Here’s a great list of 9 things many Americans just don’t understand — I’ve distilled it down to just the main headings, but you should read the whole thing.
1. Universal Healthcare Is Great for Free Enterprise and Great for Small Businesses
2. Comprehensive Sex Education Decreases Sexual Problems
3. American Exceptionalism Is Absolute Nonsense in 2015
4. Adequate Mass Transit Is a Huge Convenience
5. The Bible Was Not Written by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers
6. Learning a Second or Third Language Is a Plus, Not a Character Flaw
7. Union Membership Benefits the Economy
8. Paid Maternity Leave Is the Norm in Most Developed Countries
9. Distrust of Oligarchy Is a Positive
And it’s just weird: I can imagine most Republicans and Libertarians disagreeing angrily with those points, and even passing laws based upon their misconceptions…but the crowd I hang with, and most of the people who read this blog (Americans and non-Americans alike) would probably say those nine things are good and even obvious.
So how do we wake up the rest of the country?
I agree with these points, but just as strongly as they agree with theirs. How do you use the facts to make the case when it’s the facts they are against?
I’m puzzled:
The phrasing is so baffling; YES, “American Exceptionalism” is, what?, the fact of it, or the concept that too many hold? True, it is nonsense that Americans are actually exceptional, but; it is Bad, that so many Americans hold that concept as a truth about being an American (USAian). And why throw that year, 2015, into that statement? The concept is nonsense, regardless of the year. Yes, it is 2015, and “american exceptionalists” should recognize that 2015 is today, and the concept is so Monroe Doctrinish.
FYI, an advertisement covers points 1-2 or 1-3 when using Chrome, IE, or Firefox.
I agree with these 9 points. Of course, I’ve lived abroad and in several places around the U.S.
I don’t know how you wake up the rest of the country, but there’s a drug ad obscuring part of the text of your post, which doesn’t help. Just so you know. It sits right across points 1 through 3.
It was written by the ancient equivalents of Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and Tony Perkins though.
Most of it is fiction. And written by kooks with axes to grind.
I’ll add a 10th point.
The GOP is not fiscally conservative, it is not pro-family, it is not pro-freedom, and it is not pro-American.
1. Universal Healthcare Is Great for Free Enterprise and Great for Small Businesses
2. Comprehensive Sex Education Decreases Sexual Problems
3. American Exceptionalism Is Absolute Nonsense in 2015
4. Adequate Mass Transit Is a Huge Convenience
5. The Bible Was Not Written by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers
6. Learning a Second or Third Language Is a Plus, Not a Character Flaw
7. Union Membership Benefits the Economy
8. Paid Maternity Leave Is the Norm in Most Developed Countries
9. Distrust of Oligarchy Is a Positive
************************************
I don’t see the ad. Here are the points for users of other browers.
Get money out of politics to remove the populace’s civil lethargy. Get conflicts of interest out of media to remove propaganda.
@4: Once again, I’ll point out the ad-free option near the top left of the page. It’s cheap.
You don’t. People still believe in witchcraft, creationism and other plainly disputable nonsense.
However, you can convince the majority of people by making sure that ignorance is sufficiently inconvenient. Look at Obamacare – every year the number of people benefiting from it grows and every year the conservative arguments against it become less and less strident. They used to talk about open rebellion, but now they’re just thinking how to defund this or that part of the program. That’s because they know that the program has already proving too successful to attack directly.
Same with the economic stuff – either wait for the next depression or wait for this one to drag a bit longer and people will become more receptive to reasonable and proven solutions.
I won’t go so far as to say that unions are a net negative, but I participated in a union (of law enforcement officers), where membership was not mandatory, and I can attest that we spent a significant portion of our time coming up with ways to fuck over fellow law-enforcement officers who weren’t in the union.
There were examples in which information came to us that seriously impacted our safety on the job, and when it was discovered that some members shared this information with non-members, they were threatened with expulsion. So by “fuck over,” I mean, “expose to serious risk of injury or death.”
Actually that’s how I came to join the union: I needed some information, and was referred to a certain officer. I called him with my question, and he basically said, “I’m telling you Jack shit until you join the union.” I told him to fuck off, and contacted the County–only to be told by the county official, “I don’t know; you can just submit the form, and I’ll ask [the same person] whether it’s OK, and if he says it is, I’ll approve it.” I ended up phoning him back to grovel, explain what a terrible day I was having, and let him know that my dues (doubled in the first year) were already in the mail.
It would be a research project to go decide whether I agree that unions are a net benefit to the economy, but they do cause tangible harm to individuals, mainly non-union members they perceive as “the competition.”
With gread difficulty.
The peasants do occasionally get fed up, grab their pitchforks and torches, and storm the castle.
It takes a lot though. Things have to get terrible before they do. The latest was Greece, 25% unemployment and almost half the population is looking at poverty. Iceland just recently, who were so fed up they actually took their bankers and threw them in prison.
If you’re already using Firefox, why haven’t you installed Adblock Plus?
Is the “union” part the problem in this, or the “law enforcement officers” part?
The case for #3 would be stronger if the author addressed what “American Exceptionalism” was. It’s an (old) term of art among historians, not a “Rah-rah, we’re number one!” mentality. The jingoists like the phrase but the fact that we are mediocre or worse in so many ways has nothing to with it.
Indeed, while it’s not in vogue you could use it to explain why we have been utterly unable to reap the obvious benefits of single payer health care, strong unions, or adequate mass transit.
@15 I’m afraid that American Exceptionalism is not just some obscure, dusty academic term. It’s a living, breathing part of our political culture. For example:
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/02/obama-and-american-exceptionalism/
And it’s important to discuss in this context, because the best evidence for most of these other items come from other countries where they have been tried and succeeded. American Exceptionalists believe we can ignore comparisons to other countries, even developed world democracies, because America has a special way of doing things that is unique and ultimately better, and questioning this assertion is unpatriotic.
‘Compared to the rest of the world’? Most of the conservative/right-wing parties in European countries don’t understand them either (minus the exceptionalism), or *do* understand but earn way too much money and political capital from gradually dismantling them — and judging by the number of conservative election victories, the voters seem to share their visions.
Oh Christ, did that actually happen…? Jesus fuck….
I will definitely disagree on the union one, or at least say the situation is a hell of a lot more complex than the simplistic statement “union membership benefits the economy.” Under that one,
I think it’s also true that too many pro-union people think that union leadership always has employees’ best interests at heart, and/or are in the best position to improve conditions. This is obviously just one anecdote, but I’m on the faculty at a unionized university, so I have no choice but to be a member. I pay a lot of money in dues each year, and I can promise you it sure as shit hasn’t paid off in terms of either overall support for our campus or in terms of individual faculty support/benefits compared to the non-unionized schools in our system. As far as I’m concerned it’s just money going down the toilet at this point.
Based on my experience and what I’ve heard from others, I’d guess both.
Number 8 jumps out at me because I’m not sure how it’s even possible to disagree with it. I mean, there are was to fail with in what one does with this information, such as “they do it because they’re too stupid to know it’s bad” or “it is necessary that the U.S. do things differently from other countries, because they’re all foreigners and shit” but I can’t imagine someone saying it’s not true and continuing to maintain that in the face of the evidence.
@A Masked Avenger, @Lee1:
I can’t speak for US unions, but in the UK unions are a net benefit. The sad thing is that there’s been such an attack on unions here over the last thirty years that membership has dropped considerably; the corresponding decay of employment terms and conditions and the fall in wages may merely be coincidence, but I see no-one arguing it. Unions did have a bad reputation in the 1970s and for much of the 80s (mostly then in response to attacks upon them), but changes to voting regulations in the 90s saw the end of much of that. I’m certainly happy with my union representation, and what I get for my subscription. The biggest problem is fewer younger people joining because they don’t realise what the advantages are. They’ve grown up with all the right-wing propaganda and think that the few instances of excess and overkill which hit the media are the norm.
10) We spend more than we ought to on our military, and our arsenal of nuclear weapons is a liability for every creature on Earth.
Leave. USArseholianthanthousistan is slimeplit of stoooopidity with no redeeming characteristics. Get a visa and the equivalent of a “green card” whilst some of the planet still welcome USAssines.
Unions, like anything else, can become corrupt and be a problem; it’s just a matter of how quickly it happens, how likely it is to happen, and how easy you can fix it. I think when you compare unions to large corporations unions come of better in all three aspects.
7. Union Membership
BenefitsBenefitted the EconomyFIFY
Are you paying relocation costs?
@ Professor Myers
You could start by not misrepresenting their position. I am not a libertarian, but putting on my Nozickian libertarian hat for a moment, the only point that is completely problematic, for a libertarian, is 1. I don’t know enough (or care enough ultimately) about the dynamics of that issues to say who is right.
Points 2, 3, 5, 6 are in essence neutral from a libertarian stand point.
point 4 and 7 are statements of facts that are easily amendable to libertarianism. Being libertarian does not mean you are anti-union. Indeed, the right to organize/right to contract is one of the rights libertarians really really care about.
point 8 is half a disagreement only because libertarians do not think maternity should be compelled by the sword, not that they don’t think it is a good idea, or that most of the world doesn’t do it.
point 9 is a complete agreement for libertarians as it is the gov’t interference in the economy that is causing the problem vis-a-vis crony capitalism which annoys libertarians a great deal. side note: crony capitalistic probably should be called corporate socialism as a better fit for what is going on.
So the below isn’t true
Yes, blf, thanks to our glorious capitalist system, some of us can’t afford to drive across town for gum, much less moving internationally.
Well, obviously you should just pull yourself out by your bootstraps.
#27: You say libertarians would not support such things, and I point to Rand and Ron Paul, who are indistinguishable on most issues from far right Republicans.
michael kellymiecielica @27
I’m not sure what this means. Paid maternity leave shouldn’t be enforced by the ‘sword’ of democracy? That maternity is being compelled by having such a leave so is somehow “violence”, to use another poster’s word? What is the sword? Without the sword, how would people be assured a career and a family, with the choice for the latter not endangering the former when it comes to periods where constant care for a new human is mandatory?
Akira, presumably your glorious capitalist system is also responsible for needing to drive across town for gum – if I needed some I’d have a five minute walk.
Then again, I certainly like our concept of having a social market economy, not a free market economy. Seems to have worked fairly well for us.
Ah, but they’re not True libertarians™. The fact that all the libertarians you know were rooting for Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012 is of course irrelevant. They weren’t True libertarians™ either.
@Marcus Ranum #22
Perhaps this is the American Exceptionalism referred to in #3; the unique belief that not only should the U.S. have the strongest and the most expensive military by a wide margin, but that this is somehow a good thing for world peace or at least “stability” as defined by hawkish American political leaders. Does any other country seriously believe that possessing, threatening, and frequently using such forces (or at least the non-nuclear ones), while simultaneously talking about being some magical bastion of liberty, is not incredibly contradictory?
“1. Universal Healthcare Is Great for Free Enterprise and Great for Small Businesses
2. Comprehensive Sex Education Decreases Sexual Problems
3. American Exceptionalism Is Absolute Nonsense in 2015
4. Adequate Mass Transit Is a Huge Convenience
5. The Bible Was Not Written by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers
6. Learning a Second or Third Language Is a Plus, Not a Character Flaw
7. Union Membership Benefits the Economy
8. Paid Maternity Leave Is the Norm in Most Developed Countries
9. Distrust of Oligarchy Is a Positive”
Hmm.
Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news.
First, on the up side, most of these are not misunderstandings at all.
1. The issues for most people with universal health care, which is not actually being offered in this country, at least not in any way similar to other countries health care, is rationing of benefits and increased taxes, which are. Most people are not small employers nor self-employed.
2. Punishment of sexual activity with pregnancies, STDs and such, provides negative sanctions to support religious values on sexuality.
3. American exceptionalism is not an intellectual proposition about US history or culture, but a commitment to national values that denies any universal moral, aesthetic, cultural, social, political, economic propostions, rendering other countries’ experience and example wholly irrelevant.
4. Basically, people who can’t afford a car are losers. And those big cities get their conveniences from taxes (popularly suspected to flow from the heartland’s noble yeomanry to the city slickers, who are dubiously shaded and practice strange unChristian liberal religion.)
5. Billionaire hedge fund managers usually tend to be libertarians/Ayn Rand types and very few have anything to do with the Bible. The basic “money is a sign of godliness” thing this point is really talking about dates back long before there were billionaires, to Puritan divines or Rev. Malthus or the English who viewed the Irish Potato Famine as God’s judgment on shiftless people. (See Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Rise of Capitalism.)
6. If we spoke their language, they wouldn’t have to conform to us. It’s much easier to exclude people if you can’t talk to them.
7. In this country, the only “economy” that matters is the profits of rich people. And no, unions are not terribly beneficial to them. Also, since unions were purged of militants by the post-war mass repressions popularly called “McCarthyism,” unions aren’t that beneficial even to members.
8. Paid maternity leave is objectionable for assuming people have a right to live; that women are contributing to society when they have children; adding more costs to full-time employment discourages hiring; taxes. And, by the way, the popular perception that taxes somehow fall harder on the lower earning part of the population is both widespread and correct, except the wealthy seem to firmly believe the poor and the “working” people pay nothing or little.
