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On October 03 2013 22:46 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 22:45 dUTtrOACh wrote:
There's a lot of stuff in Article 1 on the powers and responsibilities of congress, too.
I don't think it requires a Constitutional amendment to enact "Obamacare" (which is a stupid name, by the way - I wish they'd stop using it). All it takes right now, is a budget to be approved. It has been subjected to everything else and passed. The Republicans (not all of them) are just being dicks, and their ability to stonewall government to this extent is a joke. Call it ACA. That's its name.
Only, none of the media coverage calls it the ACA, probably because acronyms are so ambiguous. I wish the media would stop calling it 'Obamacare'. It brings up a lot of partisan discussion that really has very little place in what should be a more neutral topic: Healthcare for everyone.
Think about every dillweed racist that hears the name 'Obamacare' on Fox News. The idea is instantly filed into the trash bin in their minds, because it starts with 'Obama'.
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On October 03 2013 21:24 Orek wrote:
Whenever democracy fails / shows its weakness, China laughs at it. That's the saddest part of all this turmoil.
not just China, a lot of other asia countries are looking at this and thinking wtf
two political parties just refusing to cooperate and lead to a government shut down?
Completely ignoring the damage it does to the economy and each is blaming on eachother?
And now both parties won't even want to back down because it will give people impression that they have a bigger responsibility causing the shutdown.
is the political parties doing this for the benefits of the people or for the votes?
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On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:On October 03 2013 21:55 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 21:19 Talin wrote:On October 03 2013 20:05 weekendracer wrote:
It's not reasonable to continue to spend yourself into insurmountable debt. If your wife/husband ran up 100% of your income in debt on credit cards on intangible items, what would you do? Have a discussion and come to a 'consensus' with her, or cut up the damn cards and declare bankruptcy or work for years to pay off the debt you incurred? Oh give me a break. That is the kind of rationalization you use to convince conservatives that are actually reasonable that you're all after the same thing, but it really makes one wonder how come even they are still buying it. How come it's always healthcare, social care or education that's number one priority when you want to "do away with it all"? Doesn't the "all" also include the rather insane military spending and money being spent in a "war" on terror or drugs or countless other examples of US government spending that serve no practical purpose and actually hurt the population at large? There's a lot more fat to be trimmed there. That (no longer) fringe element of the Republican party really only uses their economic principles - which are themselves questionable - very selectively, and ONLY when it's serving their underlying ideology. An extremely radical ideology that has very little to do with genuine concern for the economy, and a lot more to do with a purely dogmatic worldview. Thankfully, people don't seem to actually want to go back to "how things were" and live by the 19th century laws in the 21st century. Also it's high time people figured out how to tax big corporations. Apple is sitting on more than 100bn in cash, paying more wouldn't even hurt their ability to invest. This is true for EU countries too BTW. Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway. If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc...
No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago.
On October 03 2013 22:55 dUTtrOACh wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 22:46 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 22:45 dUTtrOACh wrote:
There's a lot of stuff in Article 1 on the powers and responsibilities of congress, too.
I don't think it requires a Constitutional amendment to enact "Obamacare" (which is a stupid name, by the way - I wish they'd stop using it). All it takes right now, is a budget to be approved. It has been subjected to everything else and passed. The Republicans (not all of them) are just being dicks, and their ability to stonewall government to this extent is a joke. Call it ACA. That's its name. Only, none of the media coverage calls it the ACA, probably because acronyms are so ambiguous. I wish the media would stop calling it 'Obamacare'. It brings up a lot of partisan discussion that really has very little place in what should be a more neutral topic: Healthcare for everyone. Think about every dillweed racist that hears the name 'Obamacare' on Fox News. The idea is instantly filed into the trash bin in their minds, because it starts with 'Obama'.
Ah, excuse me, I misunderstood your point. Still, I would recommend using its actual name if only to help normalize its use.
On October 03 2013 22:57 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 21:24 Orek wrote:
Whenever democracy fails / shows its weakness, China laughs at it. That's the saddest part of all this turmoil. not just China, a lot of other asia countries are looking at this and thinking wtf two political parties just refusing to cooperate and lead to a government shut down? Completely ignoring the damage it does to the economy and each is blaming on eachother? And now both parties won't even want to back down because it will give people impression that they have a bigger responsibility causing the shutdown. is the political parties doing this for the benefits of the people or for the votes?
I'm certain that's how it appears from the outside, but really, it is just the fault of one party. The Republican party is refusing to accept the results of democracy, and is abusing every aspect of the system that they can manage to reverse democratic decisions. The Democratic party has plenty of dirt on its hands, but at least they can say that they never tried to sink the ship.
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On October 03 2013 21:30 MstrJinbo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 20:15 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On October 03 2013 20:07 Parnage wrote:On October 03 2013 19:31 b0rt_ wrote:On October 03 2013 18:31 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
Obamacare aka Affordable Healthcare act is a law, it was found constitutional by the supreme court. Not funding it is against the law. The time for discussion about what it should be is over. They already had lots of chances to change it and they didn't. You can't just shut down the government cause you're unhappy you lost. This is causing people to become jobless while the people who shut down the government still get paid.
