What? Milton Friedman is an authoritarian?! I don't think so. That aside, I don't care if Sanders, Trump or Hillary is elected. It isn't going to change a single thing. Regulatory Capture and Rent-Seeking is now a way of life in the USA. It IS The American Way. We are NOT going to see a cultural change back towards freedom and prosperity until decades from now. If ever. Elect whomever you like, the Teacher Unions will still be shitting out functional illiterates by the millions, central planners will continue to bail out the crony rich - you know, because the gates of Hell would open up if a billionaire took some loses, and the never ending Wars will continue as killing innocent people is now part of our economy / society, we'll continue to see more regulations of our lives and will lose more personal privacy. These things are not going to change. They're baked in the cake. I'll tell you what, I'll vote for Trump if he's on a ticket (for a laugh) and for Sanders if not - to hasten the collapse.
The resident "libertarian" once again proves a straight pipe from the rightwing authoritarian propaganda sewer to this forum - in this case, fermented from a couple years ago, when the faction-that-shall-not-be-named spent a few million dollars on the project of redefining "fascism" as a - no kidding, perfectly sincere - leftwing ideology. They financed the writing and large scale promotion of several books, inserted the appropriate talking points into the verbiage of their minions on the ever-cooperative pundit venues, etc etc. And the payoff of course was intended to be at minimum the elimination of the term "fascist" from meaningful political discourse in the US - an extremely beneficial development for that faction, for the obvious reasons - and if at all possible the attachment of the odium of the label to their political foes. Instead of to themselves, which would be bad - right? Sure he does. In the world where words have no fixed meanings, and language does not communicate matters of fact or actual ideas, people "sound like" each other for all kinds of reasons. Again with the mythical past - have you decided yet when that actually was? when last visited, you had abandoned the decades immediately before, and then immediately after, the Civil War, and were circling around a decade or so in the early 1900s.
This isn't an argument. If you want make an argument, make it. While you're at it, I seem to recall you were going to delineate between Democratic Socialism and plan ole Socialism.
Donald Trump: Stop ISIS, steal the oil. Read my lips: O.I.L. Trump: “I’m looking to take the oil. I want to take the oil. I want the oil”
This is, of course, something you have to care about. I don't, and don't have to. Anyway, I cannot influence it, so what I say does not matter at all. All I can do is to hope. So, what I hope for? What he is doing inside US is irrelevant for me at all. All what matters is his foreign policy. And in this question, Trump seems to be the least evil of all. AFAIU, everybody else will do a much more horrible, more aggressive, war-like policy. So, all one can hope for is that these are only cheap promises they do not even plan to fulfill in reality. (This hope may be reasonable for all except Hitlery, she has already shown that she is a serious aggressor.) Else, even atheists have nothing better to do than to pray.
What you really mean is you think Trump will allow Putin to freely invade and annex the lands of his neighbors at Putin has done and Hillary will not. You think Hillary will stand up to Putin as Obama has done. Funny thing, you can and do accuse the US of being an aggressor when the US hasn't illegally invaded and annexed foreign lands while you completely ignore Putin's (i.e. Russia's) repeated illegal invasions, occupation and annexations of its neighbors lands.
You are confusing stuff you typed with reality again. When remembering things, it's important to distinguish between "things Michael typed" and "things that actually happened". You are posting rightwing authoritarian propaganda from a couple of years back: there was an organized attempt to establish "fascism" as a leftwing ideology in the public discourse. It was all over the wingnut dominated media, the subject of articles and essays in major media sources, the subject of book tours by the pet pundits of the authoritarian right, etc. You are either sincerely confused - among the childlike victims of that propaganda campaign - or complicit. You greatly underestimate Trump's foreign policy potential, in part because you have consistently mistaken the influence of American corporate interests on American foreign policy. American foreign policy is driven by domestic interests to a large extent, and Trump is a negotiator of deals among corporate interests - morality and ethics beyond the "honor" of the participants are not involved in these negotiations. You seem to believe, sincerely, that the profits and powers and self-interested behaviors of large capitalist corporations will align with the freedoms and interests of ordinary people. A while ago you were invited to review the operations of plantation slavery in the US - it was a logical outcome and creation of Trump's ideology, the politics of "reputation" and "honor" wedded to the economics of corporate capitalism.