9. The notion of oligarchy is a faux populist boogeyman. Billionaires don’t control policy, they don’t control personnel, they don’t control parties, and you cannot prove they aren’t wasting their millions on a crazed hobby by looking at the results. There just isn’t a billionaires’ conspiracy. There’s not even a billionaires’ club. As for more supposedly sophisticated notions like ruling class etc., that stuff shades into Marxism and such. No Marxist ever got tenure for a reason, and all skeptical thinkers resolutely oppose this kind of stuff.
Now if I could just get my extended family convinced that those are good things. Husband and I are making strides toward convincing them that Cruz is a terrible person for president, but this minor success seems to be coming at the cost of them digging in their heels about Walker. *sigh*
Not this shit again.
Ever hear of the Koch family, pater and sons? QED. You are a hypeskeptic not looking at real evidence. The rest of your blather can therefore be dismissed.
@Professor Myers
I am not saying that you would not be able to find someone who is either a libertarian or a self-described one that would have problems with those points. I am saying that those people, who are libertarians, who do have a problem with them are neither the only form of libertarianism out there nor necessarily represent the majority position among libertarians.
The Pauls are libertarians (even if it is better to describe them as paleolibertarians) and yes they would have problems with those points. But other (right) libertarians, like Johnson, Hayek, Nozick, Rothbard etc. wouldn’t have problems with most of them. And of course, left-libertarians like Chomsky, Long, Carson, Richman, Parijs, etc. wouldn’t have any problems.
The Pauls are libertarians, but not all libertarians are the Pauls. Liberals need to do a better job of seeing the difference in the various camps under the libertarian umbrella because libertarianism is only going to grow in influence.
And don’t anybody say I’m pulling a no true scotsma here because I’m not denying the Pauls are libertarians. I’m denying that their views are the mainstream of libertarian thought.
michael, #27
Someone help me understand this.
If they think it’s a good idea, why don’t they want it enforced. They are for enforcing tons of other things that they think are good ideas.
Or is that their trick to disagree with something without sounding like outright assholes? Just say it’s a good idea but we’d have to use force to enforce it and they hate force.
@throwaway
sword = gov’t coercion.
This is the standard metaphor in political philosophy since at least Hobbes. Not sure why you don’t know it. Unless you are Just Asking Questions to get my goat.
Good questions, but you need to take them up with an actual libertarian because I support gov’t mandated maternity leave and have no problem coercing businesses to make sure it happens.
@saad
right because it is so fucking hard to understand that there should be more choices than forbidden and obligatory in a liberal society.
Jesus Christ. If I’m pro-gay marriage I must be in favor of people being forced to gay marry.
I would take this more seriously were it not for the fact that just 6 companies own 90% of the media in the US.
Citation needed. There though is the thought I see of liberturds.
#38 “Ever hear of the Koch family, pater and sons? QED. You are a hypeskeptic not looking at real evidence. The rest of your blather can therefore be dismissed.”
Ever hear that the preferred candidate of the Koch brothers was Mitt Romney? I didn’t. Ever hear that the preferred presidential candidate of the Koch brothers defeated Obama? I didn’t. Double QED on you.
By the way, there’s a lot of sarcasm and irony in my post. That said, I don’tI have any use for simplistic conspiracy of the rich theories. As influential as Goldman Sachs is, the US government is not a subsidiary. But the part about how more complex explanations of how the ruling class operates are pretty universally opposed by academia isn’t ironic. But, I do not think this observation speaks well of academia. As for your claim that skeptics don’t dismiss notions of a bourgeoisie ruling the society through the medium of political democracy (when convenient) as conspiratorial thinking? I think you’re dead wrong. Again, I don’t think that speaks well of skeptics (which is why I prefer scientific materialism to skepticism.)
@39 michael kellymiecielica
Ron and Rand Paul are probably some of the most prominent libertarians in America right now. I don’t know why you say they aren’t mainstream. That’s still a No True Scotsman. It’s just a No Mainstream Scotsman.
But nonetheless, #1 is a huge sticking point for libertarians because of the nature of healthcare and taxes.
#2 is a sticking point because mainstream libertarianism has a surprisingly aggressive stance against public education, favoring private enterprises and vouchers. Although they may or may not have anything against comprehensive sex education in particular.
#3 is more divided. The Pauls for instance, are Neo-confederates and if I’m not mistaken, they believe in American Exceptionalism.
#4 Mass transit. You say this is amendable to libertarians? How? Mass transit needs to subsidized by taxes or doesn’t make economic sense.
#7 I have no idea why you think libertarians favor unions. I think you’re out of the loop on modern mainstream libertarianism if you believe that. All the most influential libertarians are against unions.
#8 Another major disagreement with Libertarianism. Although Libertarianism doesn’t yield practical solutions for any family issues, so this is hardly surprising.
Wrong, you said they weren’t involve, and didn’t dictate politics. See what is happening at the state level these days where they Rethugs are in total control? QED.
The Kochs transformed the Rethug party…
Increased taxes because of universal health care? We pay less and get more. https://epianalysis.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/usversuseurope/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/
@Nerd
1) I’m pretty sure it is incumbent on you to prove that they are the mainstream of libertarian thought as you are the one making the positive claim. The only positive claim I have made is that there are libertarians who are not the Pauls and wouldn’t have a problem with those points, and I have provided like 6 examples. The only “evidence” I see of Pauls being the mainstream of libertarians is that Professor Myers can name them, which is hardly convincing.
2) Umm most libertarians I know really, really don’t like that Paul is the public face libertarianism.
3) http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA705.pdf
page 10.
according to that only 26% of self-identified libertarians hold a favorable opinion of Ron Paul.
#43 There is no coordination in their reporting. They obviously don’t just take orders from the government. Much of the time they all simply repeat government handouts, but they still publicize controversies, even fake ones, that severely embarrass the government. Yet if they are opposed to the government, why aren’t they consistent. Also, how are instructions passed from the billionaire oligarchs to the journalist peons? One of the most prominent ways that billionaires have intervened in the political process is by endowing research institutes like the Hoover Institution, Heritage Foundation, Cato Foundation, etc. Is this any way to crack the whip? There are even “liberal” or “left wing” research institutes, like the Institute for Policy Studies or Russell Sage Foundation. Direct interventions in the form of PACs are also prominent, but it is rare for them to be obviously successful. And when they can be argued to be successful, such as the group of businessmen who cultivated Ronald Reagan’s career, is it really possible to separate the alleged success from long term trends fostered by government, such as a decades long crusade against communism and for free enterprise.
@48 Good articles for other purposes. But the issue is the consequences of turning from this system to the one on offer from ACA (Obamacare.) Yes, care will be rationed. As health care is detached from employment (lowering their labor costs, a prime reason for the shitf,) people will be deprived of collective bargaining power and find themselves purchasing minimal plans that meet the rather lax requirements imposed. And those who are subsidized by the government will in the end be subsidized by an increase in regressive taxation.
@47 “Wrong, you said they weren’t involve…” Untrue. Unless you’ve redefined an oligarchy as a small group of wealthy people or aristocrats who are merely involved, instead of a group who decide everything amongst themselves, in spite of the majority?
@doublereed
Professor Myers’s claim that I am responding to is that “most” libertarians would have a problem with it…He has named two that would, I have named several that wouldn’t. that’s point one.
point 2 is Pauls are very prominent right now because their position are closer to standard Republicanism which makes them more friendly to the (American) mainstream in political thought, which conversely makes them less (libertarian) mainstream friendly. I honestly don’t think they are representative of the majority of libertarians. See my link above.
In response
#2 Libertarian issues with education have nothing to do with what the point is about. They care about education being state funded, they do not have a problem with sex education.
#4 mass transit, currently, needs to be state funded to be economically viable because of car culture…but if the point is correct than getting people to use it should open a market for it. Let’s just throw this into the 1 category.
#7 did I say libertarians favor unions? No I did not. I said libertarians are not anti-union. Unions, like other types a associations, should be able to be entered (or exited) freely. That all libertarianism has to say on the subject. Whether one thinks it is a good idea to join a union (or not) depends on the person. It’s much like joining a church or a sports club.
michael, #42
Like what in the specific case of making sure maternity leave is covered?
This objection to enforcement seems like an excuse to dismiss topics that they disagree with without having to openly disagree with them (because that would make them look just like Republicans).
Enforcing government-mandated maternity leave (a good position for a pro-maternity leave person to take) is not like forcing people to “gay marry” (a bad position for a pro-gay marriage person to take).
Speaking of which, is the “states should decide on same-sex marriage” position an actual Libertarian position or is that just a Rand Paul thing?
The Koch’s, along with Rupert Murdoch, sent the Rethug party into a total RWA spin. You aren’t looking at the evidence. The conspiracy is there.
NOPE, as employers, they cannot be required to recognize or deal with unions, hence they are anti-union. I don’t know where you get your ideas, but they aren’t from the economic liberturds seen in this country.
Libertarians are a damn good reason for having unions. There are simply some employers who will never pay a decent wage unless they’re forced by worker organization.
Some people are just plain parasites. True contributors can earn money even while paying proper wages. If you need to suppress wages, it’s an implicit admission that you’re not really providing any real benefit.
What I mean is this:
If you have a productive idea, or organizational talent that provides real benefit to an organization, then you can provide proper wages and still win out in competition. You’ll win because your idea or organizational talents are superior to the competition.
On the other hand, if you don’t have these advantages, then the only way for you to win the competition is to lower wages.
I.e. the wages you offer tells the story of how worthy a manager you are. People who are worthy of managing businesses can afford to offer good wages,. Those who are just parasites, cannot.
PZ Myers #27
Nick Gotts #33
Believe it or not, Ron and Rand Paul do not represent all of libertarianism or all people who self-identify as libertarians. michael kellymiecielica is clearly correct that many people who self-identify as libertarians would be fine with some of these points – if you don’t think that’s the case, you need to get out more.
The fact that many self-identified libertarians supported Ron Paul in 2008 is at least partly a function of the fact that we currently have a two-party system where everyone has to compromise on their candidate. I didn’t vote for him (in fact I admit I didn’t vote in a primary at all that year – I voted for Obama in the general, and again in 2012, and since then have been less than thrilled with his approach to civil liberties…), but Paul was to my mind clearly the best candidate in either party on US foreign policy, which was then – and to a lesser degree continues to be – a giant cluster-fuck for us. He was also quite good on some aspects of domestic policy, but also terrible on others – for example from everything I’ve read both he and Rand Paul continually suck when it comes to reproductive rights (well, not really Ron anymore since he’s retired – be he always sucked there). I guess it depends on where you put your priorities, and it’s completely fair to judge people who support either Paul based on that; but to say libertarians with a broad brush would “disagree angrily with those points” is simplistic and stupid.
I used to call myself a “lefty libertarian” or something along those lines, because I consider myself to be socially extremely liberal and economically somewhat moderate-conservative*, to use that incredibly simplistic two-axis measure of political position. But I’ve quit doing so because for far too many people hear the word “libertarian” and their ability to have an intelligent political discussion magically disappears. Kind of like the words “liberal” or “conservative” for some people.
*Certainly not in the Republican sense of conservative – they clearly have no real interest in a true free market. It’s “crony capitalism” as a general rule for most prominent Republicans, including Ron Paul to some degree; I’m not sure about Rand Paul.
@52 michael kellymiecielica
#2 It’s more related than you care to admit. Sex education in public schools is the issue. Decentralizing schools would drastically weaken comprehensive sex education. Also, I would argue that mainstream libertarians would view this as plus, as they would argue that the evil big government doesn’t have a role in people’s sex lives. No, you can’t dismiss this issue that easily.
#4 No. Nearly all mass transit, including in Europe, operates at a loss. It does not have to do with car culture. If it isn’t subsidized by the state, then you would have to raise fare prices. The fare prices would discourage use, and it wouldn’t be viable anymore. It not being viable would then force everyone to use more expensive transportation. Furthermore, libertarians often have a problem with the monopolistic nature of mass transit as well as the fact that it is government run.
#7 Are you suggesting that libertarians favor weak, ineffectual unions like those in Right-to-Work states? That’s the same thing as being anti-union (hell, even anti-union people would agree with that). You’re just fussing with semantics.
Look, if your category can include both the Pauls, the Kochs and then Chomsky, then maybe the category is so broad as to be actually meaningless.
Just as your failure to acknowledge the difference between social libertarians and the USA economic libertarians is stupid and simplistic. Many of us here are social libertarians, but also recognize with certain freedom comes responsibility to make sure your decisions don’t endanger or harm others.
The conclusion, in case it isn’t clear, is this:
If you force everyone to offer decent wages, then the parasites will automatically be driven out of business, while the good business managers will remain.
That’s why unions and government regulation is a benefit… to everyone but the parasites.
OK, I just feel the need to follow up and say – this is horse shit. I guess “most issues” is vague enough that you have wiggle room to qualify your statement, but both of them were/are talking about a lot of stuff the far right of the Republican party wants absolutely nothing to do with. There’s a reason Ron Paul had essentially no chance in 2008 and Rand Paul has essentially no chance in 2016 – they’re not far right Republicans, broadly speaking. I wouldn’t vote for either one, but that’s a grossly simplistic characterization.
