Ron Paul ad - running on TV

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Michael, Apr 22, 2012.

  1. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    I have a question: Why do you suppose Obama signed the NDAA on New Years Eve? At a time when there was no one around to challenge it? Why Joe? Why was this Act so important that he had to SNEAK it through on New Years Eve?

    You don't think there's a PROBLEM with ANY politician sneaking such a bill through on NEW YEARS EVE and you claim you took an oath to uphold the US Constitution?

    Anyone with half a brain KNOWS that when a politician sneaks a bill through on New Years Eve, while the Public is trying to enjoy itself - that this is an immoral sneaking underhanded event. I know for a fact if it were that Douche Bush Jr the media'd be all over him. But not Obama. Which is why Obama has so much Banking support. He was a nobody and he's got a lot of rich friends on WallStreet to pay back (see: Corzine).
     
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  3. Cavalier Knight of the Opinion Registered Senior Member

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    The White House issued a statement saying that it would not veto the NDAA in mid-December, well before the festivities began, and just before the House and Senate passed the bill.

    http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/...o-threat-over-detainee-legislation-withdrawn/

    So, they told us weeks in advance that they were going to be sneakily allowing it to slip through when nobody was looking. as a sort of reverse psychology so that we wouldn't be looking when they did it. It was even more insidious than you imagine.

    I am not sure what you mean by saying that it was done "when there was no one around to challenge it." When was the last time anyone ever challenged any law at the point where the President was signing it? I can't think of a single significant example. I can recall bills being challenged when they were being debated by Congress. I can recall bills be challenged after they became law. I cannot recall much outcry in the in between times. In this case, you had two and a half weeks, to make your case to the President not to sign, and one and a half of those were pre-Christmas. You also had a month prior to the bill's passing Congress to yell at Congress (which the White House did until certain provisions regarding detaining terrorists were softened). It seems to me the passage of this particular bill was very well telegraphed in advance of the actual event. If you read the Washington Post, it seemed like it was in the news every day for a while.
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2012
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  5. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    RE: Joe Prove a different system would work better.

    Lets apply your "prove it" statement to ending Slavery.

    The arguments in favor of Slavery were considered then to be (nearly) self-evidently true. One was Whiteman's burden. Without Slavery Africans would burn in Hell and would not be Civil. One was starvation/clothing. Without Slavery society couldn't cloth and feed itself. There were others, but that sums up the prevalent ones.

    The counter to these arguments were this: Slavery is immoral.


    There was an economic argument as well: Two hundred years in the future one person using satellites that will orbit the planet Earth will control remote massively large sophisticated machines running on dinosaur-juice which will plow 1000s of square miles of fields by remote control ushering in an Age of so much food Slavery will not only NOT be necessarily but Obesity will be an epidemic - society will be so awash in cheap food!

    That is true isn't it? BUT, tell me Joe, how many people would believe the TRUTH?

    NO ONE.

    The future would be so different that people can not imagine it. Two hundred years ago >95% of the population was involved in Farming. Thus, the only argument that was required was the moral argument. Slavery is immoral as it involves a violation of private property (the body) and uses force.

    Done.
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2012
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  7. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    So you think it was a coincidence that an Act that infringes on the Civil Liberties of American Citizens .... something even the ACLU states is "particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield… the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.” .... just so happened to land on New Years Eve?

    I'm expected to eat that shit?

    I don't think so. Congress and POTUS fit together like hand in glove. They're all a pack of cheating lying wolves. The Constitution was there to Protect us FROM them not empower them to legally attack us.


    Anyway, don't worry. Immorality take awhile to work its way out of the system like any other sickness. Which is why I suggest 120 years. Certainly 120 years ago you'd be hard pressed to find anyone willing to stand up and say Slavery (a 5000 year old institution) was immoral. A little over 200 years ago people stood up and said Aristocracy and Monarchy was immoral - it took 2000 years but it finally happened. Central Banks aren't going to end Civilization. North Koreans are still producing rockets - they just suck. It's not like their Civilization has ended, it's just extremely poor due to their very immoral idea of stealing through the State.

