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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
I'm in favor of taxing anything we can get our hands on, pretty much. (which is to say, we should also abolish all sales taxes, most user fees, and other regressive taxation). The trouble is getting your hands on it. Economic elites have a certain felicity for hiding their wealth. For example, in classical Athens the rich families hid their money with private bankers and pretended like they didn't have any, so they wouldn't be liable for the liturgeia (public fundraising). Tax havens are nothing new, I'm afraid. Wealth has a way of circulating in hidden places.
(It's an attempt to understand this hidden circulation of wealth that motivates my interest in the discourse on conspiracies.)
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On October 28 2015 07:47 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 07:02 zlefin wrote:On October 28 2015 06:43 cLutZ wrote:On October 28 2015 05:52 farvacola wrote:
It's really not that unrealistic. Many things need to fall into place first, but the Supreme Court justices that Sanders appoints will be anti-Citizens United, there'll be injury in fact guaranteed given the repetitive nature of elections and the sheer volume of money spent via CU's holding and authorization, and you better believe that a host of very capable lawyers will be looking to bring such a case before the Supreme Court. It would only be a matter of time. But no, Sanders himself cannot overturn CU, he can merely put the people who can into power. He also needs to appoint justices that are capable of distinguishing The New York times from an advertisement placed in the NYT and from a startup blog and a lone pamphleteer. Or Fox News from an ad run on Fox News from a movie the is OnDemand. Remember that Citizens United is a group that was prosecuted/had an injunction imposed against them by the FEC because they tried to run a documentary about Hillary Clinton in theaters and OnDemand during the Democratic primaries. How this is distinguishable from an Op-Ed in the NYT or a favorable/unfavorable interview on CBS (or an SNL appearance) without engaging in viewpoint discrimination is something you need to be able to articulate from first principals. And I have actually never seen that done, particularly in the Citizens United dissents. I'm not quite clear on where you're coming from on this. Could you clarify your point/stance? # 1. Citizens United is a group that was prosecuted by the FEC because they tried to run a documentary about Hillary Clinton in theaters and OnDemand during the Democratic primaries. In other words, if they lost the case, there is no principled reason for any party to be able to release or run a documentary on a candidate during election season. What is a documentary? Should 60 minutes be banned from running a piece on Hillary? Whats the difference? # 2. Almost all of our press consists of corporations. They expend resources to distribute information. PACs and SuperPACs expend resources to distribute information. An Op-Ed or Positive article on, for instance, Hillary Clinton, run in the NYTs is just as valuable, or more valuable than an advertisement run in the pages, or on the NYT website run by a pro-Clinton SuperPAC. Media coverage, under a principled system, should be treated as an in-kind contribution to a candidate. Do you disagree? # 3. If you somehow want to distinguish "press" by what standard? Who constitutes the press? Who decides? What enforcement mechanism?
I am constructing a response which is taking some time, so hopefully I don't get ninja'ed too heavily
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Your point number 1 seems suspect,
one of the issues in question for the case was whether or not The Movie was clearly intended to exhort people to vote against the candidate. This is a question of fact, that is admittedly quite difficult: Is it simply covering information and historical events to tell people what happened, or is it really trying to say someone is bad and should not be elected? Such questions inevitably yield a grey area where it's hard to tell which it is.
some sources I reviewed, in full or in part:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/08-205
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/30118-
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/30104
It was also edifying to read this legal analysis in the related issue on Moore's farenheit 911 movie:
http://eqs.fec.gov/eqsdocsMUR/000045F9.pdf
This can also be looked up under fec case number 5539 in their enforcement query system.
mostly I've done a lot of reading, and come to the conclusion that there's a lot of grey areas in this.
I find that I disagree over some of the finer points of how you said what you said, but it's hard to explain; My disagreements with you on this issue aren't disagreements between black and white, or red and blue, but more like whether something is crimson red or cardinal red.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_(color)
on a side note: as to your point 3: iirc there is ample jurisprudence as to what constitutes "press" and it's interpreted very broadly.
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On October 28 2015 09:38 zlefin wrote:
one of the issues in question for the case was whether or not The Movie was clearly intended to exhort people to vote against the candidate. This is a question of fact, that is admittedly quite difficult: Is it simply covering information and historical events to tell people what happened, or is it really trying to say someone is bad and should not be elected? Such questions inevitably yield a grey area where it's hard to tell which it is. .
I would submit that this problem is entirely undecidable. Most of what passes for journalism in this county is, to my eyes, nothing but naked propaganda. But would a judge ever rule that the New York Times is therefore advocacy and not journalism? I doubt it
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On October 28 2015 00:47 notesfromunderground wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2015 14:32 frazzle wrote:On October 27 2015 13:31 notesfromunderground wrote:
That's just not how it played out man. Go read Jean Bodin. The idea of natural law was something that had coexisted for a long time with other legal discourses. Everyone believed in natural law already, it wasn't something that was explicitly invented in order to challenge and displace an older concept of 'divine law.'