If I don't want to pay taxes on something am I allowed to do that? Who holds the government responsible for its actions... Exactly, where does this end? If the GOP get power next election (I hope for the world they never do) then should the democrats hold them to ransom for whatever they like? It's law. Hey, as we know once it's the law you can never change things, and the courts have always been correct on every issue. Just read up on that Dred Scott fellow. Saying something is the law doesn't mean it's right. Not that I am implying the Act is wrong or right I really don't care at this point. The ramifications or lack thereof will be proven down the line. The government has done this before, it'll most likely do this again it happens when the sides don't want to work together. The funny bit is watching all the news sources point to things like Parks being closed as big issues all of a sudden while the National Park's are literally falling apart due to being ignored otherwise. Besides I don't remember seeing many people except "fringes" complaining about the Senate never signing off on a Budget for what? 3 years now? I do find politics much more amusing thanks to this, it's neat watching history play out before you. The issue isn't that laws can change. The issue is that congress is trying to change the law. That is up to the supreme court, checks and balances. You can't just say, "i'm better than the person who exists to keep me in balance." If congress can pass a law, congress can make changes to the law including unpassing it. That is fact and not disputable. The legislature is responsible for changing and making laws, not the judiciary.
It would be perfectly fine if they were trying to "unpass it," but that's not what's happening. Congress isn't trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. God knows they've tried and failed to do that more than enough times.
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On October 03 2013 22:59 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:On October 03 2013 21:55 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 21:19 Talin wrote:On October 03 2013 20:05 weekendracer wrote:
It's not reasonable to continue to spend yourself into insurmountable debt. If your wife/husband ran up 100% of your income in debt on credit cards on intangible items, what would you do? Have a discussion and come to a 'consensus' with her, or cut up the damn cards and declare bankruptcy or work for years to pay off the debt you incurred? Oh give me a break. That is the kind of rationalization you use to convince conservatives that are actually reasonable that you're all after the same thing, but it really makes one wonder how come even they are still buying it. How come it's always healthcare, social care or education that's number one priority when you want to "do away with it all"? Doesn't the "all" also include the rather insane military spending and money being spent in a "war" on terror or drugs or countless other examples of US government spending that serve no practical purpose and actually hurt the population at large? There's a lot more fat to be trimmed there. That (no longer) fringe element of the Republican party really only uses their economic principles - which are themselves questionable - very selectively, and ONLY when it's serving their underlying ideology. An extremely radical ideology that has very little to do with genuine concern for the economy, and a lot more to do with a purely dogmatic worldview. Thankfully, people don't seem to actually want to go back to "how things were" and live by the 19th century laws in the 21st century. Also it's high time people figured out how to tax big corporations. Apple is sitting on more than 100bn in cash, paying more wouldn't even hurt their ability to invest. This is true for EU countries too BTW. Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway. If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc... No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago.
I think we can agree that our regretted Margaret Tatcher had medieval ideas then 
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On October 03 2013 23:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 22:59 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:On October 03 2013 21:55 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 21:19 Talin wrote:On October 03 2013 20:05 weekendracer wrote:
It's not reasonable to continue to spend yourself into insurmountable debt. If your wife/husband ran up 100% of your income in debt on credit cards on intangible items, what would you do? Have a discussion and come to a 'consensus' with her, or cut up the damn cards and declare bankruptcy or work for years to pay off the debt you incurred? Oh give me a break. That is the kind of rationalization you use to convince conservatives that are actually reasonable that you're all after the same thing, but it really makes one wonder how come even they are still buying it. How come it's always healthcare, social care or education that's number one priority when you want to "do away with it all"? Doesn't the "all" also include the rather insane military spending and money being spent in a "war" on terror or drugs or countless other examples of US government spending that serve no practical purpose and actually hurt the population at large? There's a lot more fat to be trimmed there. That (no longer) fringe element of the Republican party really only uses their economic principles - which are themselves questionable - very selectively, and ONLY when it's serving their underlying ideology. An extremely radical ideology that has very little to do with genuine concern for the economy, and a lot more to do with a purely dogmatic worldview. Thankfully, people don't seem to actually want to go back to "how things were" and live by the 19th century laws in the 21st century. Also it's high time people figured out how to tax big corporations. Apple is sitting on more than 100bn in cash, paying more wouldn't even hurt their ability to invest. This is true for EU countries too BTW. Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway. If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc... No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago. I think we can agree that our regretted Margaret Tatcher had medieval ideas then
No, no, not at all. There were plenty of community-oriented ideas in those times. The Catholic Church in particular supported the idea of brotherhood between... well, between Catholic Christians, but at least it was supporting a sort of commonality between nations, even if it was so they could all paint crosses on their armor and go kill Muslims.