First of all, Putin does not invade and annex lands, thus, does not need any allowance to do this. Then, the question which is more important is if the US will invade and annex lands, in particular, in Syria, by installing so-called "no fly zones", that means, territories controlled by US airforce in violation of international law. Of course, the US airforce flying over Syria is an invasion, even if, as long as they bomb only IS, this may be tolerated. But what is dangerous is that, AFAIU (please correct me if I have misunderstood this) most of the candidates want to establish some no-fly zones in Syria, in the sense that they want to define some zones where Russian as well as Syrian airplanes, if they appear there and bomb terrorists (moderate or not) will be shot. And this is clearly illegal and dangerous, because Russian airplanes will defend themself and shoot back, which can easily lead to WW III. Instead, Trump has said that he will negotiate with Putin. Of course, nobody expects that this means he will give up US interests. But, except for that weird US interest in ruling the whole world, there are no real US interests in conflict with Russian interests where it would be impossible to find a compromise. There is a lot to object. If I underestimate Trumps potential or not is unclear, I have not even tried to estimate it. The only point is that he seems the only one ready to negotiate with Putin, instead of doing horribly dangerous things. What is behind this remains completely open, in America one cannot even be sure that somebody wins the election with the program to start a nuclear war - and then does not start it after the election. As well, Trump may appear the only one who will, after being elected, not negotiate with Putin. American elections are simply collections of lies. And, once we are even far away to know what the candidates really want to do, we can certainly not know their potential to realize what they really want to do. The influence of American corporate interests I take as given, this is, together with the military-industrial complex and the many secret services, what I name the deep state, which, I think, really rules America. Then, I believe in free markets as being close to optimal. But this does not mean that big business wants a free market. No, they want protection from competition and regulation, as tough as possible. In the ideal, all firms have to follow the same scheme the established firm already uses. As a result, the established firm remains established, without any innovation or so, simply because it makes not much sense for competitors to build, with a lot of money, exactly the same factories which the established firm already has, which would only lead to a price war (nothing else remains to compete, because everything else is prescribed by regulations) and therefore does not promise any profits. So, private competition leads to good outcomes only if the big firms are unable to write regulations via their lobbies. The same holds for slavery. In an economy with slaves, the outcome would be certainly not optimal for slaves, and no economic theory even tries to suggest this. The free market, and all the theory around it, is based on the assumption that all participants have a freedom of contract. Slaves have no such freedom, thus, the theory cannot be applied. Fortunately, slaves have abilities to sabotage, or simply to behave as lazy as they can, and such a hidden refusal to follow orders can have quite similar effects, namely that slavery becomes inefficient, and that it becomes more efficient to free slaves and hire free workers. Bu this is nothing which follows from any free market theory or so. Politics of honor and reputation is, again, a completely different domain. It seem plausible that honor and reputation is a strong enough force to enforce contracts. To enforce them is necessary for a working large scale industrial society, because it needs a lot of contracts and would fail if too much of them would fail. This is a part of a culture of honor which I would support. But this is a very special form of honor, the honor not to violate own promises and contracts. A culture of honor usually contains also a lot of other rules of what is honorable, rules which have nothing to do with a free society based on freedom of contract, but prescribed by interpretations of the religion of the majority or similar traditions. This other part I do not favor at all. How it is related to lobbyism (except by the fact that you don't like above) I don't know.