    You'll notice how Obama reduced the tax on the top 0.1% ... he'll continue to cut tax as well as services. He has to. Philosophical Realities aside, even the POTUS has to bow to the free-market. Realities catch up one way or another.

    As an aside:
    Interestingly I hear some economists (still) thinking "We'll be OK, just look at the Japanese they're 200% GDP". I keep saying: We are NOT Japan. Japanese have increased their trade surplus 300% over the last 20 years. It's been a 140 year old economic policy dating way back to well before WWII. Ever since the Meiji restoration the Japanese have worried and worked towards surpassing the West in technological advancements. Take silicon. It's ALL made in Japan. Not the wafers. But the silicon itself. No one else can do it. Not even the Germans. There are tons of highly technical advance materials only the Japanese can do. For now. It'll take Korea and Taiwan one or two decades (if ever) to be able to reach where the Japanese are now. Not the USA. We've been going in the opposite direction. It's been a generation since we've given up.



    You know what really backs the USD? The US Military. But, that equation is, as well, going to come to an end. People are around the world literally hate Americans. They hate our culture. They hate our presence. They hate our banks. They hate us.

    I'm sure Joe thinks "financial sector" jobs are actually producing something real. They're not. AND the Asians will tire of paying for Americans to eat. That day is probably coming a lot sooner than most Americans realize. People were shocked at how quickly many Roman Providences fell. Literally overnight.


    I think of all this as history repeating itself. It's interesting to watch to some degree - academic or otherwise.
     
  8. Cavalier Knight of the Opinion Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, but the limits of private property should also be agreed to. In modern western culture no one is ever the allodial title holder (meaning "absolute" owner and free from duties owed to our sovereign) to any property. We hold our property in "fee simple" at most, which makes our interest subject to the rights of taxation, eminent domain and subject to the sovereign's police power.

    It seems to me that some people may be unaware of how "property" developed in the west, and that the sovereign has always maintained rights in real and personal property. Because those people were unaware of the reservation of rights, they feel their expectations being violated when the sovereign enforces its rights.

    The sociological data disagrees with that. Studies of hunter gatherer cultures show they typically held property in common, by which I mean that any member of the community could use a give piece of property at any time, subject to communal decisions made by the group as a whole. (In other words, our hunter-gatherer ancestors were communist in a deep sense). While there are many variations, generally speaking, the closest thing they tend to have to private property is property that the group decides a certain individual may control, with that control only existing until the group decides otherwise.

    Similarly food tends to be shared, often without regard to one's ability to be productive in the traditional sense. Even shirking (where one has the capacity to be productive, but elects not to) is not universally punished by a restricted access to food or other resources earned by others.

    That would not be a typical scenario in a hunter-gatherer regime...typically when you make the spearhead others would decide who should make use of it, and no force would be required to make you turn it over, because you'd be raised to respect the decision making system of the tribe.

    Further, though, the use of force does not necessarily suggest that the taker understands your ownership...all it suggests is that the taker understands your unwillingness to part with the item, which is a very different thing.

    For example, let's say you're best man at a wedding and holding the bride's ring. I mug you and take it. The ring is not your property and it is not my property. Given the best man paradigm, I am likely to understand that. I know it is not your property per se, but I use force because I know that you are unlikely to be willing to give it to me...nothing more. Neither your ownership nor my lack of ownership is relevant. You can also imagine a scenario where I feel I am entitled to something you are holding, and I use force because you refuse to hand it over.

    Let's say you are best man, and you drop a ring but don't notice it at first. I find it and pick it up, when you see it. You rush over and attempt to explain, and I can plainly see by your tux that you are in fact best man at a wedding. But I am greedy and I tell you that I'll sell you the ring for $500. Not having $500, and you being certain that I am not a nice person, you use force to take the ring back.

    Personally, I'd say that use of force probably was morally justified, not because I have possession of "your" property, but because I am engaged in rent-seeking behavior based on your desire to avoid the distress (for yourself and bride and groom) that would ensue from your accident.

