!@#$% Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/13/wi-repub-lives-outside-district-with-mistress-says-wife/ "Protesters who marched at the home of Wisconsin state senator Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac) were met with something of a surprise on Saturday. Mrs. Hopper appeared at the door and informed them that Sen. Hopper was no longer in residence at this address, but now lives in Madison, WI with his 25-year-old mistress." "Mrs. Hopper intends to sign the recall petition against her husband. The petition has already been signed by the family's maid." damn. i totally missed this shit. same old story i guess though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MOOGLE? Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 wisconsin dwd workers lost overtime... had a nice little convo yesterday with a worker while trying to find out why i didnt get stuff in the mail...turns out the moment walker went into office extended benefits ceased april 19th Extended Benefits (E B : The federal government has notified us that, as of April 16, 2011, Extended benefits (EB will no longer be available to Wisconsin claimants. it was strange speaking to the lady on the phone because she actually cared about her job and the people who call Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fist 666 Posted May 28, 2011 Share Posted May 28, 2011 Wisconsin Judge Declares Walker’s Collective Bargaining Bill “Null and Void” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
!@#$% Posted May 29, 2011 Share Posted May 29, 2011 ^saw that. so sweet. thx for the update Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UPS! Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 I dont think it neccesarily was a move to balance the states budget or whatever othr bullshit excuse was used to screw working people out of their money. More so I believe it was a move by republicans to break the unions to weaken a major support group of Obama's to harm his chances in 2012. Just my opinion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 the irony of this thread? most of the people on here denounce corporate welfare, privilege and redistribution of wealth from working americans to corporate giants. yet they see no hypocrisy in stealing the wealth of private sector working americans to give to government monopolized and unionized workers with special privileges, who make twice as much as private sector workers... all the while the private sector workers are working 2 jobs and paying half their income in taxes just to pay for non productive inefficient government workers. governments dont create wealth, they can only take it from the productive private sector. a public sector union member in my extended family just retired after taking 1 year of sick days. when he retired he cashed out his vacation pay and received a 75K check. now he will be making 80K a year in pension, healthcare paid for, for the next 30-40-50 years. i;d like to know of any job in the private sector in a similar line of work that receives this sort of pay and benefits and which companies can afford to stay solvent that do not rely on the coercive forced tax revenue to fund their inefficient bureaucracies. its not rich vs poor, its net tax payers (private sector workers) vs net tax consumers (receivers of government benefits, government workers, etc) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
!@#$% Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 what about the golden parachute? anecdotal evidence never proves points. government waste is a myth, it's only redundancy. but most of the time, people don't want to hear the facts, only 'evidence' they've found to support their ideals. another myth? that private sector employees work harder, and deserve their money more. i work in the govt sector so puhleeze don't dictate the terms of my job to me. private sector employees in pharma and R&D make far more than i do, for another anecdote. go on though, live in that black and white world where everything is simple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decyferon Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 I agree with Symbols, government workers dont make more over here, a doctor working for the NHS will earn les than a doctor working for a private company, and I guarantee the NHS doctor has to work harder. Same goes for people working within the goverment in legal terms, private lawyers will also earn more. The only government workers that I know of that earn more are call centre workers, and the difference is minimal. Not to mention I have worked for private companies that have better pensions (non contribution where the company just pays into the scheme and you can top it up if you like). If anything government workers get a worse deal due to them being the first people hit by cuts in gov. spending/loss of funding etc. It may be different in the US but over here it isn't, the reason why the people have power in employment is because of the unions, because the unions are the people that step up when an employer wants to cut the employee benefits etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 government waste is a myth? what planet are you living on? have you ever heard of the 3,000$ coffee pots, the billions to drop bombs on innocents, the welfare recipients who win 2 million dollars on the lottery and get to stay on food stamps the hard fact, people cannot wrap their heads around is that the private sector, is the only sector that produces wealth. without private workers, there would be no tax money to steal in order to pay for government workers. the issue isnt about who gets paid what (even though the stats are perfectly clear that with benefits, the average government worker makes 120K a year and the same or similar job in the private sector makes roughly 65K), its about the market not determining the wages, but bureaucracy determining the wages. why should teachers who work for a school system who have dumbed down generations of students, that teach nothing but obedience to the state, be paid more? should some? yes, the best teachers SHOULD be paid more. the bad teachers, should be gone. but with a unionized system, this is impossible, its easier to vote out an incumbent than to fire a bureaucrat. the incentive with government is to fail