Oh, then what do you call what happened in Ukraine when armed little green men suddenly appeared overnight and annexed portions of Ukraine and Georgia? Unfortunately for you and your fellow Russians, the world isn't as dumb and as misinformed as you need it to be. The unpleasant fact for you is Mother Russia is the only country which has illegally invaded and annexed the lands of neighboring nations. And the US isn't in violation of international law in Syria for all the reasons previously explained to you and repeated in the next paragraph. As has been explained to you on numerous occasions, the Syrian government has collapsed and Syria is in a state of chaos. That's why millions of Syrian's are fleeing the country for Western Europe. The Assad government no longer controls the country. Effectively, the country has fragmented and disintegrated. Assad's government would have completely collapsed if Russia had not sent forces in to support what is left of the Assad government. Additionally, the US and allied forces have been and continue to fly missions over ISIS controlled portions for Syria in order to destroy ISIS targets. When Assad's government was using sarin and other gases to murder its people, the US threatened the Syrian government with military force. Russia responded by pressuring Assad to surrender his weapons of mass destruction to the US and he did and the gas attacks stopped for a time. If the US invokes a no fly zone in Syria, it will be to prevent Assad from murdering innocent Syrians. Assad cannot and will not be allowed to continue to murder innocent men, women and children. That is illegal under international law. So contrary to your assertion, the US and allied nations are, unlike Mother Russia, not illegal. Well, Trump thinks he can make Putin his bit... or at lest that is what he is telling his followers. Trump is running on an ultra-nationalist platform - just like Putin. So I can see why you are attracted to him. After all, you love Putin. And you think any of that makes sense....seriously?
Trump negotiating with Putin is a horribly dangerous event. But faced with somebody like Trump, you regard him as less dangerous than - say - Sanders, or Clinton, or O'Malley. So you don't seem to understand this stuff you take as "given". Then quit applying it. Seriously - your entire ideology is based on applying free market theory to a reality in which government curb on corporate capitalism is the only barrier to enslavement by corporations. Among a ruling elite, that is common in history - yes. And I handed you a prime example of that directly relevant to US politics and Trump's candidacy - plantation slavery in the United States. Other examples relevant to US history would include the Mafia, the Robber Barons, the current financial backers of the Republican Party, etc. Some examples you can look at outside the US, where you might have better judgment in the information, might be China's ruling elite, or one of the Middle Eastern banana/oil States. Then you can return to examining Putin's regime, with fresh perspective.
This may be horribly dangerous for you, but, given that I consider Putin as a sufficiently clever and reasonable person (even if a statist) and see nothing bad if the US (which I consider the main danger for mankind) loses, I understand but do not share this. Again, if I evaluate the US, I do care about the survival of mankind, because it is endangered by the US ruled by some crazy guy who may start WW III. If this danger is sufficiently small, I have to admit that I couldn't care less. If some crazy US president leads America to full bancrypty, so that Americans start to starve, and this catastrophe corresponds to the US giving up all hopes for ruling the world and becoming a peaceful even if starving country, I would be happy. Not because I hate Americans and would like to see them starve - in this case, I would be even in favour of sending them food - but because this would remove a major danger for the survival of the whole world. Some danger of Americans enslaved by their own corporations would be nothing I would care about, sorry, to care about this is your job. If Trump would be a black guy who proposes to enslave white people, but revive isolationism and restrict slavery to the US, calling back all American soldiers from all US bases around the world, fine, I would like to see him winning. You would, I guess, not like him, may be simply because he would enslave you, or out of principle because you are against slavery. But this is your problem. For me, the decrease of danger of nuclear war or a totalitarian world government would be far more important than enslavement of some hundreds of millions in America. This is, by the way, quite close to my relation to Russia. Ok, I have much more personal sympathy to Russians than to Americans, because of my personal life - during the three weeks I have been in America I have found only one interesting person to talk with, who was a Russian, while in Russia I have found a lot of friends as well as my wife. But nonetheless I do not plan to live in Russia, and the reason is related with the actual Russian state. Russia is not the type of state I favor as an anarchist. But much worse than the actual Russian state would be a US-ruled world government, which would establish US-like local governments everywhere, without any possibility to escape. In the Russian multi-polar world, I would have a chance to live nicely, almost uninfluenced by the Russian state, even in former Soviet states like Usbekistan or Azerbaidshan, or in Armenia where I have also lived some time. So, if Putin would turn Russia into a Gulag, but, based on this Gulag, prevent US world government, this would be acceptable for me. Not fine, because I really like the Russians, but better than US world government, at least for me once I don't have to live there. In the US world government I would have to live, without any hope to escape. So far about my perspective on Russia, which is, of course, hard to see, given that I simply reject anti-Russian propaganda and my opponents like to present me as a Russian state propagandist. I favour a multipolar world, a world where one can escape the ruling ideologies of all the leading states, because in the multipolar world all the big players will tolerate a lot of small players. And the least evil state, the state most close to my anarchistic ideas, will be one of the small states. A state which, in a US ruled world, would have to follow the US in almost everything, and not give me any alternative to living in the US themself. PS: too bored to consider joepistole's repetitions of the usual propaganda lies. The only point worth to be commented is that what I prefer as a politician are intelligent ones - even if "politician" is, for me, a synonym for a villain. Intelligent politicians are rare in the time of democracy - to win democratic elections, one has to be a liar, which is also a particular type of intelligence, but not the one I have in mind. The politician I have liked most was the last Pope Benedict - also not really a democratically elected one. After Benedict, Putin seems to be the most intelligent one. Even if I have to concede that I'm unable to evaluate many candidates, simply because I don't know their language. From point of view of this criterion, Trump is not among the first range.