    The notion that you infusing labor into an item through work, and that making it "yours" was mere speculation by John Locke, unsupported by any historical or sociological evidence of any kind. It certainly was not related to the actual development of the westernized concept of private property in the real world, which developed in Europe from feudal conceptions of property). Real-world, western, property was borne of the use of force. One major reason our property regimes work is because we know that force will be brought to bear on us if we attempt to deny others the property interests the law and society recognizes.

    In any event, the research is clear that that was not the way hunter-gatherers regarded property. Your "work" was for the betterment of the group, and decisions about the use of items acquired through that work were decisions made by the group (or by the elders of the group) as a whole. There were socially imposed checks and balances to prevent abuses of that system.

    It's simply mistaken to try to imprint modern notions of private property on primitive cultures, because the evidence clearly places them in communal societies.

    I do agree that private property is so ingrained in our society that it is hard to imagine anyone living without it, but that belief has to give way to the historical and sociological evidence. Private property is not an objective feature of morality, but a social construction that came to dominate probably about 5,000 (and perhaps 10,000) years ago as people increasingly moved away from hunter-gatherer lifestyles, and saw the amount and number of goods in their lives multiply (and, as a result of expanded trade, the quality of those goods vary more wildly).

    Then note, however. that agricultural communities often still had rules allowing the poor to take crops from one's far for their own private consumption, within limits. For example, the Bible says:

    In other words, although the Ancient Hebrews had private property, the poor (and others, as these laws were not limited to the poor) could freely eat food from the fields of others in the community, without payment, but within limits that prevented them from taking only a little more than their current needs.

    Given what I think you mean by this (an absolute ownership of the products of your labor), I would have to say "No" because there are times when your labor can, morally, be appropriated by others for their own benefit.

    Again, the exclusive right to the products of your own labor is clearly not a natural right. It's not one that our ancestors would have recognized as an absolute right, at the very least, but there are also limits on what society can ask of us.

    What are those limits though? As noted, the Bible makes it clear that people can enter your land and eat food that has grown as a result of your labor, but also nations do have requirements for involuntary service (i.e. "drafts" or conscription) that are not usually held to be immoral so long as they are for a reasonable length of time (or, in some cases, for a cause that is viewed as vital by the broader public).

    While there are limits, those limits are clearly delineated by some notion of a "fair" or "reasonable" distribution of benefits.

    As noted above, the taking of a thing by force is not evidence of the existence or non-existence of property rights. If you steal my wallet (off my desk at work) and the police chase you down, the police may have to use force to pry the wallet from your hands. That is not because you have a property interest in the wallet, and it's not true that the police have no right to take it from you. Even though the police have a greater right to it than you do, the police may have to use force to take it back. So, again, the use of force only suggests that the holder of an item is unwilling to part with it, it says nothing inherently about the relative rights of the holder or the taker of that item.

    What if I sneak into a home to retrieve a lawn mower that I lent you two months ago, but that you won't return? Sneaking again implies that you will be unhappy with my action, it doesn't imply necessarily that my action is necessarily wrong.
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2012
  9. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting post and I'll try and respond soon (I'm about to get busy-er).

    Two things that did pop into my mind before I forget:
    - I would say that we do need to keep in mind that States are constructs. These lines we draw on a map don't really exist and in an ideal world wouldn't. In the past one didn't need a passport to move from America to France. You simply got on a boat, bought some land there or rented a property, opened a business. Done. You're French.

    - a tribe might not have had ownership as we think of ownership (depending on the tribe). I'm not convinced they thought everything was owned by everyone. Maybe, but I find it hard to imagine that was the case in reality. That said, they sure as hell didn't think it was fine for someone to come into the tribe and take an arrow head. IOWs, tribes, being large families, MIGHT have acted like one large family - but if someone outside came along, I'm sure they knew damn well what property rights were!

    I did like reading your post. I'll read it again when I have more time.
     
  10. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    I would like to go into the History of property in the West as I do think that it is important. It's also be interesting to see how it is tied to the idea of copyright and patents

    OK, since you went all the way back to Nomadic existence I got to thinking, as I was showering in this morning, what is natural. So I decided to look up if Chimps show property rights.

    Chimps actually do not look at the entire game as 'their' property, but, they do recognize small bits of it as "theirs". They do have a sense of ownership.