I’m also not thrilled about the prospect of voting for Clinton, although I’ve warmed up to her a lot more since she at least admitted she fucked up on her Iraq war vote and has done some amazing things for women’s rights around the world as secretary of state. I imagine I’ll have to compromise with her, unless someone else jumps in the race.
Did someone mention Rand “Gay Marriage is the result of a Moral Crisis” Paul?
I do recognize that distinction, although you don’t seem to be able to – apparently you missed the part where I talked about referring to myself as a “lefty libertarian,” which is essentially a social libertarian in your preferred parlance. Both Pauls are/were social libertarians in some ways – for example when it comes to immigration, LGBT rights (at least as I understand Rand Paul’s general position), and decriminalization of non-violent drug use. They aren’t/weren’t good on other aspects of social libertarianism.
WHOA – I was completely wrong about Rand Paul if he said some shit like that. I thought he was better than his dad in that regard.
They were typical USA liberturds. Through and through. They are liberturds, just like any atheist committing murder is still an atheist, and must be recognized by us as such. No True Scotsman™ arguments are faulty. WHO defines the Scotsman, you or those who call themselves True Scotsmen? That is where you are coming from….
Lee1:
What kind of intelligent discussion is anyone supposed to have, when you’re implicitly claiming economics isn’t a “social” issue? What could that possibly mean, when we’re talking about economics, which you may either call a social science or a form of social/political philosophy?
But you just said you quit doing that, because Somebody Else™ (totally not you) would fuck up the conversation when you used to do that. How do you refer to yourself now? Also, what if anything do you think you have to say on behalf of the people who (somehow or another) aren’t like you and do still call themselves that?
michael kellymiecielica
Marriage equality is actually a great example.
The two that actually compare are:
Paid Maternity Leave and Marriage equality
It means I can take maternity leave or marry a woman, it doesn’t mean I have to do either.
I’m sorry, are we talking about the existence of libertarians who supposedly do not want to nuke what little infrastructure we have? I’m sure they exist, mostly among people who prefer to simple conventional bombing to bring it down by a half measure. This is pretty much literally what Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson wanted to do (cut the budget by 48%). What exactly is the debate here? That libertarians would literally agree that, yes, mass transit is convenient, even if they would then say to defund it, or say that “It Isn’t Government’s Role” or other such bullshit ultimately resulting in them saying that we should not have high quality government funded mass transit, which is the very thing the actual post is actually referring to, as it exists in other countries? I mean, what? Libertarians are suddenly supporting universal health care now?
Only if funded by voluntary contributions, not by universal taxes to pay for it….
Anything can happen as long as it is voluntary, and they don’t have to pay a cent in taxes collected by violence against their personal property.
Most countries don’t have an equivalent of the Green Card.
Very recently, the EU has been sort of trying. I don’t know how well that’s been turning out.
LykeX @60
The extremely successful businessman Henry Ford had similar thoughts:
Ford knew that if his employees couldn’t afford to buy his cars then very few others could.
Not sure I agree with #5… Accounting for inflation.
I thought Social Libertarians were basically liberals, like Civil Libertarians. Like the ACLU is a “civil libertarian” organization, but for all intents and purposes it just means liberal. Or is that Libertarian Socialist?
This morning I tried to make a comment took the time to carefully write it out and read it over carefully to make sure there were no errors and then I clicked post comment and got the sign in again and the post was no where to be found at least by me shit I gave up and went and started working.
I do not know what I sad exactly the shock and all.
Since then a lot more has been said.
How does the oligarchy control things as much as it does in the 21st century? first it is careful not to over play it hand or its control it has learned from history unlike the majority population. The biggest ally in the US is the general apathy and none involvement in civic life by the majority of the population.
People are more interested in major league sports and blockbuster movies and entertainment then the boring issues and discussions that take place in our city halls, state capitals and Washington. Government is not looked upon as something we as people do but some kind of elected authority that does thing for itself and over which we have very little influence. just look at voter turnout
The oligarchs on the other hand are actively engaged in all levels of government themselves and their personal representatives exerting as much influence they can to further their personal interests. They use all of the tools available to control the agenda.
The elections and the campaigns are seldom engaging the people or questioning what is wanted or needed it is instead an emphasis on the person as some kind of hero especially executive office elections. Vote for us we will fix it for you we will take care of it for you and that’s the way it works
it is similar in unions .
this country was founded by men that did not trust authority and were very comfortable taking control themselves they were involved in how thing were done. They were not passively enjoying the benefits of self-government they were actively engaged in all the processes.
if you want a government, a society or a union to reflect the many and not the few they many need to be actively engaged in the affairs that constitute their concerns. those 9 points as an example there could be a few more but those do encompass most of the things that would make up a stable democratic organization like a state.
The question is how do you foster that desire to be engaged in the hard work of civic life and compete with the forces that are selling the softer easier way to prosperity and liberty while delivering neither.
uncle frogy
I just got back from a month long trip through Europe. We got around by train, and it was wonderful. There is a new super-fast train that goes from Venice to Florence in two hours, Florence to Pompeii in two and a half hours and back to Rome in less than an hour. It is smooth, sleek and comfortable. It goes fast enough to get you to your destination efficiently, but still gives you a chance to admire the countryside while traveling.
I wish that the US could be forward-thinking enough to link major cities with such fast, efficient public transportation.
First comment here….
1. Universal Healthcare Is Great for Free Enterprise and Great for Small Businesses
The USA is afraid of government socialism. I have a theory about socialism: it works best when the round trip between pay-in and pay-out is short. Thus, in small nations where we find socialism working reasonably well, higher taxes are viewed more as contributions than onerous taxation. Also kinda helps if the population is more homogeneous than USA.
Solution: none proposed. The nation is too big to ever accept a federal solution. The round trip is too long. Maybe if things were managed at a state or county level, the perceived turnaround would be shorter.
2. Comprehensive Sex Education Decreases Sexual Problems
The cognitive dissonance between America’s massive porn consumption and its prudery speaks to an unhealthy obsession with sex. We sexualise our girl children to an astonishing degree. Curiously, it’s the boys who are most damaged by it all. Girls obviously mature a little faster than boys.
Solution: Educate the girls.
3. American Exceptionalism Is Absolute Nonsense in 2015
Everyone who comes to the USA is staggered by the distances. It is an exceptional nation, full to the brim with the world’s weirdos. Always has been. Having lived half of my life outside the USA, I get the worst of both worlds. I see the exceptionalism as very largely true – because Americans are from everywhere. I speak Hausa to the cab drivers in NYC, Yoruba to the cabbies in Chicago.
Standing outside a hotel in Houston on a summer night. A bunch of nervous Indian consultants, fresh off the aircraft, first night in the USA. I spoke to them. “Feeling a bit out of place? Everyone who ever came to this country once stood where you are standing now, feeling just the way you do. Welcome to America.”
Solution: Ask an American about his ancestry. He’ll never say “American”. He’ll give you some hilarious story about how he’s Irish on his Dad’s side and Lithuanian on his mother’s side – and there’s always some “Cherokee” in the mix, too.
And let’s face it, all this rolling of eyes to heaven about how America isn’t so exceptional, that’s crazy talk. We are no better – nor are we any worse – than any other nation. What makes us exceptional is our ability to hyphenate our American identities. There are as many ways to be American as there are communities of immigrants. In America, you can start over. That is unique. Try that in France, or Germany. I did.
4. Adequate Mass Transit Is a Huge Convenience
America’s mass transit problems are aggravated by the size of its cities. Rush hour compounds the problem: to get everyone to work at the same time in the same city requires peak capacity planning beyond any governing body’s ability to pay for the slack time.
Solution: compose traffic models, plotting where people live and where they work. Sum up the miles for each employee and tax the employers accordingly. They’ll rent the buses to get their own people to work. Lots of outfits already bus their own employees.
5. The Bible Was Not Written by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers
The Bible, speaking as a Christian – is not a cosmology textbook, nor a biology text, nor yet a history book. It does, however, contain some fine poetry and some interesting characters, unequalled in literature. All its heroes are unvarnished, its heroes deeply human, most of whom are pitted against entrenched authorities.
Those who attack the Bible are not much of an improvement on those who thump it in defence of their unscientific lunacy or their financial rapacity. I would urge the billionaires to read the Gospels, for they have much to say to how mankind ought to treat his fellow man – and women – and children. Good deal of Woe Unto You Rich Men talk. Couldn’t have been written by billionaires. But someone who’d read the Bible would know that.
It is, after all, a collection of books. Poor Marx, bitterly complaining “I am not a Marxist”. Thus with those who themselves Christians – or Marxists – or atheists. Helps to actually read the texts before reaching conclusions thereupon, for any plowboy may now read the Bible, as Tyndale intended. I read the Bible, I have no quarrel with science, I find the Intelligent Design crowd a lasting embarrassment to my faith. How could a God of Truth possibly be confined to a creation myth from the Bronze Age?
Solution: read the Bible.
6. Learning a Second or Third Language Is a Plus, Not a Character Flaw
The word in Spanish is “pocho”. A pocho cannot speak Spanish to his own grandmother, who cannot speak English. My children can speak Spanish to their Guatemalan grandmother.
It is best, in France, not to speak French very well, if you are a black American. They will mistake you for an African and treat you shabbily. But if you speak French, slowly, awkwardly – and with an American accent, they will fawn over you and think you are a jazz musician or something.
Just don’t be a ten year old white American, speaking French with an African accent. The French children will call you ugly names. They have mastered enough English to know the N Word. Oh yes.
America is huge. It’s always spoken a zillion languages. All this talk about how everyone in all these enlightened nations speak a second or third language? Guess what that second language is? English. They pay to learn English.
Solution: have Americans live for a few years beyond their national borders. American expatriates learn the language quickly enough. This is simply not a problem.
7. Union Membership Benefits the Economy
Solution: follow the German model of the Mitbestimmungsgesetz: where a firm has more than 2000 employees, half the supervisory board of directors are workers’ representatives.
8. Paid Maternity Leave Is the Norm in Most Developed Countries
Solution: see Item 7. Workers will solve this problem when they have some pushback in the boardroom.
9. Distrust of Oligarchy Is a Positive
Solution: none proposed. America loves its rags to riches stories too much to ever abandon the fantasy.
Been there, done that, and it made me an atheist. Reading the babble, with all its contradictions and capricious deity, is a leading cause of disbelief in deities. You don’t grasp that.
Been there, done that, and it made me an atheist.
– were it in my power, atheists would run the planet, thus keeping the religious zealots from each others’ throats. As for American Exceptionalism, the chief attribute of that exceptionalism is our No Religious Test doctrine. Jefferson – noted skeptic – said “But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Everyone is free to reach their own conclusions about the Bible. You’ll grant me my conclusions, I hope. For many atheists are starting to sound like the worst of the firebrand preachers, and I am a connoisseur of sermons. The atheists are relatively new to the world of belief, they will learn manners in time. I see no contradiction between belief in God and belief in science: where science speaks, there must religion be silent.
You mean everyone from Europe, right? Because I think people from Brazil, Russia or Indonesia have their own relationship with vast distances.
English is a global lingua franca because of British colonialism and American economical dominance, not because of any exceptional intrinsic quality on America’s part.
Well, yes, from UK, Europe, Japan, China and suchlike, the distances are staggering.
From what I’ve seen of Russia and Brazil, particularly the city of Manaus, far-flung cities take on an identity of their own. The same is true of Australia, strung out along the coast, with its back to the interior. Darwin is as different from Sydney, culturally, as can be imagined.
English has become the global lingua franca because of the 7-bit ASCII character set. It’s simply easier to write in English, using a modern communication device. Mei3guo2 yu3yan2. American economic dominance only means the USA remains a large marketplace and a destination for economic refugees – and that dominance is fading as China and India are rising to their proper places in the world.
Every nation considers itself somehow superior to all others, to some degree. I was that American boy, in the hoity-toity suburb of Paris, Neuilly-sur-Seine, called a “n*gger” for speaking African French. The only place I’ve ever found any solace with my French-speaking identity was in Lafayette, Louisiana, where they were once ashamed of speaking Acadien. I know old women who were beaten in school for speaking Acadien. I also know Spanish speaking parents who don’t want to put their kids into bilingual education, demanding their kids learn English. I have to patiently explain to them: this is how they’ll learn English. But they’ll also have to learn math and science, too. Don’t worry about English, they’ll learn it on the playground.
This is the America I know. I speak six languages. Barely anyone I know speaks just English. If a segment of America is xenophobic, thus were we always as a nation and a people. Nobody hates the current generation of immigrants more than the previous generation of immigrants – and that’s true everywhere. France, Germany – their immigrants never assimilate. In Japan, if you’re of Korean ancestry – you will never be allowed to assimilate. This isn’t an American problem, this is a human problem, species-wide.
1. Universal health care is good, although the way it’s set up matters. I’m actually a little worried about what might happen if we went French- or Canadian-style single-payer, because of existing laws like the Hyde Amendment and all those state level rules designed to harass abortion providers out of existence. Imagine if you had the one health care plan, and the anti-choicers managed to get a ban on it covering abortion.
7. Overall unions are good, although the combination of powerful public sector unions and favorable local city governments seems to produce a lot of bad news and budgetary problems (see Detroit, Chicago). Then there’s the prison guard and police unions . . .
blaiseep,
Oh, do elaborate, please.
Especially the last three sentences (bolded part), including boys’ education.