otherwise you dont get more funding. if you fail in the private sector, you go broke. (unless the government bails you out) economics is a very simple thing to understand. the overwhelming LOLZ of the government union defenders is that unions are just another big business, special interest group, with their special laws, privileges, monopoly grants, regulations using the power of the state to coerce others, rob wealth and destroy freedom and free associations. not to mention, the unions get to elect their own bosses with whom they 'negotiate' (its really collusion) their wages. there was another company that used to pay workers 100K a year to do very little.. (100K a year to bolt on wheels, vs a guy who will do it at a tire shop for 10$ an hour)and make 80K a year for 40 years after their retirement.....GM. now the government owns them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decyferon Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 But what is an average government worker AOD? Are you telling me that someone painting road markings is earning 120k a year? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 im talking statistically, the average federal worker. you are just seeing numbers, but not including benefits. benefits are not free... there is no such thing as a free lunch. they are part of the cost of employment, just like vacations, sick time, etc. i knew a guy who painted fire plugs for the county. he make 21$ an hour, worked for approximately 2 hours a day, napped most of the rest of the day. another guy who used to come in my work all the time, literally bragged about working 3 - 4 weeks out of the year and the rest he 'got lost.' he was the supervisor of the waste division of the county i used to live in. he made 33$ an hour, got overtime every week and when he retired he his total pay out for sick days, vacation days, and a medical pay out.... 135K. he paid off his mortgage on his SECOND house with this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decyferon Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 But private companies offer all the same sort of benefits, if not more, again I don't know whether it is different over here, but you will get a better benefits package from a private firm than for working for a government position. I know I have worked for both and the benefits offered by the private company FAR exceeds the benefits of a government job. It must be very different over there then, because it isn't like that over here - well from my experience anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 well, you have to make sure to use comparisons for similar types of work. the private sector always does things better, faster and cheaper. (no, blackwater whose revenue comes from no bid government contracts are not what im talking about when i talk about the private sector) the post office cant deliver the mail at a profit. they lose a couple hundred billion every couple years. ups and fed ex all make profit. amtrack is broke, the DoD is broke, schools cant educate and use up to 25K per pupil while private schools that deliver much better education do so for less than half that. consider the guy painting fire plugs... he was making 21$ an hour 15 years ago. i'd imagine the same position is making much more now, due to inflation. now the skill set this guy has is no different than a painters helper. a painters helper might make 10 bucks an hour. the government fire plug painter will get a pension for the rest of his life @ 80% of his last highest wage and not even pay into it. the painters helper is lucky to have enough cash to set aside a few thousand a year to save for his retirement. and just look at what the wisconsin people are originally rioting over... that they would now have to pay 12.6% of their health care and pay a miniscule portion into their pensions. THE WORLD IS GOING TO SPIN OFF ITS AXIS. welcome to the real world. it is unheard of for the vast majority of working americans to get paid pensions @ 80% their over market wages for 40 years after they retire and not even pay into the pension. it is unheard of to have medical bills paid for free for the rest of their lives, let alone not pay into the system in the first place. the outrage comes from the average joe seeing a government worker, lets say a teacher in this case, making more money in wages, and then getting 80% of their last highest wage in pension for the rest of their life after they retire @ age 50, while the private school teacher is making slightly less in wages and gets no retirement pension like teachers get. and to make matters worse, the schools produce drone like uneducated kids. this same phenomenon is seen time and time again throughout the government sector. the real telling thing about this whole thing is why in the hell arent the government workers FLOCKING away from the tyranny of being under paid?!?!?! why arent they flocking to those high paying private sector jobs? why didnt all these teachers just go and get a nice cushy better paying private sector job? because they know the deal they got is only available in government. but my real views on this are much more cynical. i was actually rooting for the protesters for a while. the best thing that could of happened was to gridlock the wisconsin legislature. that way they couldnt pass any more laws oppressing the public. so we are really dealing with 2 sides of the same coin... tax leaching government workers and the tax leaching government itself. what would be even better, is if they just gave in and started paying them all 1000$ an hour, bankrupted the entire state, burned down the capital and replaced it with nothing and just went home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