    I would look up a review but the intro here will do.

    Chimpanzee Autarky


    Here's a book:
    There is a chapter "Is Meat the Hunters' Property" that I started to read... but... AHHHHH I have to get back to work!
    Meat-Eating and Human Evolution


    So, there are three things to discuss in this subsection.
    1. The Evolution of Property/Ownership.
    2. The Commons.
    3. Property.... Ownership..... what is it?
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2012
  11. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    No not done. You want to get rid of the Federal Reserve. Ok, so what are you going to replace it with and how would the replacement be better than the current Fed?

    You cannot answer that question. That is why you engage in all this nonsense about slavery.
     
  12. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    I wouldn't End The Fed in a single day. Actually, I wouldn't end it at all. All I would do is legalize currency competition and repeal Income Tax. The markets would end the fed for me. And there we'd be. Better off.
     
  13. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    What, you cannot barter now or use another currency?
     
  14. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Well Joe, if you believe in currency competition - speak with Ron Paul. Or, better yet, vote for him. His book: End the Fed states the case.

    Oh, try paying your Income Tax in barter ... haha! That's be interesting. Try paying your Income Tax in "Joe's HomeGrown Currency A1". See how that works for you. Tell them, hey, I've only xeroxed the number I needed to pay you. AND look here, I have some assets to back those blank pieces of paper up. Just come to my Bank and we'll do a trade.

    Go for it. You'll feel the Full Weight of the Republic as it's boot presses in on your carotid. Tell them your theory on free barter in the USA.... you know, because we're a "free nation" of people "protected" FROM government under the US Constitution. Yeah, tell them that Joe.....

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  15. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    As I said: Under a FREE MARKET the Federal Reserve would END itself. Without Income Tax and the Police State enforcing it, USD would come to their own natural conclusion - which is to say, they'd be gone in a few years. See, it's not really a democracy Joe. People actually don't WANT to pay this tax. They do it because they're told to. That's how people are. It's called coercion. In a FREE market people just wouldn't use USD as better more efficient and profitable currencies would come onto the market.
     
  16. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    You think that the Fed has a monopoly on the dollar and that people are forced to use the dollar. They are not. You can pay your bills in any currency you desire each and every minute of every day if you can find another party willing to be the counter party.

    The fact that the US govenrment wants it's debtors to paythe US Treasury in US dollars does not prevent you from paying your non government bills in the currency or the barter of choice, if you can get the other party to the transaction to accept your alternate currency or barter. Hell you could print your own money. And if you could get people to accept it as payment, assuming no misrepresentation or fraud, there is no law preventing it. But most people want to trade in dollars. And that is not the fault of the Federal Reserve.
     
  17. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    You have not explained how that would happen. As previously put to you the Fed works in the "free market" every day.

    The Fed has nothing to do with the income tax. It does not collect taxes. And the Fed does not receive federal funding. It funds itself.

    Better more profitable currencies, and what would those be Michael?
     
  18. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Try paying your income tax in your own currency Joe, let us know how you go

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    Anyway, gold and silver would be the natural first currency and the US uses tax laws to ensure these currencies are never created outside of the fed which issues coins with fiat values unconnected to their inherent value as a coin. If YOU were to do this you need to say these coins you are minting are 'medallions' and NOT currency. A person just went to prison for issuing silver coins called Liberty Dollars.

    Keep in mind only an IDIOT (Ignorance is Stength

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    would think a Liberty Dollar is a real dollar and the numismatic value of the coin is worth more than it's face value!

    War is Peace
    Freedom is Slavery
    Ignorance is Strength


    Notice how the Cattle (who prosecuted this American Citizen - which was so called 'free' to make his own currency, at least according to Joe) did so in under than 2 hours. Two hours. As if they understood the finer points of the human condition, that the body is private property, that labor is an extension of this, that we are free FROM government (or were). This is what the 'American' society has been reduced to. People are sick in their minds. Seriously, we're mentally ill. Like Slave owners from 200 years ago not understand that beating an African is immoral. People no longer understand what is and is not moral. Which is interesting, because we did - 2500 years ago.



