they don't want to pay for/answer to. For example, all those mom's over at AoA want the government to fund public schools and special ed programs for their kids, but they don't want to accept government stipulations on attendance (like taking reasonable precautions to not get other people's kids sick.)
Why do anti-vaccination and libertarianism go together? Neither requires intelligent thought.
But a question: how can arguments about how the great free market will raise all boats (if you are deserving, anyway) be coupled with a decrying of vaccinations because "big pharma makes tons of money from it"? Do those people not recognize how transparently stupid they are? (80% rhetorical question there)
After re-reading that last post, I just want to make it clear that I'm just stating libertarian philosophy as I understand it - I don't necessarily agree with it. For example, at #40 I characterized the libertarian attitude towards education as "You have the kids, its your responsibility to pay for their education, not mine." Which seems perfectly reasonable, until you reflect that the reason I have the option to not have kids (without causing the extinction of the human race) is that other people are having kids at more than replacement rates. B/c others have decided to take on the expense and self-sacrifice of having children, I'm free to invest my time and money elsewhere while still having a society to live in. So it seems only fair that I should contribute towards some of the expenses that children entail. But that's complicated. Libertarianism is simple, and I totally understand the appeal of that, b/c I hate politics. When I first encountered the libertarian philosophy, for awhile I thought I'd found the answer, and that's a very powerful, very seductive feeling, and very difficult to give up once you've found it. Perhaps that's why there's so much overlap between libertarians, antivaxers, and woo-pushers (not to mention fundamentalist religious types) - they're all looking for easy answers to hard questions.
Well, as usual The Onion nails it.
On ideological influences of antivaccinationists, I think religion can't be ignored: "Left-wing" antivaxxers correlate fairly strongly with Eastern, neopagan and/or "New Age" influences, while the "right wing" correlates predictably with conservative Christianity. It's also my observation as an "insider" that "New Age" style ideas and practices seem to be making inroads in otherwise religiously conservative Christian groups.
Sarah A - that seems remarkably convoluted. Why not just say that you have a libertarian view of procreation (i.e. a person may have as many or few children as he/she/it pleases and can manage to support) while having a collectivist view of public education?
Why would anyone have the responsibility to procreate in the absence of, say, a post-apocalyptic dystopia?
Why not just say that you have a libertarian view of procreation (i.e. a person may have as many or few children as he/she/it pleases and can manage to support) while having a collectivist view of public education?
Because I have no idea what that means ^-^* Seriously, that long-winded explanation wasn't some disguised political opinion, that's just exactly how convoluted politics seems to me.
On the plus side, this thread has reminded me of my long-standing intention to educate myself about politics, which in turn has led me to discover that there is, in fact, a "Politics for Dummies," which I shall be reading forthwith.
Learn that before commenting that we need all of these vaccines pushed at us. For instance, research, the people most likely to develop whooping cough are those who received the vaccine.
Pick me! Pick me! I can respond to this one!
Like my sister, who hadn't received her booster shot for WC, who called me as she'd been diagnosed with it. Needed to inform me as I'd been visiting her. But I'd had the booster, and I, and my niece and nephew who are under 12, and therefore still under the protection of their first shot, have not developed it.
So, as my story has 4 people, and yours only 1, I win. That's how it works, right?
That’s how it works, right?
IMO, yes.
Alain
imr90: There is a long tradition of societies coping with infectious disease by quarantining infected individuals.
It'd be interesting to look at the long quarantines of 1918-1919, and see what effect they had on the local economy. I'd be willing to bet that the economies experienced a huge slowdown.
@ PGP:
Actually there were downturns 1919-1920( see Post WWI recession, Depression of 1920- wikipedia) but I don't know how much quarantines had to do with either one because the war's end may have been the greatest contributing factor.
Still, I imagine it wasn't neglible - even events like bad weather can affect local economies.
How could I live if not told what to do, wonders the collectivist parasite.
Who would cut my meat for me if there was no government? Who would set a bed time for me? Who would lay out my clothes?
Mr. Schecter, you are incoherent and confused as always.
Sid, Schector, Shecky, Sh****ad, something like that.....in your case having someone as a guide in your life would be an improvement. They can keep you away from the keyboard until you are sober.
That blazing strawman is visible from Jupiter.
Considering that siddy boy depends on government for his job (supposedly he is a firefighter) as well as using government services (roads, garbage, police), and depending on others for herd immunity, his comments just smacks of hypocrisy.
@ novalox: Sid Offal is not a firefighter; that job takes guts, which the hit and run poster has none of.
Offal has a degree in "fire science" from a fourth tier college; well suited, I suppose, to become an "investor".
Just a quick thought before I go- you'd think libertarians would actually encourage any measure that limits the possibility of quarantines, since quarantines are far more restrictive than any possible mandating of vaccines could ever be.
To give an illustration of the principle: if we checked the handedness of all the victims of a pertussis outbreak, we'd find that the majority of them are right-handed. But that doesn't mean that handedness has any effect on whether or not a person contracts pertussis; it just comes from the fact that there are more right-handed than left-handed people in the general population.
"Considering that siddy boy depends on government for his job (supposedly he is a firefighter) as well as using government services (roads, garbage, police), and depending on others for herd immunity, his comments just smacks of hypocrisy."
A pretty ridiculous argument. It's like saying a communist shouldn't go shopping, or buy food from any privately run business. People have to survive where they live, regardless of their ideals. Just because you think a system can be better doesn't mean you shouldn't participate.
If he's *forced* to pay taxes why doesn't he have the right to use government services? Should he relinquish his wages AND refuse to benefit from them in any way? It's his right to recover at least some of what was taken from him.
@Sarah:
Call it a list to gage the level of libertarian purity... how far from the "pure" libertarian position one has strayed (usually in order not to sound completely callous and clinically insane).
This is already mildly schizophrenic. A government-run police force to protect the people from force? What about force from the government? Why privatize everything else but not the cops?
What I hear more often is "legalize all drugs, remove the FDA, the market will weed out the bad drugs and if people can get hurt they can sue".
And this is where things go off the rails. What irks me is that libertarians pretend this hasn't been tried before.
This is how things turn out until the government steps in:
The first Roman fire brigade of which we have any substantial history was created by Marcus Licinius Crassus. Marcus Licinius Crassus was born into a wealthy Roman family around the year 115 BC, and acquired an enormous fortune through (in the words of Plutarch) "fire and rapine." One of his most lucrative schemes took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department. Crassus filled this void by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the fire fighters did nothing while their employer bargained over the price of their services with the distressed property owner. If Crassus could not negotiate a satisfactory price, his men simply let the structure burn to the ground, after which he offered to purchase it for a fraction of its value.
As for hospitals, why do you think hospitals treat uninsured people currently? The kindness of their hearts? Without "force", how many of them do you think would throw away money like that?
(I believe the right answer is "well, they should've gotten insurance then")
"This is how things turn out until the government steps in:
The first Roman fire brigade of which we have any substantial history..."
Because one instance of a privately run fire department is representative of all possible instances... just like any one instance of a State institution is representative of all such institutions?
I think his point, Gene, is that it took exactly no time for the concept of private fire services to go wrong. There are plenty of modern-day examples too, in communities which cannot afford a municipal or volunteer fire department. Precisely the same thing happens, apart from the bit about buying their property at a discount afterwards. If you don't have a contract with them, they will literally drive to your house and then watch it burn unless you agree to pay them.
@ Gene Linet: I think that novalox's comment was based on Sid's past history here of callous commenting on vaccines and his "reluctance" to pay his fair share for municipal services (for schools, fire and police protection, hospitals, etc.).
Here, under his real name Robert Schecter, he was interviewed about "pox parties" on BBC Radio, about his anti-vaccine activities on Facebook:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15647434
There's no particular reason to think that Schecter doesn't recover more than whatever he pays in taxes, given that he's demonstrably unable to think, and therefore nowhere close to being self-sustaining, and enough of a whiny asshοle that nobody would want to deal with him if he found himself delivered into the State of Nature that he piteously bleats abouts being deprived of.
You don't see Bobby making any efforts to emigrate to a more copacetic locale, do you?
A government-run police force to protect the people from force? What about force from the government?
And this, like the example of Crassus' fire department, is something with which the Romans had direct experience. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
re governmentally run fire departments and regulations:
If you visit London or San Francisco, you can take an architectural tour that will succinctly illustrate what happens when there aren't rules about fire- there was a fellow named Christopher Wren who got a lot of work afterwards; also a few paintings around-.
And if you, traipse around SF, you'll notice that all of those quirky, ornate Victorian houses are strangely absent in Chinatown- which has Edwardian brick buildings.
You can't view many 17th century buildings in New York because the entire town apparently burnt to the ground.
Oh right, those miserable, liberal cities with their fascistic laws clamping down on our sovereign freedom..
Well Schecter looks like a nut, but I was responding to the general argument that anyone who takes a Libertarian stance should abstain from public goods and services. A very weird thing to say, since I don't recall people calling liberals hypocrites for buying private health insurance. We all have to abide by the status quo, even if we don't like it.
@Calli "I think his point, Gene, is that it took exactly no time for the concept of private fire services to go wrong."
I think there is a double standard here. The (countless) instances in which the government displays wanton corruption and disdain for human life... do they impugn all State institutions?
Many things fail out the outset; these failures don’t always demonstrate a flawed *principle*…. rather poor *execution*. If I were to hold the State to same standard you hold private endeavors, given its history of corruption and mass genocide, I would have to conclude that the idea of a beneficent government is hopelessly naive and idealistic (an accusation often made of me). Yet even I am willing to consider that Government has been poorly executed, but might be successful in principle.
@Stu-
You mean this?
What about
- National defense
- Fire deparments
- Police
- Hospitals
- EPA
- OSHA
- Car safety regs
- NTSHB
- Building codes
- Local environmental code enforcement
- ATF
- FDA
- Educational standards (look up ACE
I have no problem with most of this (with one notable exception- a draconian EPA used as a weapon by the current admin). Again, the greater good. Like building roads and bridges in order to further commerce and trade .That's a no brainer. My philosophy is this- as long as I do no harm to others, keep the government as far away from me as possible. I think that's pretty simple.
I believe this- anything the government touches, it ruins. See AHCA (as a network admin, I know a little something about that), SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, etc, etc,. Government's role should be traffic cop. Nothing more.
But I digress- at the core, my libertarian views don't trump science. Simply, anti-vaxxers are complete idiots who REFUSE to accept modern science, a science that saved the life of my wife (3A BC).
Oh, one more thing- Oswald killed Kennedy.
Oh please, can we get more rich white male opinon on how bad the government is because it's not committed solely to their Free Free Freedom of Free Freedomness? Surely that's an underrepresented viewpoint on the Internet.
@ Gene Linet: I'm a Liberal and I purchase health insurance and long-term care insurance. What's hypocritical about that?
If I can afford to pay premiums for insurance, wouldn't it be cheating, for me to go uninsured by not paying insurance permiums, and have others in our society foot the bill for my medical care and nursing home care? See we didn't elect Ron ("Let em die") Paul who would bar a critically injured person, who did not have health insurance, from receiving care in a hospital.
@ Jeff M: What would be your suggestions to replace SSI, Medicare and Medicaid?
OT, but not really:
The Commissioner of Health in NYS (Dr. Shah) just declared prevalent, widespread influenza in NYS, effectively meaning all official hospital personnel must mask when they may come into contact with a patient unless they've been vaccinated. Lobby, cafeteria, hallways, it's all covered and it has started.
I can't wait for the screaming to begin.
So now all nation-states are some sort of amorphous blob?
Funny about those dietary supplements fixing hypothyroidism:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Endocrinology/Thyroid/43501?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_…
The sellers just lace their products with a little T3 or T4, and bingo, you've got an over the counter thyroid supplement that is unregulated.
Also of interest, a few years ago, someone looked at various nutritional supplements and found that a lot of them were laced with cheap generic anti-diabetes drugs. In retrospect, it's not surprising that the AM radio informercial hucksters would talk about some dietary supplement curing diabetes. I remember listening to some radio informercial for Sea Silver one morning, and the list of ailments it was supposed to help was incredible. The announcer sort of forgot to mention people turning blue from taking too much.
Oh for crying out loud Gene. This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is either willful ignorance or glaring cognitive dissonance.
Five minutes on Google (links hobbled to save Orac some time modding this)
h_ttp://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/#.UrM7WfRDsXU
h_ttp://www.webpronews.com/fire-department-charges-family-20000-after-their-hom…
@JeffM
*spittake* *headdesk* *facepalm*
Goverment TOUCHED SSI, Medicare, Medicaid etc.? It created them. Please stop talking until you go look up WHY these things were created.
h_ttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9b0cefde1e38f930a15752c0a9639c8b63
Yes, by all means let's abolish SSI, Medicare and Medicaid. Things were much better when the elderly and disabled died like dogs.
Why do you think I hate libertarians?
And as for the AHCA: yes, it's a piece of crud. It's an insurance handout and the controls it tries to imposed are both intentionally hobbled and nigh impossible to enforce precisely because the entire system is a sick, fetid, pathetic joke.
It doesn't go nearly far enough, but at least it is a first attempt to get more people insured. Please explain to me how that's a bad thing. Also, please explain how less regulation is better.
[ Anecdote alert ]
I used to have a colleague who was 25 at the time. He had had a tumor in his leg during his teens, which was removed. For 8 years there had been no sign of cancer. In the free, libertarian, no force from the government marketplace only one insurance company would give him coverage.
Well, no, that's not true, only one company would give him coverage THAT COVERED CANCER. Dozens were more than happy to offer sick joke drug discount and HSA programs of course.
The one company even WILLING to accept him wanted $2,139. A month. For him alone.
So forgive me if I have no sympathy for your AHCA woes in IT (let's leave aside that two years ago I was dealing with it every day -- and the government side was a damned sight more competent than the average amongst the 185 providers in the program I was working on)... personally, I'd be happy to take a 1% increase in Fed taxes JUST to get rid of the barbarous practice of denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
[ Another anecdote ]
Being an immigrant, it was interesting to see the near riots in my home country (specifically an old friend) when health insurance rates increased from ~$90 to $150. The incredulity when I told him that my rates at the time went from $635 to $1100 (this is all per month) was... interesting.
@ lidady...Where did I say I would replace those programs? Think major reform, not replacement. I'm enough of a realist to know those big three are encased in political kryptonite.
But since you asked, I would stop funneling SSI payments to the General Fund, where the government has been steal...er...borrowing from same for almost 50 years. Yes, and I would create IRAs or all- I know, I'd be handing my retirement to those Wall Street Evil-Doers! Oh, wait...I've been doing that with my 401(K) funds for two decades! And ya know something? Not only are the funds valued at four times what I've contributed to SSI, I get to keep it all and if I die, leave it to my heirs. Not so with SSI, which will pretty much be my golfing money when I quit working, anyway.
Medicare and Medicaid? I don't know, honestly. I didn't start considering this until AHCA came along. But I do know the programs are poorly adminned and rife with corruption and fraud. Par for the government course. Privatization is the first thing that comes to mind. I think even a lib like yourself accepts the fact that the private sector operates far more efficiently than the government.
Anyway, I think we've veered off course here. Grist for the future.
@Stu- You have a nasty habit of taking things out of context- or worse, misrepresent another point of view.
So I will assist you.
AHCA ensnared the entire US health care system in one, inefficient incompetent swoop. Why not deal with the (state your number) uninsured first. Along with pre-existing? I understand how insurance works as regards to risk, but with PE, exceptions have to made. See, my wife falls into that category- twice (BC, Crohn's).
What's your answer? And I'll leave aside my Govt. funded social services employer...
"Five minutes on Google (links hobbled to save Orac some time modding this)"...
I guess I should link to every article demonstrating instances of failed emergency responses from public agencies, and once directly *instigated* by public agencies (ahem 911), but I doubt it would convince you, since you only apply standards of excellence to institutions you deem illegitimate. My point regarding the invalidity of that argument escapes you.
"So now all nation-states are some sort of amorphous blob?"
Of course not... neither are all private firms. Precisely why it's invalid to generalize based on a single instance of failure.
"I’m a Liberal and I purchase health insurance and long-term care insurance. What’s hypocritical about that?
Nothing. It's no more hypocritical than a Libertarian calling the Fire Department, or applying for a college grant.... or *just as* hypocritical... however you want to think about it.
@ Jeff M: I don't think I ever stated that government programs are perfect. You need to get your government programs straight, however. You seem to think that SSI is the Social Security retirement benefits program which you and every wage earner paid into; it is not. SSI is in place to help indigent and disabled people purchase food, clothing and shelter.
http://www.ssa.gov/pgm/ssi.htm
If we privatize Medicare Parts A, B and D, which health insurance company would be willing to take on millions of elderly people to provide coverage for hospitalizations, physicians' bills and drugs...after retirement when most employers no longer provide health care benefits? You do know don't you that all the insurance companies are for-profit businesses listed on stock exchanges and they are responsible to their stockholders for dividends and profit returns?
http://www.wikinvest.com/wikinvest/api.php?action=viewNews&aid=5454539&…
Care to expand on this?
I was catching up on the SGU last night and heard Chris Mooney and Indre Viskontas interviewed about their new podcast. Chris described antivaccinationism as being predominantly a disorder of the Left. That surprised me, since I feel as if have heard far more anti-vaccination loonery from the Right, e.g. AAPS / Schlaflys. Is this just my imagination?Has anyone done a good quantitative study?
@AdamG...Care to expand on this?
Not a conspiracy theory... I'm just suggesting it's the result of aggressive foreign policy.
@jre:
That's odd, because Mooney has argued in the past that there is probably no significant difference in the prevalence of antivaccine views between the right and the left.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/05/09/motivated-reasoning-and-th…
JeffM in comment 101 said:
The question is not correcting you, it is where to start. You have so many things wrong, typical for a gLibertarian. (Does that put us on par, given your disdain for "Libs"?)
