big_dave wrote:

Skronk wrote:I don't put blame specific individuals because I don't know who they are. I can point you towards a few of them, though. Bad genetic material? I don't think that's it either. The drive for power and control is what has done us in, whether it's corporate or governmental.

I don't understand how this fits in with your pro-Paul position. If you think destructive, greed-driven members of society are likely to become the most powerful, why do you support corporate deregulation?

My "Pro Paul position" is limiting the size of a growing government, ending the war, legalizing drugs, and making the Fed and the IRS disappear. I'm not for complete deregulation. I covered this before. Ron Paul is the one candidate that I can support based on his platform.

I don't think it makes much difference since the greedy rise to the top in either system, a small or a big government. The key difference, at least, the smaller, libertarian government won't erode our rights.

big_dave wrote:

I don't dread work, nor education. I dread pointless work disguised as progress, and education that amounts to nothing more than a prerequisite for work.

How will privatization make this better? In the UK at the moment privatization is the only factor, short of whether or not you inherit money, governing the sort of employment and education available to an individual.

I didn't say that privatization would automatically make these areas better, but earlier in the thread I said a private education is heads above a state one. But education will still be a sort of incentive for better work, in either system. The pointless labor will still continue, I'm under no illusion to believe otherwise, but a smaller government will tax and take less from a salary.

Skronk wrote:I didn't say that privatization would automatically make these areas better, but earlier in the thread I said a private education is heads above a state one. But education will still be a sort of incentive for better work, in either system. The pointless labor will still continue, I'm under no illusion to believe otherwise, but a smaller government will tax and take less from a salary.

I still see no reason to blame the Fed, IRS or the "growing government" for infringements on workers rights in the States. When it is there fault, it is for not doing enough rather than doing too much.

Do you think that America is running on a reverse of the logic that works in most successful and pleasant European nations?

And finally - do you think that the small amount of taxation is really that much of a burden?

Rick Reuben wrote:

syntaxfree07 wrote:Were you there, Rick? I was. I had to leave my house for three weeks.

Are you continuing to claim that the hurricane was projected to hit land centered at Pensacola and not NO up until only four hours before landfall??

If so, you're wrong.

abc news jan 2006 wrote:Documents released today by Congress show that two days before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the White House received detailed damage forecasts from Homeland Security officials predicting that the city's levees might be overtopped or breached.

Yet in the days after the storm struck on Aug. 29, federal officials, including President Bush, said the levee breaches could not have been foreseen.

Why was the White House being given advance warnings on the 27th about the potential consequences for New Orleans, if you thought Katrina was headed for Pensacola until it was four hours away?

syntaxfree wrote:That hurricane was projected to hit Pensacola, FL until about four hours before it made landfall.

Kook.

All of this is after the fact you dumb motherfucker. I'll just go back to ignoring you now. Every now and then you say something so ridiculous I feel like I have to speak up. Mostly I ignore your posts and it seems like the way to deal with you now that you are making me physhically ill.

Fuck it. I must be imagining staying up in a hotel room watching the weather channel all night.

Rick Reuben wrote:

syntaxfree07 wrote:All of this is after the fact you dumb motherfucker. I'll just go back to ignoring you now.

You're a retard. You said that the hurricane was still predicted to be pointed at Pensacola when it was four hours from landfall.

Capital R Retarded is what you are.

From the CNN Katrina timeline:

Sunday, August 28, 2005: • 10 a.m.: As Katrina hits 175 mph winds, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin orders mandatory evacuations as the storm seems to beat a direct path to the city.

Landfall on the 29th. Your clock is only about 20 hours off.

syntaxfree07 wrote:That hurricane was projected to hit Pensacola, FL until about four hours before it made landfall.

29th at about 2 AM if my memory is worth anything. It is. The hurricane could have hit anywhere and that possibility was allowed for until landfall, really. See if you can find anything on "the cone". The cone is a triangular shaded area with the base stretching out towards land. The cone moved about a hundred miles west on the last day. It encompassed a few hundred miles, anyway.

So once again, fuck you.

Once again, a typical Bob Rick argument: These Internet Postings Are More Valid Than Your First-Hand Experience Of A Series Of Events.