Sorry for the extra e in your name, blaisep
@unclefrogy #74:
I feel your pain with regard to a vaporized comment. I’ve learned to compose important, long comments outside my web browser, someplace like Notepad or Wordpad. Then, when it’s ready, I copy-and-paste it into the web form. It’s so easy to mistakenly delete a carefully-composed comment, or for a wonky webpage to simply devour it, never to be seen again.
I wanna hear the explanation of how it;s boys who are most hurt…
well, THATS a strange blockquote error.
I had a fair amount of exposure to edited highlights as a child. I tried to read the whole thing quite recently , but must admit I’ve so far been unable to finish it, because it’s so boring: so cramped in its viewpoint and morality, mostly so poor as literature, and so devoid of interesting ideas.
That’s not a solution. That’s a band-aid on a gaping wound.
Even if that could work for most people, it’s just the work aspect of people’s lives. People don’t just need to get around for work, they also need to buy food and other necessities, visit family, go to a library, do all the shit people do in their day to day lives besides working.
blaisep
Re: your comment 76:
1. Universal Healthcare Is Great for Free Enterprise and Great for Small Businesses
What a nice theory you have there. Sadly, it seems mostly to be unburdened by actual proof. Also, the USA already has a federal solution for a lot of things, please elaborate why it wouldn’t be possible in this case.
2. Comprehensive Sex Education Decreases Sexual Problems
Sex happens between two persons. Sex education should educate both of them to work. You want for some reason to place the entire burden on the girls.
3. American Exceptionalism Is Absolute Nonsense in 2015
You don’t seem to know what is meant by the term American exceptionalism as it is being used by the right wing these days. The rest of you comment on this is so tangical to the discussion it doesn’t even apply.
5. The Bible Was Not Written by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers
Yes, the bible contains some fine poetry. It also contains a lot a very badly written passages, long dull texts, texts which don’t seem to fit in with the rest of the book. You know, just what you would get if you take thousands of text written by thousands of people, and throw them all together, with hundreds of editors cutting things out, pasting stuff elsewhere, and then translating it a couple of times.
Not worth the effort to dig through the garbage to pick up one or two nicely written poems. And “unequalled in literature”? You haven’t actually read much literature have you?
Yes, you can find some text about we all should be nice to each other, you can find an equal amount of text which talk extermination fellow human beings. Just like all christians you are a cafeteria christian, picking and choosing from the bible what fits your viewpoint.
You also don’t seem to understand that quite a few atheists have read the bible,indeed quite a few have been christian ourselves.
6. Learning a Second or Third Language Is a Plus, Not a Character Flaw
Learning English is a prerequisite if you want to survive in the (international) business world nowadays, due to the US hegemony. In earlier ages it was French. In the future it will be something else. That’s all there is to it. And yet people learn other languages besides English, for various reasons. In the USA it still seems to be ‘suspect’ if you do that, and that seems very strange and smacks of anti-intellectualism. That’s what the article is talking about.
7. Union Membership Benefits the Economy
8. Paid Maternity Leave Is the Norm in Most Developed Countries
The German system does have it flaws. For example, in sectors where unions are powerful, employees have decent wages, good benefits etc. In other sectors, where unions don’t seem to get a foot in the door (sometimes deliberately, some companies split up in much smaller ‘independent’ parts just to stay under the limits) not much so. Some things, like maternity leave, should be handled by the government. It doesn’t make sense that as a woman you get maternity leave in one sector, but your neighbour working in another can’t take maternity leave. There is no logical reason why this should be the case.
9. Distrust of Oligarchy Is a Positive
Ever is an impossibly long time. It will change, but it will indeed be an extremely slow process.
I was listening to a conservative type radio show a few months back and the host was talking about how horrible universal health care was. One of the examples he gave was the surgery backlog in the UK. While the surgery backlog sucks, his argument was that a free market health care is better since it prevents a backlog by turning away those who can’t pay. So rather than triaging, just toss those who can’t pay under the bus. Brilliant. Of course conservatives don’t hate poor people!
Your believe that the religious have manners is laughable. Your perspective is warped. You may let science dictate, but the religious dismiss science and cling to their imaginary deities and mythical/fictional holy books, which they attempt to force unto others. Bad manners that is.
Nerd,
what is laughable is that blaisep thinks that atheist are a new thing.
Does he also think gay people didn’t exist before the 20th century?
What is also laughable is the story about Noah. I really like that one, because it’s the story that always ends up in all the cutesy children’s religious books, with cute little elephants and giraffes going into the Ark. And it’s also the story where God commits genocide upon all his creation. Pretty despicable, I would think.
So if it’s supposed to be taken literally – Jesus fuck, what’s wrong with people taking that literally and approving?”
If it’s supposed to be a metaphor – for what ? “If enough people go bad, God gets pissed off enough to kill everyone”?
If it’s supposed to be just some nice literature or whatever – why on earth would you dress it up in cutesy pictures and present it to little kids?! I mean, I liked reading Greek (somewhat age appropriate) mythology books, but you dress up genocide in pretty colors and pack it as “God’s word” to preschoolers.! What the fuck?!
… and that’s why Noah’s Ark is my favorite part of the Bible. :)
It shows the hypocrisy and/or obliviousness of the whole range of holidays-only to moderate to extremist Christians.
@66
Since I called that social/economic distinction an “incredibly simplistic two-axis measure” of political affiliation, I figured it would have been obvious to anyone who can think about this coherently that I wasn’t claiming, implicitly or otherwise, that “economics isn’t also a social issue.” But perhaps that’s challenging for you.
I pretty much just call myself a liberal now. Not because it’s the most accurate term, but because too many dipshits can’t seem to handle some fairly straightforward subtleties of other terms.
I don’t have anything to say on behalf of those other people – you may want to talk to them about how they choose to identify and why.
Then what’s your problem again? This is hard to reconcile with what you said before:
It almost seems like we shouldn’t talk about libertarians at all, nor should we talk about liberal/conservative axes or distinguish between social/economic issues, because it’s a simplistic and stupid label. (You presumably get to if you feel like it, perhaps while contradicting yourself, but not us.) But that’s exactly how people do in fact categorize and think about these things, as stupid as that is.
So what sort of nuanced and intelligent generalizations could somebody make about it, if there are any? What are you suggesting we do as an alternative? Do you have any idea in particular?
If we’re attempting to characterize them accurately, can you only use broad brushes that are simplistic and stupid because that’s just how those people in fact happen to be? If there is a more accurate way to talk about libertarians generally which isn’t informed by such misleading and stupid concepts which those people themselves use, I don’t see you saying (1) what that supposedly is or (2) how you could explain all of the evidence we have of many self-identifying libertarians disagreeing with exactly those points, just as PZ and many others have said.
If the problem is not that it’s inaccurate but that you feel insulted (about your apparently confused former self), then I don’t see how that’s a problem. That bullshit should be insulted, because it is bullshit, and you are an example of a person who presumably has found a way out of it. We’re still left with the problem of talking about actual libertarians as accurately as we can. Or maybe the idea is just that we shouldn’t really be too confident that we’re right for being opposed to what libertarians actually stand for (as that label is conventionally understood), but I don’t think that’s a problem either. Which kind of criticism is this supposed to be?
blaisep, #78
Chance would be a fine thing.
Mass transit (#4) is fully compatible with Libertarianism. Through hard work, any kid born into poverty can make enough money to buy the necessary land and build the infrastructure for a mass transit system.
@94
I couldn’t care less if you want to talk about libertarians/libertarianism, although of course people who talk about it stupidly – for example PZ above – shouldn’t be surprised to get called on it. I typically don’t identify as a “lefty libertarian” or some version of that any more because too many people talking to me about it had their “political IQ” drop about 50 points the second they heard the L-word, and it’s just easier to skip it.
Too many people have a really hard time grasping the concept that libertarianism is not monolithic – the way people think about economic/social philosophy and policy is complex and multi-dimensional, and self-described libertarians occupy a range of that multi-dimensional space just like self-described liberals and self-described conservatives do. People like to talk about the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, but a baffling number of people don’t seem to get that there’s also a libertarian wing of the Democratic Party, and those two groups are fairly different in many ways. (I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I’m guessing the fellow who runs FTB would fall into the latter category.)
Maybe by recognizing that there are also many self-identifying libertarians who don’t disagree with at least some of those points? Is that level of nuance really so hard?
I’ve been confused about many things in my life, but on this one I’m not the one who was confused – it’s fairly clear that you are.
zenlike at 89
1. It’s just a theory, based on Harsanyi’s theorem and what can be known about utilitarian strategies. That, and 15 years of writing AI for insurance industry. Argument from authority is not exactly fair, so I didn’t make my point very clear. Nonetheless, I have amply demonstrated my Round Trip Theorem in the real world.
Let us posit the following case: you, the fair and impartial Zenlike, shall be the administrator for a common fund. Say we have ten people in the life pool (and no, I shall not go into explanations of terms of art, you asked for proof) you’re holding the cash on our communal behalf, you can also invest that money. Insurance firms pay out more than they receive in premiums, all that money is making money, as it always does. But you’re useful, insofar as you pay our health care costs, you do go to considerable trouble our our behalf.
As group size grows, your utility grows – ao does your power. The law of Large Numbers comes into play: as more of us join in the pool, each member pays less – for more coverage. This trend is mathematically indisputable. Did a gig for Blue Cross / Blue Shield of North Carolina, they were trying to discontinue their State of North Carolina state employees coverage because the pool was large – then rounding on the thus-discontinued and charging them at least twice as much for one-off coverage. Another argument for unions: this bit of chicanery was detected and stopped.
Now let’s have a fresh batch of enrolments enter the pool, the size of our current pool. Ker-splash! But these are poor people. Poor people are sicker people: that, too, is a mathematically true statement. Truth is, to cover everyone wouldn’t really cost each individual enrollee that much more, but poor people are sicker: that’s demonstrable from the data.
Now we, the original ten, shall turn to the Fair and Impartial Zenlike for his oracular pronouncement: shall these new, poorer and therefore sicker enrollees pay more for their coverage?
Should the new enrollees were put into a pool of their own? Should everyone else just suck up and pay increased premiums to cover everyone? And how much coverage does anyone warrant? You have to explain this to everyone. And don’t try to summon up the mathematical argument, people don’t listen to that sort of explanation. And don’t be all high and mighty about it, you were delegated the authority.
Be a lot easier to explain it to ten people than a thousand.
May I tell a filthy joke here? It’s an insurance joke.
An old lady is on the board of directors of a hospital. She’s being given a tour of the wards. They open a door, to find a man masturbating. She’s quite disturbed, but is reassured by the doctors – this man has a prostate issue and this is part of his therapeutic regimen.
The tour continues, only to find another man in bed, being fellated by a nurse. At this, the old woman is beyond scandalised and demands an explanation. “Oh,” said the hospital administrator, “This man has the same prostate condition as the other fellow. The difference is, this man has a gold-plated insurance policy”
Summary: in smaller nations such as Denmark, where the population is relatively homogeneous, nobody minds socialism. Were mankind guided by reason, we should all be socialists, the details we’d work out among ourselves. But man is not guided by reason. He will not be guided by numbers and data – or the needs of his fellow man. Therefore, to attenuate this perversity, it’s always best to keep the group size small, not because it’s any more efficient to do it that way, but to avoid a mob of innumerates demanding Oracular Pronouncements from the Fair and Impartial Zenlike.
Nope, not from what I’ve seen. They call themselves liberal or progressive. Don’t believe your own propergander.
Anybody can call themselves anything. But, what is the common usage, and are you confusing the issue by using a non-standard definition. Some folks do that when they try to reclaim words and ideas. Civil libertarians should find another word to describe themselves, as the libertarian, is the RWA concept of economic liberties, returning the country to the post Civil War era.
A brief statement: I am not here to defend the Bible. To the contrary, I’m only here because I admire PZ Myers. I am not here to preach, I despise every semblance of proselytising. Conversely, I would appreciate a modicum of respect. I have been waging my own war against Intelligent Design from within the confines of faith. ID is pernicious nonsense. It is the latest manifestation of the War on Science which goes back many centuries. And that war has been fought for a long time.
The Bible was not written by or for billionaires. Anyone who has read the book knows that. Gratuitous kicks at religion are for puerile amateurs. I am now an old man, once I called myself an atheist, as you do now. My dog tags were stamped NO RELIGION when I entered the US Army, all those years ago. I have changed, as you will, too, mutatis mutandis. If I have come to believe in a God of Truth, that journey did not happen inside the walls of a church. And for what it’s worth, some of you ought to learn how to kick. I can teach you how it’s done, from inside the wall of faith. For I’ve been fighting Intelligent Design for a very, very long time.
Then you have no idea what you’re talking about. Good luck with that.
Whether you’re aware of it or not (and clearly you’re not…) the definition I’m using is perfectly standard. There are right-leaning libertarians, and there are also left-leaning libertarians. Most of the latter would be in complete agreement with many of the points in the OP. The fact that you don’t like how they choose to self-identify doesn’t change that fact.
As an European, free health care for all is something I (would like to) take for granted.
Again, here in Europe the simple notion that the US (or any other state) are inherently better than all others and that it can’t be criticized or questioned lest be labelled as unpatriotic is absolutely ludicrous (unless you’re fascist, in that case it makes perfectly sense).