1. Medicare is not poorly administered. The overhead cost for Medicare is about 2%, as compared with about 17% for a private insurance company. That is extremely efficient. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/09/20/medicare-is-more-efficient-tha…
2. The fraud rate for Medicare is pretty much the same as for private insurance, roughly 5-6%. Note that the vast majority of fraud is committed by the health care (false or over-billing) and health insurance industries (denial or underpayment of claims), not patients. [Medicare Advantage uses private insurance companies.]
3. Private companies are not more efficient than government. You made the claim, you should back it up (like all of your other wild claims), but I will show one item on my side: The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) released a report earlier this year showing that contractors cost the government about 1.8x what a federal employee would cost for doing the same job. The government doesn't have to pay huge salaries, bonuses and stock options to the CEO & managers and dividends to shareholders, just provide services.
More Medicare myths:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/15/us-column-miller-medicare-idU…
@ Gene Linet: How would a privatized emergency response agency do any better than the centralized "911" system...which has access to publicly funded and trained police, fire, rescue and paramedics/EMTs aboard ambulances?
You still "don't get it", do you Gene? My local, State and Federal tax dollars are apportioned to those safety net programs for the indigent and disabled (SSI and Medicaid). I have the resources to pay for my health insurance and long-term care insurance, so that I don't need to use those safety nets.
@Denice - thank you so much for the hello. Good to be visiting again.
@Jeff:
So essentially you are saying you have a problem with how Congress allocates budget. I don't think there's a person in this thread that would disagree with that.
That is also completely besides the f*cking point whether something like SSI is worth having. Your weaseling is duly noted.
That you think someone making $9 an hour has an IRA, or the means to put in enough to even cover the servicing fees, says a lot.
Ehm, yay? You do know this exuberant "screw everyone else, I did things right" line of reasoning only makes sense to sociopaths like you, doun't you?
TODAY. My in-laws, for example, were SET. Then they lost $1.2M over three months. Did you or did you not read the fine print on your investments?
Or are you truly so callous as to say "well, it's their fault for not picking a better portfolio"?
Pick. It's one or the other. Either you got lucky or you feel that people not as smart as you deserve to not have heat in the winter.
Ah! I'm sorry, I assumed this was something other than a giant middle finger to those less fortunate than you.
Who have not earned in any way. I thought you guys were all about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? No, that's for OTHERS, isn't it? YOUR kids deserve to land in a bed of down feathers. If others don't have the same opportunities your children have, well, that's their own damned fault for being born to poor parents.
You DO realize this is EXACTLY what you are saying, right?
While for others, it might mean, oh, I don't know... food.
This is why I say "scratch a libertarian, find a sociopath". You are a miserable excuse for a human being. The same reasons you are not ashamed of saying this out loud are the same reasons I am by all reasonable definitions justified in calling you a sociopath.
You are disgusting.
Oh, how telling. Five comments ago you were more than comfortable in condemning these programs as essentially doomed because the Gub'mint messed them up. Now, all of a sudden, you don't know. You had all sorts of opinions until you were called out, but as a typical libertarian you realize you don't want to look TOO asinine, so now "you don't know". Should've applied the same thinking to SSI... maybe you would've done the same "well, herpa derpa" backpedaling there. But you didn't. We all know what you are now, and no amount of this claptrap is fooling anyone.
Which makes you willfully uninformed.
Oh, this is precious.
Several questions for you, and you will have to answer all of them before you are even allowed to speak on the matter.
1) Admin overhead % for Medicare
2) Admin overhead % for VA
3) Admin overhead % for Medicaid
4) Admin overhead for private insurance
If you wave your hands any harder you will take flight.
No, it is the first thing fed to you by the think-tank funded websides you frequent.
*guffaw*
Answer the above numbered questions first, then we'll talk.
@Gene
Your attempt at false equivalence is duly noted. Please list your examples of public agencies refusing service for failure of payment, or admit that you were trying to confound because you were wrong.
Please list all instances that public agencies instigated... wait, what? What the f*ck are you talking about, clown?
This is so clinically insane I don't even have a response.
It sure does, sweetheart. As soon as you make an actual argument, I'll respond.
Obvious and stupid lie. Liberals, on average, do not apply for services they are putting all their political clout into abolishing. Liberals, on average, do not attempt to destroy services they themselves enjoyed.
Libertarians do.
Did you or did you not at any point in your life use public education? Public roads? Emergency services of any kind?
Thank you both, by the way, for displaying exactly why I hate libertarians.
@Stu - I actually "guffaw'ed"
Thank you for making my evening.....
It is more than a little disingenuous to accuse readers of Reason of being ignorant and then use Facebook comments to back that assertion up. This is especially mendacious because Bailey's article has comments on it from Reason readers. Idiocy on Facebook is more common than pig tracks in the woods.
If you are curious, my comment on Bailey's article is posted under the same name as I posted here.
@stu.
Okay, now I what creature I'm dealing with. The Mean Spirited Parasite, er, socialist. One who, more than likely, hails from somewhere in the dying British Commonwealth. But I could be wrong.
Take care of your own house before criticizing others. I did.
Consider yourself on ignore. Sayonara, MFer!
@Stu - fascinating that, when confronted with arguments against his self-absorbed opinions, he decides to ignore them.
It was kind of consoling to read your response, and it also reminded me that, when I was a healthy, hard-working person (single mom though, who didn't make enough for investing, but enough to have a small house and support two kids on my own) I often dismissed those struggling, because I had it hard but survived, so I didn't think it was fair for people to give up just because things got difficult.
Now I can't even clean my house without help. The programs that JeffM denounces as fraud and government stupidity keep me from starving to death and being homeless. I will never become wealthy off of them. In fact, I'm not quite sure what will happen if I come to a car repair that pretty much requires car replacement - I know it's impossible for me to ever acquire/afford another one on my income.
The smug, self-satisfied answer of, "You should have prepared for that" ignores people who never have the means to have prepared in the first place, or who are so blind-sided by something unexpected (and expensive) that it takes what little they might have had aside for their future.
Having some responsibility and care for the rest of humanity does not make one a socialist. It makes them a feeling human being.
@Stu -
While I take your point, I think you've overstated it. There are indeed now and historically hospitals that treat uninsured people out of the kindness of their hearts. You've never heard of the Shriners Hospitals for Children? How about St Jude? Or the City of Peace in Calcutta? If you look up charity hospitals I'm sure you'll find at least one that doesn't require coercion to help the uninsured.
JeffM,
You might want to look up The 2013 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds. If you do, you'll find that SSI payments do not go to the general fund. I personally have some issues with their accounting choices, but it might be useful to be informed about what happens to your SSI payments.
Mephistopheles:
In a way, you have just made my point for me. I am not a child, and I'm sorry -- Calcutta is a long way to crawl if my femur just shattered.
@Stu - I gave examples, you can find charitable hospitals in every major city. If I made your point for you, you've obviously misstated your point.
When I went to the emergency room with what turned out to be a badly inflamed gallbladder that they had to remove, I was given paperwork explaining how to apply for charity care. This was an ordinary big-city hospital, which I went to because it was the closest emergency room to my home.
I didn't ask for charity care, because I had reasonable health insurance: but this wasn't at St. Jude's, it was Columbia-Presbyterian in New York City, one of many not-for-profit hospitals that take whoever turns up.
@Jeff:
Well, sweetheart, it's a good thing you're not dehumanizing and othering people. You having to call me a 'creature' tells us everything about you we'd ever need to know,
Several.
You think that everyone who is a socialist is a parasie.
Duly noted.
You think that everyone who is not a libertarian is a socialist.
Duly noted,
Random aside: I double-dog dare you to define what a socialist is.
Sweetheart, you are so wrong it is impossible to be more wrong on purpose.
First off, you are not very bright.
Second, I am willing to bet good money on me paying taxes over the past few years in excess of your entire gross income.
(Jeff, bless his heart, seems to suffer from the same apopleptic realization Fox "News" does whenever they report on Soros... how could anyone not requiring government assistance be in favor of it?)
The blockquote fails and typos should not be too disruptive. Apologies.
@Mephistopheles: Apologies, that was far too dismissive. I wasn't necessarily implying that there aren't any charitable hospitals, just that if the full load of uninsured and indigent were dropped on them (by, oh, I don't know, removing the legal requirements for all hospitals to serve the uninsured, details like that), they would be swamped to a ridiculous extent.
For-profit hospitals already throw patients in cabs to be dropped off at charity locations. Every day.
@Vicki: that's kind of what I meant earlier. I dare you to try to explain the concept "apply for charity health care" to your average European.
Think Occupy was bad? Go look up what ACTUAL protests look like. France, Greece, South Korea... you know, democracies.
@Stu - and on that we can agree.
Things are getting a bit heated in here, but I need to ask an honest question and get a helpful, as non-condescending-as-possible answer ("Politics for Dummies" is on back order.) What is the justification for the government using taxes (money that's taken by force if need be, right?) to pay for things like healthcare? Is it the fact that the government is elected, which in theory implies that the majority of people are agreeing to have their money used in this way? But even ignoring things like low voter turn out, etc, does the majority have the right to decide how the minority spends their money? I want everyone to have access to healthcare, and I'm terribly afraid that if we relied exclusively on voluntary charity many people wouldn't get it (though I'd like to believe otherwise), but does that give me the right to force someone else to contribute?
It comes down to how you define a public good.
For some, that includes healthcare.
Unless you need to draw on it early, of course. I'm not sure what the point of the comparison with what you've paid in payroll taxes is.
@Lilady...I stand corrected on the SSI. Social Security TRUST Fund.
I'd like to continue this but, others on this forum have made the experience here most unpleasant. Nevertheless, you seem to be stable, reasonable and open to polite discourse. I'd be open to another forum as long as our resident psychopath doesn't follow.
.
@ Sarah A: There are plenty of cases in the courts where people *think* they have the Constitution on their side to avoid paying Income Tax...none of them have been successful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester_constitutional_arguments
Of course the true believer neither offers nor requires evidence.
I wonder how many of these glibertarians have worked for a large corporation. I have and there is incompetence and corruption aplenty. I have a conditioned reflex to lose consciousness during Power Point presentations since they have usually meant "Management will now lie to you for the next 30 minutes while their their golden parachutes are being packed".
@MOB
Did you ever work for Amoco? They even had 5 year plans and a near Soviet level of red tape, centralization and bureaucracy.
Who is the bigger parasite, someone on a low income who takes advantage of a government program or the bankster who collects multi-million dollar bonuses for creating opaque financial instruments.
@Narad. The 6% I paid, as well as the 6% my employers paid to Social Security (Source- "My Social Security Statement") over roughly 32 years is the comparison. I contributed to my 401(k) from 25 to 39, when I went back to school to earn my degree. After that, I put my kids through college (pay as we go) over the next seven years. Since then, we've taken advantage of the "Catch Up" provision of the law, which allows my wife and I to save beyond the limits set forth by Congress.
You're correct, I can't draw before 59 1/2. By the same token, I can't draw Social Security until 62. And more than likely, that will be raised before I retire.
@ Jeff S. M. I don't think I want to continue this discussion with you about paying payroll taxes. You still are blathering on about the AHCA...which is the Florida agency that handles Medicaid.
Do you mean the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act
Oh and Jeff, trust me, you don't want to get into a discussion with me about Medicare, Medicaid, SSI, or the PPACA...here or on another forum.
@Militant Agnostic...
I worked for a large air-ground shipping company for 20 years. Our rival was..not the postal service, but another air-ground company.
The USPS was a competitor and was ground to dust in the express and small package market. Unlike its competitors, who saw early on the potential of the Net, USPS, a government entity, is now teetering on insolvency.
@Lilady.
Affordable Healthcare Act. My bad. Sometimes I work too fast for my own good.
Fair enough. See ya!
Interesting how JeffM/Jeff S. M. ignored my comment that had links backing up my numbers, refuting his preconceived gLibertarian strawman fantasies about wasteful big gubmint. I was even reasonably polite, well, at least somewhat less sarcastic and caustic than my usual. All that effort wasted.
I'm not sure how IRC §§ 402, 414 were not "set forth by Congress," but this is neither here nor there. You seem to be, on the one hand, complaining about the returns you're getting on payroll-tax contributions and, on the other, trumpeting your tax-deferred 401(k) returns.
Do you think everyone else is going to do so well with a 401(k)? Can you guarantee yourself an ~4.5% rate of return over the long term? If you can do better, why aren't you investing your acumen in a Roth IRA?
@narad...I get no return on my SS contributions. Just a promise that I'll receive x amount of dollars when I choose to retire. As a matter of fact, if I fake an injury and prove disability (I can- I underwent reconstructive knee surgery in 1975- I have the S-utility cut, with manual dislocation to prove it, ), I'd receive $2500/mo, which is more than I would receive if I postponed my retirement till 65.
4.5%? Say, over 20 years? Easy. One just has to be disciplined in the down years, such as 00, 01 (after 9-11) and 08. In other words, don't bail when the market crashes. That's just closing the corral after the cows have escaped.
"Buy low, sell high." Still works.
My portfolio lost 40% on paper in 08. ON PAPER. I didn't bail. The market recovered, and so did my portfolio.
Nevertheless, I could have bailed and still outperformed my contributions to Social Security, since that's a big, fat zero.
@Jerry- I have responsibilities. I'm not sitting in front of a screen in my underwear all day. Give me little time, hey?
Thinking about today...Learned a few things. That's for sure...but somehow, I feel I'm wasting my time with a load of lefties who have no clue to how things work in the private sector and even less on Wall Street.
You do? Let's take a look.
MOB @ #34:
This matches my own experiences.
Stu @ #124:
Militant Agnostic @ #132:
A lot of people commenting here actually work in the private sector. That you so glibly dismiss us as " a load of lefties who have no clue to how things work in the private sector" speaks volumes for your ignorance and closed-mindedness.
If you can weather a market plunge (hell, I had the sense to buy mid-/small-cap value in 2001), this shouldn't be that much of a challenge. Moreover, I'm the wrong person to be bringing up SSI with, as I know someone who is genuinely disabled and receives the FDR. That's $710 a month. A regular bonanza.
Now, my original question was why you were using a 401(k) rather than a Roth, which would let you reap the gains of your financial acumen with fewer fetters of The Man. I seem to have missed the answer to this. I understand that you are irritated by having to participate in a slightly-above-inflation-rate annuity program.
@ Julian Frost: I think Jeff S.M. wants us to compliment him for not faking an injury...he's busy while adjusting his posterior chapeau, patting himself on the back because he doesn't fake a 38 year-old-injury. (I'm willing to bet that he's already been to an attorney for "advice" on that 38-year-old injury).
"…but somehow, I feel I’m wasting my time with a load of lefties who have no clue to how things work in the private sector and even less on Wall Street."
Many of us presently work in the private sector and many of us have prior work experiences in the private sector...and most of us know a lot more than Jeff "how things work on Wall Street".
@Jeff - on the verge of leaving a "Big Corporation" - i.e. today is my last day, I can echo the sentiment that corporations are not more efficient, and in most cases, even more inefficient than Government Agencies....the political infighting, intrigues, reorganizations, and huge amount of bureaucracy is a sight to behold....
I'm not anti-business, but I'll tell ya, letting corporations have free reign will cause many more problems...with no means of changing them (because they aren't beholden to anyone anymore, except large shareholders).
Small to medium-size businesses have all my respect - they are the ones that truly get things done and are innovative....
@Sarah A
The point about voluntary charity is very good, and it's something I wanted to point to you the other day.
From what I understand, the Libertarian point-of-view is not just about having local, private initiative to provide services in place of a centralized organization (a.k.a. big government), but it'a also about letting people having a complete freedom of choice on how much they contribute to any of these services (a.k.a. paying taxes).
On the former point, a surprisingly high number of people may agree, including citizens from communist France like me (note: sarcasm). You don't have to tell me about the evils of centralized management, we know about it. Our kings (Versailles anyone?) and emperors and presidents spent more than 5 centuries centralizing political and economical powers around the capital. On the plus side, it did strengthen the country into a nation, not just a bunch of disparate people each with their own type of cheese. On the negative side, well, bureaucracy inertia is a reality.
On the later point, forcing people to contribute, I'm afraid it's a necessary evil, if only for practical reasons: how do you do to ensure that only those paying for a service get this service, then this service has repercussions on the whole community?
My favorite example is firefighters: let's suppose I am free to pay a local chapter of volunteer firefighters. I did pay, the guy next door didn't, for whatever reason. Maybe he is jobless. Then I do a BBQ and, having two left hands, I put my house on fire, and by the time the firefighters came the other guy's house is on fire as well. What should the firefighters do? Save my house but let the other one burn (which could be very dangerous and tricky to do)?
Now, what about if he is the one dong the BBQ?
Sure, we can sue one another to death afterward. Wait, did I pay for the building of the local tribunal? Did he?
tl:dr; If you belong to a community, then maybe there are a certain number of things every member should do to ensure proper social interactions. Paying something for common or near-common services is.
Of course, what should be regarded as founded by the community (i.e. paid for by everybody, even those who don't believe they need it) is a very complex debate. As a single man, should I be able to say I don't want my tax money be used to pay for women's health programs? Or for children vaccination? Or adult education? Personally, I would feel very self-centered by saying so, but I would agree we should't pay for everything. Where to draw the line?
Another celebrity bites the dust: Donnie Wahlberg RT'da tweet of JM's re: an event tonight in Chicago to support Generation Rescue. Apparently, they're dating. It's a shame, I loved him on Blue Bloods, and I think he's got a pretty rabid female following. :/ Funny thing is, apparently all ticket levels are still available: https://generationrescue.org/events/jenny-mccarthy-s-holiday-bash/view/…
@Narad - I'm not Jeff S. M., but I can think of three reasons one might use a 401(k) instead of a Roth IRA:
1. Employer match - many employers will contribute money (either a match or some other mechanism) to a 401(k); they won't do that for an IRA.
