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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
 Posted - 12/07/2008 : 03:54:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hittman
| Medicine part of evolution? |
Absolutely. Everything created by man is part of evolution.
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Culture is created by man too. Are you a Social Darwinist?
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/07/2008 : 15:40:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hittman
| In answer, I don't know that they shouldn't be bailed out. I don't believe I said it shouldn't either. But when resources are limited, the government needs to get the biggest bang for the buck, save the company whose failure will cause the greatest economic harm. |
Resources are always limited. That's why we shouldn't be baling out private industry. |
Resources are always limited so lets do nothing. That's senseless. | We are taking money from people who make $40k a year and giving it to people who would laugh at $4,000,000 a year as too paltry to bother with. We are rewarding incompetence and greed. |
No, that is not at all what is proposed. Not even close.
| Taxes are the price you pay for civilization. Without them we'd all be hunting and gathering to meet our needs. And providing bridge loans to the auto companies to get them through this economic crisis is nothing if not moral and very good policy. |
I agree that some taxes are necessary, but they should be limited to things so important you can justify pointing guns at people to get them.
Last I heard we weren't looking at bridge loans, but at handouts. But even loans are a bad idea, because you're risking having to cover them should they default. |
Nope, just loans. And the risk of not giving them far outweighs the risk of giving them.
| I recently read that Honda has never had an unprofitable year. Toyota is cranking out cars in the US, with non-union labor, and making money. So it's not the industry that's failed, it's the business model. Why should we spend billions on a demonstrably broken business model? |
It's much more complicated than that.
| This is an approach I could support. It wouldn't require handouts or loan guarantees. |
Oh yes it would.
| I'm willing to pay taxes for police, fire, roads, and, reluctantly, public schools (reluctantly because they do a shitty job). |
The public school my kids go to does an excellent job. You have a tendency to oversimplify or paint everything with a the same brush. That's a bad way to make policy.
| I am not willing to pay my money to someone else who is working for a company with a bad business model. |
Luckily that's not the problem with the domestic auto companies and that's not the proposed solution, so you can feel better about the government giving them bridge loans. |
-Chaloobi
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Hittman
Skeptic Friend
134 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2008 : 13:28:47 [Permalink]
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Let me rephrase, so we don't get too sidetracked here: Everything created by man is a product of evolution. The watch maker's watch can be seen as a product of evolution – it wouldn't exist if it weren't for the evolved creature creating it. Likewise, medicine is a product of evolution.
| For me the expression 'socialism at the point of a gun' conjur the idea of gulags, not the idea of people voting democratically for a tax increase and people defaulting on their tax getting in legaltrouble. |
If answer your door to find one of your neighbors, armed, demanding that you "contribute" to, say, a local business that is failing, or he'll put you in a cage, or shoot you if you resist, is that theft at the point of a gun?
Is it any different if it's fifteen neighbors instead of one?
How about if it's 100 neighbors, and they hire someone to do the job of making the threatening visit?
How about if they give that someone a pretty blue uniform and a shiny badge?
It's all the same thing, isn't it? If it's not, please explain the difference to me.
| Resources are always limited so lets do nothing. That's senseless. |
I didn't say do nothing, I said don't use our limited resources to bail out private industry. The implication is we'd use them to do something more useful, like, say, train autoworkers to do something else, or improve our infrastructure, or just about anything else.
| It's much more complicated than that. |
It seems pretty simple to me. Honda has a business model that works. Toyota has a business model that works. They've proven it is quite possible to build cars in the US and make a profit.
The Big 3 don't have a working business model. If you want to bail them out of their decades of errors, by all means, open your wallet, cash in your IRAs, do whatever it takes to help them out. Just don't force me to do it with my money, (either directly, or by guaranteeing risky loan) and the money of every other taxpayer who doesn't want to participate.
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When a vampire Jehovah's Witness knocks on your door, don't invite him in. Blood Witness: http://bloodwitness.com
Get Smartenized® with the Quick Hitts blog: http://www.davehitt.com/blog2/index.phpBlog |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2008 : 14:35:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hittman
If answer your door to find one of your neighbors, armed, demanding that you "contribute" to, say, a local business that is failing, or he'll put you in a cage, or shoot you if you resist, is that theft at the point of a gun?
Is it any different if it's fifteen neighbors instead of one?
How about if it's 100 neighbors, and they hire someone to do the job of making the threatening visit?
How about if they give that someone a pretty blue uniform and a shiny badge?
It's all the same thing, isn't it? If it's not, please explain the difference to me.
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Your analogy fails because it doesn't mention that it was his duty to inform himself of the likely-hood that he might have to pitch in to keep the community running, and he was given frequent opportunities to vote in matters of community management at the annual community meeting while living in that neighbourhood. So at no point was he unaware that he a neighbour might knock on his door with a request for extra cash to the community fund.