You seem to be assuming I regard the danger as one of Putin "winning" or the US "losing". I do not. I regard the danger as one of Trump and Putin coming to a mutually satisfactory agreement, and divvying up each other's territory as Mob bosses are prone to do. Living and learning about the multinational corporation. Again - take a look at the real world examples. You've been handed a few. Not even China has a ruling corporate elite content within its borders. And you think the enslavement of Americans would decrease the danger of nuclear war or totalitarian world government. Because why? - do you think the slaveowners of the American population will content themselves with those diminishing returns, or that the American military will evaporate under corporate management? No, they won't. They will tolerate tax havens. You may recall that in the former Russian multipolar world, the Russian State built actual walls to prevent anyone from escaping its influence. I think Trump would agree to something like that again, in return for some concessions of oil and help with the Chinese problem. He seems to have no built in abhorrence of walls. Like Zaire, maybe. Or El Salvador. Or Singapore. Or Eritrea. Or Armenia. Maybe Qatar? Dubai?
One more time, this isn't an argument. Are you going to make an argument at some point? If you should decide to do so, begin by delineating Democratic Socialism from plain ole Socialism. Just WHO bailed out all these corporations? Oh yes, the State - right and left found 'common ground' in bailing out the oligarchs who fund their campaigns. Oh, but if we didn't do that then the sky would fall, hell would open up and Baby JaBeezus would cry. I do NOT believe that the profits and motives of corporatists, demagogues, oligarchs, politicians, public 'servants', banksters or the common functional illiterate, are anything other than emotionally driven self-serving poppycock. Which is WHY we need a limited a State. See, a limited State wouldn't force us into using a single fiat currency. A limited State wouldn't be able to manipulate free people through taxation. A limited State wouldn't be allowed to enforce regulatory capture by the big players turning these rent-seekers into the Oligarchs they are. A limited State would NOT have had the means to bail them out either. Most, if not all, of those corportists you whine about would be POOR right now, if not for the Central Bank, the POTUS and CONgress f*cking bailing them out. I promise you, the sky wouldn't have fallen and 10 years on we'd be in much MUCH better shape. For f*cks sake, one wonders how on earth the Peons ever had the balls to challenge the 1000 year old Aristocracies - the Gods only know modern Amoorikans wouldn't. The Government BAILED the criminals out. The Government. NOT Toyota. NOT "The" Kock Blockers. NOT Alphabet. NOT Microsucks. The Government did that. It sold trillions of dollars of T-Bonds that it will use violence against your children and grandchildren to ensure they are paid back. This is what YOU support. Violence against innocent, even unborn. Worse still, the State continues to fund never ending phony wars that kill millions of innocent humans. The GOVERNMENT run a prison industrial complex that cages the largest population of morally innocent humans in human history. The ONLY person here who is engaged in Magic Thinking is you. You seem to think Government monopolies are good, whereas Private monopolies are bad. Well, sorry to pop your bubble - that's exactly the opposite. Government monopolies rely on force. Private monopolies rely on you WANTING to buy what they're selling. See the difference? Probably not. Now, if you could do me the favor of delineating "Democratic" Socialism from Socialism we can continue. Go on, have at it.