2. Current year tax benefit - as you know, standard 401(k) contributions are pre-tax; Roth IRA contributes are after tax.
3. Contribution limits - the amount one can contribute annually to a 401(k) is higher than the amount one can contribute to an IRA.
It makes perfect sense to contribute to the 401(k) at least to the extent needed to get the full employer match. It may also make sense to contribute if one has more money to invest in retirement savings than one could put into an IRA, though i personally would put that into standard investments that have no tax benefit.
If one's employer were to offer a Roth 401(k), it might well be wise to put some money there for the sake of the tax benefits in retirement.
@Militant Agnostic,
I think you've used the wrong word with regards to the banker. The correct term depends on the intent, effect, and legality of what the banker did.
If the banker developed such a financial instrument with the intent of helping his/her/its customers profit and it works and is legal, then the banker is either lucky or a genius. If the same applies but it doesn't work then, well, either the risks went badly or the banker's competence is in question.
If the instrument was developed with the intent of profiting the bank at the expense of the customer and is legal, then the banker is unethical at the least and may get the bank sued.
If the instrument is illegal, then the banker is a felon, regardless of intent or other consequences.
Sarah A,
I think there are two separate issues here - one traditional and one relatively new.
The traditional one is the question of how the government determines what goods & services it will pay for and how it will pay for them. In many countries including the US, the answer has very clearly been that the majority determines how money will be spent and how it will be collected for that purpose. This is the law.
The second, in the US anyway, has been whether the government can require individuals to acquire goods and services on their own for their own benefit. An example is the individual mandate of the affordable care act, though one could argue that such mandates have been in law for some time. As an example, the government requires you to wear clothes in public - unless you collect the fiber, spin the thread, weave the cloth, and sew the clothes yourself, odds are you are effectively required to buy some portion (or look for someone else who will provide those for you gratis). Laws require private individuals to purchase fire suppression systems under certain circumstances.
Interestingly, in the case of the ACA, the Supreme Court notes that while there is an individual mandate, that mandate does NOT require a person to purchase a good or service. A person may choose not to purchase insurance and would then pay a tax.
@Jeff S. M. -
And this would be different from, say, an annuity how?
Sarah A - FWIW, some years ago I did some work with a charitable group that has a major annual funding campaign. This is an umbrella organization which provides money to multiple independent charities. Some people had problems with some of the charities that were funded for, say, their positions on sexuality. To counter this, the donor card allowed one to state that all of their contributions would be provided to or withheld from certain charities. These instructions were duly noted and recorded.
Of course, the actual effect of such designations was precisely zero. The allocations were determined based on financial analyses done before the campaign. Presumably if enough people decided they didn't want to fund a particular charity, that might have gone into the next year's budgeting, but I have no evidence for that one way or another.
The justification was that if person A said "please withhold all my money from this charity" then you could give it all to another charity and take what would gone to other charities from person B to make up for it. The request was followed to the letter, but since most people did not make such requests the effect was nil.
The same can be done, if you like, with taxes. A person may choose to decide that all of their tax money went to expenses they agree with and were withheld from expenses they disagree with. And this could be, in a sense, perfectly true since in general there is no way to track which dollar paid for which service.
True enough; I was viewing it through the lens of a certain research institution with the highest-paid president in the country this year, which also happens to have a crappy flat 6% 403(b) contribution.
Helianthus: If you belong to a community, then maybe there are a certain number of things every member should do to ensure proper social interactions. Paying something for common or near-common services is.
The thing is, libertarians don't believe in a 'community.' They have a virulent dislike of anyone outside their families, and believe that everyone else operates the same way. To them, humans are not social animals.
Narad - an employer pays 6% regardless of contribution? That's sounding better and better these days.
I used to work for a company that started out with a 6% annual contribution and it went up every few years to ~22% after 25 years. Sadly, they've cut their contribution these days, but it's still one of the best I've seen.
... and that's more in line with what I've read of Chris' -- thus my surprise. It was SGU #434. I'll have a re-listen and see if he really said what I thought I heard.
http://www.sgutranscripts.org/wiki/SGU_Episode_434
Narad – an employer pays 6% regardless of contribution? That’s sounding better and better these days.
If you're ever offered the choice between TIAA-CREF and Vanguard, pick the latter. The minimum employee contribution was 4%.
Thanks for all the insight, everybody. I obviously have a lot of reading/thinking to do. Its too bad taking the time to try and understand the issues doesn't make your vote count for any more than if you'd just flipped a coin.
@Sarah A - "It's too bad taking the time to try and understand the issues doesn't make your vote count..."
Yes and no. I sometimes wonder if our votes count at all anymore, BUT, if they do, the more people willing to rationally examine the issues and the more they inspire others to do so, the more we might actually make a real change.
It might be rather naive of me (and in my old age, too!), but I still have hope.
One reason to be dubious about a government with the power to compel vaccinations is that it could easily reverse course and ban vaccinations.
Interesting cartoon on the editorial page of a national newspaper: Two people sitting at the breakfast table. One says "Imagine a place where there's no spending, no taxing, no government and no caring". The other replies "You don't need to - just move to Somalia."
For the strict Libertarian crowd places already exist in the world that are closer to their ideals - only thing these places don't seem to be the popular utopias one would expect...
DELETED AT DELYSID'S REQUEST.
Who let the foul-mouthed substance-impaired dental student in?
Are you sober now Delysid?
Are you ready to apologize to Lawrence, Narad and me for the filthy porn that you posted at us?
@lilady
lol. I'll apologize right after you do.
You keep using this word "porn." I don't think you know what it means.
If being sober means being like you, Lawrence, and Narad, I'LL PASS.
Delysid - I'm confused by your first paragraph. Are you saying it is a good thing that your previous posts did not have the effect of making people understand why libertarianism is a good and valid philosophy? You'd like to think that people who discussed the topics with you remained unmoved? I'm not quite sure why you'd like to think that you are in some way responsible for people continuing to believe things that you disagree with.
But I'm not going to tell you what to do or think.
"Who let the foul-mouthed substance-impaired dental student in?"
Oh my heavens! A "lady" who pretends to be proper is offended!
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/betty-faint.gif
"Mike Adams, for instance, is an anti-corporation left-winger through and through."
Not in the slightest, unless you think seeing government as the embodiment of evil, being ferociously anti-regulation and warning of federal conspiracies to seize websites and guns makes you a typical left-winger.
He's also lavished gushing praise on Ron Paul.
Sounds like another of the goofball libertarians that more rational libertarians try to sweep under the rug.
Delysid @159 - TLDNR.
Plus, after the last interminable go-round, unquestionably information-free.
Delysid: How about you explain to us why you think the comment you made at # 1066 directed at me and your link to a porn site, is appropriate?
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/09/26/in-which-antivaccinationis…
@MB
If I don't succeed in swaying people about libertarianism (of which I have a great track record but you can't win 'em all), then I'll take pissing them off as a consolation. I've been reading RI for a while (though not as much lately), and this is by far the least intellectual post Orac has ever written. He seems to be rattled. He is justifiably opposed to alternative medicine nonsense and I agree with him 100% about it, but I'd like to think that I had at least a small influence in rattling him about libertarianism as a political ideology.
Realization often starts with anger. I have been in some heated debates with people (online and in person), only for for them to come to me months or years later and confide to me that they have since come around to the libertarianism.
@ Dangerous Bacon: It is not the case that the dental student made any cogent arguments about Libertarians' viewpoints; he didn't.
Every poster from all over the political spectrum on the previous thread, had to spoon feed him what Libertarians' political philosophies share in common...which definitely is not his unique political viewpoint. Tsk, tsk, where was he when lessons in various forms of government and lessons in American History were taught?
@lilady
Thanks for reminding me that you accused me of being a liar. You calling me a liar is FAR MORE OFFENSIVE than any of the things I said to you.
I'm waiting for an apology.
@lilady
You had to "spoon-feed" me my own beliefs? You have the arrogance to spoon-feed me concepts that I have a far deeper understanding of than you do?
GTFO with your proper, lady, high class easily-offended facade. You are the epitome of everything disgusting with the left-wing mindset. Look in the mirror.
@lilady
You educating me on libertarianism reminds me of Dianne Feinstein "educating" the public on assault rifles while pointing it at the audience with her finger on the trigger. The ignorance is ignored with rampant arrogance.
@Delsyid - perhaps you'd taken the time off to consider my very simple question (which you have refused up to now to answer)....please point out where your philosophy has been tried and shown to have been successful?
Otherwise, your "clutching at pearls" has gotten very old and tiresome....but I'm sure you'll keep making baseless assumptions as to our own political or philosophical beliefs and go after a bunch of strawman arguments as well....
@Lawrence
I have answered this question several times. Please stop begging the question and make an attempt to understand.
Libertarianism is voluntary association. It is everywhere, all the time. Anytime you make any purchase or agree to any contract you are engaging in libertarianism. You are asking for an example of a libertarian government. The primary example is the United States government under the Constitution. It wasn't perfect, but it worked quite well until the Progressive Era when idiotic despots turned the US into a Nanny State.
But of course Lawrence I'm sure you are going to close your eyes and ears and chant NANANANANNANA there are no libertarian governments therefore libertarianism can't work!
@Delsyid - that's not an answer.....because if it had been the "good old days" then there would not have been a reason to change it, right?
@Lawrence
Another logical fallacy. "It was changed because it needed to be changed."
Uh, NO.
So the British government banned pornography because it was necessary right? Uganda is about to make homosexuality because there is a reason, right?
*capital punishment
Progressivism is rooted in deceit. Before Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Richard Nixon and the other progressive despots rescued us with glorious government intervention it was chaos, IMMA RIGHT?!
You don't consider that an answer because you are begging the question. Typical.
The government is the alpha and omega. Before the government there was chaos. Without the government there would be chaos.
So, if I'm reading this right, you believe that pre-1900 US was a libertarian paradise...correct?
And that the "natural" state of society is libertarianism, correct?
@Lawrence
If I'm reading this right, you only know how to think in logical fallacies. Nice strawman.
Yes, the natural state of society is libertarianism. Freedom is a natural state.
You are saying the natural state of society is slavery, correct?
Meanwhile, back on topic.
Reuben at The Poxes blog has provided us with some insight and proof about the vile John D. Stone U.K. editor at AoA.
Yup, Stone actually contacted Reuben's employer.
P.S. My offer still stands for Dan Olmsted, or any other AoA critter ($1,000/per/comment), to come here with every comment I supposedly posted on Katie Couric's websites
@Delsyid - I'm trying to understand where you are coming from, but you really only seem interested in hurling insults - I'm sure you convert people left and right with that attitude....
With my interest in history, I see few if any instances of societies throughout the course of human history that reflect your philosophy.....seems like there has always been some manner of central authority as far back as we can tell (even primitive tribes have a hierarchical structure)....so I really don't see how you can claim that your particular ideas have been the norm....
Mike Adams, like his avatar, Gary Null, calls himself a "health freedom" advocate- they support a few issues that overlap with Libertarianism:
- they are against governmental mandates ( e.g. for vaccines, enforced treatment for minors whose parents choose alt med options for cancer, insurance etc )
- they oppose most governmental regulation ( e.g. over who can call him or herself a doctor, diagnose and treat, which therapies are selected, controls over supplements, guns, drugs etc)
- they are against large, centralised government, bureaucracy and high taxes. They ridicule governmentally sponsored education.
- they oppose any governmental intervention in economic matters ( e.g. 2008-2009 crises)
- they characterise the federal government as a "police state" and as being "fascistic"
They both also decry states/ areas which have more regulation:
Mike moved to Texas; the other woo-meister may be setting up a health retreat/ spa/ ranch there as we speak. Both despise areas with a more liberal outlook and "too many laws" ( Null on NY etc) and are not particularly avid fans of Mr Obama. They think that the Pauls are the bee's knees.
Both sound rather libertarian to me.
Of course, Delsyid's comments do show, that because he things pre-1900's USA was his model, that there are legitimate areas in which the government can and should be providing guidance, supervision, and control.....so perhaps he isn't so black and white after all.....though I find his overall attitude to be that of a giant douche (and he's probably not a very nice person to hang around with in general).
@Lawrence
My model is NO GOVERNMENT. If I had to choose the least horrible government, it would be pre-1861 US (if we ignore slavery problem).
Government seems to be an eternal plague on mankind. Unfortunately the bad people who statists insist need to be controlled inevitably end up as the controllers. I.E. 99% of politicians.
Whenever I see discussions about Libertarianism I can't help being reminded of those nature documentaries about the migration of the wildebeest in Africa. You know.... the way they all pile up on the edge of a crocodile infested river before some unfortunate animals takes the plunge. The rest then pile in while the crocs are distracted and get across safely. The free market principle in action, the few are thrown to the crocodiles in order that the many can learn a lesson. Of course, if the wildebeest had a central policy on safe river crossings, maybe involving working together.......
Delysid: "My model is NO GOVERNMENT. If I had to choose the least horrible government, it would be pre-1861 US (if we ignore slavery problem)."
Please, please, please move to Somalia. Or some other section of the world where this "no government" utopia exists.
But, please, just go leave your brain droppings somewhere else. Especially since I was reminded how "lovely" your pre-20th century was by reading the 1939 biography of S. Josephine Baker. Some of us who lack a Y-chromosome do not really care much for your utopia.
No, it's not, because people don't magically spring into existence as fully formed adults. The "natural state of society" is one of interdependence starting with family groups and yielding clan and tribal hierarchies. You are not going to evade social power structures by fantasizing them out of existence.
@Delsyid - then I will ask again (because you really haven't answered the question & you just admitted as much), when in human history has your philosophy been adopted and proved to be successful?
Because your answer above is a non-answer, because it violates your own statement in #186
Delsyid sounds exactly like Karl Marx & the earliest Communists, who believed their "theories" were the natural order of society & it was "inevitable" that communism would replace capitalism as a course of history.....
Of course, theories are great, but they tend to fall apart when put into practice (because people are people).
And Delsyid's claims are interesting from the standpoint that the ultimate goal of Communism was elimination of all government as well.....
Delysid @167
You already accomplished this in the comments earlier this year.
Thank you for your honesty.
But could you do us a favor and think your comments through before you post instead of going with three or four content-less comments in a row? All that’s doing is filling up the “Recent Comments” list, and it looks like you are talking to yourself.
Of course, if you are still going for “take pissing them off as a consolation” – again: mission accomplished.
Or maybe not. At this point I just find your comments boring.
MOVE TO SOMALIA
The most sophisticated argument ever formulated by a liberal, followed closely by "You're a racist!"
The sanctimonious bleeding heart-ism, it burns!
If all of the pinkos would please move to China and take their government with them.
@Chris
You don't have a Y-chromosome? That makes sense. Last time I was here I remember thinking "this guy Chris sounds like a radfem feminazi."
Delysid @186 (my emphasis)
(if we ignore insert problem of choice mentioned by anyone else.
That’s the whole problem, though, isn’t it? You have this awesome, spectacular, absolutely perfect model for government if we ignore all the problems with it!
Thanks for the laugh.
@Chemmomo
Being a progressive means ignoring all problems with government. Have you ever heard a progressive defend a government program?
Have you ever heard a progressive criticize a government program? LOL That's like seeing an albino unicorn.
Everybody -- just stop it.
Now Lawrence is comparing to communists. There is so many layers to both the insanity and stupidity around here that is impossible to tackle.
In Orac's insane asylum words do not have meaning. Logical fallacies do not exist.
Yeah but those libertarians are the problem.
@Delsyid - you are certainly an idiot...and sound a lot like the anti-vax people who come here & try to claim that we say vaccines are 100% effective and 100% safe (and no one has ever suffered a vaccine reaction).
What a huge burning strawman you put forth....is government perfect? Of course not - I find that government programs fail to take advantage of new processes (and technology) to become more efficient - and that programs that have outlived their usefulness should be shut down.
I would like nothing better than a full audit of government programs & an open and honest discussion about what is needed vs. what is not....of course, what you are advocating is a complete removal of government, without any evidence to say that it would work better than the current system we have (with its flaws).
Which is why I continue to ask the question - where in human history has this been attempted & it proved to be successful?
Lawrence,
Be careful what you wish for. A full audit of government and HONEST discussion about what is needed versus not would reveal that government in its entirety (or the vast, vast majority) is completely unnecessary and unethical.
Libertarianism is the only ideology that makes any sense is not hypocritical with belief that we should be free do what we want as long as we don’t harm others.
That's half right. Unfortunately, when Libertarians say 'other people,' what they actually mean is 'other white men.' So if they harm women, kids, or people who aren't white, that harm doesn't count because, obviously, those other humans aren't people to them.
Also, Delysid, do you believe humans are solitary animals or are happier in a community? And if they are in a community, are they obligated to follow the rules or just do whatever they want, no matter if it harms someone else? And which would you rather have, a mandatory quarantine or a mandatory vaccine?
Since you can't actually proposed anything better that is backed up with proof that it would work....then we'll work with what we have....
@PoliticalPIG
Glad to hear from the resident racist and misandrogynist.
WHITE MEN WHITE MEN WHITE MEN WHITE MEN WHITE MEN WHITE MEN WHITE MEN WHITE MEN WHITE MEN
Delysid, your brilliance is underwhelming. Let us all go back to the days when no one cared about Criminals are producing your “health” supplements. Remember, even in 1937 it was not illegal to put diethylene glycol into cough syrup for kids.