Well, Locke WAS a product of his time. If you read any marxist historian out there they'll point out that his arguments were a de facto attempt to justify aspects of the enclosure movement as well as colonial practices. I don't doubt that Locke was, at least at some level, genuinely attempting to put into words what seemed to him to be a natural state of affairs, but this doesn't change the fact that he was a product of his time. I mean, just ask yourself, to whom was Locke speaking? Peasant farmers? Edit: although I also agree, natural law was a philosophical concept that predates the enlightenment. It wasn't a cynical rebranding of divine right. But, I would agree with KwarK it occupied the same role in enlightenment times. Sort of. But natural law and the state of nature are not the same thing. Locke wasn't trying to simply describe a naturally existing reality as he found it. If any of these thinkers thought that there was a "natural state of affairs," they certainly didn't think it existed in Europe (remember, these are Christians, they all are basically lapsarian thinkers - they think that the present state of human history is Fallen). The point of "natural law theory" was to attempt to ground sovereignty in contracts, which fell under the category of natural law in the thought of the time. Earlier thinkers like Jean Bodin, for instance, held that no sovereign could be bound by a contract within his own domain, because the sovereign was above the law (two sovereigns could be bound by contracts with each other, though, because the sphere of intersovereign relations was one governed by natural law). The later thinkers really, really wanted the sovereign to be bound by contracts, so they wanted to develop a theory of sovereignty which was grounded in natural law. This is an entirely different thing that claiming than one's own society is a "naturally existing state of affairs" (as a sort of apologetic strategy) which none of them were about to do. If you want to tell a story about the development of natural law theory and liberal constitutionalism, you should tell a story about the centralization of the fiscal state in the 'absolute' monarchies of the 16th-17th centuries and the subsequent attempts by the propertied classes to constrain that state's ability to raise revenues arbitrarily. Liberal constitutionalism is about the growing power of the creditor classes who need a political theory under which the sovereign is inextricably (indeed, constitutively) bound by the debts and obligations he owes his subjects.
I think Kwark's point is not that natural right theory rose to "challenge" divine right theory per se, but that natural right became the predominant discourse of power, especially with its development by Hobbes and his conception of the social contract as the rational response to war of all against all. Natural right displaced the theory of right rooted in the divine sovereignty of Trojan kings and became the discourse of the administrative elite that grew up around the monarchy, because the old discourse about divine right lost its cogency. Even now you can see that it is Danglars' preferred language, and the preferred language of conservatives. Property is sacrosanct because if it isn't then we have to wonder whether the "peace" maintained by the State can aspire to the name.
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On October 27 2015 13:04 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2015 12:03 Cowboy64 wrote:
I think we should be clear on one thing though, no king nor tyrant has ever exercised total control of property, nor did any of them ever deprive everyone of all rights. Those rights may have only been for the select few who were deemed worthy by the king, and there may have been an implicit threat of the throne seizing all assets from some particular person or group, but societies have always demanded at least some natural rights to be protected and held by the influential class. The very basis of civilization, philosophically speaking, is the protection from anarchy. Any king who attempted to deprive literally ALL citizens of their rights would have been overthrown shortly thereafter by the combined might of the masses and of the upper class who supported the system with their wealth.
It is not as though no one had any rights at all and everyone was a complete slave to the king. Most people were probably slaves, that's true; but the people who were considered "people" usually enjoyed at least some form of privacy and autonomy concerning their own property. That this right was exclusive does not mean it was not in some ways coded into the DNA of human societies. The very purpose of social gathering and especially of governance was the protection of property. The American system is not unique in that it recognizes property rights, that is almost universal throughout history. The American system was different in that it, among few others, extended that right to all citizens (though they took a rather regressive view of who was or wasn't a citizen). Stalin would like a word with you about the protected class. Might I recommend you read a brilliant biography called Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Game theory might imply that once you've shown you'll kill literally anyone for anything everyone bands together to stop you but unfortunately humans are bad at executing collective game theory. History stands as proof against your claim.
My only response would be to point out that Stalin's empire did not even last half a century after his death, and his successors did not wait even four years to denounce him and his reign. His legacy was not one of success, in very large part because he did not respect the natural inclinations of human beings. That he avoided assassination does not mean that his vision of civilization was in any way compatible with human nature. The subsequent and swift decline of the Soviet Union following his death stands as some of the best evidence for the protection of private property by the government.
Man would not gather if it was not in his material interest to do so; and the acquisition and protection of material goods is the benefit he sought when first beginning to gather with others seeking the same benefit.
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On October 28 2015 08:27 notesfromunderground wrote:
Here's the point. You are quite right that it's going to be tricky to distinguish between the different things that count as 'political speech' in order to enforce the overturning of CU. (It's a similar problem to the regulation of financial activity - there's simply no rigorous way to distinguish between financial speculation and a legitimate hedge; it can't be done).