Are you THAT dense? Um, lets see: Weapons of Mass Disappearance? How about the CIA attempting to assassinate the Shah of Iran? Or how about our invasion of Vietnam? You know, where American chemicals are still causes birth defects. Where the psychological damage of have your skin melted off your arms and back like this little girl are still felt today. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! See that little girl Joe? Before the days is done much of the skin on her back and arm will have melted off. Something she lives with today. By lives with, I mean the PAIN of having your skin melted. Everyday she lives in pain. Or how about the low grade uranium shells we use in Iraq? The children born missing their arms and legs? You Statists are literally insane.
Hmm, I guess that explains why Vietnam is part of the US today. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Except, Vietnam isn't part of the US today. Because the US didn't invade Vietnam, nor did it annex any portion of Vietnam. That's why Vietnam isn't part of the US today. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Unfortunately for you Michael, facts do matter. You should be asking yourself that question. Are you really that dense? I think after years of reading your posts, the answer is clearly yes. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Some sort of Hitler-Stalin pact? Ok, understood. I think this is not really a danger, what is missed is a consistent ideology which Putin would like to impose. Stalin wanted communism for the whole world. Putin does not want Putinism for the whole world, simply because there is no such animal. This is nothing which I could support with evidence. The evidence would be, if I would try, Russian nationalist sources which whine about this. I guess that the Russian rule over the world would be similar to its rule over Chechnya. The country is completely controlled by Chechen forces, ruled by the Chechen strongman Kadyrow, who is a good friend of Putin. Fighting Wahabi terrorists is Kadyrow's job, and the only role of Russians in Chechnya is that they are ready to support them if the terrorists become too strong. Locally, one guy from the governement (some important minister AFAIR, interrior or so) openly and demonstratively ignores Russian laws and has two wives, in agreement with Chechen and muslim tradition. Nobody cares. Because, by construction, I have assumed that this would be combined with taking home all American troops all over the world. Of course, combining these two ideas is quite artificial, I simply wanted to try to illustrate how I would behave in this, by construction artificial, situation. The proposal itself was part of Ron Paul's program, which was, essentially, libertarian, and has, of course, nothing at all to do with imposing slavery on American's. ?????? Of course, the US has created tax havens to get their share from criminal money. For the same reason, they have fought against tax havens of others like Swiss, which is, as a tax haven, a memory of the past. In a really, completely US-ruled world, there would be no tax havens. The existence of tax havens is, clearly, an indication that the US has not yet reached complete world rulership. It was, BTW, a local German guy named Ulbricht who has build it. Everything else were usual state borders. And it was not a multipolar world which the Soviet Union has tried to create, but global communism. And it was not a Russian world - at least, the ruling guys have been Ukrainians and Georgians. What I actually favour is not among them, but this is not the point. The point is that in a US-ruled world, all the laws everywhere would be similar to each other. Thus, there would be no real choice. In the Russian multipolar world, there would be more choices. So, if I would like to have two wives, I would have no possibility in a US-ruled world, but could go to Chechnya in the Russian multipolar world. (Of course, one could object that there is Saudi-Arabia, a state where everything which seems Holy to US ideology is violated, but which is nonetheless a good friend of US. But I think this is some very special case - Saudi Arabia is very useful to pay for and support terrorism against US enemies, and supported only in this role. In a really US-ruled world, a small color revolution would throw away the Saudi Kings, and after this everything would be fine for Saudi gays and so on. But this simply would be the last state of the world destroyed by a color revolution, because it would be necessary for organizing all the other color revolutions in all the other muslim states.)
A limited state could have no check on corporate power, and it's ability to victimize the population. This function of government is a constant battle.
No, this is explained by the simple fact that the US has lost this war. Else, Vietnam would have been ruled today by US puppets, in the same way as Germany. Formally independent, but only formally.
A corporate power is not much without state support. Because corporate power, if not supported by guns, cannot get rid of competitors. Cartels have been tried, many times, and never appeared sufficient. If the advantage of leaving the cartel is big enough, the cartel is finished. One needs state "regulations" to establish cartels forever.