Anyway, keep up the humor, we need a bit of lighthearted laughter at your expense. I loved that you whined " followed closely by “You’re a racist!”"... then followed after what I wrote sunk into your noggin with “this guy Chris sounds like a radfem feminazi.” Pure comedy gold. Almost as much fun as Little Augie's brain exploding when he found out I was both an aerospace engineer and a mother.
Others, Delysid's utopia reminds of the first part of Philip Jose Farmer's book Riverworld. I appreciated that the SyFy's miniseries updated it a bit to include a young lady who had been one of the engineering students shot during École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal in 1989 (still just an okay program).
By the way, Dr. Baker's autobiography Fighting for Life is very witty, and reveals some interesting notes on health, public health, and some weird thinking of the day. Shortly after the creation of the Federal Children’s Bureau there was some congressional testimony on funding. One New England doctor who was opposed to the funding actually testified saying:
“We oppose this bill because, if you are going to save the lives of all these women and children at public expense, what inducement will there be for young men to study medicine?”
Needless to say, at least one congressman was shocked.
It was a good read.
@Lawrence
Prove to me why shouldn't be my slave.
Go ahead. Prove a negative. Until you can give me a detailed explanation based on evidence about why you shouldn't be my slave we just have to assume that is the best way.
Delysid @197
Apologies for mangling html @209 and hoping Delysid actually listens this time.
Delysid @197
Have you ever sat back and seriously thought about the criticism posted in response to your words on this blog, or do you just automatically reply with insults, assumptions, and tangents?
@Delsyid - actually, I have history to show why that is a bad idea...
What do you have to show that yours is a good idea?
Again, the communists had a great theory that they said would fix everything - of course, when it was put into practice, it didn't work out the way they thought....so, unless you can show some real world applications of your theory, you are doing nothing but talking out of your ass.
I think the direction of this comment thread was best described by the late Johnny Cash ---
@Chemmomo
Yes, I have thought quite extensively about poltical matters. That is why I went from being ignorant liberal in college who probably would have been a part of the angry mob on RI to a libertarian.
All of the criticism directed towards me has pretty much been the same things over and over again.
1. Name and example of a libertarian society (logical fallacy)
2. Who would build the roads and put out the fires(logical fallacy)
3. Anarchy = chaos (fallacy)
4. I'm a racist and I hate the poor (straw man)
5. I should move to Somalia (which had a socialist regime and currently has a government)
Delsyid just assumes that his way is better, regardless of whether or not there is any evidence that it would be (and we have volumes of historical references that show that abuse of power is ubiquitous)....
Is government the only answer? Of course not - over time, there have been many instances of mass movements that forced change to occur (though ultimately, like the Sufferage and Civil Rights Movement - their successes were codified into law & enforced by the government).
What we have found, is that some combination of public and private involvement produces the best results we've seen to date - unfettered industrialization provided a lot of economic success and growth, but the vast majority of the wealth and power was consolidated in a very small number of individuals, while the bulk of the workers were treated little better than serfs....and businesses tended to want to limit competition, so we saw the growth of monopolies in various industries.
As a result, there was a reaction to these abuses - and it is hard to argue that economic activities were curtailed to any detrimental amount - given where we've ended up today.
Again, is government the answer to all problems - of course not, but to say that it is THE problem, ignores the historical evidence.....
Delsyid can argue theory all he wants....but he has given us no reason to believe that his way would produce more positive results than what we have seen historically to date....he might as well be arguing with Karl Marx over which one of their "theories" would prove to be the most successful.
(oh, except those Karl's theories were put into practice - and we know they don't work....mostly because people don't act the way you want them to).
Delsyid only finds it convenient to dismiss arguments that he has no answer for......
@Lawrence
You are still not getting it.
I'm not a central planner. The free-market is not a central planning body. The free-market is us. The market is plans by the many, not by the few.
It's like you are asking "how is the free-market going to be a government?"
@Lawrence
You still haven't proven to me why you shouldn't be my slave. I see that you find it convenient to dismiss arguments that you have no answer for.
I can prove, Lawrence, that if I force you to clean my apartment then it will get done. The free-market isn't magically cleaning my apartment.
Prove to me why I shouldn't force you at gunpoint to clean my apartment like a slave. That will get the job done, correct?
@Delsyid - you haven't proven a thing...all you have is some "not-so-grand" pronouncements that the "free market" will solve everything....
You don't seem to see the flaws in what you are saying, at all.
What leads you to believe that you way is better?
@Lawrence
You still are ignoring my question. How is my apartment going to get cleaned if I don't force you to clean it at gunpoint as a slave?
Answer my question using evidence and historical examples to prove why you should be free.
With as much time as I spend in the 19th century, I have never understood the attraction it holds for some who seem to regard it as some kind of Paradise. It was – if one happened to be male, white (and not just white but of Anglo-Saxon descent), educated, and the member of one of the mainline Protestant sects.
Oh, and already in possession of an adequate supply of money.
(And post #220 makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The opposite of a free market economy is coercion at gunpoint?)
@Shay - Delsyid continues to make little to no sense....
Again, his "theories" are just that - nothing but a set of ideas that appear great on paper, but have little or no relation to reality.
@Shay
The opposite of voluntaryism is aggression or coercion.
It's like when statists use the stupid argument that taxes aren't voluntary. "You are free to either pay your taxes, or go to jail!"
@Shay
Oh and you spent a lot of time in the 19th century, eh? You have personal first-hand experience of it?
Or let me guess, you read whitewashed history and muckraking like The Jungle?
@Lawrence
For the 5th time, answer my question. Why shouldn't you be my slave? Why are you avoiding it? It should be pretty easy to prove, right?
Well, I don't know about you, Lawrence, but any attempt by to force me to do something at gunpoint is going to result in somebody lying dead in his (uncleaned) apartment.
Seriously..."You still haven’t proven to me why you shouldn’t be my slave. " WTF?
(sigh) You have a conveniently short memory, D. I am a military historian, which means I spend my time researching in primary sources.
What, pray tell, are the documents corroborating your belief that life in pre 1860's US was so desirable?
@ Shay:
And I imagine that you are familiar with the term 'boom and bust' and its significance in the culture of the 19th century.
I come from a long line of business folk who live/lived in two different countries which BOTH changed governmental policy since the 19th century becoming dens of socialism. Why didn't most citizens rebel against this?
BTW, my current reading list includes "A Rebel War Clerk's Diary," "The Diary of a Confederate Girl," and "A Journal of Hospital Life in The Army of the Tennessee."
@Shay - someone is "whitewashing" history & it certainly isn't us....
@Shay
Oh you are a war historian? Oh you must be so knowledgable! There is nothing more truthful than matters dealing with war!!!!
But I at least give you credit for reading The Diary of a Confederate Girl. Sarah Morgan at least describes Lincoln's soldiers as being the raping, murdering, pillages they were. (Not that the Confederates were much better).
"There is nothing more truthful than matters dealing with war!"
Actually, there isn't. But I kinda doubt that's what you intended to say.
Try again, you seem to be having trouble expressing yourself.
The first casualty of war is truth and history is written by the victors.
Maybe in terms of strategy there is truth, but not when it comes to war itself.
Delysid @213, I think you missed my point.
I’m not asking you about how you formed your political views. I am asking if you if you are taking any time to consider anyone else’s point of view and arguments now.
The next comment you made
suggests that you are just dismissing them with no more consideration beyond a mental categorization.
And I think you are doing that because if you took the time to think about what others are saying, you’ll have to give up your illusion that you are successful in swaying people about libertarianism.”
One more piece of constructive criticism: you’ll learn a lot more if you are not quite so convinced of your own awesomeness.
Anyone who believes history is written by the victors hasn't studied the American Civil War.
BTW, could you provide the source documents for my question @228?
I enjoyed The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Woods and Hawthorne's biography of Franklin Pierce (our best president FYI). I've read Thoreau and the many of the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain.
Please tell me what was so horrible about pre-1864. Life was pretty damn similar to today except with far less taxes and less technology.
Christ I've read plenty of ancient Roman and Greek literature and they wrote about the exact same shit we do today.
I don't know why anyone would be feeding The Troll, who has proven himself over and over again to be incapable of civil discourse.
Just go away Troll, and the next time you speak with your mommy, refer to her in the same filthy terms as you have referred to the female posters on Respectful Insolence.
@Chemmono
You seem to be under the impression that the criticism people are giving me are original. The arguments against libertarianism on RI are identical to the hystarical ranting by high schoolers on the political section on reddit.
Statism is the world's most popular religion. It's the same justificaiton in every country.
Interestingly enough, in thousands of years of human history, we haven't seen a single society embrace the "free market" as the sole basis for their civilization.
LIbertarians hear the same tired arguments constantly. I've been told to move to Somalia hundreds of times by now. I've been asked "who will build the roads" just as many times. I can't count how many times I've been told to read The Jungle.
I've been lectured over and over again about robber barons and child slavery.
Every time a progressive repeats the universal pro-government memes they think they have reinvented the wheel. It's the same arguments everywhere. I've heard it all and no one here has presented anything new. Perhaps new details to the same general fallacies, but it is more or less the same.
Oh yeah and when it comes to internet debates, the most voracious, relentless, incorrigible defenders of government are usually women over men, and usually Brits and Canadians over Americans. The pattern has gotten pretty predictable.
I can't figure out why Brits and Canadians get so passionate and angry regarding American politics. That would be like me getting involved in the affairs of the Mexican Congress, but I digress.
Delysid: Please tell me what was so horrible about pre-1864.
Gee....where do we begin? The deaths of thousands of people from malaria and yellow fever before widespread mosquito control (brought to you by the government) That married women had their assets confiscated upon marriage and couldn't own property? The fact that women couldn't vote or that free men, if they were the wrong color could be abducted and sold into slavery, and also couldn't vote?
Finally, bub, I'm white. I can't be racist against my own race.
Also you haven't answered my question: which of the three is more desirable- an epidemic, a mandatory quarantine or a mandatory vaccine?
Delysid @239
You seem to be under the impression I’m only discussing criticism of your political views. I’m also criticizing your presentation of your views, and the way you respond to what other posters communicate to you. For an example, see your exchanges with Shay starting at about comment #226. In particular, you posted @232 ( http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/12/18/why-are-antivaccinationist… )
You complain
Yet, your own debating style is, frankly, childish and ineffective. Unless, of course, your goal is just to be provocative for its own sake, in which case: congratulations! You have provided plenty of amusement this afternoon.
@politicalPIG
Disease is not the fault of the free-market.
I don't care what ethnicity, race, gender, nationality, or even species you are. You are a disgusting animal. It terrifies me that you vote.
Oh yeah and nice false dilemma.
Do you prefer to be raped by white men in the vagina or in the rectum?
This is a nonargument. Expulsion of the diseased, which is neither more nor less than protection of the "herd," goes way, way back. There are only so many slots available for the susceptible before R > 0, and some of those are taken by people without any choice in the matter. Handwavinng about a "null argument" is just that.
You are an asset to your cause Delsyid...I'm surprised people aren't flocking to your banner.....
Kid, if you're going to try to get away this kind of shıt, I'm going to be willing to address you by the name your mother gave you in order to memorialize your character for posterity.
Delysid @ 246
Yes, I’m sorry, I can’t bring myself to connect my screen name with the rest of those words in context even if I am quoting. Go ahead and call me a prude.
This is exactly what I’m trying to get through to you: this sort tactic might be effective in discussions with those hysterical ranting high schoolers, but all it does when debating with adults is show that you are emotionally immature and cannot present a logical argument.
@Narad
Better call the police.
Delysid: "Please tell me what was so horrible about pre-1864. Life was pretty damn similar to today except with far less taxes and less technology."
Obviously he managed to graduate from high school without reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I still have memories in my head over the horrors of the family feud that Huck got caught in. Just one of the scenes that had nothing to do with slavery that showed what kind of people that populated the country in the middle of the 19th century.
Nice non sequitur.
How high's the water, Momma?
Alright. That's enough. Into the automatic moderation queue you go until you prove that you can restrain your baser impulses. I'll still let your comments through, but not when you indulge in misogynistic asshattery like this.
"Please tell me what was so horrible about pre-1864. Life was pretty damn similar to today except with far less taxes and less technology."
You truly have benefited from a very narrow reading in American history.
Pre-1864, there were very few jobs open to me, due in part to my unfortunate ethnic heritage, and those employers who might have risked hiring me were not required to see that I had a safe work environment, or that I got the same pay for the same work done by another employee. I would not have had the freedom to "vote with my feet" and find better employment because there wasn't any.
Let's say that by some miracle I did find employment that paid a living wage, I still would not have been able to purchase a home or property, in part because I would not have been legally able to enter into a contract but also because there were no equal housing/equal lending laws.
(And you know what, Delysid? You would have been in the same boat. Because discrimination against atheists in ante-bellum America was common and perfectly legal. I might have been a member of a despised racial and religious minority, but you would have been utterly beyond the pale).
There would be no guarantee that the water I drank or the food I purchased would not poison me (and if you don't think the connection between sanitation and disease was recognized pre-1864, please go read up on Gail Borden), and if I became ill and needed medicine, there were no regulations governing the manufacture thereof.
But I guess that, apart from the whole employment/housing/food/medicine thing, life pre-1864 wasn't all that bad.
.
Even if you were rich & white (and Protestant), live still wasn't easy & god forbid you come down with some horrible disease...based on the state of medicine at the time....for everyone else, well, it might well have been tolerable, but it certainly wasn't good or easy....and if you were Black or a Woman...well, history speaks for itself.
Thanks Orac.
Back on topic. Here's the Speaker's List for the 2014 Quackfest.
http://www.autismone.org/content/list-speakers
Jake Crosby is a "Featured Speaker"?
Wow.
I wanted to share an anecdote I found (which was shared with another one by someone who got a seriously unhappy case of pertussis as an adult). It gave me hope that there are anecdotes for vaccination by those who had to survive all those 'harmless' childhood illnesses. Messed up the link so it could get through without being moderated...
ht_tp://www.voicesforvaccines.org/growing-up-unvaccinated/
Sorry to drift to the vaccine part of this topic... ;-)
I was mocking PoliticalPig's incessent racist misandry.
So Orac you tolerate her bigotry but it's offensive when I use the same language?
Also I ifnd forced vaccination and forced quarentine to be just as serious and offensive as rape. You don't have any right to inject any chemicals into a person's body without their consent, whether it is a vaccine or semen.
@Delysid: Enough with the rape analogies. And I don't see any racist misandry. But I do see despicable misogyny coming from you. So knock it off or go away again for an extended period of time. Your choice.
@Mrs Woo - thanks for bringing things back around.
@ Orac # 255
Hear, hear.
But you'll probably be called a fascist or suchlike.
Not at all. Our "friend" is calling me a hypocrite. :-)
I have a strong suspicion that his reading of Camus is going to prove to be even better.
@ Shay:
I'd guess that you're Irish.
Shea?
I have to admit to debating about posting it - it seemed that you were all debating with someone who had no interest in hearing argument. I realize the purpose is to be sure that rational discussion is shared, but worried that things might not come back to anything else.
Usually I find most libertarians to have a blind eye to the lack of compassion inherent in the philosophy - it ignores that life can be unfair, and to some extent all of society benefits if we reduce poverty, disease and similar issues. Every time I hear that everyone has the same opportunity at birth I have to wonder what sheltered place they were raised in.
Thank you for stepping in, Orac.
Chang and Eng lived peacefullyin the antebellum south
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang_and_Eng_Bunker
And racism wasnt solved by your godvernment and the preistacians. In fact
Mrs Woo,
It's okay, much more refreshing. Nice testimony by the way.
Alain
That should ruffle some feathers.
The Progressive Era gov. doubled down on racidt policies. Woodrow Wilson made it oart of his platform and administration.
@Narad - interesting mix of speakers there....seems like AoA might be "distancing" themselves from the event....one way or the other.
Denice -- and Catholic (shudder). MacMahon on one side and Conway on the other! Actually, I've been known as Shay since I enlisted, a shortening of my given name which too many of my brothers/sisters in arms found unpronounceable.
The point can be made that medical knowledge at the time (1st half/19th century) was still pretty primitive, yet doctors and the general public accepted that vaccination prevented disease, and starting with the Philadelphia yellow fever in 1793 , the connection was being made between disease and sanitation (incorrectly, in that case, unfortunately).
From Irwin Bell Wiley's Life of Billy Yank: "“It is strange to see (captain) Bell’s company, 83 strong – rough backswoodsmen with 15 men sick, several serious cases, while (captain) Widdis’ just along side, delicate, citybred men, 85 strong…have but 3 sick men all light cases. The difference is no doubt mainly due to the great care Widdis forces his men to take in cleansing and airing their tents and blankets and ditching and policing his street, while the country officers almost entirely neglect this."
Oh, dear, not too clear on the underlying "my server, my rules" principle? Not able to "defend his honor" or something?
Socialists csre about the poor and libertarians are anti-socialist, therefore libertarians hate the poor. QED.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/penn-jillette-on-government-social-…
Even though my patronymic is only two syllables, the USMCR milieu forced a vowel and consonant change before I arrived on the scene.
"Chang and Eng lived peacefullyin the antebellum south"
Cheng and Eng were conjoined twins, and were exhibited as side show oddities. They were not typical of minorities in the south. A friend of mine had grandparents who immigrated from China to Mississippi. Her father has marked on his birth certificate that he was "white" because there were only two choices. So they joked he was the only white person born in their family!
"And racism wasnt solved by your godvernment and the preistacians. In fact"
History on the constitution seems to elude you. You must be ignoring every amendment passed in the past 150 years.
Delysid @ 261
Yes. Your comment @ 246 is extremely offensive. If you cannot understand this, I hope you re-think participating in a career in which you deal with the public on a daily basis.
There has only been one truly "offensive" commenter in this thread....painfully obvious who that person is.