Your analogy is way too simplistic to function on a state governmental level. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2008 : 14:59:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hittman
| For me the expression 'socialism at the point of a gun' conjur the idea of gulags, not the idea of people voting democratically for a tax increase and people defaulting on their tax getting in legaltrouble. |
If answer your door to find one of your neighbors, armed, demanding that you "contribute" to, say, a local business that is failing, or he'll put you in a cage, or shoot you if you resist, is that theft at the point of a gun?
Is it any different if it's fifteen neighbors instead of one?
How about if it's 100 neighbors, and they hire someone to do the job of making the threatening visit?
How about if they give that someone a pretty blue uniform and a shiny badge?
It's all the same thing, isn't it? If it's not, please explain the difference to me. |
In other words, you don't like democracy. That's what it really boils down to in the end.
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Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2008 : 15:13:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hittman
Let me rephrase, so we don't get too sidetracked here: Everything created by man is a product of evolution. The watch maker's watch can be seen as a product of evolution – it wouldn't exist if it weren't for the evolved creature creating it. Likewise, medicine is a product of evolution.
| For me the expression 'socialism at the point of a gun' conjur the idea of gulags, not the idea of people voting democratically for a tax increase and people defaulting on their tax getting in legaltrouble. |
If answer your door to find one of your neighbors, armed, demanding that you "contribute" to, say, a local business that is failing, or he'll put you in a cage, or shoot you if you resist, is that theft at the point of a gun?
Is it any different if it's fifteen neighbors instead of one?
How about if it's 100 neighbors, and they hire someone to do the job of making the threatening visit? |
And what is the guy represent the majority of my neighbours, following a decision that was reached by a vote, a vote I was invited to participate to and was offered a possibility to voice my opinion about before the vote?
I mean, that'd be closer from the subject.
By this reasoning, the cops showing up to arrest somebody for murder is no different from the victim's family showing up on the killer's door step to lynch him. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2008 : 20:20:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hittman
It seems pretty simple to me. Honda has a business model that works. Toyota has a business model that works. They've proven it is quite possible to build cars in the US and make a profit.
The Big 3 don't have a working business model. If you want to bail them out of their decades of errors, by all means, open your wallet, cash in your IRAs, do whatever it takes to help them out. Just don't force me to do it with my money, (either directly, or by guaranteeing risky loan) and the money of every other taxpayer who doesn't want to participate. |
Yes, it's been frustratingly obvious that you have a simple understanding of the problem, which is why we're still arguing over it.
#1. The industry is not in this dire circumstance from 'decades of mismanagement.' They've made billions in profits over the last few decades and they would be able to weather any ordinary downturn without need for help from the government
#2. The reason Ford and GM are in trouble is they are sized for a much larger market share than they now command. Then right in the middle of the downsizing "turnaround" plan the situation tanks in three nasty ways:
a. First the price of gas shoots far higher in a far shorter period of time than anyone in their right mind would have anticipated.
b. The entire economy tanks in a 70 year disaster and the car market drops by 40% in the space of a few months.
c. The credit market seizes up tight so nobody can borrow money to do anything, so the companies are actually faced with running out of money when in an ordinary downturn they'd borrow the money to get them through.
This is an unprecedented situation and GM and Ford would not be begging for help otherwise. To say this was caused by a bad business model is just stupid.
#3. Chrysler's screwed up because Daimler bought them, raped them, then dumped them right before the biggest economic disaster in 70 years. I seriously doubt they'll make it even with loans. Cerberus probably will sell them as soon as possible.
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-Chaloobi
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Hittman
Skeptic Friend
134 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2008 : 15:52:33 [Permalink]
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Your analogy fails because it doesn't mention that it was his duty to inform himself of the likely-hood that he might have to pitch in to keep the community running, and he was given frequent opportunities to vote in matters of community management at the annual community meeting while living in that neighbourhood. So at no point was he unaware that he a neighbour might knock on his door with a request for extra cash to the community fund.
Your analogy is way too simplistic to function on a state governmental level. |
Duty? So you're going to force him to pitch in. We're back to force again, aren't we? Perhaps he just wants to be left alone.
Perhaps he did vote against the expenditures. Even if he didn't vote, how does that justify showing up at his door step with the threat of deadly force if he doesn't hand over his money?
It's not an analogy. It is what actually happens, just from a slightly different point of view.
| In other words, you don't like democracy. That's what it really boils down to in the end. |
You didn't answer my question. Please give it a try.