Just to make a comparison, in my university we’re compelled to know at least two foreign languages plus latin….
@75 Magistramarla
It’s the very first time I’ve ever heard someone who was actually enthusiastic of our high-speed trains, somehow it feels weird.
@76 blaisep
Actually, at least in my field (mediaeval history/philology/palaeography) the true lingua franca is latin. Btw, lingua franca (lit. free/frankish language) is italian…..
blaisep @100
You misunderstand point #5: The Bible Was Not Written by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers. Here’s part of the point from the Raw Story link:
The Republican Party has two main factions, the “Religious Right” who use the Bible to justify their various hates; i.e., gays, women, blacks, etc., and the “Establishment” who actually don’t care about issues like same-sex marriage and abortion but are anti-tax and anti-government libertarians like Lee1 and other anti-social assholes. The Establishment are the rich and their sycophants, a group too small to be a viable group of voters. So the Establishment have cuddled up to the Religious Right, convincing them that taxation is as great an evil as abortion, thus getting the Religious Right to vote for the libertarian ticket that Lee1 is so fond of.
The point is not that the Bible is pro-rich but that Lee1’s BFFs pretend it is.
When I was young, I could work on just about any car. No longer. The newer cars from about the 90’s on require diagnostic tools that are very expensive, too expensive for home use. They are designed so the “shadetree mechanic” can’t work on them. Can you change your spark plugs? Can you find even find them? Off you go to the “friendly dealer” that will take care of you!
Income equality is making more “losers” everyday.
“Trickle down,
Trickle down,
It’s debts do drown.”
@101 Lee1
Please name a self-identified Libertarian Democrat in office. Should be easy if there’s a whole wing.
Fuck you, you intellectually dishonest pile of pig shit. You’re obviously among the group I mentioned earlier who becomes incapable of having an honest, intelligent conversation as soon as you hear the word “libertarian.” You must be so proud.
Jesus fuck, can you honestly not see how incoherent this is? Are you really this fucking useless when it comes to thinking about political philosophy and policy? Holy shit, you’re pathetic.
Oh, FFS – do you not know how Google works? Here’s a quick place to start, and it goes on a long ways from there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Freedom_Caucus
FYI, I have no more interest in proving anything to anyone about the range of political beliefs among self-described libertarians or those who could be described as libertarian-leaning. Anyone who wants to continue to be a dipshit on this because you can’t be bothered to do some basic education on your own, you have fun with that.
I feel like I wasted too much of my time doing that when I was still regularly using the phrase “lefty libertarian” to describe myself, which was why I stopped – it’s not worth the trouble. If ignorant dipshits like Al Dente want to keep being ignorant dipshits, that’s their call.
I do wish libertarian was demoted from epithet to an adjective. Makes intelligent discussion with soi-disant Libertarians ever so much easier.
Let a parabola in the first quadrant describe Statist versus Libertarian. At one zero, we’re given full-on Hobbesian anarchy, at the other, unadulterated tyranny — “Whatever is not forbidden is required.” Neither zero is acceptable to anyone. But at the zenith of this parabola, a happy, maximally-efficient compromise is reached: we are given sufficient freedom from government interference in our lives and sufficient societal order to go about our lives. Maintenance of the parabola is a balancing act: the folks who are yelling “There oughta be a law!” must be opposed by who say “The gods answer the prayers of the stupid, literally and immediately. Be careful what you make a law, for you may be its first victim.” That’s libertarian thinking.
This parabola exists for every conceivable issue. In presuming any one capital L Libertarian is always for less regulation on every issue is to stereotype that person into a mere Straw Man. That’s always stupid. The solution is obvious: treat the word libertarian as an adjective.
That’s a huge load of bullshit. Where to begin?
The intellectually bankrupt “I have an opinion, don’t give me your opinion about my opinion!” tactic. No surprize.
Lee1 @106
It’s not my fault that libertarians are sociopathic, selfish assholes. Just because you object to that description doesn’t make it any less true. Fuck you right back, you anti-social, narcissistic asswipe.
I have read the bible. You are full of shit. The babble is full of powerful figures everybody is supposed to bow down to. Not one mention of democracy. The poor is supposed to help each other, not the state helping the poor. Liberturdian utopia. Do as you are told by the elite is the message of the babble. Why are you lying to us?
The fact that you can’t adequately describe your beliefs with a simple word like civil or social makes you full of shit. Try again, after you understand I don’t believe a word you say, so you need to prove your case with outside evidence. Like the elected democrat at the national level of describes themselves libertarian. Otherwise, what you appear to have is your own idiosyncratic definition that nobody but you uses. Dismissed.
Well, Nerd, I’m not here to respond to that sort of talk. I’ve heard all that before and more ably stated. It’s like being nibbled to death by a duck. Move along, potty mouth. The grownups are trying to have a discussion. The atheist will find no better friend than me, having been one myself.
I’ve noticed that certain libertarians get all bent out of shape when normal people (i.e., non-libertarians) describe them as greedy, uncaring sociopathics. What the libertarians are ignoring is that this is the common perception of them. Why do normal people think of libertarian that way? Quite possibly it’s because many libertarians make no effort to hide their greed or hatred of normal people. The self-described libertarian Koch brothers don’t bother to disguise either their disdain for society (environmental laws shouldn’t apply to us) or their rapacious greed ($83 billion isn’t enough, we need more).
Now some libertarians like Lee1 don’t like being categorized as greedy, anti-social assholes but instead want to be accepted by normal people. They like to pretend that libertarianism has some slight redeeming features and so normal people shouldn’t despise them like we do. Unfortunately, these libertarians have only two choices: Either accept that the way normal people think of them has a great deal of validity and so the libertarians should just suck up the disdain or the libertarians should stop being libertarians.
At the beginning, naturally. I’m not here to defend the Bible. Slag away, it’s a collection of books from the Bronze Age working forward into the late Roman Era. It’s up to the reader to interpret it, as he sees fit. The point was this: any reader of the Bible would know it has plenty to say about the Rich, and none of it defends their selfishness and rapacity in the slightest. But that’s where we might begin, if you wish.
As for saying it’s bullshit, people, people – I have been a drill instructor in the US Army. Must I also teach you profanity? The calibre of rhetoric here is just weak sauce.
You aren’t an intellectual grown up. You can’t be wrong. You are here to preach. Been there, seen that. etc. You have nothing new to say. We’ve heard your shit hundreds of times.
In other words, it has parts that allow you to reinforce any biases you have to begin with. Makes it utterly and totally worthless as a moral document, and you know that. Drill instructor. Explains the intellectual arrogance.
blaisep
Quit whining about the language here.
If it’s too much for your delicate sensibilities, go away.
You have offered no reasons to read the bible that we have not already heard.
Again and again and again.
Talk about weak sauce.
I notice that blaisep didn’t bother to reply to my post @103 explaining why xe’s misinterpreting the “The Bible Was Not Written by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers” point.
@117, blaisep
You don’t seem to have any idea what topics I was meaning to begin on. But it’s difficult to tell.
Also, I wasn’t pretending to have a substantial response that you needed to respond to. Move along.
Ha! That’s so cute that you think you represent “normal people” – aren’t you entertaining. You really don’t have the slightest clue about the breadth of beliefs and positions held among self-described libertarians. Because once again, many libertarians (including me, to the extent that I still identify with that term) would be absolutely fine with many or most of the points in the OP. Read that last sentence as many times as you need to until it finally sinks in, and maybe you’ll eventually start to develop a clue. You’re clearly not great at reading comprehension, so you may want to have a dictionary with you.
In the mean time, it would be probably helpful for you as a person to develop some minimal sense of honesty.
Lee1
You’re not very good at this.
@chigau
Unnless I missed something, I think the only reason “read the bible” was given as an instruction was because it solves point number 5 in the OP, in which people don’t know what is actually in the bible. (Though point number 5 in the OP says the “authors” of the bible, and reading the bible isn’t as good as reading the history research in that area. But I don’t think point number 5 in the OP was meant to be read that literally)
You’re right, I’m not very good at dealing with intellectually dishonest assholes. I’m out. Good luck continuing to be full of shit, those of you here who are clearly full of shit.
Citation needed. Your word is dismissed.
That is you full of shit. With a liberturd attitude, that you know more than everybody else, and prove otherwise with every post….Typical of the arrogance and ignorance see with self described liberturds.
I am no Libertarian. I do entertain some libertarian notions on a few subjects. If the Common Perception of Libertarians leads others to conclude they are greedy and uncaring, that’s the Perceiver’s problem, not the Libertarian’s problem. Who, exactly, are these Normal People?
Is there such a thing as government overreach? Who stood up against the de-facto repeal of the Fourth Amendment in the form of the PATRIOT Act, as nasty a bit of Newspeak as was ever put in writing? That would be the Greedy and Uncaring Libertarians among us. Do not now say the Liberals did: they bent over like so many filthy catamites.
Some while back, in Eagan MN, I used to drink at a rather nice microbrew pub and fell in among some Tea Party and self-described Libertarian types. These poor bastards knew not what to believe. I had to print off a few copies of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and conduct some guerrilla PoliSci over two weeks. Self-described Liberals, of which I count myself one – should read that little treatise and reach their own conclusions about the meaning of Liberty in our times. Those Tea Partiers were converted to Liberal thinking with great promptitude – didn’t change their concerns, but it did give them a working vocabulary for how to enunciate them, without resorting to ignorant Jacobin diatribe.
I have come to believe the Tea Parties and the inchoate Libertarian movement in the USA is an allergic reaction to government overreach. The Tea Parties are angry – and led about by the nose by villainous rogues – but their emotions are based on well-founded insults to our rights in law. I do not agree with them. I believe in effective government as the solution to society’s problems – and believe the Free Market is a contradiction in terms, for markets must be well-regulated, both from within and without. Repealing a good law is usually more dangerous than enacting a bad one – that sort of thinking.
But to damn the Libertarians in toto – and the Tea Parties by extension – is to conflate them all into one pile of rubbish and treat their concerns as if they were not also Liberal concerns.
@120, Al Dente
To be honest I can’t tell what you’re trying to argue for or against in you post number 103.
brianpansky #124
Seriously?
Nerd, the minute I start to preach, there will be two moons in the sky. Sick of preaching in all its forms. It’s intellectually dishonest to the core, running around trying to convince others. We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others. That’s Blaise Pascal. Quite serious about this and there’s not a note of condescending in saying I believe atheists and freethinkers are the canaries in the coal mine of a free society: as goes it with them, as goes it with you – so goes it with the rest of us. A free society is a secular society. It cannot be any other way.
Chigau: Atama kakushite…
Lee1 @122
I’m being perfectly honest. I dislike, despise and detest you libertarians because of your self-proclaimed anti-social and selfish ideology. That you don’t see yourself as anti-social and selfish just means you’re self-delusional. That’s hardly my fault, is it asshole?
chigau #129
?
brianpansky @128
Perhaps I didn’t express myself clearly @103. blaisep @100 said:
Which I see as a misreading of point #5. I believe the correct interpretation is that the billionaires are exploiting the Bible to get the Religious Right to support the Republican Establishment’s anti-tax and anti-government agenda.
@130
Then why are you trying to convince people of things here?
Yep. That’s all that was implied. The Bible repeatedly condemns the Rich for their selfishness – but more specifically condemns all the self-justification for their crimes against the poor and defenceless.
I’m not. Simple as that. Someone puts up a list, I respond with some potential solutions. You can disagree with those conclusions. Nobody’s got a lock on the truth – I certainly don’t. I don’t learn anything from people who agree with me. What leads you to conclude I’m trying to convince anyone of anything?
Not that I saw. It just required obedience to AUTHORITY. Be it Yehweh, the Kings, the Judges, or anybody else in charge. Jesus was there to confirm the old testament, which meant religious Authority. You must not have read the babble for meaning, just what you wanted to see.
You repeat the same pointless drivel over and over. And won’t shut up.
blaisep #127
Did you just call the Liberals gay? As an insult? And you still don’t understand why you’re perceived as uncaring?
@blaisep
You are presenting arguments and assertions for various postions.
brianpansky #140
He could just be arguing in his spare time.
Liberturdian ideas of private charity don’t work. It’s very simple. In the bust/boom cycles of economics, private charity is needed most in the bust cycles. The rich either hang on to their money, or buy up competitors/expand in the bust part of the cycle. The amount for charity, which needs to increase dramatically, doesn’t happen from the rich. So there is positive feedback for the bust part of the cycle to keep spiraling downward. Government was needed to even things out, and spend during the bust cycle to provide negative feedback economically. This requires taxes. And liberturds don’t like to be told to pay their taxes. After all, they are so arrogant and ignorant, they know better than the collective intelligence of history, economics, and don’t give a real shit about the poor. They are empathy challenged.
And? Is there a doctrinal statement for Pharyngula? If so, where? I wouldn’t want to be branded a Heretic – on a diary entitled “I Dare You to Disagree with These 9 Points.” Consider yourselves dared.
No, I strongly suspect this isn’t a place where such Daring Disagreement will be much countenanced. It’s as Gandhi said of Christians “”I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
And thus, I will go on admiring PZ – and the rest of Pharyngula I will consider to be very unlike him. PZ can reason. The rest of you seem to be afflicted with a terminal case of confirmation bias.
if anyone can read the bible and interpret for themselves why bother at all when as can be clearly seen that idea has produced almost numberless variations many of which disagree violently with each other?
closer to truth and a moral guiding light not from the results of 2000 years? Is more time or a another new interpretation needed?