@ Lawrence:
Interestingly Jake is being identified with 'advocacy"
I can't wait to find out what this neologism is supposed to mean. Or when racism was "solved," for that matter. Was it the dentacians?
Orac I'm assuming you deliberately summoned me and the wrath of the devil with the word libertarian in the title. I always take the bait even if I see the hook.
You really think way too highly of yourself. I didn't even give you a thought when I wrote this post. But it amuses me that you think I'd bother, as I had pretty much forgotten about your existence before you made your obnoxious return.
Score some pot while you're attending the 2014 Quackfest
"MEDICAL CANNABIS (MARIJUANA) & HEMP COMING TO AUTISMONE
Cannabis stops seizures heals body and mind
Hemp legal in all 50 states - medical cannabis legal in 20 and counting
National Push Begins in May"
http://www.autismone.org/Important-Information-Autismone-Conference-2014
Priestatician is a portmanteau of priest and politician.
I'm sorry, my tidy middle-class Middle-Western mind equates hemp with doormats. But hasn't someone (and I don't know if it's a reliable someone or a lunatic fringe someone) made some claims on behalf of medical marijuana in re: autism?
I see that the Natty is really kicking in. Where is the "forced vaccination"? How is "quarentine" tantamount to rape?
Julian Pursell would probably be an improvement over D.
Me at #108 and Orac at #154:
I said "Chris described antivaccinationism as being predominantly a disorder of the Left."
... and I was wrong.
It's on SGU #434 at 59:40, and he clearly says it's 9/11 Trutherism, not antivaccinationism, that preferentially afflicts Lefties. It was a brain bubble on my part. Please instruct the jury to disregard the testimony, and I will go off and take some gingko biloba or something for my faulty memory.
@ Shay: That would be Jacob and his hundreds of sock puppets a.k.a. The Pothead Troll whose M.O. was similar to the dental student's.
In that case, it's the most incompetent attempt I've ever seen at the exercise.
Delysid @ 286
A+ for alliteration.
F in term of making any sense at all.
^in terms of
D., perhaps this will help in your future endeavors. GG is close to the last place I would go for advice about the nominal subject matter, but Johnson's observations might give you some practical tips on how to work around your frankly abysmal language skills should you feel compelled to persist in snorkeling in the deep end.
@Narad
Thanks for the advice.
I have a source that will help you in your future endeavors.
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/critical-thinking-where-to-begin/…
Because it wouldn't be Christmas at Respectful Insolence....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyBK9UdxbcM
If that's Nathan Coombs/Rhonda Morris ex Derrick McFabe, it wouldn't be the first appearance.
OH GAWD. I had forgotten the traditional annual Lutefisk conversation.
Delysid: Do you prefer to be raped by white men in the vagina or in the rectum?
And you wonder why I despise libertarians. They're all like you, and they're all disgusting. For the last time, being critical of white men is in no way being racist or misandrist. And being critical of you is just common sense you disgusting pig.
And just so we're all straight- my name comes from the common domestic cavy which is a rodent. They are very clean and pleasant animals, far superior to you.
In related news, I accidentally purchased a grocery-story "deli" potato salad today, in a shopping-while-hungry moment, that tastes of nothing but... dill. I thought the green stuff was a combination of parsley and scallions.
I do wish the "G-dverment" would step in here with some labeling requirements.
Delysid, 261
Delysid, for someone saying something is "just as serious and offensive as rape", to then equate rape with injection of semen without consent is like equating a plane crash with lost luggage.
You, sir, are a jerk of the highest order.
@PGP: there are other threads on this site I've been teasing out the true nature of libertarian denialists... scratch just below the surface and the FYIGM, misogyny and racism just shines through. This one is particularly odious, but I think he's trolling more than anything now.
Narad: "In that case, it’s the most incompetent attempt I’ve ever seen at the exercise."
I rather like “Aluminati”. We need to use it more as it seems to be the "toxin du jour."
Did someone say lutefisk?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQAZ4IKcncw
Did someone say lutefisk?
Not me. What is lutefisk?
Have a good night lilady :)
Alain
"What is lutefisk?"
http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/LutefiskHistory.htm
Alain, it's tastier than surstromming. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming#cite_note-10
Stu: no surprise. I bet a lot of them wear fedoras too. (It's a crying shame that something so snazzy has been reduced to a sign of an asshole.)
Stop, please with the food talk; we have no lefse in the house, and that's a crying shame this time of year.
Did you hear what they did to poor Typhoid Mary? What would the libertarian solution have been, I wonder? I suspect that in a libertarian society she would have voluntarily isolated herself, or submitted to medical treatment for her condition, because in a libertarian society everyone accepts personal freedom and responsibility. It's only in the real world that a substantial number of people do not.
By the way, Typhoid Mary's case makes interesting reading, if you're unfamiliar with it, and serves as a sort of reductio ad absurdum of arguments against compulsory vaccination and isolation. Mary Mallon spent almost thirty years locked away in total, merely because she was spreading typhoid and refused to take measures to prevent this:
The free market solution to the problem presumably would have entailed Mallon eventually being lynched by an angry mob of bereaved relatives of those who had died from typhoid.
Talk of lutefisk reminded me that while rooting about in the freezer section of my local Chinese food store recently, I came across some durian fruit. Sadly I'm entirely lacking my sense of smell at present, so it seemed pointless buying any, but the curious might find a similar exercise fruitful (pun intended).
Actually I think the free market libertarian solution to Typhoid Mary would be to allow her to carry on working as a cook. She has the right to refuse to wash, or accept treatment if she wishes. She should be allowed to do what she likes. The best that could happen would be to warn people until word got around enough that she ran out of people who would employ her. That's the natural law of the market.
I'm affraid warning people for Typhoid Mary wouldn't be that easy, considering, she also renamed herself and with a common name like Mary Brown, warning for a certain Mary Brown wouldn't be very productive.
Chuff,
She changed her name to evade detection, and frequently changed jobs (as soon as people started going down with typhoid). I find it hard to imagine how this could have been dealt with without recourse to measures that libertarians would regard as an affront to personal freedom.
The natural law of the market often seems to involve an awful lot of death and human suffering.
Delysid: "I (find) forced vaccination and forced quarentine to be just as serious and offensive as rape."
Meryl (No-one-ever-died-of-whooping-cough) Dorey of the Australian (Anti-)Vaccination Network agrees with you. Nice company you're keeping.
http://peterbowditch.com/wp/2013/09/meryl-dorey-and-the-rape-analogy/
I have a feeling Chuff is being ironic.
@ PGP:
You are correct about fedoras: very snazzy and thoroughly wasted on idiots. I was given one a few years ago but never wear it because it's brown which doesn't work wih my skin tone at all. *Quel dommage*.
re Norwegian foods-
my cousin, Mu, experiences the mixed blessing of living within 1000 feet of a well-regarded Norwegian bakery which is the death of any diet she attempts to follow.
@PGP @Denice
At the risk of starting a true rift, fedoras should be illegal for anyone under 50. Dudebros my age have got it into their heads that they're Sam Spade. NO.
So, what, Deadwood in the early days?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood,_South_Dakota
The US government had no authority, because it was on 'Indian land', no state government, because it wasn't a state, and the indians weren't strong enough to throw them out. It sounds like 'Libertopia' by your definition.
@ AOP:
Oh, agreed. All of my gentlemen ARE over 50.... currently. AND I would wear it if it were grey. And Dudebros are poseurs.
@ Johhny:
I always imagine Libertopia to be like the Iceland depicted in the saga of Hrafnkel, Freysgodi- altho' that is probably a novel, it has an authenic ring.
People make their own rules, win 'court cases' by having the entourage that shouts the loudest and murder can be resolved by a sum of money. AND it has no bureaucracies, regulations,high taxes for schools and health care.
@Shay #315
Yes. I was being ironic. Sorry, doesn't always come across well in text and I have no idea how to quote posts etc. As Krebiozen says, the natural law of the market can cause a lot of death and suffering. History shows that people spend a lot of time being complete b#$tards to each other. Why libertarians think this will change after the removal of all regulation to prevent it, I will never understand.
There was a statement by Walter Williams in the newspaper recently that had a line (in a different context) that strikes me as applicable:
I acknowledge that pure libertarianism, assuming that everyone is intelligent, fully informed, and acts in a way that is consistent with both their own self interest and the interest of the community as a whole sounds really inviting and any governmental system that restricts someone from acting in that way would, by comparison, come up short. The odds of people acting that way on a consistent basis are nil, unfortunately, and thus government has its purposes.
@Everybody
Here is all of your arguments in a nutshell...
People are bad so we need a government made of people are bad so we need a government made of people are bad so we need a government made of people are bad so we need a government made of people are bad...
Let me try to rephrase it...
PEOPLE ARE BAD SO WE NEED A GOVERNMENT MADE OF PEOPLE ARE BAD SO WE NEED A GOVERNMENT MADE OF PEOPLE ARE BAD SO WE NEED A GOVERNMENT MADE OF PEOPLE ARE BAD...
When I'm not on RI I'll just spend time arguing with this picture. Same thing.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/87257311501847167/
Or put another way...
"I got an idea! Why don't we give a small group of the right to kidnap, prison, harass, steal, steal from, and kill people so that we are protected from people who kidnap, prison, harass, steal from and kill us?!"
Or wait I know what you are thinking. People in government are good and people in the free-market are bad, imma right? Because in the religion of statism and through the magic of democracy, bad people in the market transform into good altruistic people when they are voted into office!
It's so logical! Libertarians are dumb and progressives are smart!
Well, if this "no government utopia" included you, Delysid, we'd know for sure it would have one terrible person who could not be trusted.
You have not quite shown yourself to be worthy citizen in any domain.
Well, that's a bit simplistic but we have two chouces
@Chris
You don't know me. You might feel like a keyboard psychiatrist, but you are talking to someone you have never met and know nothing about. It's extremely amusing watching you laptop dictators pontificate about politics like you are queen of society.
You advocate for a government you have zero control over. You pretend to have expertise in subjects you know nothing about.
Do you feel important, citizen?
Unfinished post. Then I realized, what's the point, already been said.
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free a dentist that your very existence is an act of rebellion includes hanging around on the Ron Paul forums, making an ass of yourself in blog comments, and dropping references to the pathetically sad Pinterest."
FTFY. Want some better Camus quotes, you "rebel" you?
It’s so logical! Libertarians are dumb and progressives are smart!
Delysid, life is never simple. You're the one who keeps trying to make this a black and white issue; the rest of us here are trying to make the point that you're missing all of the shades of grey.
@ delysid
*fighting my way out of strawmen* Actually, it's not that we are believing/arguing.
Your problem is that you believe that there are good people and bad people. The reality is, there are only bad people. Simply, there are not on the same side.
With "the magic of democracy", you can at least change the composition of the government. To some extent. Of course, if the voters keep putting back in charge scoundrels and thieves... One has the government it deserves.
Good luck having your CEO out of his office.
Actually, explain me this:
The usual structure of a private enterprise is hierarchized: it has a main manager (or a group of decision-makers), a board of delegates with specialized jurisdictions (in a number of businesses, one of these jurisdictions is the management of a small group of people with the specific right to "harass" other people - it's called "Security") and the majorities of the workers don't have much say in the decisions taken by the top members.
How is this different from the government of a city or a nation? More precisely, why wouldn't a board of directors be susceptible to the same mistakes and temptations of misuse of power as a government?
Or more simply: OK, you don't want a government, I get it.
So, how do you pretend to stop people around you from misbehaving? No cheating: your answer cannot be to delegate to anyone the "right to kidnap, prison [...] or kill people".
If you are keeping watch all by yourself, good luck having anything else done.
If you are living in the wilderness, that's cheating: I want to know what you will be doing in a situation with a lot of people around you.
Tell me you are organizing a local militia, I will point to you that this is a government in the making. A small one, but as History has shown time and time again, it will grow. Remember Rome? It started as a small village of peasants.
@Narad
I see you have figured who I am Scooby Doo. Congrats. Any idiot with 5 minutes of time could have done so, considering I'm not hiding. I don't care enough (and I am quite certain you are a nobody) to return the sleuthing about you.
I see that you appear to have had a memory lapse after your buffoonery yesterday.
Delsyid seems to think, that despite thousands of years of human history, that "no government" is the natural state of things.....yet he has provided no evidence that this is so.....
Government = bad, yeah we get it. Unfortunately, whatever you decide to call the alternative (a corporation, collective, company, gathering, etc) there will always be some kind of hierarchical structure - whether it was the paleolithic tribes, early farming civilizations, Greece / Rome, city-states, or modern nations....I find it funny that you think that any type of governmental structure = slavery, while no government = freedom....because history hasn't borne that out, ever.
Again, point to an instance where your ideas where successful - anywhere, at any time. Otherwise, you are doing nothing but espousing a bunch of theories that may sound good on paper, but you have no idea if they would work in the real world.
@Delysid
Actually, I am rather curious how you would propose dealing with someone like Typhoid Mary. What would the Libertarian response be to someone like her, and do you have any examples of this in action?
@Narad
And by the way, I don't use this term loosely, but you are creepy. Extremely creepy. I am fine with my identity being public, but I am uncomfortable that you are a creepy weirdo.
@Todd W.
Typhoid Mary is an interesting case. Times have changed since the barbaric way of handling those situations. Lepers are no longer quarantined, for instance.
The anarcho-capitalist/libertarian way of handling those situations is banishment (as opposed to forced quarantine or forced medication). I don't necessarily agree or disagree with this, as I would support a rudimentary court system to deal with people who harmed others (including infecting them with a disease).
A good example in my opinion are those currently infected with HIV Hep C. It is a criminal offense to knowingly infect others with those viruses. These situations occur, but in the scope of everything they are quite rare.
So in summary, I'm not sure.
Folks, Delysid already admitted on the other thread that no evidence and no logic would change his mind.
That's pretty much the end of the discussion.
Delysid: "You don’t know me."
I only know you from your comments. The comments have shown a misogynistic buffoon who constantly gets basic history wrong. Take a hint with the fact that you are one of the very few persons that Orac has had to put into automatic moderation. Actually your comments starting at about #190 had me wondering if Medicien Man/Rob Hood had slithered out from under the ban hammer again pretending to be you.
In short, you have shown yourself to be a very bad person.
@Khani
Because some things have more factors than evidence.
I think murder is wrong ethically. I don't need to have any evidence to support my position. Even if murder had never happened before, I would be theoretically opposed to it.
I feel the same way about the force of government.
@Delysid,
Everyone know we need autistic peoples running for government. Bad ain't a binary variable between not bad and bad, there's over 4 billions shades of grey in between and at one extreme of the bellcurve, there are autistics and at the other extreme, there is you.
Alain
Alain
Like "praxeology," which you were completely unable to muster an intelligent response about? Hell, you haven't demonstrated a shred of ability to do that with respect to any of the comments here. Of course, one can also point to the foregoing example:
"Cannot it be said that even this trade-unionism is ineffectual? The answer is simple: it is this movement alone that, in one century, is responsible for the enormously improved condition of the workers from the sixteen-hour day to the forty-hour week. The ideological Empire has turned socialism back on its tracks and destroyed the greater part of the conquests of trade-unionism. It is because trade-unionism started from a concrete basis, the basis of professional employment (which is to the economic order what the commune is to the political order), the living cell on which the organism builds itself, while the Caesarian revolution starts from doctrine and forcibly introduces reality into it. Trade-unionism, like the commune, is the negation, to the benefit of reality, of bureaucratic and abstract centralism. The revolution of the twentieth century, on the contrary, claims to base itself on economics, but is primarily political and ideological." —Camus
"But if a union member applied to work for me, I would just laugh." —Guy who didn't understand why this statement doesn't even make sense, advances as a motto a Camus "quote" that doesn't appear to have any genuine attestations, and doesn't understand The Rebel
But if a union member applied to work for me, I would just laugh
Rather short-sighted, since unions can offer prospective employers the assurance that their members have the necessary training and licensure to actually perform their jobs.
Oh, right...market forces will eventually drive unlicensed/unqualified workers out. If you can wait that long.
Krebozien: The natural law of the market often seems to involve an awful lot of death and human suffering.
Well, that's the point of libertarianism. They fundamentally lack any empathy, and don't think people that aren't them (or like them) are worthy of surviving.
Delysid: It's kind of rich that you're calling Narad creepy. Also, lepers ARE still quarantined, for your information. So are people with bubonic plague.
Delysid @326
I note that you have ignored my earlier comments, which does not surprise me.
Do you?
Because that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You want to feel important, and proclaim your superiority over all those who do not subscribe to your brand of the political philosophy of “freedom.”
Go ahead, feel important. But please keep in mind as you go forward that insults are not arguments.
What's the difference between banishment and quarantaine?
In the first case, someone is put outside the community, in the other case the person is prevented to get in contact with the community. I don't see much difference between those.
@Deylsid
The Dairy Farmers Association called - could you please leave some straw for their stalls.
@Delysid
Who would do this banishing? What if some in the community support Mary's right to employment within the community? Who would enforce Mary's banishment to prevent her coming back in? And where would you banish Mary to? Into the wild? Into another community?
Also, in terms of a rudimentary court, who would administer it? Who would grant authority to and enforce its rulings?
I think delysid is saying that vigilante pitchfork mobs are market forces at work (ergo, good), and government by consent is force (ergo, bad).
To risk skirting the rim of Godwin, he is essentially implying that pogroms were a good thing.
I.e., precisely the 14th-century solution of Viscount Bernabo that preceded by only three years the establishment of the basically identical trentino, which is what gives us the word "quarantine" after being extended to 40 days. By the way, who's going to build walls around the city and man the gates in the absence of a governing agent, genius?
You appear to use terms loosely more or less to the exclusion of any other fashion. Let's have your analysis, peaches. I'm not the one who couldn't get through his first sentence without the phrase "circle-jerking each other" and went straight downhill into automatic comment moderation.