On second thought, that sort of thing rings a bell even in modern times...
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On October 03 2013 22:55 dUTtrOACh wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 22:46 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 22:45 dUTtrOACh wrote:
There's a lot of stuff in Article 1 on the powers and responsibilities of congress, too.
I don't think it requires a Constitutional amendment to enact "Obamacare" (which is a stupid name, by the way - I wish they'd stop using it). All it takes right now, is a budget to be approved. It has been subjected to everything else and passed. The Republicans (not all of them) are just being dicks, and their ability to stonewall government to this extent is a joke. Call it ACA. That's its name. Only, none of the media coverage calls it the ACA, probably because acronyms are so ambiguous. I wish the media would stop calling it 'Obamacare'. It brings up a lot of partisan discussion that really has very little place in what should be a more neutral topic: Healthcare for everyone. Think about every dillweed racist that hears the name 'Obamacare' on Fox News. The idea is instantly filed into the trash bin in their minds, because it starts with 'Obama'.
Just goes to show how insanely well done and effective the PR of the Republicans can be
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On October 03 2013 23:00 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 21:30 MstrJinbo wrote:On October 03 2013 20:15 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On October 03 2013 20:07 Parnage wrote:On October 03 2013 19:31 b0rt_ wrote:On October 03 2013 18:31 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
Obamacare aka Affordable Healthcare act is a law, it was found constitutional by the supreme court. Not funding it is against the law. The time for discussion about what it should be is over. They already had lots of chances to change it and they didn't. You can't just shut down the government cause you're unhappy you lost. This is causing people to become jobless while the people who shut down the government still get paid.
If I don't want to pay taxes on something am I allowed to do that? Who holds the government responsible for its actions... Exactly, where does this end? If the GOP get power next election (I hope for the world they never do) then should the democrats hold them to ransom for whatever they like? It's law. Hey, as we know once it's the law you can never change things, and the courts have always been correct on every issue. Just read up on that Dred Scott fellow. Saying something is the law doesn't mean it's right. Not that I am implying the Act is wrong or right I really don't care at this point. The ramifications or lack thereof will be proven down the line. The government has done this before, it'll most likely do this again it happens when the sides don't want to work together. The funny bit is watching all the news sources point to things like Parks being closed as big issues all of a sudden while the National Park's are literally falling apart due to being ignored otherwise. Besides I don't remember seeing many people except "fringes" complaining about the Senate never signing off on a Budget for what? 3 years now? I do find politics much more amusing thanks to this, it's neat watching history play out before you. The issue isn't that laws can change. The issue is that congress is trying to change the law. That is up to the supreme court, checks and balances. You can't just say, "i'm better than the person who exists to keep me in balance." If congress can pass a law, congress can make changes to the law including unpassing it. That is fact and not disputable. The legislature is responsible for changing and making laws, not the judiciary. It would be perfectly fine if they were trying to "unpass it," but that's not what's happening. Congress isn't trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. God knows they've tried and failed to do that more than enough times.
Just correcting the guys assertion that the Supreme Court changes laws, they don't.
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On October 03 2013 23:08 MstrJinbo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 23:00 TheTenthDoc wrote:On October 03 2013 21:30 MstrJinbo wrote:On October 03 2013 20:15 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On October 03 2013 20:07 Parnage wrote:On October 03 2013 19:31 b0rt_ wrote:On October 03 2013 18:31 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
Obamacare aka Affordable Healthcare act is a law, it was found constitutional by the supreme court. Not funding it is against the law. The time for discussion about what it should be is over. They already had lots of chances to change it and they didn't. You can't just shut down the government cause you're unhappy you lost. This is causing people to become jobless while the people who shut down the government still get paid.
If I don't want to pay taxes on something am I allowed to do that? Who holds the government responsible for its actions... Exactly, where does this end? If the GOP get power next election (I hope for the world they never do) then should the democrats hold them to ransom for whatever they like? It's law. Hey, as we know once it's the law you can never change things, and the courts have always been correct on every issue. Just read up on that Dred Scott fellow. Saying something is the law doesn't mean it's right. Not that I am implying the Act is wrong or right I really don't care at this point. The ramifications or lack thereof will be proven down the line. The government has done this before, it'll most likely do this again it happens when the sides don't want to work together. The funny bit is watching all the news sources point to things like Parks being closed as big issues all of a sudden while the National Park's are literally falling apart due to being ignored otherwise. Besides I don't remember seeing many people except "fringes" complaining about the Senate never signing off on a Budget for what? 3 years now? I do find politics much more amusing thanks to this, it's neat watching history play out before you. The issue isn't that laws can change. The issue is that congress is trying to change the law. That is up to the supreme court, checks and balances. You can't just say, "i'm better than the person who exists to keep me in balance." If congress can pass a law, congress can make changes to the law including unpassing it. That is fact and not disputable. The legislature is responsible for changing and making laws, not the judiciary. It would be perfectly fine if they were trying to "unpass it," but that's not what's happening. Congress isn't trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. God knows they've tried and failed to do that more than enough times. Just correcting the guys assertion that the Supreme Court changes laws, they don't.