Do we get a judge to decide whether or not, when the NYT acts as Clinton's lapdog, they are engaging in political speech or simply doing journalism? What's the difference? Partly, it hinges on the question of collusion, or the existence of 'backroom deals.' Under the present way of doing things, the PACs are allowed to raise unlimited funds so long as they 'don't coordinate with the campaigns.' Of course, everyone knows that actually, they do this. Do they do this by having secret meetings that they deny, or simply by winking at each other and colluding tacitly? When does something cross the line and become "a conspiracy"? Does it matter?
The point of the blog is that I'm interested in the way that people invoke the idea of "conspiracy" in political discourse. If I make a claim (Say, that the US equities market is essentially a ponzi scheme), and then somebody says that it's a "conspiracy theory" - what tacit assumptions underly this claim? Are we assuming as a dogma that, in fact, there are no conspiracies? Is the idea that powerful elites (who all know each other, go to each others parties, send their kids to the same schools, eat at the same restaurants) would cooperate in order to promote their shared interests really that absurd? Is it absurd that the ownership of the NYT and Clinton would be working together in order to promote their shared class interests? At what point would this become a "conspiracy"? Secret tapes of the editorial board meeting with campaign advisors and planning their misinformation?
So it's directly connected to this question of campaign finance, as I hope you can see.
Don't back room deals just feel ickier than some individuals' interests happening to align and them acting independently on those interests?
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On October 28 2015 09:49 Cowboy64 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2015 13:04 KwarK wrote:On October 27 2015 12:03 Cowboy64 wrote:
I think we should be clear on one thing though, no king nor tyrant has ever exercised total control of property, nor did any of them ever deprive everyone of all rights. Those rights may have only been for the select few who were deemed worthy by the king, and there may have been an implicit threat of the throne seizing all assets from some particular person or group, but societies have always demanded at least some natural rights to be protected and held by the influential class. The very basis of civilization, philosophically speaking, is the protection from anarchy. Any king who attempted to deprive literally ALL citizens of their rights would have been overthrown shortly thereafter by the combined might of the masses and of the upper class who supported the system with their wealth.
It is not as though no one had any rights at all and everyone was a complete slave to the king. Most people were probably slaves, that's true; but the people who were considered "people" usually enjoyed at least some form of privacy and autonomy concerning their own property. That this right was exclusive does not mean it was not in some ways coded into the DNA of human societies. The very purpose of social gathering and especially of governance was the protection of property. The American system is not unique in that it recognizes property rights, that is almost universal throughout history. The American system was different in that it, among few others, extended that right to all citizens (though they took a rather regressive view of who was or wasn't a citizen). Stalin would like a word with you about the protected class. Might I recommend you read a brilliant biography called Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Game theory might imply that once you've shown you'll kill literally anyone for anything everyone bands together to stop you but unfortunately humans are bad at executing collective game theory. History stands as proof against your claim. My only response would be to point out that Stalin's empire did not even last half a century after his death, and his successors did not wait even four years to denounce him and his reign. His legacy was not one of success, in very large part because he did not respect the natural inclinations of human beings. That he avoided assassination does not mean that his vision of civilization was in any way compatible with human nature. The subsequent and swift decline of the Soviet Union following his death stands as some of the best evidence for the protection of private property by the government. Man would not gather if it was not in his material interest to do so; and the acquisition and protection of material goods is the benefit he sought when first beginning to gather with others seeking the same benefit.
You believe in some strange fairy tale, man, about sovereign men congregating and deciding to institute a government for the "acquisition and protection of material goods" to the benefit of each.
"Behind every great fortune is a great crime."
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Just a point on Sanders.
The Supreme Court is one pathway he's expressed would be a primary focus. I know most people here still dismiss the notion, but the Sanders campaign is about a political revolution, not just a presidential election. Day 1 action on something like citizens united is rallying the American people to pressure the system to make the change.
It's early yet and maybe it doesn't pan out, but the larger concept is a political revolution involving millions of people across the country saying "Enough is enough!"
We have figured out how someone can purchase a yacht with a helipad and a built in dock for their speedboat in this country but we haven't figured out how to take care of our veterans or make sure the children of this country can get a nutritious meal and quality education regardless of their parents income or quality
The presumption is, there are several issues out there like making sure we care for our veterans or provide for children who's parents are unable or unwilling that most Americans care about. And because it's within our capabilities and is the desire of the people and happens to be the right thing to do, they'll work together on those rather than continue the political bickering we've all become accustomed too.
To me (though biased) the rest of the fields look like various degrees of a similar ludicrousness.
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On October 28 2015 09:47 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 00:47 notesfromunderground wrote:On October 27 2015 14:32 frazzle wrote:On October 27 2015 13:31 notesfromunderground wrote:
That's just not how it played out man. Go read Jean Bodin. The idea of natural law was something that had coexisted for a long time with other legal discourses. Everyone believed in natural law already, it wasn't something that was explicitly invented in order to challenge and displace an older concept of 'divine law.'