I don't understand how this fits in with your pro-Paul position. If you think destructive, greed-driven members of society are likely to become the most powerful, why do you support corporate deregulation?

I get this sense of deja-vu, like this has been done about 60 times in this thread. But here's a short section of an article that is pretty relevant to Ron Paul's position regarding deregulation, from LewRockwell.com:

Chomksy: "There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. Just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power – itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources."

But, Dr. Chomksy, you've written over and over again that the American corporate system rests on state interventionism (state-capitalism) rather than the separation of economy and state favored by libertarians like Ron Paul. As many have observed, the unbalanced nature of the employer-employee relationship rests on state privilege for business elites, not on any sort of free enterprise worthy of the label. Why maintain this contradictory and seemingly irrational attachment to statism in the name of economic justice?

Full article here. I would not be surprised one bit if this has already been linked to in this thread.

In other somewhat-related news, Goldman Sachs weighs in on the election.

GHARIB: So who is it that Wall Street is favoring in this election? Usually Wall Street has a favorite candidate. Who is it this time?

PHILLIPS: Well, I don't know that Wall Street as such has any one favorite candidate. You can look at it a couple of different ways. As I mentioned on the tax side, I think Wall Street in general would like to see lower taxes nationally, in terms of general income taxes and certainly in terms of investment-related taxes. And so in that respect, I think they would really favor more of a Republican candidate, but with that said, there are a number of indicators that show that there's actually a lot of support for both Obama and for Clinton on the Democratic side. One thing that you could actually look at are campaign contributions and while it might surprise some, you actually have Obama and Hillary taking in as many, if not more contributions, from Wall Street employees as you do any of the Republican candidates.

"The magic fairy dust of the free market will fix everything!" is not an acceptable answer to concerns about turning all the power in this country over to the most damaging people in it.

As many have observed, the unbalanced nature of the employer-employee relationship rests on state privilege for business elites, not on any sort of free enterprise worthy of the label.

This statement demonstrates rather concretely the lack of intellectual rigor involved in the libertarian movement as a whole, and the specific amount of cognitive dissonance that must be present for otherwise liberal-minded people to even consider supporting Paul.

Let's try breaking this down. Say this with a straight face:

"In a completely unregulated market, employers and employees will have equal power."

If you think that's coherent, congratulations! You're a laissez-faire utopian, go fuck yourself.

If you think the very definition of the terms "employer" and "employee" means that the statement is inherently contradictory, you're literate.

Antero wrote:"The magic fairy dust of the free market will fix everything!" is not an acceptable answer to concerns about turning all the power in this country over to the most damaging people in it.

Quite an interesting site I think.

So all these Paul supporters are down with Norquist?

antero wrote:"The magic fairy dust of the free market will fix everything!" is not an acceptable answer to concerns about turning all the power in this country over to the most damaging people in it.

As many have observed, the unbalanced nature of the employer-employee relationship rests on state privilege for business elites, not on any sort of free enterprise worthy of the label.

This statement demonstrates rather concretely the lack of intellectual rigor involved in the libertarian movement as a whole, and the specific amount of cognitive dissonance that must be present for otherwise liberal-minded people to even consider supporting Paul.

Let's try breaking this down. Say this with a straight face:

"In a completely unregulated market, employers and employees will have equal power."

If you think that's coherent, congratulations! You're a laissez-faire utopian, go fuck yourself.

If you think the very definition of the terms "employer" and "employee" means that the statement is inherently contradictory, you're literate.

You refer to libertarianism as the 'fairy magic dust of the free market', but continue to prop us the boogeyman of the inherently 'dangerous' employer...and the idea that libertarians are just all cool with that.

You haven't seen unimpeded free markets work in this country, because they haven't worked that way in 100 years.

I guess we should all take a day and go 'fuck ourselves' now, since we've been told to so many times....proof positive that trickle-down theory works, at least for some things.

I am so tired of this ridiculous and unnecessary internet bullying. If you talked to me like that in person, it would be the first and last that I wasted time on you. The same will hold true here.

unarmedman wrote:I am so tired of this ridiculous and unnecessary internet bullying.

Rather on the internet than in workplace, Boss.