!@#$% Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 what's funny is this whole wisconsin thing is about some guy who wanted to give his rich friend contracts without anyone else getting to bid on them. that's what's up with deregulation and our free market, run by a very small number of people being given historically low tax rates in a country that allows them to amass ridiculous wealth that no one would ever actually need. i dunno, i don't read all that 'fuck taxes blah blah blah shit.' sowwy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 'no bid' contracts, corporatism/corporate fascism is hardly a 'free' market. this is nothing but special privilege bestowed onto favored corporate interests by the government. notice the common denominator: government. this is the very thing i addressed in my previous post... unions are doing the exact same thing, you are accusing the corporate big boys of doing. demanding more privileges and regulations that favor them, all at the expense of the people who foot the bill for both. so to take either side in this debate is just silly, if you value any semblance of freedom or fiscally responsible government. both are tax leeches that really need a stake in their hearts so they can stop exsanguinating everyone else. this goes for the wisconsin state government and the wisconsin government 'workers.' to defend economic fascism and the corporatist state giving favors to unions instead of corporate special interests, instead of denouncing both, is the height of hypocrisy. goes to show you are not against corporatism, just you are for giving the goods to certain groups you favor. 'low tax rates'..... what is that, sort of like having a low 'burglary' rate? just because a robber only steals slightly less of ones property doesnt negate the act of theft. theft is a violation of natural liberty. should we celebrate only a partial slavery like say govt sanctioned jim crow laws because its a lower level of oppression than chattel slavery? what is the difference between slavery and freedom? between rape and sex? CONSENT. its sad that one cannot grasp where governments get their money from or that they simply choose to ignore it. it really shows who favors violence and who doesnt. one side favors using armed bully boys of the government to collect their revenue by force under threat of death if people sufficiently resist and attempt to live free. the other says everyone should interact on a totally voluntary basis. if you feel wisconsin teachers or other government workers should be paid more, feel free to stroke off a check. there is nothing stopping supporters of these people from sending part of their own earnings to fund these inefficient bureaucracies. its your right to fund said groups, and i would never in any way infringe on this right or force you to do anything you didnt want to to. all i ask is that you do the same in return... that is refuse to support a system that throws people in jail if they choose not to partake in something. what do you say? "Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” -Bastiat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_gacy Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 luckily for me CA is pretty liberal and i dont see us getting teabagged. In other news, he said teabagged. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_gacy Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 Oh, and hey, fuck WI. You ever see how fat those people are? No matter how much they make or what benefits they have, they appear to be living well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decyferon Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 as much as you say people don't grasp taxes, to me it is like you don't grasp how business works. In the UK recently the government has allowed universities to raise their tuition fees for students, now do you think that the universities thought, oh well students pay enough atthe moment as it is lets not adjust anything? No, they wacked their prices up to the maximum allowed. If we took away all public schemes, like schools healthcare etc (remember im talking the UK) and allowed business to run it unregulated in a free market, then do you think these companies would do what is best for the consumer? No they will charge as much as they wants, and the thing is they all will put it to those prices because if they all charge high the consumer has no option but to pay it. My child needs education so I would have to find that money somehow - that to me is also coersion. The way you view government is the way I view business, I know you will come back saying blah blah coersion of government freedom of choice business, but you dont have freedom of choice if all the services you need are run privately and they are all charging as much as they want because there is no regulation. I do not understand why people have an issue with taxes, you are contributing to society, healthcare, jobs, education for all, helping the disadvataged. You think that people will act as charitably as all the money that goes into these sort of schemes through taxes? No because they will be getting screwed so hard by unregulated businesses that they will have no money at all to give charitably. I almost already know what your answer to this post is though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 In the UK recently the government has allowed universities to raise their tuition fees for students, now do you think that the universities thought, oh well students pay enough atthe moment as it is lets not adjust anything? No, they wacked their prices up to the maximum allowed. do student loans and universal type schooling schemes exist in the UK? if they do, your equation of schools raising rates with a free market is a little off. here is why. school loans from the government, (in the US is what im referring to) are almost singlehandedly responsible for raising tuition rates so high that unless one comes from a rich family, no one can pay for school unless they have a government loan. why? because the government hands out basically unlimited dollars, with essentially no strings attached in grants, loans, etc that result in an unlimited amount of money given to basically anyone that wants it is chasing a set number of colleges. so whenever you have to much money chasing to to few of goods, prices rise. colleges in the US can basically name their price because there is no market mechanism to keep prices low. people dont price shop because they arent going to school with their own money. they dont have to pay it back, if ever, until well down the road. people going to school dont really even care about going anyway as far as education is concerned, as its basically 4 years of partying, changing their majors, getting useless degrees that are the equivalent of a high school diploma from a couple generations ago. then when they get