I confess to be at a lose to understand how every time someone brings up the term libertarian it is to state that they are or were libertarian but that everyone has the wrong idea of what libertarians are or believe. While none to date has ever spelled out in simple direct language without the use of buzz words or cliches what they “believe” let alone how what is understood commonly differs from their own definition.
My own definition would describe the patriots of the French Revolution better than a Reaganite.
From the posts here I would have to say that they are boring and self-serving to the max !
uncle frogy
@blaisep
And: that means you are trying to convince people of something. By definition.
No, that’s not it. You seem to have some obscure super secret definition of “trying to convince” that is somehow different from “presenting arguments and assertions for various postions”. And I have no idea what it could be.
Also, blaise p, you’re the one who said there was something wrong (“intellectually dishonest”) with trying to convince people of something (which was a really weird thing to say). Not me. So don’t cry that I’m branding you a heretic. Btw, we all dissagree with each other here sometimes, and few of us are silly enough to cry that this means we are being branded a heretic. gawwed.
Obama tried pretty soon in his first term. Congress was like “lolnope”.
I take your point about the timing, but I can’t see how the size of a country has anything to do with it. As far as I can tell, the trick is that in the US there is so little pay-out.
What do you mean?
No – the size of its suburbs.
NYC is no larger than London or Moscow.
Uh, it’s not like rush hour isn’t a thing outside the US…
That is truly hilarious.
The 7-bit ASCII character set was universal for a few decades because English is so important, not the other way around! I completely fail to see how this isn’t obvious. :-D
Just 50 years earlier, it’s the slightly larger French character set that was universal. The Albanian spelling system was designed at the beginning of the 20th century to be compatible with typewriters – that’s why there are ç and ë in it while all other non-ASCII graphemes in it are digraphs (dh, th, sh, xh, zh). To this day, the three accents of French are on the German keyboard layout even though they don’t occur in the German spelling system!
It was a mixture of Spanish and Italian. Like what foreign tourists in Italy tend to speak today. :-þ
Yes, I do believe preaching is dishonest. Telling people they’re all wrong – telling them about God Almighty the Eternal Policeman, looking over their shoulders and into their minds – scaring the rubes with tales of Hell and Damnation as if that will change their minds – let me tell you a thing or three about watching all that from the inside.
Lots of people come to Religion to be told what to think. They’re wounded bunnies, just looking for some hole to crawl into, someone to tell them they’re gonna make it. I don’t care what you call me, Brian. You’re not up to the challenge of responding to the points I’m making – as the people within the Flock of the Faithful are equally unable to cope with reasoned debate. It’s doctrinal with them – and obviously, it’s doctrinal with you. So yeah, I dared. And looky what I’m getting. A bunch of pitiful assbitery, which is awfully thin gruel, even you must admit.
Contradiction is not rebuttal. I’ll be watching, to see if anyone can come up with anything of substance. Maybe it will be you, Brian, who rises to the challenge thus offered. I am put in mind of Jove and the Frogs. Now you have a Darer among you, like the stork among those frogs. You have not yet earned my respect.
blaisep
ローマ字で書いた日本語は難しい…
「atama kakushite」はわかりません。
Though I suppose, blaisep, your worry about being branded a heretic has more to do with everyone telling you to go away, and similar things.
I’m late but, eh….
blaisep #80
I’m intrigued by this statement. Are you saying that people from Manaus don’t identify as Brazilians?
Well, in my neck of the woods, I can’t imagine anyone choosing to use English because it’s easier to type. There’s a lot of languages you could write as easily with ASCII, simply by dropping the diacritics. But English dominates because there’s economic, cultural and military power attached to it.
That doesn’t follow. It could be that something caused them to have a fairly veridical perception (since those don’t come from nowhere), like for example the libertarian actually being an asshole.
Obviously. And I didn’t even need to capitalize Random Words.
And when you distributed copies of Mill to your friends at the bar, you were doing real hard work. Not easy at all.
@147 David Marjanovic
I meant that the expression “lingua franca” is italian (and latin too, now that I think of it), not the whole language per se, a mix of whatever was spoken in the mediterranean: italian, french, catalan, dalmatic venetian, some greek and arab words, etc…
You tell me, I study in Pisa and I’m constantly “harassed” by tourists asking me where’s the tower even when it’s under their noses ;-)
Manaus is a surreal city. Amazonas is a strange part of the world. Here’s this island of urbanity in the middle of the jungle, wildlife comes right up to the doorstep. Yes, they identify as Brazilians, but culturally, Manaus is on its own. A klick out of town and you’re in the howling jungle.
Manaus is not alone in its isolation within Brazil. There’s Minas Gerais, Itamarandiba. As different from the rest of Brazil as chalk from cheese.
I have this theory about national identity: the Tinker Bell Clap. If you clap, boys and girls, you can save Tinker Bell. If they raise your flag and nobody claps, you’re not really a nation. National identity resolves to belief – but on the believer’s terms. But whose definition shall apply? That’s a problem for many nations. I think of Iraq and now Syria.
The A in ASCII is American. American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Firstest with the mostest, had Japan come up with a system and everyone had adopted it, hey, that’s how the Tinker Bell Clap works. Anyone can implement a protocol.
Well, now. Excuse me while I weep a bit at the cruelty of the world, etc. No, Brian, you need to quit supposing and step up and fire a few neurons. It’s not hard. I really had expected better things around here. As for the rest of you, scared monkeys, run up the trees and chittering in rage, flinging poop, hey, I’m just another primate. Nothing to be afraid of, particularly.
Well, Chigau, e no setsumei. I can’t be bothered to fire up kanji on this box, just now.
blaisep:
When you say “where science speaks, there must religion be silent” what is that supposed to entail practically speaking? For instance, what exactly do you think the cognitive sciences are in the business of doing? There are agents with brains (e.g., humans and other animals, and maybe some day AI). They exist in space and time, with some kind of a physical brain. That is all necessary for explaining their thoughts and actions, because that is in fact what we are and how we do what we do. Gods are not claimed to exist in this way at all, yet they are claimed to be like us (or it’s said we’re made in a god’s “image”) in the sense of wanting things or thinking things or experiencing things or having done (at least once) other such cognitive activities like that. That is what a theist thinks: that god is a “person” in some ludicrously broad sense of the word. (No idea what a “god of truth” means to you or whether this is relevant, but at least we can say I’ve actually tried to define my terms.) The point is that you could have criticized that (not seriously) as anthropomorphism way back when, but now it is also flatly contradicted by even a cursory inspection of the sciences relating to such mental concepts. That’s a much more serious criticism, which can’t simply be brushed aside.
Should religions be “silent” about this? And what precisely does that mean? Does it mean you continue to believe it but don’t admit it to anyone because it makes no sense? Or does it mean you are honestly going where the evidence leads about matters of fact like this, while ditching anything that isn’t well supported by it?
Abject stupidiy and JAQing off, yes you are engaging in primate behavior. Not good behavior, which would be clear and precise, “this is what I think, and this [link] is the evidence to back it up.” Your word alone is laughable.
blaisep #154
How so? You only mentioned geographic isolation. Is Brazilian Portuguese not spoken Manaus? Or maybe they don’t share an obsession with soccer and telenovelas? No rice and beans? What sets it apart culturally?
Never heard of that place before. Googling it, it looks just like any of a myriad of villages I’ve seen in Minas Gerais or even São Paulo.
I hope you realize how shallow that sounds. For what’s worth, people will weep and sing wrapped in a Brazilian flag. The more enthusiastic, the more likely to be an authoritarian eager to strip me of my rights because fatherland.
But only those with backing of political and economic power will be widespread adopted.
doki @ 159.
The farther from the coast one gets in Brazil, the more fluid the identity becomes. Manaus is different. For one, it’s more Protestant. Manaus has its own dialectical expressions – my apologies for inserting a link in Portuguese, but the “Amazones” dialect is distinct enough to warrant saying Manaus has its own identity, more so than – say – any distinction between American cities. Hard to explain.
You know Minas Gerais? That’s great. Don’t you think it has a distinct character to it?
Of course people will weep, wrapped in the Brazilian flag. And they’ll also sort each other out by accent in milliseconds, just like the UK. Brazil isn’t racist like the USA, they scoff at America for trying to sort people out into black and white. When Michael Jackson started in with all the surgeries and skin lightening, though, Brazilians I knew were deeply offended by it and he lost a lot of fans. Brazil is sorted out by class. Call me shallow, if it suits you. Everyone has his own concept of being Brazilian – or American – or French – but those definitions only overlap at Copa Mundial or the Olympics or some other flag-waving event. Beyond that, it’s up to everyone to clap their hands and pledge allegiance.
#160 blaisep
To be clear, I’m Brazilian.
“Amazonês” isn’t a word. You can ask the Brazilian Academy. It’s a marketable title for a compendium of regional expressions.
To be fair, I’ve never been to Manaus, I’m not sure how different it is from the rest of the country, but I haven’t been shown sufficient evidence that is as distinct as you argue.
Minas is a huge place. If Itamarandiba shares its character with the rest of the state, it’s hardly culturally isolated.
People in general can distinguish Northeastern and Southerner accents, but more precise guesses are often wrong.
Brazil was the last country in the continent to abolish slavery and one of the biggest slave traders. If anything, Brazilian society is more racist.
Copa do Mundo, you mean. Not that care much. Always hated soccer.
Clearly I have been entirely mistaken in my opinions on the subject of Brazil. My apologies.
michael @39:
I see this so often with self-identified libertarians- “this isn’t what all libertarians think” or “I’m not *that* kind of libertarian” and it’s so frustrating. What exactly are the mainstream libertarian views?
@blaisep
It’s all right.
I hope I didn’t come across as too brash. I don’t consider myself an end-all authority on the subject of Brazil (atypical as I am among my fellow countrymen!), and I know many Brazilians who would vehemently disagree with many things I’ve said. Still, that’s what I can tell you, to the best of my knowledge, which I’m willing to change if I see evidence I’m wrong.
And sorry everyone for the derail.
consciousness_razor @ 157
Damn. A proper answer to all that would require writing the Gospel According to TL;DR. Let me try to be brief, knowing I’ll just get my ass gnawed off for any shortcut I’m likely to take.
What can religion say to trump science when it speaks? I presume – no, I know – an atheist would attack a pseudo-science as eugenics, when it makes “Scientific Claims” using shoddy excuses under the rubric of Darwinism. There was a day when religions routinely treated other tribes as subhuman. Mitochondrial DNA now demonstrates we all derived from a single mother. Eugenics is crap science. Therefore, when science speaks, religion must be silent.
CogSci is a vast field. I write AI solutions for a living. Most of them conform to one of two models, though some overlap. There’s rules-based AI, I use FICO Blaze for a lot of that. Then there’s neural net AI, most of which I roll myself. Most AI solutions implement policy decisions, helping underwriters, that’s mostly what I do. Fairly boring stuff, really. AI is buried so deep in hype, not much there, yet. Presume most intelligent people have read Nagel’s Bat, but this might give you some insight into what I think.
Philosophically, I’m a consequentialist arising from WVO Quine and his school. Which doesn’t completely define me but it’s pretty close.
Ecch, I know, most religious people are trying to shove God into their box, please don’t burden me with all that crap about God’s existence according to all these paradigms of Imago Dei and the Bearded Guy on the Cloud who’s gonna send you to Hell. Doesn’t work that way for me. If that’s all there was to what I believe, I’d revert to atheism in a heartbeat. Fact is, the farther along I get in my spiritual journey, if that’s what it is – the less comfortable I am talking to religious people about this. Hence part of my turning up here on Pharyngula.
If there’s a God of Truth, damn, here I go, likely to steer too close to preaching only to have my ass nibbled off by the myrmidons – what is Truth? What if people of faith were willing to take the paradigm of a God of Truth seriously? Aletheia, the truth conformal to reality, a truth which extrapolates from what may be understood into the realm of ethics, the truth which would compel you as an atheist to oppose eugenics – independent of what the Bible says – the truth is this: we arise from a common ancestor. The evolutionary process is demonstrably true. The universe did not require God to invoke some miraculous process to set it all in motion. God doesn’t hide in the gaps of what science hasn’t yet proven. That’s all for Bronze Age people. I live in the present. The miracle, if miracle there is – is made manifest in the sheer improbability of my existence.
Kinda mystical, I don’t expect anyone to think as I do. Sorry.
blaisep @100:
For all that you’d appreciate that, you aren’t owed respect, and coming here spouting libertarian bullshit isn’t likely to be helpful in that regard. In case you’re new here, a great many of the commenters on this blog are disdainful of libertarianism and it’s “I’ve got mine. Fuck you” mentality.
All explained by evolution without any need to invoke mysticism, imaginary deities, or “spirtualism”, whatever the fuck that indefinable word means.
Lookichoo, aren’t we just earning much cred tonite? If ever there was an ass biting myrmidon, full of contempt for what others might believe, utterly convinced of your own correctness, you are that very myrmidon. I do not labour under such a burden, thank goodness.
blaisep @115:
This is a rude blog. Insults are welcome (slurs of any form, however, are unacceptable). You may want to adjust your sensitivity meters if you get bent out of shape over colorful language.