Delysid @326
You are on record stating that you think mocking someone by use of the threat of sexual assault is a valid form of argument.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/12/18/why-are-antivaccinationist…
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/12/18/why-are-antivaccinationist…
You are fine with that?
OK; a Minnesota woman walks into a hardware store. The owner asks if he can help her.
"Well, it's those skunks under my porch, dontcha know. I just can't get rid of 'em."
"Well, now, you just get some of that lutefisk, and put it under your porch there, and see if it don't get rid of them skunks."
A week later she's back in the store.
"Hey, did ya try what I told ya about that lutefisk?"
"Ya, I did."
"And didn't it get rid of them skunks?"
"Ya, it did, but now what do I do about the Norwegians?"
vigilante pitchfork mobs are market forces at work (ergo, good), and government by consent is force (ergo, bad).
This needs to go on a tee-shirt, or something. :)
Clicking one of the links Dyspeptic Delysid provided above, I was shocked to see a page headed "Penn Jillette on Government Social Welfare". Even someone as talented and well-known as Penn Jilllette is vulnerable in a recession, I thought, shaking my head in disbelief.
Then I read further, and realized that Jillette was railing against the US Government for providing social welfare for the poor, apparently because, "you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right".
I'm not sure what to make of someone who thinks the sole purpose of helping the needy is to get "moral credit". I'm not even sure what "moral credit" is. If I accumulate enough does that mean I can do something reprehensible without losing any sleep over it?
Anyway, I think there are other reasons for helping the needy, such as compassion and empathy, a dislike of having to step over sick, dying and dead bodies in the street and, even if you believe altruism is a fiction, saving money in the long term through crime reduction and preventing disease.
"There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint", says Mr. Jillette. Personally I have always felt good knowing that some of my taxes go towards supporting those who need it; resenting doing something good just because you are compelled to seems a bit mean-spirited and contrarian to me. If it really bothered me I would imagine all my taxes were going towards nuclear weapons, or whatever, and resent that instead.
I have a modest proposal for Mr. Jillette. We could all club together and agree to put a proportion of the money we earn towards helping those in need. Obviously we would need some people to help administer this, to decide who is truly in need and who is not. Perhaps we could call it a 'welfare' or 'social security' system or similar. Just imagine the great joy we would experience!
I suppose there's the problem of those who don't want that "great joy in helping people". Should we have some way they can opt out of this system? Or should we tell the selfish b@stards to go fnck themselves vote to see if the majority of people agree that this would be the best system?
Politics is difficult, and anyone who claims otherwise is usually talking out of a poorly adapted orifice.
Let's not forget the filth that the pig posted at me.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/09/26/in-which-antivaccinationis…
"Delysid
October 19, 2013
@lilady
Now you are calling me a liar? You can take your ignorant raging idiocy and fvck yourself in your your senile, menopausal cvnt. I just wish I this was in person so I look you right in the eyes and smirk in your rhytidal face when I tell you to suck my potent d!ck.
I might be an a$$hole, but I am not a liar."
(Please leave that comment up there Orac. When people look up his 'nym or his real name, I want them to understand what a sick pervert he is.)
@Kreb
@Everyone
No one has learned anything I see.
Once again we are back to the circular argument "people area bad so we need a government of people are bad so we need a government of people"
So you are all worried about an angry mobs? What do you think DEMOCRACY is? It is 51% controlling the 49%. Pogroms were government actions. The Red Army was the government army. The Nazi's controlled government.
What you are all saying is that
WE NEED A GOVERNMENT BECAUSE ALL OF THE HORRIBLE THINGS THE GOVERNMENT DOES MIGHT HAPPEN WITHOUT A GOVERNMENT!
All of the terrible things being described that will happen without government is all conjecture. The evils committed by governments are endless and real and undeniable.
Statism is the world's most popular religion and the brainwashed gibberish being spouted here demonstrates why. Everyone here sounds like cult members describing the hellish consequences of not being in the cult. Anarchy is the equivalent of a fire and brimstone hell. "Without government to protect us every evil that we can imagine will happen!"
And then you use atrocities committed by governments as your examples of what will happen without government. Unbelievable.
I really hope that someone else reading this is unconditioned and free-thinking enough to see what should be obvious to all but is not saying anything. I don't know whether to be laugh or slap my head in frustration.
Or any type of non-white skin, or God forbid, poor skin
I mean, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuwwww.
Some quotes that people need to seriously ponder before repeating the same circular arguments to me...
"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe themselves to be made of finer clay than the rest of mankind?" Bastiat
"No matter how disastrously a policy has turned out, you can always expect to hear: but what would you replace it with? When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with?" Sowell
“Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.
In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.” Higgs
*shrugs* I've seen the havoc that so-called "anarchists" wreaked within/via the Occupy camps of Oakland and San Francisco. I wasn't impressed.
The closest thing I've seen tot the utopia sought by some folks in these parts would be Burning Man, but that's an event of short duration, nor is it society-wide...
Delysid,
Do you agree about taxes?
I'm not speaking about government but simply, taxes?
Alain
@Delsyid - yes, it is entirely conjecture on your part that what you propose would be better......that, at least, is something we can agree upon.
- Denice Walter
That happens a lot.
I hear about Libertarianism, and it sounds good. Less government, more freedom - hey, what's not to like?
But when you ask about the details of what life would be like, how things would work day to day, or how the government would work, you never get the same answer twice, if you get an answer at all. Delysid seems to be in the 'no answer' camp. He's really short on details on how life would be, other than 'better'.
Delysid said he likes the idea of no government at all, and about the only example of people living like that that I know of is the early days of Deadwood, SD. If he agrees that's the type of society he wants to live in, we'd have an idea of what life would be like in his world.
For some reason, I'm reminded that Orly Taitz is a dentist..
(Though I hasten to add that my own dentist seems quite normal and does extremely good work.)
Actually, Communism was complete conjecture until it was actually tried on a national (and international level) - and we found that it didn't work...I don't think we want to go through the same exercise with what Delsyid wants, unless there is some evidence or proof that it would in fact be better than what we have today or whatever incremental changes we need to make to promote better and more efficient processes (both with government and private enterprise).
@Johnny - correct. Delsyid has decided that government is so bad that whatever replaces it must necessarily, always be better.....but, of course, he has no way of knowing that.
And he's been so venomous that I have no doubt that libertarians in general, if they are anything like their "self-appointed spokesmen" Delsyid, will never get any real traction - because of their collective douchebaggery.....
@Alain
I oppose taxes, particularly the income tax and "sin" taxes. The vast majority of taxes are completely unnecessary for financing even a huge federal government.
"... lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."
If the United States would stop going to war over and over again... But I'm a dreamer. Governments suck at everything except for war (and they suck at that too).
@Lawrence
You are truly a philosopher. You and PoliticalPig are outstanding progressive thinkers.
Johnny: "Delysid said he likes the idea of no government at all, and about the only example of people living like that that I know of is the early days of Deadwood, SD."
And another example until last year was Somalia. We know how well that did, well most of us here do. But, showing his total lack of history knowledge he responded to that suggestion with:
It is interesting how he is trying to claim some high ground, yet so much flies right over his head.
No one has learned anything I see.
Well, you've reinforced what we already knew; that you're no good at explaining yourself. You might go back and re-read the excellent advice offered to you by Chemommo.
Johanna@#352 -- I'd buy that t-shirt.
Delysid: The reason governments are preferred is that they can be held accountable by the people who created them. Ever heard of checks and balances? Recall elections? Heck, juries? All created by society because we recognize that people need rules, and there needs to be some sort of enforcement- and also that the people who make the rules need to be checked occasionally.
The reason I don't think I could ever support libertarians is that-well, first of all most of them are jerks, and most of them just want to basically, get away with murder (or whatever their preferred crime is.)
Oh, we can have a lot more fun than that, if you really insist.
Your fondness for trotting out an aphorism about which you immediately proceed to completely fail to advance the slightest indication of having a grasp of the underlying subject matter of as a diversion from what has gone before has already been demonstrated, thanks.
Nobody "need[s] to seriously ponder" someone who effectively starts intoning from Bartlett's when push comes to shove.
@Narad
"Oh, we can have a lot more fun than that, if you really insist."
That is extremely creepy.
Chris, speaking of people living with no government -
Well, sorta, but not really. With the civil war there, government was ineffective, often changing, fractured, and sometimes ignored, but there was a government.
Also, any mention of Somalia is ignored by Delysid, so I thought I'd try a different example.
Johnny: "Well, sorta, but not really. With the civil war there, government was ineffective, often changing, fractured, and sometimes ignored, but there was a government."
Oh, rats! Wikipedia was wrong. Thanks for the correction.
Though an ineffective government often gets the same results as no government: fiefdoms presided over by the one with the most guns or money. It has happened throughout history (like the early kingdoms in Egypt, Greece, etc.), and it is a common theme in fiction (like Riverworld and Lucifer's Hammer by Niven and Pournelle). But Delysid would not know that since he seems to fail at history.
"Also, any mention of Somalia is ignored by Delysid, so I thought I’d try a different example."
Thanks for that. I had not known about it other than references in certain movies.
I oppose taxes, particularly the income tax and “sin” taxes. The vast majority of taxes are completely unnecessary for financing even a huge federal government.
What about financing disabled peoples?
Alain
P.s. I was listening to a movie.
Every person in this thread needs to take a course in Logic. This thread is logical fallacy after logical fallacy.
1. Palindrom- "Orly Taitz is a dentist" GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION
2. Kreb- "I feel good about taxes and how they help people" MORAL HIGH GROUND FALLACY
3. Chris- "Somalia" FALSE ANALOGY
4. Militant Agnostic "...where a vagina starts" RED HERRING
5. Shay- "you’re missing all of the shades of grey." ARGUMENT TO MODERATION
6. Stu- "pogroms" REDUCTIO AD HITLERUM
7, lilday "I'm such a proper and delicate lady and I'll accuse Delysid of being a filthy monster over and over even though I called him a liar and dished out my own insults like a crass prostitute" - JUDGMENTAL LANGUAGE
I'm still waiting for an apology from lilady for calling me a liar.
Should I keep going? There is plenty more lgoical fallacies in pretty much every comment here.
And by financing, I mean a base salary of 1000$ per month and college level education.
Alain
*** CHALLENGE FOR DELYSID ***
Name one law, one government program or one government institution that was NOT created to address a direct, current problem.
I can name 20. You go first.
@Stu
My butt currently itches. WE NEED A LAW IMMEDIATELY TO ADDRESS THIS PROBLEM.
Alain: I don't necessarily agree with that. In the sense that that should be limited to the disabled. Please elaborate.
I oppose taxes, particularly the income tax and “sin” taxes. The vast majority of taxes are completely unnecessary for financing even a huge federal government.
So much for the Federal highway system.
@Stu
"Not every human problem deserves a law." Jerry Brown
Uber liberal JERRY BROWN himself gave provided this priceless wisdom.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that every single law in the United State, all 500,000 or so of them, were made because something happened. This does not justify their existence.
Alain: I don’t necessarily agree with that. In the sense that that should be limited to the disabled. Please elaborate.
It's not limited to the disabled but I'm working on having him agree on that first. Just wait.
Alain
@Chris
The Federal HIghway System has nothing to do with income tax or sin taxes.
It is paid for in gasoline taxes (an excise tax). I don't know what point you were trying to make, but you failed.
Oh and Stu, I apply ABA sized piecemeal to the issue, after all, Delysid's a young kid.
Alain
Send "them into the fields, there to recover or die."
Oh, wait:
"The priestaticians were required to examine those that were diseased, and point to special commissioners the persons infected, under a penalty of the confiscation of their goods, and of being burned alive."
@Alain
Accoring to Narad, disabled peple were thrown out into the streets before 1965 (Medicare). Narad is the smartest human being to grace planet Earth, so you can believe that this claim is 100% true.
Here is a reinactment of libertarian healthcare!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gQrqHDBQ4o
If any of you end up posting on any website where the filthy-mouthed Troll posts, you have my permission to quote the misogynist Troll's filth that he has posted at me, and about me.
@lilady
Hey lilady that is the crass language I love hearing from you!
Still waiting on that apology from you. You can call me all of the naughty names you want except for being a liar.
Narad, not different than eugenics as practiced by US of A from at least 1910 to 1935. And the Nazi put it in practice with Operation T4....after all, they had to test it on a select clientèle at first before going wide with the Jews. One of the thing that the Nazi where is that they where by the peoples for the peoples. Was it similar in the US at the time?
Alain
@lilady
Ok.
Alain
@ Chris: Yeah, the Troll opposes "sin" taxes for the booze he consumes. Is LSD taxed?
http://www.dailypaul.com/comment/3086922
"Delysid is the trade name of LSD
Submitted by Delysid on Sat, 05/25/2013 - 21:44. Permalink
I not only advocate eliminating the War on Drugs, I openly promote the use of psychotropics, particularly phenethylamines like MDMA and tryptamines like LSD, for medicine and recreation.
I used the trade name because of the implication of capitalism. I support the pharmaceutical industry (but not corporatism). I'm the opposite of a chemophobe."
Oh, in that case, this might come in handy.
Thanks Narad.
I forgot that there are some creepy sickos at there. The last thing I need is a creepy psycho like you harassing me.
Done.
Narad the best prediction I ever made was calling you out as an autofellatiator. I know you were a creepy psychopath just from your language, but you have prove yourself to be creepier than I guessed.
Go ahead, keep it up, show everyone on RI your true colors. Narad, creepy psychopath.
#339 Delysid: "I think murder is wrong ethically. I don’t need to have any evidence to support my position. "
Except real philosophers actually do talk about murder, killing and war, and whether each is wrong and under what circumstances. Whether "murder" is wrong depends on how "murder" is defined.
Simply saying "Murder is wrong, duh," isn't really acceptable in philosophy, nor does it mean much without a definition.
"Government is wrong, duh" isn't different. We're still left with the same discussion--what does "government" mean, what behaviors are and are not included in that definition and how to differentiate it from other like things..
Except you've already admitted you're not interested in doing any of that, and that nothing rational could ever change your mind.
@ Narad: IIRC, the Troll stated on the other thread that he "didn't believe in State licensing for dentists". Um, I don't think the Troll will have that to worry about.
Back to "pulling toilets" to pay for his drugs.
Delysid: "The Federal HIghway System has nothing to do with income tax or sin taxes."
So why the transfers from the General Fund? ... A quote:
Oh, and that does not include the transfers from the "Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund." It has been in the news for years that the federal highway system is leaking cash because cars that use less gas per mile fund much less per mile on average than they did years ago. Somehow you missed that little detail.
But you can't articulate why, just like basically everything else that pours forth from you, and are stuck with the moldy remnant "autofellatiator." You haven't even apprehended the "state of nature," and you're already whining.
Me:
This direct challenge was answered as follows:
Asinine, juvenile, dismissive and predictably content-free.
Okay let's just chalk that up to juvenile asininity and go right to delisyd's unsolicited second attempt. Seems even our clown
shoe realized that was first one was just too vapid.
Even for him. Ponder on that.
AWWW. DIRECT AND UTTER FAIL.
I asked you to name ONE, just ONE law, program or institution that (by inference of my definition) was created "just because". I
asked for just one. Just one of the (often implied) many ludicrous things the government is, does or enforces -- and what does
our new luminary of libertarian thought come up with?
0. Nothing. Delysid, you have at this point already admitted that you have no argument. If you did, you would have thrown it out
at that, the easiest of challenges ever.
You are pathetic, as is your ideology. One direct challenge, and look what happens -- you are two steps ahead of Brave Sir Robin.
Pathetic.
But I think you actually made it through debate club, judging from the following. Doop-dee-doop, let's see.
First off, you're not even working on the right fallacy. "Orly Taitz hangs out with dentists" would be guilt by association.
"Orly Taitz is a dentist", at best, would be an ad hominem.
Doop dee doop (is it a prerequisite for Internet tardmuffins to assume people cannot scroll up?) -- oh hi, here's the quote:
Sentient slugs would take this as a slight on her ability to inflict pain. But no, maybe it IS a slight on dentists!
Ah. No, no it isn't. It is a pure quip implying that Taitz imparts pain, and from context it is not physical.
So your first, your top, your prime accusation is not wrong, it is not even coherent enough to be wrong.
You are too fucking stupid to do this. Save yourself embarrassment and leave. -1 so far.
No, STATEMENT OF PERSONAL FEELINGS.
It very much implies that if you feel that you hate taxes and feel they don't help people, you should bring an argument -- any,
and I am not kidding, any -- to say that taxes that help people are a bad thing. If you were mildly less dense than you are, you
would throw out another accusation (shhh, guys, don't help him).
Not even a -1 -- this is an incomplete. So 0 for this one.
False how? Is Somalia not a country without all the laws you profess to hate so much? From everything you've said so far, you
hate government force with a principalled force that would lead anyone to say that yes, a fairly lawless nation such as Somalia
is, in fact, an apt analogy. If you were arguing in good faith, an you truly felt Somalia was not or even a poor analogy, you
would have given one example of how Somalia and your libertarian paradise were fundamentally different. You did not. You chose to
whine. That tells us more than any sad attempt at a counter-argument ever could.
Another fail. -2 so far.
Are you seriously suggesting you are NOT a raging mysoginist? Do we REALLY have to quote your own sickening tripe back at you?
Proven, obvious and stupid lie. You ARE a raging mysoginist, and someone bringing that up is not a red herring. Attempting to
derail the conversation by accusing others of it is, but, crap, I don't know -- we all know you're lying through your teeth here,
but hey. I'll grant you just a deduction rather than instant fail. -3 so far.
Oh for fark's sake, you cannot possibly be serious. Why are you so confident the only people reading this are the ones too stupid
too scroll up?