out, they end up taking a job unrelated to their education, then half them go back to school to get another degree because their first degree is useless. if people werent getting free money to go to school and had to pony up the money themselves, it is more likely that said student would think long and hard what they are spending their money on, and go into the field they studied in school. because people arent paying for school with their own hard earned money, its just like how people didnt care about the price of housing because they were buying houses in the housing boom with none of their own money as well. what could they lose? you buy one of these houses with no money down, and it will go up in value. until they dropped by half. what could someone lose by going to college on a loan? they get a degree and dont have to pay it back for years down the road, when they think they will be making 200K a year. and then they find out their degree is basically useless in the phony US economy in depression, all thanks to the US government. a generation or 2 ago, the average american, that actually wanted to go to college could pay for it with a part time job. in the 1950's the average college tuition was something like 300$ bucks. the average college tuition now is probably in the 15K range. but this doesnt matter, because the government distorts the market with easy credit. If we took away all public schemes, like schools healthcare etc (remember im talking the UK) and allowed business to run it unregulated in a free market, then do you think these companies would do what is best for the consumer? No they will charge as much as they wants, and the thing is they all will put it to those prices because if they all charge high the consumer has no option but to pay it. My child needs education so I would have to find that money somehow- that to me is also coersion. sure companies will do what the consumer wants. the consumer is sovereign. if consumers dont like companies, they go bankrupt. if consumers dont like government programs, they are still forced to pay for them and the same product/service always exists no matter the quality. it is nothing but a lack of an understanding of basic economics if you think a business can charge however much they want for a certain product. why cant they? competition. if an unregulated free market allows only the seller/person providing the service to charge whatever they want and everyone will pay this price... then: why arent unregulated businesses that have no price controls charging 100,000,000$ for gasoline? why arent computer stores selling computers for 8,000,000,000$ ? why do computers fall so much in price and raise so much in quality that after a year, a computer is almost obsolete? why cant the providers of labor services charge the employer whatever they want and why isnt everyone who provides labor services making 10,000,000$ an hour? when you put something in the newspaper for sale or on craigslist, why cant you list a 1200$ 1990 honda civic for 5,000,000,000$? The way you view government is the way I view business, I know you will come back saying blah blah coersion of government freedom of choice business, but you dont have freedom of choice if all the services you need are run privately and they are all charging as much as they want because there is no regulation. if the private sector, in a truly unregulated free market where individuals are free to exchange with whomever and however they see fit cannot do something cheaper than government (not to mention faster, and with more quality) then it proves that government is doing something economically unnatural. the easiest illustration is the post office and schools. the post office in the US charges 44 cents to mail a first class letter. it is illegal to compete with the post office on first class mail. the only loophole is private carriers can charge 3 times the highest first class rate for the p.o. and the letter must be 'urgent' (must be delivered in under 2 days). the post office loses a couple hundred billion dollars every year. it is an economic black hole. the more money you put in, the less you get out. postage rates should probably be higher, cashiers at the post office should not be driving bmw's, making 80K a year doing the same exact work that a cashier at a grocery store does for 25K a year and should not be receiving a 65K a year pension for 40 years after they retire. fed ex and ups provide services as close to the post office as legally possible. they do so at a profit every year. if UPS lost 100 billion a year, they would be bankrupt. yet, the USPS can operate their business however they want because they have a government monopoly and an unlimited supply of revenue, because governments steal money or print it, they do not have to earn it voluntarily. the second is schools. spending per pupil in the US on public schools, if you include federal moneys, is in the 24K per student range. kids get dumber and dumber every year. you only see that your school is 'free' because someone else is footing the bill. private schooling in the US, for 8K a year delivers top notch students. even better, homeschooling creates the best educated students and some people do it for 4,000$ for all 12 years of schooling. so public schooling costs 24K a year per student, private schools 8K and you get better results... what am i missing here? who is paying more and where? I do not understand why people have an issue with taxes, you are contributing to society, healthcare, jobs, education for all, helping the disadvataged. there is nothing wrong with liking taxes. by all means, why not stroke off a check to your government for twice the amount you pay at present? why not? are you a hypocrite? however saying that you do not understand why people take issue with coercive taxation is sort of like saying...'i dont understand why people dont like slavery... makes absolutely no sense, you are contributing to society, you are working, you are paying for the healthcare of the other slaves, and they all have roofs over their heads. what could be wrong?' the difference is consent. everyone is perfectly free to pay for other peoples goods and services. however throwing someone in jail if they dont give some money to a homeless guy...is this cool? throwing someone in jail if they dont