Well, Locke WAS a product of his time. If you read any marxist historian out there they'll point out that his arguments were a de facto attempt to justify aspects of the enclosure movement as well as colonial practices. I don't doubt that Locke was, at least at some level, genuinely attempting to put into words what seemed to him to be a natural state of affairs, but this doesn't change the fact that he was a product of his time. I mean, just ask yourself, to whom was Locke speaking? Peasant farmers? Edit: although I also agree, natural law was a philosophical concept that predates the enlightenment. It wasn't a cynical rebranding of divine right. But, I would agree with KwarK it occupied the same role in enlightenment times. Sort of. But natural law and the state of nature are not the same thing. Locke wasn't trying to simply describe a naturally existing reality as he found it. If any of these thinkers thought that there was a "natural state of affairs," they certainly didn't think it existed in Europe (remember, these are Christians, they all are basically lapsarian thinkers - they think that the present state of human history is Fallen). The point of "natural law theory" was to attempt to ground sovereignty in contracts, which fell under the category of natural law in the thought of the time. Earlier thinkers like Jean Bodin, for instance, held that no sovereign could be bound by a contract within his own domain, because the sovereign was above the law (two sovereigns could be bound by contracts with each other, though, because the sphere of intersovereign relations was one governed by natural law). The later thinkers really, really wanted the sovereign to be bound by contracts, so they wanted to develop a theory of sovereignty which was grounded in natural law. This is an entirely different thing that claiming than one's own society is a "naturally existing state of affairs" (as a sort of apologetic strategy) which none of them were about to do. If you want to tell a story about the development of natural law theory and liberal constitutionalism, you should tell a story about the centralization of the fiscal state in the 'absolute' monarchies of the 16th-17th centuries and the subsequent attempts by the propertied classes to constrain that state's ability to raise revenues arbitrarily. Liberal constitutionalism is about the growing power of the creditor classes who need a political theory under which the sovereign is inextricably (indeed, constitutively) bound by the debts and obligations he owes his subjects. I think Kwark's point is not that natural right theory rose to "challenge" divine right theory per se, but that natural right became the predominant discourse of power, especially with its development by Hobbes and his conception of the social contract as the rational response to war of all against all. That natural right displaced the theory of right rooted in the divine right of Trojan kings and became the discourse of the administrative elite that grew up around the monarchy. Even now you can see that it is Danglars' preferred language, and the preferred language of conservatives. Property is sacrosanct because if it isn't then we have to wonder whether the "peace" maintained by the State can aspire to the name.
Yes, it's no secret that the language of liberal constitutionalism rooted in natural law discourse is the language of (most) conservatism in America today. That's not in dispute. I was just trying to dispute the highly simplistic narrative that "Natural law is just divine right of kings rebranded because the people who wanted rights were mad their ancestor wasn't king." This does not make an enormous amount of sense 
On October 28 2015 09:49 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 08:27 notesfromunderground wrote:
Here's the point. You are quite right that it's going to be tricky to distinguish between the different things that count as 'political speech' in order to enforce the overturning of CU. (It's a similar problem to the regulation of financial activity - there's simply no rigorous way to distinguish between financial speculation and a legitimate hedge; it can't be done).
Do we get a judge to decide whether or not, when the NYT acts as Clinton's lapdog, they are engaging in political speech or simply doing journalism? What's the difference? Partly, it hinges on the question of collusion, or the existence of 'backroom deals.' Under the present way of doing things, the PACs are allowed to raise unlimited funds so long as they 'don't coordinate with the campaigns.' Of course, everyone knows that actually, they do this. Do they do this by having secret meetings that they deny, or simply by winking at each other and colluding tacitly? When does something cross the line and become "a conspiracy"? Does it matter?
The point of the blog is that I'm interested in the way that people invoke the idea of "conspiracy" in political discourse. If I make a claim (Say, that the US equities market is essentially a ponzi scheme), and then somebody says that it's a "conspiracy theory" - what tacit assumptions underly this claim? Are we assuming as a dogma that, in fact, there are no conspiracies? Is the idea that powerful elites (who all know each other, go to each others parties, send their kids to the same schools, eat at the same restaurants) would cooperate in order to promote their shared interests really that absurd? Is it absurd that the ownership of the NYT and Clinton would be working together in order to promote their shared class interests? At what point would this become a "conspiracy"? Secret tapes of the editorial board meeting with campaign advisors and planning their misinformation?
So it's directly connected to this question of campaign finance, as I hope you can see. Don't back room deals just feel ickier than some individuals' interests happening to align and them acting independently on those interests?
So another way of putting it - how icky is power?