While you're correct, the Supreme Court can interpret laws and declare them unconstitutional, which often times has the same effect.
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On October 03 2013 23:06 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 23:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:59 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:On October 03 2013 21:55 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 21:19 Talin wrote:On October 03 2013 20:05 weekendracer wrote:
It's not reasonable to continue to spend yourself into insurmountable debt. If your wife/husband ran up 100% of your income in debt on credit cards on intangible items, what would you do? Have a discussion and come to a 'consensus' with her, or cut up the damn cards and declare bankruptcy or work for years to pay off the debt you incurred? Oh give me a break. That is the kind of rationalization you use to convince conservatives that are actually reasonable that you're all after the same thing, but it really makes one wonder how come even they are still buying it. How come it's always healthcare, social care or education that's number one priority when you want to "do away with it all"? Doesn't the "all" also include the rather insane military spending and money being spent in a "war" on terror or drugs or countless other examples of US government spending that serve no practical purpose and actually hurt the population at large? There's a lot more fat to be trimmed there. That (no longer) fringe element of the Republican party really only uses their economic principles - which are themselves questionable - very selectively, and ONLY when it's serving their underlying ideology. An extremely radical ideology that has very little to do with genuine concern for the economy, and a lot more to do with a purely dogmatic worldview. Thankfully, people don't seem to actually want to go back to "how things were" and live by the 19th century laws in the 21st century. Also it's high time people figured out how to tax big corporations. Apple is sitting on more than 100bn in cash, paying more wouldn't even hurt their ability to invest. This is true for EU countries too BTW. Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway. If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc... No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago. I think we can agree that our regretted Margaret Tatcher had medieval ideas then No, no, not at all. There were plenty of community-oriented ideas in those times. The Catholic Church in particular supported the idea of brotherhood between... well, between Catholic Christians, but at least it was supporting a sort of commonality between nations, even if it was so they could all paint crosses on their armor and go kill Muslims.
Yes but the idea that it's the society's duty to provide the most vulnerable with enough not to starve, and not the free willing charity of some religious organization is very recent. Tatcher's idea was that the poor can fuck themselves unless someone is willing to help them. That's medieval.
As is Ron Paul, for example, saying that the education and the healthcare of the poor should be taken in charge by charities and churches and not by the State. I haven't figured out if he was serious.
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On October 03 2013 23:09 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 23:08 MstrJinbo wrote:On October 03 2013 23:00 TheTenthDoc wrote:On October 03 2013 21:30 MstrJinbo wrote:On October 03 2013 20:15 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On October 03 2013 20:07 Parnage wrote:On October 03 2013 19:31 b0rt_ wrote:On October 03 2013 18:31 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
Obamacare aka Affordable Healthcare act is a law, it was found constitutional by the supreme court. Not funding it is against the law. The time for discussion about what it should be is over. They already had lots of chances to change it and they didn't. You can't just shut down the government cause you're unhappy you lost. This is causing people to become jobless while the people who shut down the government still get paid.
If I don't want to pay taxes on something am I allowed to do that? Who holds the government responsible for its actions... Exactly, where does this end? If the GOP get power next election (I hope for the world they never do) then should the democrats hold them to ransom for whatever they like? It's law. Hey, as we know once it's the law you can never change things, and the courts have always been correct on every issue. Just read up on that Dred Scott fellow. Saying something is the law doesn't mean it's right. Not that I am implying the Act is wrong or right I really don't care at this point. The ramifications or lack thereof will be proven down the line. The government has done this before, it'll most likely do this again it happens when the sides don't want to work together. The funny bit is watching all the news sources point to things like Parks being closed as big issues all of a sudden while the National Park's are literally falling apart due to being ignored otherwise. Besides I don't remember seeing many people except "fringes" complaining about the Senate never signing off on a Budget for what? 3 years now? I do find politics much more amusing thanks to this, it's neat watching history play out before you. The issue isn't that laws can change. The issue is that congress is trying to change the law. That is up to the supreme court, checks and balances. You can't just say, "i'm better than the person who exists to keep me in balance." If congress can pass a law, congress can make changes to the law including unpassing it. That is fact and not disputable. The legislature is responsible for changing and making laws, not the judiciary. It would be perfectly fine if they were trying to "unpass it," but that's not what's happening. Congress isn't trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. God knows they've tried and failed to do that more than enough times. Just correcting the guys assertion that the Supreme Court changes laws, they don't. While you're correct, the Supreme Court can interpret laws and declare them unconstitutional, which often times has the same effect.
The assertion I'm trying to correct is that it is the courts job to change laws instead of congress.