pay for the person sitting next to them in the emergency room, is this ok? throwing someone in jail if they dont pay for someone elses kid's education? cool? You think that people will act as charitably as all the money that goes into these sort of schemes through taxes? No because they will be getting screwed so hard by unregulated businesses that they will have no money at all to give charitably.. everyone would be so prosperous in a free economy that charity would be less of an issue. people give thousands of dollars of their own money a year to churches and voluntary charities who distribute charity in a much more efficient manner than a government who continues to give food stamps to a guy who wins 2 million playing the lottery. the more people are free to prosper, the more the living standards of all are raised. step back and look around. the 'poor' these days have cell phones, air conditioning, cars, roofs over their head and 100$ shoes. would you rather be 'poor' in a rich country or 'poor' in a third world country? government welfare programs breed dependence. private programs attempt to get people out of the situation they are in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
!@#$% Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 :haha: talk to greenspan about a 'free economy' that's a good one. i'd suggest you take a few courses in economics. fo real. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 a self proclaimed 'almost' socialist telling a free market to guy to take some 'courses' on economics? greenspan represents socialism, not a free economy. ever read the communist manifesto. it contains a plank for a central bank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
!@#$% Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 greenspan was a huge fan of the free market, to deny that is simply ignoring his own assertions. In Congressional testimony on October 23, 2008, Greenspan finally conceded error on regulation. The New York Times wrote, "a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending. ... Mr. Greenspan refused to accept blame for the crisis but acknowledged that his belief in deregulation had been shaken." Although many Republican lawmakers tried to blame the housing bubble on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Greenspan placed far more blame on Wall Street for bundling subprime mortgages into securities. see, we did the whole free market thing. except, people are very corrupt get it? and yup, when you present your comments as facts, but are also apparently oblivious to the laissez-faire history of this country and how detrimental it was, yeah, it seems you don't know what you're talking about, hence the advice to learn about economics. as for communism, there might be a manifesto but it will never exist, just like anarchy the nature of humans won't allow a utopia like that to exist. we won't attain the perfection of behavior required in society for that kinda shit to work. people need to be told what to do, and what not to do, because they are dummies. but go ahead, keep on blowing that hot air. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 greenspan was a huge fan of the free market, to deny that is simply ignoring his own assertions. In Congressional testimony on October 23, 2008, Greenspan finally conceded error on regulation. The New York Times wrote, "a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending. ... Mr. Greenspan refused to accept blame for the crisis but acknowledged that his belief in deregulation had been shaken." Although many Republican lawmakers tried to blame the housing bubble on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Greenspan placed far more blame on Wall Street for bundling subprime mortgages into securities. see, we did the whole free market thing. except, people are very corrupt get it? and yup, when you present your comments as facts, but are also apparently oblivious to the laissez-faire history of this country and how detrimental it was, yeah, it seems you don't know what you're talking about, hence the advice to learn about economics. as for communism, there might be a manifesto but it will never exist, just like anarchy the nature of humans won't allow a utopia like that to exist. we won't attain the perfection of behavior required in society for that kinda shit to work. people need to be told what to do, and what not to do, because they are dummies. but go ahead, keep on blowing that hot air. greenspan WAS indeed a fan of the free market. in fact he wrote a piece for ayn rand's newsletter back in the 60's that defended a free commodity monetary standard over a central bank. then he became head of a centrally planned criminal arm of the federal government. greenspan is just like obama. obama WAS supposedly anti war, yet he has escalated the war in a'stan, massively increased predator drone attacks in p'stan, put US citizens on an assassination list, and started an unconstitutional immoral war in libya. we are now fighting essentially 5 wars, iraq, p'stan, a'stan, yemen, and libya. if greenspan was actually a 'free marketeer' then when he was appointed head of the FED, he would of resigned after he shut down FED operations, burned the buildings to the ground and salted the earth on which they stood. to say that markets were 'deregulated' is sort of like saying if we just knocked off the shackles of a slave, and let him walk freely, but we still regulated every other single aspect of his life, that we 'deregulated' his actions. but honestly, everyone has hashed this particular topic over 1000 times on here and no use in going any further on that. when the pilgrims were starving in 1620 because of government controlled collectivized food plots and growing practices, which resulted in lazy farmers and starving people, it was only when the governor authorized private gardens that they were able to enjoy life in america and have food to live on. capitalism has given americans the highest living standard in the entire world to the point where we now call people 'poor' if they dont have smart phones and have a flip phone, or that only have 1 flat screen instead of 1 in every bedroom. the poor are now throwing out more than the poor ate 2-3 generations ago. america hasnt had a free market since atleast the mid 19th century. we have had mixed economy. only the last vestiges of free exchange have helped keep the country alive. in order to be a good liberal one must believe governments create prosperity and business creates oppression. yet, the record for collectivism is telling. the estimated numbers of victims to democide in the 20th century is roughly 262 million people. 