The founding fathers didn't like democracy either, that's why they made us a republic, not a democracy. Direct democracy gave us Proposition 8.
| And what is the guy represent the majority of my neighbours, following a decision that was reached by a vote, a vote I was invited to participate to and was offered a possibility to voice my opinion about before the vote? |
So if the masses vote to take away someone's stuff it becomes moral? It ceases to be theft?
| By this reasoning, the cops showing up to arrest somebody for murder is no different from the victim's family showing up on the killer's door step to lynch him. |
The victim's family, by proxy, is having the authorities take care of the problem. It's quite a different issue, though, because someone has been harmed.
Thanks for calling me stupid after demonstrating your ignorance of the whole picture, Chaloobi. You chose to ignore the fact that all those factors haven't stopped Toyota or Honda from making a profit building and selling cars in the US. So regardless of how you spin it, it is a bad business model.
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When a vampire Jehovah's Witness knocks on your door, don't invite him in. Blood Witness: http://bloodwitness.com
Get Smartenized® with the Quick Hitts blog: http://www.davehitt.com/blog2/index.phpBlog |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2008 : 17:14:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hittman
Your analogy fails because it doesn't mention that it was his duty to inform himself of the likely-hood that he might have to pitch in to keep the community running, and he was given frequent opportunities to vote in matters of community management at the annual community meeting while living in that neighbourhood. So at no point was he unaware that he a neighbour might knock on his door with a request for extra cash to the community fund.
Your analogy is way too simplistic to function on a state governmental level. |
Duty? So you're going to force him to pitch in. We're back to force again, aren't we? Perhaps he just wants to be left alone. |
Then he shouldn't have moved into that particular neighbourhood in the first place. He should have moved to Monaco instead.
Perhaps he did vote against the expenditures. Even if he didn't vote, how does that justify showing up at his door step with the threat of deadly force if he doesn't hand over his money? |
If he didn't bother to vote, then he forfeited his right to bitch about it. If he voted against the expenditure, he'd still have to face the consequences of moving/living in his community: Ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse.
It's so simple: If you don't like the taxes, don't move to Sweden. I see valid reasons for the use of the taxes I pay, so I stay. As do most of my countrymen. Several other Swedes didn't like it, and moved to Monaco. Good riddance to them.
| It's not an analogy. It is what actually happens, just from a slightly different point of view. |
It was a failed analogy because it failed to take into account the intricacies involved in the democratic representative parliament rule of a country.
In the 90s, the Swedish government bailed out banks because a crisis. In retrospect, I believe the country is better off for it, and Swedish banks are today better equipped to handle the current crisis compared to most other nations.
| And what is the guy represent the majority of my neighbours, following a decision that was reached by a vote, a vote I was invited to participate to and was offered a possibility to voice my opinion about before the vote? |
So if the masses vote to take away someone's stuff it becomes moral? It ceases to be theft? |
But that isn't what's happening. It sounds like you're trying to paint it like an armed mob is robbing a solitary innocent helpless guy. But that isn't the case.
Everyone in the community is asked to pitch in an equal share (or at least a share which size is partly based on his ability to carry the burden). We're not talking about robbing a single poor bastard blind.
And in the case of the car industry, the armed neighbour doesn't really rob him, but asks for a loan at gunpoint. Money which when repaid is returned to the community, and will benefit your "robbed" guy.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2008 : 17:54:27 [Permalink]
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Hittman, the biggest thing you are overlooking is that no one is forced to stay!
If you want to stay, and partake of the benefits, they you pay (or you'll be forced to pay).
If you really don't want to pay, you can move out.
Simple, really.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2008 : 19:01:38 [Permalink]
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The founding fathers didn't like democracy either, that's why they made us a republic, not a democracy. Direct democracy gave us Proposition 8. |
And you are making up definitions again.
For the rest of the world, the Republic the founding father founded was a democracy.
If you are really confused and not just being disingenuous, then your are mistaking democracy for 'direct democracy', that indeed gave us proposition 8, and republic for 'indirect democracy' other repblic, such as France, are, in fact, direct democracy. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2008 : 15:58:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hittman
You didn't answer my question. Please give it a try.
The founding fathers didn't like democracy either, that's why they made us a republic, not a democracy. Direct democracy gave us Proposition 8. |
But they did make the USA a representative democracy. The system they subscribed to is a system where questions of regulation are discussed within a system of representatives chosen, amongst others, by you. You have an influence in this system, as has everybody. The same for all regulations you do want the government to perform. The question on how far this system should go is discussed first in this representative system and subsequently enforced. This is where your example falls down into idiocy. You neglect to mention that you have been given a chance to present your case (or let a representative of yours present his or her case).
You are extremely inconsistent in your reasoning. You do not really subscribe to the reasoning that taxes are theft, because you want to use those taxes yourself to enforce certain issues (like a police system, fire departments, the army). You disagree with the extent to which taxes should be put, but that doesn't make taxes theft. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2008 : 16:25:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Hittman's idea of "community" appears to be "every man for himself."