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On October 03 2013 23:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 23:06 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 23:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:59 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:On October 03 2013 21:55 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 21:19 Talin wrote:On October 03 2013 20:05 weekendracer wrote:
It's not reasonable to continue to spend yourself into insurmountable debt. If your wife/husband ran up 100% of your income in debt on credit cards on intangible items, what would you do? Have a discussion and come to a 'consensus' with her, or cut up the damn cards and declare bankruptcy or work for years to pay off the debt you incurred? Oh give me a break. That is the kind of rationalization you use to convince conservatives that are actually reasonable that you're all after the same thing, but it really makes one wonder how come even they are still buying it. How come it's always healthcare, social care or education that's number one priority when you want to "do away with it all"? Doesn't the "all" also include the rather insane military spending and money being spent in a "war" on terror or drugs or countless other examples of US government spending that serve no practical purpose and actually hurt the population at large? There's a lot more fat to be trimmed there. That (no longer) fringe element of the Republican party really only uses their economic principles - which are themselves questionable - very selectively, and ONLY when it's serving their underlying ideology. An extremely radical ideology that has very little to do with genuine concern for the economy, and a lot more to do with a purely dogmatic worldview. Thankfully, people don't seem to actually want to go back to "how things were" and live by the 19th century laws in the 21st century. Also it's high time people figured out how to tax big corporations. Apple is sitting on more than 100bn in cash, paying more wouldn't even hurt their ability to invest. This is true for EU countries too BTW. Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway. If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc... No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago. I think we can agree that our regretted Margaret Tatcher had medieval ideas then No, no, not at all. There were plenty of community-oriented ideas in those times. The Catholic Church in particular supported the idea of brotherhood between... well, between Catholic Christians, but at least it was supporting a sort of commonality between nations, even if it was so they could all paint crosses on their armor and go kill Muslims. Yes but the idea that it's the society's duty to provide the most vulnerable with enough not to starve, and not the free willing charity of some religious organization is very recent. Tatcher's idea was that the poor can fuck themselves unless someone is willing to help them. That's medieval. As is Ron Paul, for example, saying that the education and the healthcare of the poor should be taken in charge by charities and churches and not by the State. I haven't figured out if he was serious.
Well, then, you may as well have called her thinking Renaissance-era. The idea of government caring for the poor is industrial or modern-era.
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Ted Cruz faced a barrage of hostile questions Wednesday from angry GOP senators, who lashed the Texas tea party freshman for helping prompt a government shutdown crisis without a strategy to end it.
At a closed-door lunch meeting in the Senate’s Mansfield Room, Republican after Republican pressed Cruz to explain how he would propose to end the bitter budget impasse with Democrats, according to senators who attended the meeting. A defensive Cruz had no clear plan to force an end to the shutdown — or explain how he would defund Obamacare, as he has demanded all along, sources said.
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“It seems that there is nothing the media likes to cover more than disagreements among Republicans, and apparently some senators are content to fuel those stories with anonymous quotes,” Cruz told POLITICO. “Regardless, my focus — and, I would hope, the focus of the rest of the conference — is on stopping Harry Reid’s shutdown, ensuring that vital government priorities are funded, and preventing the enormous harms that Obamacare is inflicting on millions of Americans.”
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“It was very evident to everyone in the room that Cruz doesn’t have a strategy – he never had a strategy, and could never answer a question about what the end-game was,” said one senator who attended the meeting. “I just wish the 35 House members that have bought the snake oil that was sold could witness what was witnessed today at lunch.”
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Including Cruz, just 19 Republicans backed his filibuster attempt, and Reid later killed the Obamacare language with just Democratic votes.
At the Wednesday lunch, Cruz was asked what he would have done had GOP senators united to filibuster the House bill.
“He kept trying to change the subject because he never could answer the question,” the senator said. “It’s pretty evident it’s never been about a strategy – it’s been about him. That’s unfortunate. I think he’s done our country a major disservice. I think he’s done Republicans a major disservice.”
Source
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On October 03 2013 23:20 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 23:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 23:06 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 23:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:59 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:On October 03 2013 21:55 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 21:19 Talin wrote:
[quote]
Oh give me a break. That is the kind of rationalization you use to convince conservatives that are actually reasonable that you're all after the same thing, but it really makes one wonder how come even they are still buying it.
How come it's always healthcare, social care or education that's number one priority when you want to "do away with it all"? Doesn't the "all" also include the rather insane military spending and money being spent in a "war" on terror or drugs or countless other examples of US government spending that serve no practical purpose and actually hurt the population at large? There's a lot more fat to be trimmed there.
That (no longer) fringe element of the Republican party really only uses their economic principles - which are themselves questionable - very selectively, and ONLY when it's serving their underlying ideology. An extremely radical ideology that has very little to do with genuine concern for the economy, and a lot more to do with a purely dogmatic worldview.