In other words focus on the substance of a comment, rather than the fucking tone.
I hope you’re able to discern the substance of the above comment despite my use of a “profane” word.
@127:
We’ve had many libertarians comment here over the years. More than a few of them have whined about mandatory taxation in USAmerica, and wish to see it abolished. When others explain that one of the many things taxes pay for is the social safety net, these libertarians respond with “charities will fill the void”. Except private giving/donations/charity cannot fully replace government aid. These libertarians believe something that is not true. Moreover, because charity cannot meet the needs of low-income people, if the US eliminated government assistance programs, that would mean a fuckton (oopsie, harsh naughty no no word) of people would suffer. Women. Children. Men. People with disabilities. Senior citizens. But those libertarians aren’t concerned with that (or they’ve not thought through the implications of their political ideology and the real world impact it would have). That’s one of the reasons I (and others) consider libertarianism to be a philosophy largely built around selfishness.
In other words “I’ve got mine. Fuck you.”
Or greedy and uncaring. YMMV.
Well, Tony, if I were a Libertarian, which I’m not, I might take your complaint seriously. But it’s as you say, cred is earned. Mine is, anyway. Spent some long while trying to figure out what self-described Libertarians believe. They’re generally the worst sort of intellectual squishes: try to pin them down on any one detail and it’s like nailing Jello to the wall. That’s why I use libertarian as an adjective to describe the needed pushback required to preserve us from the tender mercies of the PATRIOT Act and suchlike. That, by my lights, is a Liberal instinct.
blaisep @165:
I really don’t care what flavor of deity you believe in. I want to know if you have evidence to support your belief and if so, what is it?
Atheists have been waiting for evidence to support a belief in the existence of a god–any god–for a very long time. None has come thus far.
If there is no evidence to support the assertion that a deity exists, one should not believe that a deity exists.
Just like there is no evidence that Decepticons, unicorns, dragons, demons, fairies, or elves exist, so it is illogical and nonsensical to believe in them. God-any god-is in the same category.
Not really. Nagel is incredulous, and that’s not enlightening.
It would help if you said more or less how it does work for you, straightforwardly and without unnecessary digressions or euphemisms or other sorts of evasive throat clearing. Is the god you believe exists supposedly a being with a mind or one which is a mind? Yes or no? That is the relevant question you should start addressing before you get to any of this other crap, which has nothing whatsoever to do with it. (Seriously: Consequentialism? Eugenics? The Bible? Evolution? WTF?)
In other words, is this god something which intentionally created the universe or any part of it, and which isn’t a natural/physical entity of some sort? (Not an alien or a Matrix programmer, let’s say, or some kind of quasi-physical thing in another sort of universe than ours.) Even if it’s not all that powerful or creative, is it a supernatural entity which wanted anything at all (in the universe) to be this way or that, and by force of its will it made those things happen?
That is of course stuff that people do, who have brains, within spacetime, consisting of matter, using energy, and so on. That’s not a coherent description of something which has no such properties. But believers think it is a description of a god because they aren’t thinking physically about what they are themselves, so they’re satisfied with absurdities like that or don’t even give them a second thought.
And the thing is, I’m really not burdening you with anything here. You said you believe in a god, and that’s what people think that means. If you mean something else, use other words like “unicorn” or “something that makes me feel so much more Sophistimicated And Deep™ than those atheists over there, but yeah I’m an atheist.”
If it is an intelligent entity, which someone could conceivably talk to or worship, or if it allegedly acts in ways (maybe mysterious ways you won’t even bother to think about) on the basis of having thought about what it would do or what it wants to happen, then it makes sense to say you believe in a thing which people call a “god.” Otherwise, you’re bullshitting us.
But you’re not being at all scientific. That’s for damn sure. So that’s bullshit either way.
Improbable things are magic? That’s seriously how you would stay consistent with science? I mean, fuck, how are you even consistent with poker or the lottery?
As for this being a Rude Blog, folks, at least exhibit a bit more eloquence and refinement in your use of profanity. It’s a spice, not an entree. Gibbering and ranting is always a sorry spectacle. Shows a lack of self-respect, to constantly resort to the adjective Fucking for everything. That’s for sixth graders. It’s an abuse of the English language, to not use a wider range of epithet and invective. Trust me, if I stick around here long enough, if enough of you exhibit enough spinal calcium to continue to pique my interest, I’ll show you how it’s done. Take it from the old Drill Instructor. R Lee Ermey has nothing on me.
consciousness_razor @ 172.
I said I’m not going to preach. That’s final. Don’t ask again.
OK. Describing, as well as answering simple yes/no questions, is now preaching.
So you have nothing. I do try to keep an open mind, in case any of you goddists ever do inadvertently come up with a useful idea. Hasn’t happened yet.
And your description shows a lack of respect for us. Until you show us respect by not tone trolling, I won’t show you any respect. That is how the world works. Don’t like it? Go elsewhere with your blather.
boring troll is boring
consciousnessrazor @ 175. Yes, I’m afraid that’s the way it must be, My own spiritual journey is an intensely private thing. If I call myself a Christian, in the course of laying out a solution to the issue of Biblical Billionaires, that’s my prerogative. I really must insist, this is where the line must be drawn. This particular Goddist is not about to flop his pecker on the picnic table so you can take your insolent little hammer to it. You have already exhibited no respect for me or my positions.
As for you, Nerd, that’s absolutely true. My respect is earned. And you ain’t earned it. J’y reste ici.
I believe in space unicorns.
No, I won’t explain why I believe in space unicorns.
SHADDUP about my space unicorns.
My journey with space unicorns was intensely personal to me. But I have already said too much. They may or may not have been unicorns in space. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to convince oneself of the same, but in the mean time, while you fools are growing into the glorious man I have become, you should be warned that the space unicorns may or may not frown upon those who do not respect my position on this.
Jove and the Frog, folks. Lo, this is what happens when Disagreeing Darers are summoned up from the vasty deep. Those who would summon up such devils ought to be able to respond intelligently to them, especially when they’re pontificating, however rhetorically, about the authorship of someone else’s scriptures. What do I get? Grade school truculence and questions about the Nature o’ God, as if any one of you were serious about wanting an answer. You don’t believe, I don’t ask you to believe. But the Bible was not authored by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers. That much we can say for certain. On that we all agree.
In other words, you’ve have nothing save the mistaken belief that your personal navel-gazings and mental masturbation have any bearing on the reality that we all dwell in. In case you haven’t noticed, that doesn’t cut it here.
I assure you, the feeling is mutual. Believing is magical cosmic tyrants is bad enough, tone trolling and condescending lectures about “language” only makes you all the more loathsome.
Well, razor, don’t put words in anyone’s mouth, other than your own. That’s even more dishonest than preaching, if that’s possible. Maybe not, though. I can never tell. Hard to get an honest answer, much less an honest question, out of you. One thing’s for sure, I haven’t called anyone a fool for believing what they do, though I have seen a good deal of foolishness along this thread, you know, in the real world, the one I insist must be the basis for what anyone believes. Maybe it’s an issue of reading comprehension. Maybe it’s a question of Mind over Matter. Because I don’t mind. And you don’t matter.
Actually, I insist on the reality we jointly share being the basis for any discussion of ethics or spirituality. Really, who’s asking for respect? Loathsome is just a matter of opinion, anyway. Takes all types, I say. Even you.
Hark! ’tis a message from On High ! What’s this? I have it on personal authority from the FGM that he’s got a special place in Pasta Heaven, just for you. Nah. Just kiddin’. That’s me. Big kidder. He don’t love you, that FGM is a big kidder, too. Wouldn’t trust him. Nobody should.
@blaisep
Heads up, you showed up to an area full of atheists. Atheists who are likely to be fond of PZ’s writing on the topic of god. And you said you believe there is a god.
What this means is that you just blurted out that you believe there is intelligence of non-terrestrial origin with some contact to the human race. Probably with telepathic connections to you personally.
In this place, you might as well have said you believe in alien abductions.
So heads up, when you do that, preople will….either awkwardly pretend you didn’t say that, or else have some things to say to you.
Based on the way you’ve handled questions about this matter, I have to wonder if you realized all that. Or if you thought you’re still in a room full of people who aren’t alarmed by that sort of thing.
Anyways, you’ve made it clear you don’t want to talk about it, and clear that you think no one really wants the truth anyways. So, I guess that’s the end of that.
Wull, Brian, what does it matter if there is or isn’t a God? Have I made any special loophole for what God might be? Stop with the Extraterrestrial Intelligence business, what’s wrong with my definition of God as Truth? Even if it’s just an asymptotic function I use, one which never reaches the limit – I already know the function won’t reach the limit. It’s like these discussions people have about more efficient motors, physics problems, there’s always some sophos-moros dumbass in the discussion, trying to sound intelligent, who says “there’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine” Well yes, that’s true. And it’s also irrelevant.
Don’t you – or anyone else – presume to know what I’ve concluded about God. I’m not so sure myself. One thing I’m sure of, my old atheist reasoning got too brittle and stale to support where I’m headed, spiritually. It’s filtered through the paradigm of Christianity – so be it. But I’m getting all sorts of guff from believers, too, about how my vision of God, all this stuff about how any belief must be conformal to truth – is nonsense, too. Maybe it is. Maybe I’m just going crazy. That’s a distinct possibility, too.
But Brian, I’ve heard all these tropes about atheism before. From the age of 14 to the age of 57, I used to spout them, too. You’re not telling me anything new. This ain’t Flying Gnocchi Monster shit, okay? Religious people annoy the hell out of me, them and their pat dogma and no respect for science and calling people ugly names coz they don’t believe in the Flying Gnocchi monster. Last thing I need from this crowd is more of same. Coz it’s just plain boring. Not only have I heard it, I’ve said it all myself. Now either cut me some slack or don’t. But don’t pretend you’re wondering about what why I won’t answer questions. I’ve made all that clear. It’s preaching. And it’s – how do you so quaintly put it ? – bullshit.
David Marjanović 14
The latter.
Lee1 18
Well, you’d be wrong; strong unions result in a stronger economy. It’s not a matter of opinion, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with your personal experiences. You go on to whine about the SEIU (You didn’t specify, but that’s the most common one for university faculty) not doing anything for you, ignoring that a) there’s been a concerted effort to fuck over higher education funding for decades ,and there’s a limit to what they can do about it (especially since they’re a trade union; this is why I’m a Wobbly, but that’s another story), and b) you’ve got it backwards; the non-union universities in the same system are riding your union’s coattails, and benefitting therefrom; that’s one of the ways unions benefit the economy, see above.
stevenjohnson2
You seem to misunderstand a good deal yourself.
That’s the issue, yes. The article is pointing out that it should be.
What rationing of benefits? What increased taxes? That’s a right-wing bogeyman; we could easily provide universal single-payer healthcare on the Scandinavian model with no increase in taxes (mind, a lot of taxes need to be increased anyway, but that’s another point). We could just shave some off the military budget. Further, even if taxes were raised, the increase would be less than the savings from not paying into a private health plan. As far as ‘rationing’ goes, there’s no universal plan that would do more rationing than the private health insurance industry does at present.
Irrelevant. Universal health coverage would not only allow more people to become self-employed, it would more generally allow greater freedom of movement for workers, many of whom are now tied to subpar jobs due to the need for insurance for self, spouse, and/or children. It would also remove another excuse for not raising wages.
Religious values have no place in polict. Furthermore, the religious insist that, e.g., they oppose abortions. The most effective way to reduce abortions is, guess what, sex ed.
Yes. And that’s ridiculous. Which is the article’s point.
And, once again, this is a misconception; that’s not how tax revenue works, nor infrastructure. The fact that people insist on looking at it that way is a problem, which the article was pointing out. You’re not very good at this, are you?
You think there were no ultra-rich people in the 18th century? You really need to read some history.
No, it’s an accurate description of the condition of the country. Leaving aside politics, which I’ll address below, the simple fact is that 1% of the population controls 40% of the nation’s wealth and 20% controls 93% of it. That’s not just money, that’s ownership of buildings, both residential (think of how many Americans rent; who are they paying that rent to?), industrial (do you know any factory owners?), that’s ownership of media (who makes those editorial decisions about what gets broadcast and what’s left on the cutting room floor or never filmed in the first place?), the businesses themselves (do you have any say in how your employer runs things?), etc ad nauseum.
Technically you’re right. Millionaires control policy, but from the perspective of the average working stiff, the difference is pretty minimal, even ignoring e.g. the ‘model legislation’ written by outfits like ALEC, which is principally drafted by, or at least the drafting is funded by, billionaires and corporate entities.
Odds are pretty good they employ you, and they can (and will) fire your ass and move their headquarters if local legislators don’t kiss their asses hard enough.
PNAC and the Republican party would like to disagree with you.
You mean the endless rounds of union-busting, gerrymandering, attacks on public education and infrastructure generally that have characterized American politics since the Reagan era is all in my head? Good to know.
Except the Bilderberg club, which is exactly that. Just saying.
Yup. Marxist analysis is very big in the social sciences.