Let's just recap, you lying weasel. Let's, oh, I don't know, scroll up and see.
#323: Whine, whine, whine, how dare you call me on my crap, and oh, there it is! Right at the end! It’s so logical!
Libertarians are dumb and progressives are smart! (The only one true thing you have ever said, but hey -- that's my personal
opinion).
This was you, fetid douchecanoe. I know it must have been shocking when someone dared to reply to that particular outburst of
libertarian wit. I mean, how dare they, right?
Still, Shay had the temerity #329: life is never simple. You’re the one who keeps trying to make this a black and white issue;
the rest of us here are trying to make the point that you’re missing all of the shades of grey.
To attempt to label that as "argument to moderation" is... wait, I have... wait... oh forget it. It does not even deserve to be
considered. If this were a court room, nobody would be laughing with you.
Oh, oh no. This is SO CUTE!
Here is what deputy dipsh*t is talking about (see #348):
This was in reply, of course to #336 and #339 primarily, but also #322, #326 and every other motherfarking thread you've ever been on, you sad-sack sociopath.
(Just in case anyone was wondering if delysid is rational, this is a guy who said "Because some things have more factors than evidence." Think about that one for a minute.)
lilday? What the hell is wrong with you? Aren't you a libertarian superman?
Also, you are actually calling people out on judgemental language? Have you no shame or sense of irony?
Narad, did you just conflate approached and comprehended?
No, I think the mixture of perceiving-in-fact and capture of (in this case, purported) fugitive driven underground is pretty standard.
Fair enough -- I might just have to nap until my (current, for me) 402 comes out of moderation. I mean, really, how much of a life does a box of blinking lights have?
Fair enough — I might just have to nap until my (current, for me) 402 comes out of moderation. I mean, really, how much of a life does a box of blinking lights have?
Depend on the parts but assuming reliable SSD storage + 20°C running temperature and no overclocking, 20+ years at least.
Alain
Do I see weasel words? Can we play a game? Find weasel worded post and gain at least 15 points per weasel posts. This is open to anyone :)
Alain
I see a weasel post at post #389: the poster is unable to answer a straight question from me.
15 points
Alain
@ Stu: Did you forget to substitute a "v" for the "u" in certain words?
I did the substitution, when I was quoting the Troll's remarks @# 354 and I got stuck in moderation for an hour.
I think I got kicked to mod because I used "t*rd" -- and not the u version, either. It was in a contraction, and to someone who deserved it, and I really love the word, but crap, I have to mind my invective.
At least, that's what I think did it. No links, no nuthin.
@ Delysid
You lose.
You said, re: Typhoid Mary:
Right after saying, in a sarcastic/mocking tone:
How do you have banishment or a rudimentary court system without giving a small group of people the "right to kidnap, prison", etc.?
Actually, how is banishment any different from forced quarantine, in terms of denial of freedom?
Re: Anarchists and mass murders, ask Archduke Franz-Ferdinand of Austria about it. And the 9 millions of deaths which followed his.
I will grant you you need organized nations to have war, genocide and other mass events. But it's like saying a thousand people can do more damage than a single one. Sure, an anarchist community is less likely to engage in conflicts which result in nationwide wars, but historically small communities have had their share of horrors in the form of family feuds, hotted disputes over properties (fields, water access) and lynch mobs, regardless of the type of leadership. To some extent, it's just a difference of scale.
Actually, you know what? I'm all for private initiative and local decision-planning.
It's just that I don't see how things could be done on the scale of a city or a nation without some sort of board of decision-makers coalescing into place.
In short, I see you complaining about the same old arguments being thrown at you (roads, firefighters...), but I don't see you refuting them.
BTW, after your rape analogies upthread (just discovered them - my apologies myladies), you are not really in a good position to call other commenters creepy or complain if they don't like you, so stick to your arguments, if you have any.
I'm curious, who represents a libertarian America on the world stage? Or would it be impossible? Maybe America would withdraw from international politics completely. After all, you can't have representation without some form of central coordination. Could you use internet poling? Everyone votes on everything via the net. Nope that wouldn't work, you'd still run into the 51:49 conundrum. Voting doesn't work in a pure libertarian society......errrrm......I mean geographically close but totally separate individuals. Probably easier not to bother.
I can see it now, after a few years the rest of the world gets together, "Haven't heard much from America lately, go on Mexico, you're pretty close, knock on the door and see if they are ok".
I'm curious, who represents a libertarian America on the world stage? Or would it be impossible? Maybe America would withdraw from international politics completely. After all, you can't have representation without some form of central coordination. Could you use internet poling? Everyone votes on everything via the net. Nope that wouldn't work, you'd still run into the 51:49 conundrum. Voting doesn't work in a pure libertarian society......errrrm......I mean geographically close but totally separate individuals. Probably easier not to bother.
I can see it now, after a few years the rest of the world gets together, "Haven't heard much from America lately, go on Mexico, you're pretty close, knock on the door and see if they are ok".
@Heliantus:
I don't think you understand. The innate libertarian position is "the market will take care of it, and if anyone messes up, the victims can sue, which will hurt them in the market, so problem solved."
The idiocy of this position is so multi-faceted it is always hard to know where to begin. This is, of course, by design.
My initial reaction used to be to put in a DVD of Erin Brokovich, but it only seems to encourage them. Nowadays I just show the heart-breaking videos of people suddenly able to set their well water on fire and start asking questions.
Perhaps some variety of state-dependent learning will allow you to figure out that these are all your words. If one may be allowed the luxury of another plainly genuine Camus quote,
"Justice in a silent world, justice enslaved and mute, destroys mutual complicity and finally can no longer be justice. The revolution of the twentieth century has arbitrarily separated, for overambitious ends of conquest, two inseparable ideas. Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies freedom. To be fruitful, the two ideas must find their limits in each other. No man considers that his condition is free if it is not at the same time just, nor just unless it is free. Freedom, precisely, cannot even be imagined without the power of saying clearly what is just and what is unjust, of claiming all existence in the name of a small part of existence which refuses to die. Finally there is a justice, though a very different kind of justice, in restoring freedom, which is the only imperishable value of history. Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely."
It's a funny thing about public words: One can, if proper, reject them as erroneous or inappropriate, but the relation of "ownership" is asymmetric. You received fair warning on multiple occasions, but I suppose these may have been geared for someone who purports to have integrated Mises' absurd* attempts at Axiomatization Of The Perceived World into the very fiber of his being.
But if it helps untwist your übermenschlich panties, I did have the courtesy at the outset to cross-check against an image search, which yielded nothing even vaguely related to that to which you previously averred indifference. In other words, you could have dismissed the whole thing rather than bumbling headlong into an instantiation of a very well known Hobbes remark.
You state that you "would support a rudimentary court system to deal with people who harmed others," yet you didn't see fit to define "harm." Or "rudimentary." Well, meet the latter: Your words attached to a picture of a guy showing some jowl growth sticking his fingers in what the average person of a certain age would remind someone of a certain Goldfarb–Glass** novelty item. Oh, dear, oh, dear, suddenly you're Louis XVI.
* No, I don't expect so.
** Marvin Glass's contributions will be immediately recognized, I think, by a certain generation.
@ Stu
Yeah, I feel like I'm looking for logic where there is none.
@ Chuff
If memory serves, it was president Bush (junior) position before 9/11. Not a libertarian himself, but free market and isolationism are part of the shared political platform of republicans and libertarians. Along with the motto that less government is better government.
On the latter, I was under the impression that Mr Bush increased the government, both in term of size and spending.
On isolationism, I believe History showed that you can try to forget about the outside world, but that won't stop the outside world from remembering you and come knocking.
As we say in my country, facts are stubborn.
^ "what might well remind the average person of a certain"
Too many moving, rephrasing-in-situ parts, sorry.
Then again, organized nations of a certain scale are essentially the only actors who actually exist in D.'s "natural state" of "freedom." Perhaps he could provide the correct settings for the dials that are required for libertopia to spring forth from Zeus's head and peachy-keen up the operation.
Proceeding on the unlikely basis that D. actually has some sort of handle on Camus' ethics, extraction from the Aristotelian polis is impossible. He is, however, almost certainly forced to reject Camus at the end and therefore stuck with some form of "Nature"-driven virtue ethics.
@ Chuff / Narad
The only settings I can think of where full-freedom, no-gov ideology could work are either isolated farming compounds in the countryside (like the Australian bush described by Arthur Upfield) or close-knitted monoindustrial societies like a mining factory (again, isolated, like in the asteroid belt).
Holywood description of Farwest settlers would count, although for some reason there always seem to be a rancher family or a railroad baron to deprive the locals of their freedom.
Of course, come the the issues of industrial level, education and innovation. Wouldn't it be cheating to establish a libertopia, but to depend on one of these nasty government-sponsored cities for building material, spare parts or brand new technologies?
Would Christiania fit Delasyd's ideas of a true free society?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania
I'm afraid it would be to collectivist for his taste.
If he accuses us of repeating "government is good", which is hardly what I read, since there is more than enough critising the government, even from progressives, like me, I think his arguments burn down to: "government is bad, absense of government is good."
I still wonder what would absense of government looks like. As soon as there is someone leading a group of people, one could consider it as some form of government.
@Heliantus:
What he wanted or thought (ahem) did not matter one whit. Half his top brass were PNAC signatories. Iraq was going to get hit no matter what. I giggled at Richard Dreyfuss' clinically insane Cheney in W for a minute until I realized it actually was pretty damned true -- the one bigger psychopath in power during the past decade than Cheney is his wife.
Bullpuckey. I'm re-reading Heart of the Comet at the moment, and the factionalism in there rings far too true.
@Delysid
Hmm, you seem to have missed my followup questions. Here they are again, regarding how to deal with a Typhoid Mary-type of situation:
I eagerly await your answers to these questions.
The closest image I can come to a libertopian image is a pirate ship, but even that was not libertarian. That was more akin to a pure democracy and was fraught with problems (mutiny, murder, despotism, marooning, etc.), to say nothing of the problems they inflicted on everyone outside the ship.
For some reason last night I was thinking about divorce (yes, the spousal unit went skunk-hunting with my brother in law again) and it occurred to me that, in a state with no central courts, who enforces custody and child support issues?
That's a serious question btw. I'm guessing that the divorce itself could be handled by one of the small localized courts that are considered acceptable by Delysid, but if one or the other party refuses to be bound by that decision, who then has the authority to enforce it?
L
@ Shay: Wow what a coincidence. Narad went skunk hunting as well and was quite successful.
Delysid, care to comment on a few scenarios in a libertarian society you would accept.
1) I write a really cool novel. Being first time author I published it as a inexpensive ebook, and it seems to be selling quite well, and is well on it's way to becoming hugely popular. A guy who owns a book printing facility buys a copy of my book and starts printing it by the thousands. When I contact him he says when he bought the book he owns it, and he can copy and resell stuff he owns. He makes a ton of money selling my book, and when I contact him again just threatens me with better lawyers than I could ever afford.
In your society of choice, does he actually own the right to print and sell my book without my consent? Is there a venue I could use to complain about his actions? What actions could that venue take to enforce it's eventual decision?
2) My neighbor decides it is a good idea to start breeding chicken in the back yard. I object to the noise, the stench and the unhygienic conditions right next to the place my kids play. What can I do if my neighbor chooses to ignore my complaints.
3) Who would have control, launching capacities and the maintenance responsibilities of the nuclear warheads currently owned by the US government?
4) Thirty years from now, the Socialist Dictatorship of Canada decides it needs more lebenstraum and mounts a surprise military campaign in order to "annex" the northern states from the newly formed United Libertatian States of America. What would happen?
(and I did misspell my name last time (gast), sorry for involuntary "sockpuppetry")
gaist: The short answer is usually that you can sue. Get plagiarized? Sue. Get poisoned by a quack? Sue. Private firefighters let your house burn down? Sue.
Most of the time it won't help you, but the idea is that doing it will take the offender off the market, keeping it shiny and perfect.
Sure, in some versions of Libertopia. But Delysid says his perfect world would be no government. If there is no government, there can't be a court system, unless the courts are you and four or five of your closest friends bringing Justice to those who offend you.
You'd be amazed how most libertarians define "no government". Usually it is some variation of "no government except the parts I like".
@Stu - which is what Delsyid has been saying all along, whether he knows it or not.
It was pointed out to the Troll, months ago, that his OSU Dental School tuition is paid with loans backed by the Federal government.
That must be one of the parts of government he likes.
No, he whined about it while claiming that HIPAA requirements are changing by the minute, or something, incongruously in the context of billing Medicaid. That's why he'd prefer to drop out and just beome an apprentice dentist somewhere.
I'm going on to more important topics now.
I just received an E-mail from Elburto, who is sending warm holiday greetings to you all. Her Android is fixed now and she is recovering from her health issues. It's going to be a great New Year, when Elburto rejoins our happy little group.
I've got a whacky recipe for cooking the 6 lb. boneless rib roast for Xmas dinner. The recipe directs the chef to fire up the stove to 500 degrees F. and put the roast on a rack in a roasting pan to roast for 1/2 hour, then shut the oven off. It stays in the oven (no peekies!) for 2 hours and should rest for 20 minutes for done-to-perfection rare.
I'll let you know how successful the whacky recipe is; I'll never live it down if I mess it up.
@lilady: Amazingly, I've talked to people who are against government subsidy or oversight of education of all kinds. Usually, this opinion forms a few years after they do their 12 years of primary education and 4 years of college in government-funded institutions. 100% FYIGM, but when called on it there even seem to be attempts at justification of such glaring hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance -- usually a combination of how they are different than those other freeloaders now in school, that the school system is failing -- now -- and oh my god what a jerk you are for bringing it up in the first place, but that's par for the course for us NWO UN OWG tax-loving freeloaders. I mean, redistribution is unfair in general principle, think about it. The argument thus one, they climb in their car (which their parents pay for); preferably with an insightful and/or witty collection of stickers such as "The War In Iraq Keeps American Families Safe" or "One Million People Went To Obama's Inauguration -- Only 14 Had To Take Off Work".
(Yes, those exist. I saw both of them on a single pickup truck last week.)
Good to hear.
That's not too oddball, although it's the sort of thing where a temperature probe would come in handy because of oven-to-oven variability. The Art of Cooking, for a 7.5 lb, seven-rib roast, goes for 30 minutes at 425F, 1 hour at 375 (for an internal temperature of about 75F), and an hour with the oven off, which is a bit more forgiving.
Franklin Pierce is the best president is something I've literally never heard before.
Delysid reminds me of the group I put in one of my books who believed that everyone had the right to do whatever they wanted all the time. To them, your right to swing your fist didn't end. If the person you punched then killed your whole family and burned down your house, well, they have the right to do that too.
Lilady, thanks for the update from elburto, I was starting to worry about her.
lilady, forward my anonymous and I-promise-it's-not-creepy Internet love to elburto. (That's the best kind of love, isn't it?) She's been missed.
Add my best wishes to the cloud of goodwill headed elburto's way. :-)
That would freakin' rock!
(Disclosure of Potential Conflict of Interest: I'm Canadian)
@TBruce - I'd buy the novel, that's for sure.
I am so not into the Troll's devolving into a drug-addled Libertarian crank...starting ~ comment # 50 here:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/09/26/in-which-antivaccinationis…
How sad is it, that Orac and the RI Regulars praised the Troll for taking on Ginger Taylor and her pseudoscience about vaccines...for him to to throw away that goodwill?
So, here's the deal with the rib roast. It is boneless, purchased at Costco early yesterday. I did a wee bit of trimming and trussed that sucker with butcher's cord and it is air-drying in the refrigerator on a V rack (to sorta replicate the air drying for "Prime" grade beef cuts). I've been air-drying my thick T-bone and loin steaks during the past year for the barbecue and they are divinely juicy, rare and tender.
http://www.cooks.com/recipe/930t306j/rapid-roast.html
I'll let you know how my whacky recipe works out. :-)
Can't wait to hear lilady. Tomorrow someone else is cooking. We did a turkey on Sunday. Sadly, with two teenaged boys and then a third snacking on it, there is less than two pounds of a twenty-two pound turkey left (when I saw J carrying 2/3 of one breast on a plate I almost fell over). Today is apparently the 2nd annual dump a dog near the Woo house day, and a Rottweiler mix has invaded our backyard. Attempting to find owners and/or rehome across social media.
Never ending festivities in the land of Woo!
Happy Holidays and best wishes to all.
Thanks for the Elburto update!
TBruce @443 -- why the hell not, we already all have hockey teams.
@ Mrs Woo: Would "J" happen to be Mr. Woo? (You just cannot trust the men in your life, when it comes to a roast turkey)...or the Bumpis' dogs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPRdj1Ce4ao
I'll be tuned into the 24-hour-loop of A Christmas Story.
It's unclear to me what rubbing a 6 lb. roast with a clove of garlic is supposed to accomplish (or what the instruction actually means in the first place). I certainly wouldn't put minced garlic in a 500-degree oven for half an hour.
Jacque's Rib Roast Claire has 2 T oregano, 1 T each thyme and paprika, 2 tsp black pepper, 1/16 tsp cayenne, and 1/2 tsp salt. I used this to good effect on a mamesh-prime rib roast from Fox & Obel before it collapsed.
@lilady - no, "J" is my 15-year-old. Of course, it would get confusing if I used first initials for friends, because they are J's, too, or at least the ones here the past few days.
Sadly I am worried that this place is turning into the Bumpis' - the extra dog here today makes it three, and it is obviously a house dog, so we're uncomfortable making it stay overnight outside. He's a young, athletic male, which doesn't make his antics any easier to put up with. He is middle size between the terrier mix we rescued after it was dumped last year and my Great Pyrenees mix.