Thankfully, people don't seem to actually want to go back to "how things were" and live by the 19th century laws in the 21st century. Also it's high time people figured out how to tax big corporations. Apple is sitting on more than 100bn in cash, paying more wouldn't even hurt their ability to invest. This is true for EU countries too BTW. Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway. If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc... No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago. I think we can agree that our regretted Margaret Tatcher had medieval ideas then No, no, not at all. There were plenty of community-oriented ideas in those times. The Catholic Church in particular supported the idea of brotherhood between... well, between Catholic Christians, but at least it was supporting a sort of commonality between nations, even if it was so they could all paint crosses on their armor and go kill Muslims. Yes but the idea that it's the society's duty to provide the most vulnerable with enough not to starve, and not the free willing charity of some religious organization is very recent. Tatcher's idea was that the poor can fuck themselves unless someone is willing to help them. That's medieval. As is Ron Paul, for example, saying that the education and the healthcare of the poor should be taken in charge by charities and churches and not by the State. I haven't figured out if he was serious. Well, then, you may as well have called her thinking Renaissance-era. The idea of government caring for the poor is industrial or modern-era.
You really like exactitude yeah?
I'm not sure that describing someone's ideas as "Renaissance mindset" is as efficient as "medieval mindset" to underline how archaic they are.
Which was my point.
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On October 03 2013 23:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 23:20 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 23:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 23:06 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 23:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:59 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:On October 03 2013 21:55 hypercube wrote:
[quote]
Also it's high time people figured out how to tax big corporations. Apple is sitting on more than 100bn in cash, paying more wouldn't even hurt their ability to invest.
This is true for EU countries too BTW. Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway. If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc... No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago. I think we can agree that our regretted Margaret Tatcher had medieval ideas then No, no, not at all. There were plenty of community-oriented ideas in those times. The Catholic Church in particular supported the idea of brotherhood between... well, between Catholic Christians, but at least it was supporting a sort of commonality between nations, even if it was so they could all paint crosses on their armor and go kill Muslims. Yes but the idea that it's the society's duty to provide the most vulnerable with enough not to starve, and not the free willing charity of some religious organization is very recent. Tatcher's idea was that the poor can fuck themselves unless someone is willing to help them. That's medieval. As is Ron Paul, for example, saying that the education and the healthcare of the poor should be taken in charge by charities and churches and not by the State. I haven't figured out if he was serious. Well, then, you may as well have called her thinking Renaissance-era. The idea of government caring for the poor is industrial or modern-era. You really like exactitude yeah? I'm not sure that describing someone's ideas as "Renaissance mindset" is as efficient as "medieval mindset" to underline how archaic they are. Which was my point.
Heh, I suppose. But really, if you want to underline how archaic those sorts of anti-welfare mindsets are, just point to the Roman Empire. They had welfare nearly two thousand years ago.
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On October 03 2013 22:59 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:On October 03 2013 21:55 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 21:19 Talin wrote:On October 03 2013 20:05 weekendracer wrote:
It's not reasonable to continue to spend yourself into insurmountable debt. If your wife/husband ran up 100% of your income in debt on credit cards on intangible items, what would you do? Have a discussion and come to a 'consensus' with her, or cut up the damn cards and declare bankruptcy or work for years to pay off the debt you incurred? Oh give me a break. That is the kind of rationalization you use to convince conservatives that are actually reasonable that you're all after the same thing, but it really makes one wonder how come even they are still buying it. How come it's always healthcare, social care or education that's number one priority when you want to "do away with it all"? Doesn't the "all" also include the rather insane military spending and money being spent in a "war" on terror or drugs or countless other examples of US government spending that serve no practical purpose and actually hurt the population at large? There's a lot more fat to be trimmed there. That (no longer) fringe element of the Republican party really only uses their economic principles - which are themselves questionable - very selectively, and ONLY when it's serving their underlying ideology. An extremely radical ideology that has very little to do with genuine concern for the economy, and a lot more to do with a purely dogmatic worldview. Thankfully, people don't seem to actually want to go back to "how things were" and live by the 19th century laws in the 21st century. Also it's high time people figured out how to tax big corporations. Apple is sitting on more than 100bn in cash, paying more wouldn't even hurt their ability to invest. This is true for EU countries too BTW. Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway. If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc... No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago.
Just as a side point that's basically how things are already though; I would argue that people don't do things for other people because they genuinely want to help them, they do it only because it feels good emotionally, or they intrinsically feel "wrong" if they didn't do something like giving someone the wallet that he/she dropped.
There is no other better, rational, materialist explanation for why people do good things for others other than that because they feel better in the doing of those things or feel some inborn compulsion; that's all morality is. If you understand it from that perspective then all of society is based on varying degrees and forms of self-interest. The pure altruistic act doesn't make any sense to me in terms of what the motivations are.
Regardless, to the person you guys are responding to, I think you're both drawing extreme conclusions. He's not suggesting that all of society is irrelevant and that he would have no problem with it breaking down. But what he is saying is that certain sectors of the population are particularly amenable to certain promises; which is simply a generic if cynical truth.