    Here's an aside!
    I wonder if people in Australia know that in the USA, a waitress, who is only paid around $3.25 an hour (or less) must pay TAX on her tips! Yes, that's right. The government even sucks that little extra bit from their god damn tips left on the table! Ha!! If you don't pay in tax, they assume you are guilty (not assume you are innocent and just didn't make any tips) and you get fined ... or worse!





    Look, you guys have the system you love to live in - so enjoy it. You should be really happy: You have BIG government growing bigger. BIG military now able to murder Citizens. BIG Banks that are even BIGGER than Too-Big-Too-Fail. LESS Civil Rights (you know, because a 'Terrorist' might do 'something' - like mint a coin! Haaa!). Massive devaluation of our currency leaving retirees eating cat food. Poor Americans getting poorer. Inner cities turning into shitholes that would make Afghanistan look like Paradise. You must love that now, to pay for all the bullshit promised by immoral politicians - that for most families BOTH partners must work. Then they have so send their children (if they can even afford to have one) to be raised by Child Supervision Facilities (some now State run as well!). All while Bankers like Corzine swindling Billions with their bitch Obama or Bush or Mitt or whomever in thier pockets.

    You couldn't dream up a better Farm! Moo Moo Mooooo!!! Mooo! That one is minting a coin! Moooo! He's trying to escape!!! .... MOOOOO!!!!

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    (meanwhile in the small pen on the right: moo moo.... honey, can we write that computer off as a work expense.... moo moo mooy moo.?)

    Income Tax is good.
    I live in a Democracy.
    I try to write things off on my Income Tax
    Because I like Income Tax

    .... seeing the oxymoron yet?

    Morality, Federal Reserve style.


    So, don't worry. We live in YOUR ideal system. Fractional Lending. You must LOVE when the government auctions off your children's future labor to the Chinese vie bonds - you know, so they can bail out their buddies on wallstreet through the Fed, who can then buy houses pennies on the dollar. Fund wars around the world. Yup, life is just wonderful. Live it up.
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2012
  19. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    So you are saying the counterparty to any of your transactions has to accept your notion of currency? You are then guilty of immoral conduct, according to your own definitions.

    Like I said, most everything you rail against is fiction Michael. If parties want to deal in something other than the US currecy, they are free to do so. But both parties have to agree. And you cannot misrepresent or immitate US currency as that is counterfiting.

    You still have not defined what you mean by big government. According to you your ideal government would take us back to a time where government spending as a percent of GDP was higher than it is today.
     
  20. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    You did read the link about the "Domestic Terrorist" who is guilty of... *gosh* minting silver and gold rounds that are worth about 10 time MORE than their face value? Something we as Citizens had been doing for centuries even before we were Americans. So, a fellow Citizen was sentenced to 15 years in prison for minting his own rounds and it doesn't even cause an eyebrow raise? Yes the Fed counterfeits $7 trillion and you can't gush praise fast enough.

    RE: Shrinking government.
    I'd suggest about 15% of it's present size would be a good target to aim for. That said, why not trying to get BACK to the size it was under Clinton... that'd be a start (which I stated before). Ideally we'd have as small a government as is possible.


    But, don't worry Joe, we're on your Federal Reserve Train to prosperity. Yup, all aboard. Free cat food in the rear.
     
  21. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    You must have missed the part about counterfeiting. You cannot counterfeit.

    It was larger under Clinton, not smaller. The Federal government was larger under LBJ, the president you cited as being the target level for sized of government.

    http://www.opm.gov/feddata/HistoricalTables/TotalGovernmentSince1962.asp
     
  22. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    haha... yeah Joe - and YOU accuse others of being deceitful:

    GROW BABY GROW........


    Gotta milk a lotta Cattle to keep this BABY fed......



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  23. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Here is the difference, I use credible nonpartisan data to backup my positions Michael. I am not dependent on partisan sources with a partisan agenda and chronically misrepresent data. Now try finding a credible source.

    Two, the data I used was government employment. You are trying to use government spending as a percent of GDP. This gets back to how you define big government. I have asked you for a definition of big government for weeks now, and you have not answered it. So again, how do you define big government Michael? Is is government spending or number of employees or some other metric?
     

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