262 million people... death by government. what a group to have in your corner. i'll leave you with this, being the radical anti statist and abolitionist that i am. the difference between freedom and slavery. "Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is about you. 1. There is a slave completely at the mercy of his brutal master's whims. He often is cruelly beaten, called out in the middle of the night, and so on. 2. The master is kindlier and beats the slave only for stated infractions of his rules (not fulfilling the work quota, and so on). He gives the slave some free time. 3. The master has a group of slaves, and he decides how things are to be allocated among them on nice grounds, taking into account their needs, merit, and so on. 4.The master allows his slaves four days on their own and requires them to work only three days a week on his land. The rest of the time is their own. 5. The master allows his slaves to go off and work in the city (or anywhere they wish) for wages. He requires only that they send back to him three-sevenths of their wages. He also retains the power to recall them to the plantation if some emergency threatens his land; and to raise or lower the three-sevenths amount required to be turned over to him. He further retains the right to restrict the slaves from participating in certain dangerous activities that threaten his financial return, for example, mountain climbing, cigarette smoking. 6. The master allows all of his 10,000 slaves, except you, to vote, and the joint decision is made by all of them. There is open discussion, and so forth, among them, and they have the power to determine to what uses to put whatever percentage of your (and their) earnings they decide to take; what activities legitimately may be forbidden to you, and so on. 7. Let us pause in this sequence of cases to take stock. If the master contracts this transfer of power so that he cannot withdraw it, you have a change of master. You now have 10,000 masters instead of just one; rather you have one 10,000-headed master. Perhaps the 10,000 even will be kindlier than the benevolent master in case 2. Still, they are your master. However, still more can be done. A kindly single master (as in case 2) might allow his slave(s) to speak up and try to persuade him to make a certain decision. The 10,000-headed monster can do this also. 8. Though still not having the vote, you are at liberty (and are given the right) to enter into the discussions of the 10,000, to try to persuade them to adopt various policies and to treat you and themselves in a certain way. They then go off to vote to decide upon policies covering the vast range of their powers. 9. In appreciation of your useful contributions to discussion, the 10,000 allow you to vote if they are deadlocked; they commit themselves to this procedure. After the discussion you mark your vote on a slip of paper, and they go off and vote. In the eventuality that they divide evenly on some issue, 5,000 for and 5,000 against, they look at your ballot and count it in. This has never yet happened; they have never yet had occasion to open your ballot. (A single master also might commit himself to letting his slave decide any issue concerning him about which he, the master, was absolutely indifferent.) They throw your vote in with theirs. If they are exactly tied your vote carries the issue. Otherwise it makes no difference to the electoral outcome. The question is: which transition from case 1 to case 9 made it no longer the tale of a slave?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fist 666 Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 i hate analogies that compare control and regulation to slavery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 ah, the mind of a totalitarian. how can one NOT compare living under a government that exists solely as a monopoly on force to slavery? how can throwing people in jail for not doing what someone tells them to do (and not violating anyone elses rights) NOT be a form of slavery? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gutterball Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 "slavery-the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune" try not paying your taxes? try standing against any law that you feel unjustified...the result of these could be death, or you being locked in a cage. I think that is slavery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fist 666 Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 no. slavery is slavery. living with rules and consequences as a responsible citizen is not. slippery slope, grey area nonsense calling what we live in slavery is a privilege allotted you by the freedoms you do have. are we absolutely free? no. that is impossible in a human society. but that doesn't make it slavery. if you want to be completely off the grid, go for it, if you want goods that are produced in any capacity elsewhere, you'll have to deal with some consequences. sorry. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
!@#$% Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 idealism is a funny thing when it abuts reality. sometimes i think travel to foreign lands should be mandatory. people don't seem to get that when they take away taxes, they'd take away a lot of what makes us unique and innovative. oh well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gutterball Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 Cool! you should make it a Govt mandate, sounds like one of your ideas. Lobby for it. Mandatory trips to foreign nations for educational purposes ! You could even make a cool alphabet name for it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fist 666 Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 thats a cute way to ignore the fact that world travel and cultural experience would benefit your narrow interpretation of slavery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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