That does not imply that people care *nothing* for any other aspect of society, because they intrinsically have a self-interest in maintaining a strong society - not only do they feel better in guaranteeing a support structure for others, but one generally doesn't want to live in an apocalyptic-style city where everyone's just attacking each other for food or money, because well you become endangered and it degrades the quality of life for everyone, regardless who you are (even the wealthiest would prefer a nice, ordered city to some lawless crime zone forcing them to stay barricaded in their mansion or wherever).
Basically everyone gets something out of a well-ordered society with support structures in place for everyone. It improves the economy universally, enriches everyone's life in various ways (healthcare, rights), and in turn leads to a community and a nation that is generally a far more preferable place to live and work and interact with others. No man is an island, and anyone with even the smallest amount of common sense understands this; it doesn't matter how selfish they are, they would still wish for the welfare of others.
The question of how to achieve this welfare, of course, is an entirely separate matter to be debated by libertarians and government supporters.
edit: Actually the guy you're responding to was way too cynical and went overboard, I see that now. But anyway I don't like all this ragging on self-interest like its something evil 
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On October 03 2013 23:27 radscorpion9 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 22:59 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:On October 03 2013 21:55 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 21:19 Talin wrote:On October 03 2013 20:05 weekendracer wrote:
It's not reasonable to continue to spend yourself into insurmountable debt. If your wife/husband ran up 100% of your income in debt on credit cards on intangible items, what would you do? Have a discussion and come to a 'consensus' with her, or cut up the damn cards and declare bankruptcy or work for years to pay off the debt you incurred? Oh give me a break. That is the kind of rationalization you use to convince conservatives that are actually reasonable that you're all after the same thing, but it really makes one wonder how come even they are still buying it. How come it's always healthcare, social care or education that's number one priority when you want to "do away with it all"? Doesn't the "all" also include the rather insane military spending and money being spent in a "war" on terror or drugs or countless other examples of US government spending that serve no practical purpose and actually hurt the population at large? There's a lot more fat to be trimmed there. That (no longer) fringe element of the Republican party really only uses their economic principles - which are themselves questionable - very selectively, and ONLY when it's serving their underlying ideology. An extremely radical ideology that has very little to do with genuine concern for the economy, and a lot more to do with a purely dogmatic worldview. Thankfully, people don't seem to actually want to go back to "how things were" and live by the 19th century laws in the 21st century. Also it's high time people figured out how to tax big corporations. Apple is sitting on more than 100bn in cash, paying more wouldn't even hurt their ability to invest. This is true for EU countries too BTW. Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway. If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc... No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago. Just as a side point that's basically how things are already though; I would argue that people don't do things for other people because they genuinely want to help them, they do it only because it feels good emotionally, or they intrinsically feel "wrong" if they didn't do something like giving someone the wallet that he/she dropped. There is no other better, rational, materialist explanation for why people do good things for others other than that because they feel better in the doing of those things or feel some inborn compulsion; that's all morality is. If you understand it from that perspective then all of society is based on varying degrees and forms of self-interest. The pure altruistic act doesn't make any sense to me in terms of what the motivations are. Regardless, to the person you guys are responding to, I think you're both drawing extreme conclusions. He's not suggesting that all of society is irrelevant and that he would have no problem with it breaking down. But what he is saying is that certain sectors of the population are particularly amenable to certain promises; which is simply a generic if not cynical truth. That does not imply that people care *nothing* for any other aspect of society, because they intrinsically have a self-interest in maintaining a strong society - not only do they feel better in guaranteeing a support structure for others, but one generally doesn't want to live in an apocalyptic-style city where everyone's just attacking each other for food or money, because well you become endangered and it degrades the quality of life for everyone, regardless who you are (even the wealthiest would prefer a nice, ordered city to some lawless crime zone forcing them to stay barricaded in their mansion or wherever). Basically everyone gets something out of a well-ordered society with support structures in place for everyone. It improves the economy universally, enriches everyone's life in various ways (healthcare, rights), and in turn leads to a community and a nation that is generally a far more preferable place to live and work and interact with others. No man is an island, and anyone with even the smallest amount of common sense understands this; it doesn't matter how selfish they are, they would still wish for the welfare of others. The question of how to achieve this welfare, of course, is an entirely separate matter to be debated by libertarians and government supporters.
You're making a fairly basic point that doesn't really state anything. You are creating a state of false equivalence between an action that helps someone and an action that harms someone just because both could feel good to the person doing them. Yes, pure altruism may not be a thing, but why does that even MATTER? Regardless of whether the motives are "pure" and "selfless," another human was still helped. The difference between tribalism and a true sense of human fellowship is the ability to value those you have no direct contact with, which is what the self-interested mindset ignores.
You mostly hit the mark with the inherent value of having a strong society, but miss the fact that not everyone is interested in such things. It's worth considering that disassembling the social ladder is in the interests of the very rich, as then their position at the top will be secured. This is not to say that the very rich are personally vested in doing so, but simply that such an act would be socially beneficial to them. Such an incentive does in fact create a certain conflict of interest.