I do my best to always refer to the Mr as Mr Woo. ;-)
Oh, jeez. People are using mixed upper- and lower-case, and clearly no one cares about lutefisk anymore. I have no idea what this thread is coming to. So I'll just toss in John and Belle's irrefutable justification for why Libertarianism is the one true answer for anything: EVERYONE GETS A PONY!
http://examinedlife.typepad.com/johnbelle/2004/03/if_wishes_were_.html
But I already have an Arabian gelding. And a saddle.
@ Narad: Absolutely, positively....no garlic. A wee bit of olive oil perhaps and Kosher salt with cracked pepper (Tuscan style).
I'm missing the in-laws' Christmas eve feast:
http://www.ediblemanhattan.com/z/topics/history/the-feast-of-the-seven-…
From JRE's link
And here I thought the invisible hand was only good for matching supply and demand.
I would have thought that everyone knew about the proper attitude toward ponies among those of a libertarian bent who can, you know, think.
P.S. "Let's be independent together!" Yes, Robert May connected dentistry and Camus' sociopolitical philosophy nearly 40 years ago.
lilady: "Where's Chris...for that Lutefisk recipe ???"
Sorry, the one time I tried it turned to glue. Though I have been told by a store that sells it that all I have to do is poach it. The lye has been removed already.
We are also having a boneless rib roast. I also plan to do a quick cook starting at high temp. But we will be cutting it down to three to four pounds since only four of us will be partaking in the beef. It will have a spice rub, and accompanied with a spicy cherry sauce.
Chris, I must eat at your house some day. You always seem to be cooking something delicious.
Thank you.
You can blame my father, he was always trying something new and different. I could use chop sticks by the time I was six years old, which is about the time we were telling my little sister the hearts of artichokes were only good if you were older.
;-)
Gotta find them first.
Glad to hear something about Elburto.
Adding my thanks to lilady for the update on Elburto. Oh, and merry Christmas, Channukah tovah, happy holidays and a happy new year to everyone.
I look forward to Elburto's return and her contributions to my lexicon of profanity and abuse.
@ hdb
I thought you came here for an argument...
Happy Holidays, all! :-)
Many years ago, when I first started reading about radical politics and economics I was very confused by references to 'the invisible hand'. For some reason I thought it referred to the biblical story* about the hand that wrote on the wall at King Belshazzar's banquet, when he made the mistake of using the Holy dinner service he stole from the Temple in Jerusalem (Daniel 5); it's where the phrase "The Writing on the Wall" comes from. Looking it up, I see it wasn't an invisible hand, but a disembodied one, which is really creepy now I think about it.
I still can't help associating the invisible hand of the free market with a warning against messing with JHVH's cutlery, which is one way of making economics more interesting.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy happy festivities of whichever ilk tickles whatever parts you prefer - trolls, antivaxxers and libertarians too. Do try to get through the ordeal without assaulting any of your relatives.
* No I'm not a religious fanatic, we had an old cartoon version of the bible when I was a child, which I loved - such gruesome tales! I read it cover to cover.
Franklin Pierce single handidly (by vetoing the Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane) stopped the creation of a Federal Welfare State and socialized medicine for nearly 60 years.
His defense of the decision is one of the most epic explanations of the proper role of government under the Constition that has ever been written. Compared to the immature chatter here (ie "libertarians want you to die in the streets blah blah blah) it is comical.
Let's see Oprah recommend this transcrpt to her sophisticated readers.
http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/misc/1854-pvm.htm
@Krebizoen
Speaking of radical politics, there is nothing more extremist than Marxism/Stalinism/Leninism/Maoism/SOCIALISM. The New York Times publishes some of the most radical, extremist propaganda in the history of mankind daily. Our society is so far off the deep end and so conditioned to blindly submitting to arbitrary tyranny that extremism is the status quo.
Look at your people's paradie of the United Kingdom. Now pornography is censored. for an entire country DOES THAT SOUND LIKE NORMAL POLITICS?
His defense of the decision is one of the most epic explanations of the proper role of government under the Constition that has ever been written.
Citation please?
Alain
And what has the situation in the UK to do with socialism? As far as I know the UK government is the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. No socialists in sight.
But we know, government is bad, no government is good. Repeat at nauseam.
I don't think anyone here is saying all governments are good, or above any critisism.
#468 - University of Hyperbole, grad. with hons.
Delysid,
You sound just like me when I was 15 years old, full of p!ss and wind. I don't think you would know "arbitrary tyranny" if it bit you on the backside.
I have no intention of defending the current government of the UK. However, you may have been misled about pornography being "censored for an entire country", though pornography laws here have always been stricter here than in other countries, it isn't something I'm particularly concerned about.
The only internet pornography that is censored here is "extreme"; that means pornography that includes acts of extreme violence, children and animals, as Cameron put it, "the vile images of abuse that pollute minds and cause crime". I don't have a problem having access to that kind of material restricted, any more than I object to those acts being illegal in the first place. Do you?
You may be referring to the voluntary filtering systems that our ISPs now are obliged to include, enabling families to restrict access to pornography, which I also have little problem with. I'm concerned about the effect that easy access to pornography is having on children. I wonder what effect this is going to have on our societies in the long-term.
How would your hypothetical libertarian society deal with child pornography and other extreme material? What about the sort of material that is used to recruit terrorists?
These are the difficult areas where civil rights and abuse of our personal freedoms collide. There are no easy answers, and certainly none that will please everyone.
@Kreb
"voluntary filtering systems"
Voluntary. Right. You are free to do what we tell you. You are free to do what we tell you. You are free to do what we tell you.
Guess what,Kreb, at 15 I sounded just like you. "I feel so good about paying my taxes knowing they go to help people." Those were my exact words to my Dad (and yes I was working at that age). What a joke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mssKE_b48k&feature=player_detailpage#t=…
"No socialists in sight in the UK"
LMFAO. How far of a left-wing extremist does one have to be to not see any socialists in the UK?
Those freedom-loving conservative Brits. If only they were more liberal, imma right?
I just saw this comment ranting against libertarians on reddit. This is RI-grade material if I have ever seen it. I think he actually quoted some people in this thread.
"When you fall down your flight of stairs that aren't built to code, and die waiting for your private ambulance that doesn't think you can pay your bill, you'll probably have a different opinion. Oh, what's that? You say you've got money? Why didn't you say so! (Suffering and death, after all, are for poor people.) You paid extra for good stairs? Ok, well, you can carry on to your meal cooked with inspected meat... oops, your world doesn't have meat inspectors. Now you have Salmonella and need a private ambulance. Oh, what's that? You can afford your private ambulance? Ok, well, you can be safely conveyed to a hospital... oh wait, your world doesn't have those. Because they're staffed with people educated with public money. Oh, what's that? You can afford private health care staffed with people educated in a private school where they independently derived all of the historical achievements of publicly funded science on their own. Ok, well, you can be safely conveyed there on the perfectly safe road... oh wait, your world doesn't have those. Because they're planned, analyzed, and interconnected by public employees. Oh, what's that? You'll pay extra for the air-ambulance to your private hospital. Ok, well, you can be safely guided there by aviation control... oh wait, your world doesn't have that either. Or weather monitoring, or GPS, or anything the government has ever been involved in. Well, it's starting to sound like you'd better seal yourself in a bubble filled with money and stocked with private air and water. Oh wait, money is a government construct... your world doesn't have that either. Your philosophy is laughable. Your point of view is despicable. Your selfishness is obvious. Grow up."
Thanks, J. Edgar.
,,,,,,,I was also worried about the Great White Queen of Northumberland- I'm so glad that she's alright- her comments would be enlightening on this thread......,
Since I peruse health freedom/ anti-governmental material on a daily basis ( esp PRN, NN), I am afraid to report that there's nothing new here: "too many regulations/ laws, high taxes, 'unnecessary' expenses, the nanny state, lack of freedom, police state" et al.
One solution these sites suggest is to move away from the cities and suburbs into rural areas and become self-sufficient and 'self-sustaining' - far from the madding crowd and the ever-tightening control of central authoritarian jackbooted dictatorship. Much of their programming involves frightening their advocates about how awful the future will be as the situation progresses from bad to worse.
Now how feasible is going back to nature/ the simple life/ more freedom for most people?
It's easier if you don't need a job and are healthy with no children or elderly in your care. Self-employment and tons of solitary hobbies are also useful.
Right now I am concerned about a relative who moved out to the middle of nowhere and got sick. He has money because he sold his moderate sized business and is married. But he lives far away from medical treatment and the social network he used to enjoy-
thus treatment means a daily, long drive or hospital stays where his spouse has to travel back and forth 30 miles or so; services are not the same far from the cities. He did well for a while and recovered but a very recent relapse has seriously weighed both him and his wife down: they're having a hard time and their money cannot fix what's wrong- the isolation is harmful to them. Even the bonds of deeply entrenched socialism break down in the wilderness.
Freedom, self-sufficiency and anarchy work out very well on paper.
"Speaking of radical politics, there is nothing more extremist than Marxism/Stalinism/Leninism/Maoism/SOCIALISM. The New York Times publishes some of the most radical, extremist propaganda in the history of mankind daily.
"Our society is so far off the deep end"
I prescribe irony deficiency supplements for you too, Delysid.*
*no mandatory shot yet, but it's coming. Eeek!
@Denice
What gave you the idea that anarchy means a solitary existence? You are basically repeating the "isolationist" myth.
Cooperation is an essential aspect of the market. It is the best way to accomplish goals. This brings us back to the I, Pencil example. Here a guy attempts to make a toaster from scratch (it's impossible to make something great by yourself).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ODzO7Lz_pw
Libertarianism is VOLUNTARYISM. It means voluntary relationships. You are accusing libertarians of wanting no relationships. Some libertarians are interested in self-sufficiency and do-it-yourself lifestyle, but they are just a segment ,like the pro-recreational drug use group or the health freedom group.
We can't have a real honest debate if people keep projecting their own false beliefs onto the ideology.
@Delsyid - right back at you...my irony meter just exploded with that last post.
No, voluntary as in you are free to not do what we tell you, since you can turn the filter on or off as you wish. Is an internet filter you can turn on to control what your children access such a bad thing? Is that really what you call tyranny?
You must have been a strange 15-year-old. I did have a job at that age, but I spent most of my money on alcohol, punk rock and books. Since then I've gained a bit of life experience; I had to deal with life-changing illnesses and deaths in my loved ones, got married a few times, had some children, traveled the world, suffered a chronic illness and lost my job, among other things. Somewhere along the line I found I had changed my opinions.
I found it's difficult dealing with real life problems and coming up with practical workable solutions, but oh-so-easy to rage and criticize. What happened to you? What changed your opinions?
Hmmm, I was under the impression that Americans were the prudes. Or is that just the advertising on tv over there? Anyway, I'd like to reassure Delysid that we Brits can access plenty of pornography if we so desire. It's so nice that he cares enough to keep tabs on us. Shame his info is inaccurate.
Reminds me of an old political cartoon, character visits America or an American army base and the guard asks him if he's ever been a member of any leftist, pinko scum organization such as any British political party.
Right, by vetoing a land sale, which you can't even reproduce the title of properly, Fainting Frank, who supported the expansion of slavery, bears fundamental responsibility for threatening to take Cuba by force if Spain wouldn't sell, had his first annual address described as "the weakest, most inane and unsatisfactory document, that ever emanated from the head of the nation," couldn't govern effectively, and basically tanked his own party in the process of laying the groundwork of the Civil War, becomes in your mind "our best president." Gotcha.
Oh, c'mon, there's always this bit of his Consitutional insight: "I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution."
This is nothing but a long-winded, flowery slippery-slope argument, which I suppose is why you consider it to be "one of the most epic" such items "ever written": you can't understand anything more complicated.
At least, to his credit, Pierce was similarly too dim-witted to realize that federal land grants were going to be necessary to construct a transcontinental railroad. Too bad he didn't have the opportunity to "stop the creation" of that for 60 years.
As opposed to your contributions and interminable subject-changing? Note that you didn't say anything intelligent about Pierce's words, you declared them to be "most epic," brah. You also didn't compare them, and have not given any sign of being able to, with anything else, just a vague "ever written." Fantastic, Narcissus.
Yes, when presented with actual responses to your remark, your rhetorical skills rise to textspeak, empty evasions, and copypasta from the cesspool of Reddit. Color me suitably impressed.
@Lawrence: yeah, mine too. Delysid doesn't realise that we have safety nets for a reason.
With "banishment," of course.
No, "we" can't have "a real honest debate" with someone whose first words have mysteriously become "DELETED AT DELYSID'S REQUEST" with no statement in the meantime despite numerous other comments and who demonstrates no actual interest in or understanding of the concept, the subject of which really isn't "swaying people about libertarianism [or] pissing them off as a consolation" in the first place.
@Julian Frost
Safety nets exist to trap the poor in poverty (whether intentional or not).
One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
For example: What do you think happens to food prices when millions of people are on food stamps? The answer: price inflation of food.
Allow me to expound a bit further. You have two possible observations that are on point: (1) "That's not representative of professed libertarians." This is weak, as the post was about the affinity, not the concept. (2) "I reject unethical medical practices, such as ... mandatory vaccination."* This is also weak, as there are no such mandates outside of voluntary relationships unless you want to argue against participation in the funding of public schools, which isn't really what the antivax crowd is on about.
* In which D. also expresses John Stone–level admiration for Tomljenović and doesn't seem to have bothered to understand the response in the BMJ.
That's the Союз Kанадский Социалистических Республик, which actually impounded copies of High Times at the border in 1977. One might suggest that this is protectionist, perhaps explaining why, say, Hustler has an independent Canada operation.
That's got to be the dumbest G-ddamned thing I've heard in ages. The source of the money doesn't affect the price of food. You want to live on $133.08 (FY 2013, average individual; $274.99 per household) per month for food? That restricts the flow of currency into the market.
And you are squealing like a stuck pig over "libertarians want you to die in the streets blah blah blah"? You have just advanced the argument that the failure to allow poor people to experience more hunger is making your groceries significantly more expensive.
@Krebiozen:
This hearkens to the controversy over the "V-chip." As a strong civil libertarian, I would say that a government mandate is indeed overreach. There's no obvious reason that ISPs who offer raw data pipes (my strong preference) as added value should be excluded.
One more:
Leaving aside the grammatical one, do you understand the logical failure in this utterance? It appropriately rhymes with "speleology."
@Narad
No, I don't understand whatever insane point you are trying to make. Please expand on how safety nets help the poor.
If the Welfare State is successful then why are over a hundred million Americans on welfare? Isn't the point of welfare to GET PEOPLE OFF OF IT? The Welfare State works so great that it expands infinitely!
Sure, in your wet dreams numpty.
My rib roast and Yorkshire pudding were perfection. Do not sear your meat in the beginning; that's for poultry. Alton Brown has the best method in my opinion by dry-aging, slow roast at 200F (internal temp 118F) then sear at the end. Of course there is a prep with an oil, salt and pepper massage.
@Delysid
Still not answering my followup questions? I guess you just missed them again. Here they are so you don't have to go through the onerous task of searching for them. What are your answers to these questions, following up on the Typhoid Mary stuff:
Who would do this banishing? What if some in the community support Mary’s right to employment within the community? Who would enforce Mary’s banishment to prevent her coming back in? And where would you banish Mary to? Into the wild? Into another community?
Also, in terms of a rudimentary court, who would administer it? Who would grant authority to and enforce its rulings?
I'm waiting on the answer to my divorce/child custody question, as well, Todd.
(I'm not holding my breath, either).
Science Mom, we had the traditional Midwestern turkey and fixin's and I find that things run more smoothly if I let the spousal unit prepare everything but the cranberry sauce. He doesn't write a five paragraph frag order. for it but I'll admit he starts with a detailed list ("H-180 ... sweet potatoes into slow cooker").
It's kind of fun to watch.
Citation definitely needed.
Delysid how would a libertarian society with an absence of regulation result in anything remotely resembling optimal recovery from a retrograde condensate reservoir?
Approximately 1 in 3 Americans are on welfare?
Source, please.
Seriously, if your welfare is similar to ours, there's no way the average american can live on it. How much is the living allowance provided on welfare (here, 600$/month).
Alain
how apropos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlmezywdxPI
Enjoy
Alain
That's because you're linguistically challenged. The magic word is "teleology." The problem with "Safety nets exist to trap the poor in poverty (whether intentional [sic] or not)" is that it ascribes purpose rather than effect. You further failed to address the substantive point, which is that the effect of SNAP on food prices, to the extent one it exists at all, is likely to be deflationary, unless your "point" is that the poor aren't hungry enough at $33 a week.
That wasn't the semantic payload of your incompetent utterance, now was it? But if you insist on having your overt sadism held up for wonder, I'd suggest not having to choose between food and medical care. Hey, you're really proud of how you're going to "give back to society," right? Maybe this will penetrate the necrotic layer of your frontal cortex.
If you mean "why are 47 million Americans receiving food stamps," the answer is because of what you advocate, Quiz Kid, which is the absence of a meaningful minimum wage.
PRWORA has already happened, but perhaps you missed it while laboring on the junior tennis circuit. It didn't quite pan out as promised. Some people, moreover, are actually disabled rather than merely being severely disadvantaged. The only thing "expand[ing] infinitely!" is the holes in the safety net, with the churlish rejection of PPACA Medicaid expansion at no cost to the individual states that hasn't already been funded by like-minded asshοles only moving around the deck chairs.
So here's where you get to have something nailed into your fυcking pea-brain: I happen to have a very close friend who is most genuinely disabled. He's too proud, or afraid of the stigma that worthless shıts such as yourself are happy to advance, that he won't apply for SNAP. You know what happens as a result? Hospitalization.
Do you happen to know how long it takes for Medicare to kick in if one suffers sudden, complete, total blindness? C'mon, guess.