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On October 28 2015 09:47 notesfromunderground wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 09:38 zlefin wrote:
one of the issues in question for the case was whether or not The Movie was clearly intended to exhort people to vote against the candidate. This is a question of fact, that is admittedly quite difficult: Is it simply covering information and historical events to tell people what happened, or is it really trying to say someone is bad and should not be elected? Such questions inevitably yield a grey area where it's hard to tell which it is. . I would submit that this problem is entirely undecidable. Most of what passes for journalism in this county is, to my eyes, nothing but naked propaganda. But would a judge ever rule that the New York Times is therefore advocacy and not journalism? I doubt it
a judge wouldn't rule that way because it's not so. If you call that naked propaganda then you haven't been exposed to some of the more extreme forms of propaganda in the world. Most people in the world wouldn't make good judges, no shame in that, that's why we have different jobs for different people
there will certainly be cases where it's undecidable, but there will be cases where it is.
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Wow, Bernie really killed it at Charlie Rose.
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On October 28 2015 10:05 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 09:47 notesfromunderground wrote:On October 28 2015 09:38 zlefin wrote:
one of the issues in question for the case was whether or not The Movie was clearly intended to exhort people to vote against the candidate. This is a question of fact, that is admittedly quite difficult: Is it simply covering information and historical events to tell people what happened, or is it really trying to say someone is bad and should not be elected? Such questions inevitably yield a grey area where it's hard to tell which it is. . I would submit that this problem is entirely undecidable. Most of what passes for journalism in this county is, to my eyes, nothing but naked propaganda. But would a judge ever rule that the New York Times is therefore advocacy and not journalism? I doubt it a judge wouldn't rule that way because it's not so. If you call that naked propaganda then you haven't been exposed to some of the more extreme forms of propaganda in the world. Most people in the world wouldn't make good judges, no shame in that, that's why we have different jobs for different people there will certainly be cases where it's undecidable, but there will be cases where it is.
But you and I disagree about this. To me, NYT is extremely obvious propaganda. To me it is like reading Pravda or Xinhua. So this is a question that would need to be adjudicated in every case and it's not easy. Saying "Judges are smart and never make bad decisions" does not constitute a solution to the problem!
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On October 28 2015 10:08 notesfromunderground wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 10:05 zlefin wrote:On October 28 2015 09:47 notesfromunderground wrote:On October 28 2015 09:38 zlefin wrote:
one of the issues in question for the case was whether or not The Movie was clearly intended to exhort people to vote against the candidate. This is a question of fact, that is admittedly quite difficult: Is it simply covering information and historical events to tell people what happened, or is it really trying to say someone is bad and should not be elected? Such questions inevitably yield a grey area where it's hard to tell which it is. . I would submit that this problem is entirely undecidable. Most of what passes for journalism in this county is, to my eyes, nothing but naked propaganda. But would a judge ever rule that the New York Times is therefore advocacy and not journalism? I doubt it a judge wouldn't rule that way because it's not so. If you call that naked propaganda then you haven't been exposed to some of the more extreme forms of propaganda in the world. Most people in the world wouldn't make good judges, no shame in that, that's why we have different jobs for different people there will certainly be cases where it's undecidable, but there will be cases where it is. But you and I disagree about this. To me, NYT is extremely obvious propaganda. To me it is like reading Pravda or Xinhua. So this is a question that would need to be adjudicated in every case and it's not easy. Saying "Judges are smart and never make bad decisions" does not constitute a solution to the problem!
I didn't say that, so don't lie and say I did. that's just strawmanning foolishness.
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On October 28 2015 10:10 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 10:08 notesfromunderground wrote:On October 28 2015 10:05 zlefin wrote:On October 28 2015 09:47 notesfromunderground wrote:On October 28 2015 09:38 zlefin wrote:
one of the issues in question for the case was whether or not The Movie was clearly intended to exhort people to vote against the candidate. This is a question of fact, that is admittedly quite difficult: Is it simply covering information and historical events to tell people what happened, or is it really trying to say someone is bad and should not be elected? Such questions inevitably yield a grey area where it's hard to tell which it is. . I would submit that this problem is entirely undecidable. Most of what passes for journalism in this county is, to my eyes, nothing but naked propaganda. But would a judge ever rule that the New York Times is therefore advocacy and not journalism? I doubt it a judge wouldn't rule that way because it's not so. If you call that naked propaganda then you haven't been exposed to some of the more extreme forms of propaganda in the world. Most people in the world wouldn't make good judges, no shame in that, that's why we have different jobs for different people there will certainly be cases where it's undecidable, but there will be cases where it is. But you and I disagree about this. To me, NYT is extremely obvious propaganda. To me it is like reading Pravda or Xinhua. So this is a question that would need to be adjudicated in every case and it's not easy. Saying "Judges are smart and never make bad decisions" does not constitute a solution to the problem! I didn't say that, so don't lie and say I did. that's just strawmanning foolishness.
"a judge wouldn't rule that way because it's not so"
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On October 28 2015 09:52 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 09:49 Cowboy64 wrote:On October 27 2015 13:04 KwarK wrote:On October 27 2015 12:03 Cowboy64 wrote:
I think we should be clear on one thing though, no king nor tyrant has ever exercised total control of property, nor did any of them ever deprive everyone of all rights. Those rights may have only been for the select few who were deemed worthy by the king, and there may have been an implicit threat of the throne seizing all assets from some particular person or group, but societies have always demanded at least some natural rights to be protected and held by the influential class. The very basis of civilization, philosophically speaking, is the protection from anarchy. Any king who attempted to deprive literally ALL citizens of their rights would have been overthrown shortly thereafter by the combined might of the masses and of the upper class who supported the system with their wealth.