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Hittman also seems to be under the impression that he owns "wealth" independent of the community, but he is mistaken. Dollars are a currency printed and regulated by the government for the purpose of facilitating bartering. But by using this currency he implicitly agrees to the additional charges incurred, like sales and income taxes. Private property? Also only possible if the government sanctions and protects a person's right to own it. For many native peoples or communist governments, any claim to own a piece of land would not be recognized as valid.
So when Hittman bitches that the government comes to steal his money, it's only "his" in the context of the system. But if he wishes to reject that system--i.e. American governance--then it really ceases to be his after all.
He really should be printing up his own currency, using unclaimed resources or resources acquired by force, and backed up with his own weapons and employed mercenaries. The closest thing I can imagine in today's world that matches Hittman's concept of a "free man" would be a pirate.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Hittman
Skeptic Friend
134 Posts |
Posted - 12/21/2008 : 20:10:15 [Permalink]
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| Then he shouldn't have moved into that particular neighbourhood in the first place. He should have moved to Monaco instead. |
Love it or leave it?
So if you don't like having your stuff stolen at the point of a gun, your only option is to move. Lovely.
You still haven't explained how that makes it right, or moral, though.
| If he didn't bother to vote, then he forfeited his right to bitch about it. |
Is that really in your constitution? It's not in ours.
| It was a failed analogy because it failed to take into account the intricacies involved in the democratic representative parliament rule of a country. |
Nonsense. It is barely an analogy. It is closer to an actual description of what happens.
But that isn't what's happening. It sounds like you're trying to paint it like an armed mob is robbing a solitary innocent helpless guy. But that isn't the case.
Everyone in the community is asked to pitch in an equal share (or at least a share which size is partly based on his ability to carry the burden). We're not talking about robbing a single poor bastard blind. |
Asked? Asked? So how do I say "No thank you, I'm not going to participate" without armed men taking my stuff? Is there a form I can fill out?
You're talking about robbing lots of poor bastards. How is stealing from many more moral than stealing from one?
| And in the case of the car industry, the armed neighbour doesn't really rob him, but asks for a loan at gunpoint. Money which when repaid is returned to the community, and will benefit your "robbed" guy. |
Ah, so it's OK to steal from someone if it's only a loan. Got it.
You are assuming, of course, that the money will be repaid. If the risk were reasonable they'd be able to find private loans. The only reason we're being shafted for this is because they are too high a risk for financial institutions.
| Hittman, the biggest thing you are overlooking is that no one is forced to stay! |
I always thought "love it or leave it" was an ignorant redneck thing. Guess not.
| You neglect to mention that you have been given a chance to present your case (or let a representative of yours present his or her case). |
If I present my case, and am still forced to pay, all I did was waste my breath.
| You do not really subscribe to the reasoning that taxes are theft, because you want to use those taxes yourself to enforce certain issues (like a police system, fire departments, the army). You disagree with the extent to which taxes should be put, but that doesn't make taxes theft. |
Taxes are theft. Since the government can't function without them, and we do need some government, they should only be stolen for things you that justify pointing a gun at someone. You want to point a gun at someone to say "You've got to pay your share for the roads, the cops (who are pointing the guns), the courts and prisons (as long as it's for crimes where someone is really hurt), fine. You want to point a gun at someone to say "you need to help someone put a crucifix in a jar of urine and call it art, and bail out an industry with a crappy business model, and pay farmers to not grow food, and to support nations that harbor terrorists, and to fight the stupidest war in a century, and imprison someone for 25 years because they have a big back of weed, and on and on and on. . .then your theft is not justified.
I'll still pay it, because I have no choice, and there is no place to go that's tax free (which makes that suggestion exceedingly stupid) and because they have guns and I don't. It's like paying protection money to the Mafia. (The difference, in many cases, is that the Mafia actually does protect the property of the people they're extorting.) I don't like it, it's absolutely wrong, but I like my kneecaps so I'll cough it up.
| But by using this currency he implicitly agrees to the additional charges incurred, like sales and income taxes. |
Again, not in my copy of the constitution. Please point out where I missed it. Or are you just assuming?
| Private property? Also only possible if the government sanctions and protects a person's right to own it. For many native peoples or communist governments, any claim to own a piece of land would not be recognized as valid. |
Private property was effectively abolished in 2005 with the Kelo v. New London decision. Any claim to private property can be easily absolved by local governments, with the stroke of a pen, on virtually any flimsy pretense.
You're justifying using force to take money from peaceful citizens to bail out poorly run private industry and I'm the pirate? I thought this board was for logical and reasonable people. Perhaps I was mistaken.
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When a vampire Jehovah's Witness knocks on your door, don't invite him in. Blood Witness: http://bloodwitness.com
Get Smartenized® with the Quick Hitts blog: http://www.davehitt.com/blog2/index.phpBlog |
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Killing the car companies