Which clearly you’ve never studied, if you beleive there are no Marxists with tenure in the States. I can’t imagine where you got such a damnfool notion.
blaisep, I’ll get to your nonsense later, this is already a long enough post.
blaisep
Wow. You are such a liar.
really
wow
Format :
Assertion – Stock right-wing response.
1. Universal Healthcare Is Great for Free Enterprise and Great for Small Businesses
The collectivist/socialist dynamic of any such plan contradicts the core rugged individualist myths of the nation. Yes, it would probably be good for business but we show dedication to the myth by sacrificing our prosperity to it.
2. Comprehensive Sex Education Decreases Sexual Problems
This violates another core myth, salvation and prosperity come from moral purity, strong character, and rigid loyalty to those standards. Reliance upon science, reason, intelligent choices and harm reduction are all forms of weakness.
3. American Exceptionalism Is Absolute Nonsense in 2015
As teh nation is dependent upon the core concept of rugged individualism guided by moral rigidity and certainty so to the nation is one of rugged individualism and moral certainty in all we do. We are right not because we do right. All we do is right because we are right.
4. Adequate Mass Transit Is a Huge Convenience
Mass transit is collectivism. If people want to get from place to place they can buy a car, or walk. Monthly payments and walking build moral fiber and character.
5. The Bible Was Not Written by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers
Nonsense. God shows his agreement with people by showering them in riches. Likewise, God shows his displeasure by keeping them poor.
6. Learning a Second or Third Language Is a Plus, Not a Character Flaw
We are the richest and most powerful nation on earth. We are exceptional in every way and all other nations would do well to bend to our will, renounce their guttural languages and learn english. Learning other languages is compromising with weakness.
7. Union Membership Benefits the Economy
Business is the economy. Unions just raise prices, and they do so by collectivizing labor. If a man wishes to prosper let him become a capitalists.
8. Paid Maternity Leave Is the Norm in Most Developed Countries
We are the exceptional nation, we have no need to look to other nations. We know what is right. America is right.
9. Distrust of Oligarchy Is a Positive
God has designated his chosen people by making them rich. The nation should be run by those who own it. Democracy has to be limited to minor and insignificant issues. Money and power have to be controlled by people used to handling money and power. Our founding fathers, peace be upon them, understood the need for the unwashed masses to be guided by the property owners. They kept democracy subservient to the constitution and. even then, it is only a representative democracy kept under the watchful eyes of their betters.
And yes, several competing oligarchies, one significantly richer than the others, do control the country and decide elections by controlling the media and funding of campaigns:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/money-pretty-good-predictor-will-win-elections/
yes boring and pompous to boot! see 173 & 178
uncle frogy
blaisep
You do realise that surveys conducted on republican voters show time and time again that self described tea partiers are amongst the most theocratic parts of even the republican party? We are talking about blanket bans on abortion and euthanasia, forced school prayer, restricting free speech, banning same-sex marriage, etc?
The tea party is not against government overreach. Only when it comes to taxes. For the rest most of them want enormous government overreach meddling in every person’s daily live.
It’s stuff like this why it is so difficult to take you seriously. You have constructed a narrative in your head which doesn’t correspond to reality.
Also, you brought in your belief in god, you started waxing poetically about the bible. People react to that. Deal with it, instead of whining that people react to things you yourself have publicly stated.
I doubt that the latter would nowadays descibe themselves as “libertarians” without adding a qualifying term, e.g. “libertarian socialist”. When people here, and I’d say most in the USA and American-influenced countries, hear “libertarians”, they will think of the likes of Ron Paul, possibly the likes of Rothbard, but not the likes of Chomsky – who I am sure would utterly repudiate the idea that he has anything in common with either Paul or Rothbard politically.
Lee1@56
Beinng an economic conservative is a right-wing position, so you were either confused yourself, or trying to confuse others, in calling yourself a “lefty-libertarian”. And spare us the bullshit about “a true free market”. There never has been, and never could be, any such thing. There have to be rules about what can be sold, what constitutes a contract, what happens if one party is unable or unwilling to fulfil a contract, what if anything is done about monopolies or cartels… These rules of necessity are the subject of political conflict, and the result of that conflict of necessity favours some over others.
I didn’t say that, and nor, if you read carefully, did PZ. He said he could imagine “Republicans and Libertarians” angrily disagreeing with them, which does not say that all such people would do so. In practice, most self-described libertarians prioritise economic deregulation and tax cuts (often whining about taxation being theft) over everything else, and show zero concern about oppression by any agent other than the government.
Oh, I think you do. And for all your claimed respect for PZ, and “no preaching”, and “I’m not trying to convince” and “Don’t you – or anyone else – presume to know what I’ve concluded about God”, you started off rabbiting on about God and the Bible (your #76 includes three paragraphs on the latter, mostly irrelevant to the point you were supposedly addressing) , and you’ve scarcely stopped since. Without saying anything of much interest, or anything we haven’t heard before – you’ve even trotted out the hackneyed “I used to be an atheist… I used to say the things you say…” stuff. Well maybe you did, and maybe you didn’t, but I don’t think anyone’s much interested.
So this thread went from #NotAllLibertarians to an amateur Sophisticated Theologian trying to say as little as possible in as many words as possible, while also tone trolling, and pretending that they are spewing forth their fanciful word salad, not to convince us of anything (Heaven forbid!), but as part of some vague game conjured up in their own imagination. A very weird journey.
Also, at 168: Two things of note:
A pompous and indignant response to the question of spirituality’s definition
A lack of a definition.
When it comes to debates regarding religious topics, the two hardest words to pin down are God and spirituality. And I swear, the latter is even harder to pin down than the former. Such a fuzzy, feel-good concept. A greedy, massive, unstable concept that steals so much good from so many diverse aspects of life and then shoves in some of the problematic ideas and attitudes related to religion into the pile. The end result is that religious thought can continue to take credit for so much, and the weaknesses of religious thought are defended because they unjustifiably use things like “wonder” and “contemplation” and “gentleness” as their shield.
blaisep, #186
I’m not. Please tell me.
Typical non-response from a proselytizer/woomeister. Typical of tone trolls, not paying attention to what is said, but how it is said, which is irrelevant to the idea behind it. Until you define spiritualism sufficiently so we can falsify/laugh at your definition (always happens), you shouldn’t even mention such woo. We are skeptics, and you play our game here, not yours.
By the way, provide third party evidence to back all your claims. You are a proven liar and bullshitter, and your word is not to be taken as anything other than lies. That is what happens when you evade simple and direct questions. You show your hand.
blaisep
If you keep this up you’ll go blind.
___________________
Dalillama #187
I beg to differ. The Greek economic meltdown was a result of a conspiracy between its single corrupt union and the Greek capitalists (with politicians being the go-betweens). However, I’m more familiar with the Israeli Histadrut union and all the things it has done to the Israeli economy.
Histadrut unionizes government, and (almost) nobody but government, employees. However, it doesn’t cover all government employee. Only the strongest are protected; if you clean toilets in the Supreme Court you’ll be employed through an employment agency and will not be accepted into the Histodrut, will not earn even a minimal wage (it’s illegal, but large employers and the government in particular are above the law) and will have no social protections what so ever. Furthermore, Histadrut does all it can to undermine the formation of any competing union, thus ensuring that every year less and less people are protected. If that wasn’t enough it’s also corrupt and incompetent, having blundered its pension fund it received a bailout of taxpayer money, meaning that the same people that Histadrut refuses to protect also have to pay for its mismanagement.
But wait, there is more! Histadrut undermined Israel’s already shaky democracy by blackmailing, and eventually forcing the resignation of, the minister of interior affairs. It cultivates a growing gigantic debt of (only) electricity company. It opposes any attempts to modernize Israeli electricity production or make it less polluting, instead it forces the construction of more coal factories. It intervenes in Israel’s foreign affairs when they relate to energy of finances. And to top it off it shuts down the entire country (literally – you can’t take money out of a bank, you can’t use public transport – nothing) every several years, ensuring that the younger generation has an abyssal hatred towards the very idea of unions.
This doesn’t mean that unions aren’t good for the economy, but they’re good on average. Any single union can still be a net negative, just like any other organization.
zenlike:
Precisely. The idea that the teabaggers were just angry libertarians who simply really hated taxes was always a paper thin lie.
Short term history lesson for the chronically willfully ignorant: The Teabagging protests suddenly popped into existence one month after Obama enterred office . One. Fucking. Month. They said they were just about taxes, about the stimulus being proposed, and maybe a little about the bank bailouts (which had already started under Bush, half a year or more before then). But then you watched the protests and started noticing a pattern: These people were reeeeeeally opposed to Obama.
And as time went on, the pretense of being a distinct libertarian movement was lost completely. The Tea Party wasn’t a distinct party, wasn’t a libertarian branch of the Republican party, it was a far-right branch of the Republican party. They are highly religious, they hate Obama pretty damn hard and trade in Birther and Secret Muslim memes, and are pretty much a bunch of racists.
I simply cannot believe that someone still buys into the “Actually, it’s about ethics in government scope” meme. Someone who still thinks that these people are just about tax rate and frugal spending have been paying absolutely no fucking attention, or have an agenda and are trying to gaslight on the Tea Party’s behalf.
blaisep @186 wrote:
blaisep, am I correct to understand from that, that your God is just your personal personification of the abstract concept of Truth? That your definition of God is completely different than, the common image of God: being an actual entity with physical & mystical powers, while your use of the word is just a label you slapped onto the concept of ‘Truth’ (where Truth, with that capital letter, is much more than just the opposite of ‘false’)?
I ask, because that is similar to my concept of God. That God is just a personification of abstract concepts lumped together, for convenience. My version of God is not some magic being with consequential powers, just a metaphorical allusion for events that I don’t immediately see the causality.
1) Conservatism is about racism, sexism, and classism. Those are the core issues of conservatism.
2) Libertarianism is not separate from conservatism. It’s a flavor of conservatism that is more into the sexism and classism and less into the racism. So it looks a little different, since mainstream conservatism is 80% racism, but it’s just a different flavor of the same toxic stew.
3) I can’t believe we still have to pretend (1) or (2) is not true.
Michael Kimmitt: I would debate number 1 and 2. Conservatism is also fairly ableist, homophobic, and spiteful towards non-Christians, which are all important elements too. It is pretty evenly balanced when it comes to various forms of bigotry. And libertarians really don’t deviate in types of bigotry except that they tend to have less intense bigotries, and tend to be less religious (but still often will privilege Christianity and stigmatize faiths that seem more foreign to them).
(Also, this mostly applicable to American politics)
blaisep,
You don’t want to preach? Fine. Let’s not talk about religion at all.
I tried to engage you regarding some other propositions you made, but you skipped those topics in favour of not preaching.
Links to specific comments:
topic: sex education
topic: mass transit
@186, blaisep
Thanks for a bit of data there.
@195, Saad
It’s already been made clear that blaisep doesn’t want to go into that. Don’t sealion.
brianpansky, #203
Fuck.
brianpansky, #203
Bullshit.
Xe’s taking part in a conversation about God, has mentioned being atheist and then arriving at some truth about God in his older age, has talked about a “God of Truth”. Asking xir to define what xe is talking about is not sealioning.
And the “please” in my “Please tell me” is very much sarcastic and mocking, not politeness.
So why do they spend so much time talking about it? Mentioning their Christinaity, former atheism, enormous superiority to both atheists and other religious believers – none of that was necessary to the simple point that the Bible doesn’t read as if it was written by billionaire hedge-fund managers, which is the burden of point 5 in the OP anyway. Anyone who follows the link – which PZ urged readers to do – will find the following:
Beatrice, I bestow upon you VIME: Visibility In Men’s Eyes.
Funny how often the comments ignored come from people with women-identified names. I wonder if there’s a name for that -ism, maybe something like sex-?
Saad #205
I see a teapot in that text… :)
________________________________
General:
Also, people here seem to have good faith-detectors. I have alluded to Good and nobody asked clarification… :)
I’m not sure what you mean, Okidemia. Do you mean the word “his”? I messed up there, sorry.
Saad #209
Yep, I tried to conflate ‘typo’ and the ‘teapot’ argument. That works best in frenglish, but I still couldn’t help. But, well, yeah, that’s more like rotten oignon layers, they don’t fit well…
If there is one thing that the Obama Presidency and Ferguson, MO has taught me, it is that conservatism is first and foremost — and second, and third — about racism. It is also about classism, sexism (which if you think about it requires anti-LGBTQ), and all the other isms. But racism. That’s what conservatism is at its core. It’s the belief that the wrong side won the Civil War.
There are conservative Democrats. Some of them might call themselves libertarian; why not? It’s another word for “conservative”. It’s a big country.
Michael Kimmit: I don’t disagree that the racism of the conservatives is blatant and powerful. But it is possible to say that without also dismissing the other ways in which they hurt other groups. Saying that they racist far more than they are sexist or homophobic or classist or ableist or transphobic essentially is trying to decide a game of Oppression Olympics. I would really prefer we stay away from those games altogether. And, if for some reason we really do need to determine the relative intensity of the myriad bigotries of the right, I would also prefer if someone actually from the relevant groups were making the assessment of the level of the relevant bigotry. Though I sympathize with the view that they are more racist than anything, I also urge caution in assuming that to be true, because that could just be the blindness of privilege at work: Sometimes the other bigotries are less visible and yet no less blatant.