It is not as though no one had any rights at all and everyone was a complete slave to the king. Most people were probably slaves, that's true; but the people who were considered "people" usually enjoyed at least some form of privacy and autonomy concerning their own property. That this right was exclusive does not mean it was not in some ways coded into the DNA of human societies. The very purpose of social gathering and especially of governance was the protection of property. The American system is not unique in that it recognizes property rights, that is almost universal throughout history. The American system was different in that it, among few others, extended that right to all citizens (though they took a rather regressive view of who was or wasn't a citizen). Stalin would like a word with you about the protected class. Might I recommend you read a brilliant biography called Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Game theory might imply that once you've shown you'll kill literally anyone for anything everyone bands together to stop you but unfortunately humans are bad at executing collective game theory. History stands as proof against your claim. My only response would be to point out that Stalin's empire did not even last half a century after his death, and his successors did not wait even four years to denounce him and his reign. His legacy was not one of success, in very large part because he did not respect the natural inclinations of human beings. That he avoided assassination does not mean that his vision of civilization was in any way compatible with human nature. The subsequent and swift decline of the Soviet Union following his death stands as some of the best evidence for the protection of private property by the government. Man would not gather if it was not in his material interest to do so; and the acquisition and protection of material goods is the benefit he sought when first beginning to gather with others seeking the same benefit. You believe in some strange fairy tale, man, about sovereign men congregating and deciding to institute a government for the "acquisition and protection of material goods" to the benefit of each. "Behind every great fortune is a great crime."
I'm just trying to ignore the propaganda and look at the reality of what is occurring. The vast majority of people will not stick their hand into a fire on purpose, because we have an instinctual aversion to what harms us. And looking at history we see a general trend toward more benefits more universally applied. Whether or not any one person intended any of it is irrelevant, their individual vectors combined created an inevitable outcome, regardless of their own beliefs or purposes. Did they gather and create civilizations out of design or merely happy accident? Probably a bit of both, but in truth the answer is irrelevant. Their gathering and civilizing allowed greater prosperity for the individual and society as a whole, and the advance of civilization has itself seemed to be inextricably tied to the liberalization of rights and sovereignties.
As Obama himself said: "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
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On October 28 2015 10:03 notesfromunderground wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 09:47 IgnE wrote:On October 28 2015 00:47 notesfromunderground wrote:On October 27 2015 14:32 frazzle wrote:On October 27 2015 13:31 notesfromunderground wrote:
That's just not how it played out man. Go read Jean Bodin. The idea of natural law was something that had coexisted for a long time with other legal discourses. Everyone believed in natural law already, it wasn't something that was explicitly invented in order to challenge and displace an older concept of 'divine law.'
Well, Locke WAS a product of his time. If you read any marxist historian out there they'll point out that his arguments were a de facto attempt to justify aspects of the enclosure movement as well as colonial practices. I don't doubt that Locke was, at least at some level, genuinely attempting to put into words what seemed to him to be a natural state of affairs, but this doesn't change the fact that he was a product of his time. I mean, just ask yourself, to whom was Locke speaking? Peasant farmers? Edit: although I also agree, natural law was a philosophical concept that predates the enlightenment. It wasn't a cynical rebranding of divine right. But, I would agree with KwarK it occupied the same role in enlightenment times. Sort of. But natural law and the state of nature are not the same thing. Locke wasn't trying to simply describe a naturally existing reality as he found it. If any of these thinkers thought that there was a "natural state of affairs," they certainly didn't think it existed in Europe (remember, these are Christians, they all are basically lapsarian thinkers - they think that the present state of human history is Fallen). The point of "natural law theory" was to attempt to ground sovereignty in contracts, which fell under the category of natural law in the thought of the time. Earlier thinkers like Jean Bodin, for instance, held that no sovereign could be bound by a contract within his own domain, because the sovereign was above the law (two sovereigns could be bound by contracts with each other, though, because the sphere of intersovereign relations was one governed by natural law). The later thinkers really, really wanted the sovereign to be bound by contracts, so they wanted to develop a theory of sovereignty which was grounded in natural law. This is an entirely different thing that claiming than one's own society is a "naturally existing state of affairs" (as a sort of apologetic strategy) which none of them were about to do. If you want to tell a story about the development of natural law theory and liberal constitutionalism, you should tell a story about the centralization of the fiscal state in the 'absolute' monarchies of the 16th-17th centuries and the subsequent attempts by the propertied classes to constrain that state's ability to raise revenues arbitrarily. Liberal constitutionalism is about the growing power of the creditor classes who need a political theory under which the sovereign is inextricably (indeed, constitutively) bound by the debts and obligations he owes his subjects. I think Kwark's point is not that natural right theory rose to "challenge" divine right theory per se, but that natural right became the predominant discourse of power, especially with its development by Hobbes and his conception of the social contract as the rational response to war of all against all. That natural right displaced the theory of right rooted in the divine right of Trojan kings and became the discourse of the administrative elite that grew up around the monarchy. Even now you can see that it is Danglars' preferred language, and the preferred language of conservatives. Property is sacrosanct because if it isn't then we have to wonder whether the "peace" maintained by the State can aspire to the name. Yes, it's no secret that the language of liberal constitutionalism rooted in natural law discourse is the language of (most) conservatism in America today. That's not in dispute. I was just trying to dispute the highly simplistic narrative that "Natural law is just divine right of kings rebranded because the people who wanted rights were mad their ancestor wasn't king." This does not make an enormous amount of sense Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 09:49 IgnE wrote:On October 28 2015 08:27 notesfromunderground wrote:
Here's the point. You are quite right that it's going to be tricky to distinguish between the different things that count as 'political speech' in order to enforce the overturning of CU. (It's a similar problem to the regulation of financial activity - there's simply no rigorous way to distinguish between financial speculation and a legitimate hedge; it can't be done).
Do we get a judge to decide whether or not, when the NYT acts as Clinton's lapdog, they are engaging in political speech or simply doing journalism? What's the difference? Partly, it hinges on the question of collusion, or the existence of 'backroom deals.' Under the present way of doing things, the PACs are allowed to raise unlimited funds so long as they 'don't coordinate with the campaigns.' Of course, everyone knows that actually, they do this. Do they do this by having secret meetings that they deny, or simply by winking at each other and colluding tacitly? When does something cross the line and become "a conspiracy"? Does it matter?
The point of the blog is that I'm interested in the way that people invoke the idea of "conspiracy" in political discourse. If I make a claim (Say, that the US equities market is essentially a ponzi scheme), and then somebody says that it's a "conspiracy theory" - what tacit assumptions underly this claim? Are we assuming as a dogma that, in fact, there are no conspiracies? Is the idea that powerful elites (who all know each other, go to each others parties, send their kids to the same schools, eat at the same restaurants) would cooperate in order to promote their shared interests really that absurd? Is it absurd that the ownership of the NYT and Clinton would be working together in order to promote their shared class interests? At what point would this become a "conspiracy"? Secret tapes of the editorial board meeting with campaign advisors and planning their misinformation?
So it's directly connected to this question of campaign finance, as I hope you can see. Don't back room deals just feel ickier than some individuals' interests happening to align and them acting independently on those interests? So another way of putting it - how icky is power?
Maybe not that icky. Or if it is icky, it's an ickiness that is learned late in life.
Stalin reputedly said that one death is a tragedy, but a million is a statistic. Well exercise of power over one person is an injustice, but a network of power distributed over millions of people is just a natural social structure, beyond moral judgment.
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On October 28 2015 10:11 notesfromunderground wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 10:10 zlefin wrote:On October 28 2015 10:08 notesfromunderground wrote:On October 28 2015 10:05 zlefin wrote:On October 28 2015 09:47 notesfromunderground wrote:On October 28 2015 09:38 zlefin wrote:
one of the issues in question for the case was whether or not The Movie was clearly intended to exhort people to vote against the candidate. This is a question of fact, that is admittedly quite difficult: Is it simply covering information and historical events to tell people what happened, or is it really trying to say someone is bad and should not be elected? Such questions inevitably yield a grey area where it's hard to tell which it is. . I would submit that this problem is entirely undecidable. Most of what passes for journalism in this county is, to my eyes, nothing but naked propaganda. But would a judge ever rule that the New York Times is therefore advocacy and not journalism? I doubt it a judge wouldn't rule that way because it's not so. If you call that naked propaganda then you haven't been exposed to some of the more extreme forms of propaganda in the world. Most people in the world wouldn't make good judges, no shame in that, that's why we have different jobs for different people there will certainly be cases where it's undecidable, but there will be cases where it is. But you and I disagree about this. To me, NYT is extremely obvious propaganda. To me it is like reading Pravda or Xinhua. So this is a question that would need to be adjudicated in every case and it's not easy. Saying "Judges are smart and never make bad decisions" does not constitute a solution to the problem! I didn't say that, so don't lie and say I did. that's just strawmanning foolishness. "a judge wouldn't rule that way because it's not so"
That's not strawmanning, so you're using it as a response is invalid. anyways, the point is, some people have unreasonable beliefs, and you apparently do.
Just because you can find some guy on the internet who has some opinion doesn't make that opinion reasonable.
If someone believes 2+2 =5 that doesn't mean a judge would ever rule 2+2=5; there are mechanisms in place to measure sanity and competence for judges.
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I don't understand what you mean by "strawmanning." You just claimed that it's not a problem because all judges would see the grey area the same way as you do, as opposed to the way somebody else sees it. You are failing to understand the problem.
Whether or not something is political speech is a more complicated question than whether or not 2+2=5, surely.
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On October 28 2015 10:12 Cowboy64 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2015 09:52 IgnE wrote:On October 28 2015 09:49 Cowboy64 wrote:On October 27 2015 13:04 KwarK wrote:On October 27 2015 12:03 Cowboy64 wrote:
I think we should be clear on one thing though, no king nor tyrant has ever exercised total control of property, nor did any of them ever deprive everyone of all rights. Those rights may have only been for the select few who were deemed worthy by the king, and there may have been an implicit threat of the throne seizing all assets from some particular person or group, but societies have always demanded at least some natural rights to be protected and held by the influential class. The very basis of civilization, philosophically speaking, is the protection from anarchy. Any king who attempted to deprive literally ALL citizens of their rights would have been overthrown shortly thereafter by the combined might of the masses and of the upper class who supported the system with their wealth.
It is not as though no one had any rights at all and everyone was a complete slave to the king. Most people were probably slaves, that's true; but the people who were considered "people" usually enjoyed at least some form of privacy and autonomy concerning their own property. That this right was exclusive does not mean it was not in some ways coded into the DNA of human societies. The very purpose of social gathering and especially of governance was the protection of property. The American system is not unique in that it recognizes property rights, that is almost universal throughout history. The American system was different in that it, among few others, extended that right to all citizens (though they took a rather regressive view of who was or wasn't a citizen). Stalin would like a word with you about the protected class. Might I recommend you read a brilliant biography called Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Game theory might imply that once you've shown you'll kill literally anyone for anything everyone bands together to stop you but unfortunately humans are bad at executing collective game theory. History stands as proof against your claim. My only response would be to point out that Stalin's empire did not even last half a century after his death, and his successors did not wait even four years to denounce him and his reign. His legacy was not one of success, in very large part because he did not respect the natural inclinations of human beings. That he avoided assassination does not mean that his vision of civilization was in any way compatible with human nature. The subsequent and swift decline of the Soviet Union following his death stands as some of the best evidence for the protection of private property by the government. Man would not gather if it was not in his material interest to do so; and the acquisition and protection of material goods is the benefit he sought when first beginning to gather with others seeking the same benefit. You believe in some strange fairy tale, man, about sovereign men congregating and deciding to institute a government for the "acquisition and protection of material goods" to the benefit of each. "Behind every great fortune is a great crime." I'm just trying to ignore the propaganda and look at the reality of what is occurring. The vast majority of people will not stick their hand into a fire on purpose, because we have an instinctual aversion to what harms us. And looking at history we see a general trend toward more benefits more universally applied. Whether or not any one person intended any of it is irrelevant, their individual vectors combined created an inevitable outcome, regardless of their own beliefs or purposes. Did they gather and create civilizations out of design or merely happy accident? Probably a bit of both, but in truth the answer is irrelevant. Their gathering and civilizing allowed greater prosperity for the individual and society as a whole, and the advance of civilization has itself seemed to be inextricably tied to the liberalization of rights and sovereignties. As Obama himself said: "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
You and I have very different ideas of what is "instinctual." A person who has been burned does not put a hand into the fire again. A person who has never seen fire may very well do so.
Civilization can't have necessarily led to the liberalization of "rights and sovereignties" because uncivilized man is maximally sovereign. Just because you say it doesn't matter whether the enforcement of peacetime by the State was "designed" (e.g. by contractual agreement) or whether it was by "accident" (e.g. imposition by superior force) does not make it so. If peace, or government, is simply a relationship of domination based entirely upon war, your narrative starts to fracture.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday defended a two-year budget deal he struck with other congressional leaders and the White House, declaring reforms to Social Security included in the package a key win for Republicans even as some conservatives rejected the accord.
“I think the agreement speaks for itself,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “The debt ceiling is a part of it, and it has along with it, other matters, including what we have said from the beginning was essential to get Republican support for raising the debt ceiling, which is entitlement reform of some significance.”
In particular, McConnell touted changes to Social Security, including provisions meant to root out fraud and bolster eligibility requirements for the disability insurance program.
“The disability provisions of this agreement are the first major reform of Social Security since 1983, the deal between Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill,” McConnell said. “Doesn’t look like a clean debt ceiling to me.”
Congressional negotiators struck a deal late Monday that staves off a potential default on the nation’s debt and also sets the budget for two years — delaying any debt limit drama until March 2017 and helping to reduce the threat of government shutdowns through the November 2016 elections. The agreement boosts both domestic and defense spending by roughly $80 billion over two years, as well as an additional $16 billion per year from a war contingency fund that is not subject to budget caps on discretionary spending.
Some Republicans have raised concerns about provisions in the budget deal. For example, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said Tuesday he would not vote for the agreement because of changes to the crop insurance program used to pay for some of the increased spending. Several conservatives had issues with lifting the spending caps, even if they were offset with savings elsewhere. And other Republicans complained about process.
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