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On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:On October 03 2013 21:55 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 21:19 Talin wrote:On October 03 2013 20:05 weekendracer wrote:
It's not reasonable to continue to spend yourself into insurmountable debt. If your wife/husband ran up 100% of your income in debt on credit cards on intangible items, what would you do? Have a discussion and come to a 'consensus' with her, or cut up the damn cards and declare bankruptcy or work for years to pay off the debt you incurred? Oh give me a break. That is the kind of rationalization you use to convince conservatives that are actually reasonable that you're all after the same thing, but it really makes one wonder how come even they are still buying it. How come it's always healthcare, social care or education that's number one priority when you want to "do away with it all"? Doesn't the "all" also include the rather insane military spending and money being spent in a "war" on terror or drugs or countless other examples of US government spending that serve no practical purpose and actually hurt the population at large? There's a lot more fat to be trimmed there. That (no longer) fringe element of the Republican party really only uses their economic principles - which are themselves questionable - very selectively, and ONLY when it's serving their underlying ideology. An extremely radical ideology that has very little to do with genuine concern for the economy, and a lot more to do with a purely dogmatic worldview. Thankfully, people don't seem to actually want to go back to "how things were" and live by the 19th century laws in the 21st century. Also it's high time people figured out how to tax big corporations. Apple is sitting on more than 100bn in cash, paying more wouldn't even hurt their ability to invest. This is true for EU countries too BTW. Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway. If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc... But hey, someone sadly influential said "there is no such thing as society", which, if it was true would make humanity worth not much better than wolves and rascals.
I don't think many people truly follow a radical version of selfishness. However surprisingly many think that it might work or even be preferable in the political sphere. Forgetting the moral argument for a moment that's a huge mistake strategically. Refusing to cooperate with 20-30% of the population (and growing) based on the assumption that their only goal in the political process to score 'handouts' from the government is crazy.
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On October 03 2013 23:26 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2013 23:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 23:20 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 23:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 23:06 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 23:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:59 Acritter wrote:On October 03 2013 22:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 03 2013 22:41 hypercube wrote:On October 03 2013 22:02 MoonfireSpam wrote:
[quote]
Would be nice, but will never happen. UK are trying to crack down on taxing the fairly well off individual though. Why can't people just embrance "honest self serving corruption" instead of pretending it's all in the best interests of the majority. It's seriously not like those tax dollars will go to anything useful other than winning votes of a shit load of plebs because they get more free shit. Most will probably end up in pockets of various civil servants who don't make a difference anyway.
If we start to think of large segments of society as 'plebs', people we have nothing in common with we're fucked. The problem with embracing self serving corruption is that it stops you from forming wide alliances. How are you going to stand up against well organized, well connected and wealthy interest groups if you are unwilling to consider anyone else's interest but your own? Thing is, if you put up his way then you just stop believing in democracy at all. This ultra-liberal thought has an extraordinarily restricted and individualistic notion of interest. It sees your interest as how much money you get and that's basically it. As if one could not support unemployment benefit without being unemployed, just because he prefers living in a society that gives a safety net to people who lose their job, as if one could not care for the education of the children of his country even if he has no children, etc etc etc... No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago. I think we can agree that our regretted Margaret Tatcher had medieval ideas then No, no, not at all. There were plenty of community-oriented ideas in those times. The Catholic Church in particular supported the idea of brotherhood between... well, between Catholic Christians, but at least it was supporting a sort of commonality between nations, even if it was so they could all paint crosses on their armor and go kill Muslims. Yes but the idea that it's the society's duty to provide the most vulnerable with enough not to starve, and not the free willing charity of some religious organization is very recent. Tatcher's idea was that the poor can fuck themselves unless someone is willing to help them. That's medieval. As is Ron Paul, for example, saying that the education and the healthcare of the poor should be taken in charge by charities and churches and not by the State. I haven't figured out if he was serious. Well, then, you may as well have called her thinking Renaissance-era. The idea of government caring for the poor is industrial or modern-era. You really like exactitude yeah? I'm not sure that describing someone's ideas as "Renaissance mindset" is as efficient as "medieval mindset" to underline how archaic they are. Which was my point. Heh, I suppose. But really, if you want to underline how archaic those sorts of anti-welfare mindsets are, just point to the Roman Empire. They had welfare nearly two thousand years ago.
The capital point is that a misunderstanding of historical institutions merely reinforces the prejudices of the present.
In the manorial Middle Ages, the majority of peasants as well as artisans were exposed to a greater extent of corporate identity and collective life than today, with their attendant benefits and duties. That exchange of benefits and duties though was generally not towards the state, and were of a more personal than a bureaucratic nature. Of the two, between modern statism or medieval forms of manorialism, it is difficult to discern which is hated more by classical liberals. Tocqueville foresaw that in the democratic ages, people would more willing to accept the direct tutelary power of a singular supreme authority, under which all men are set in equal standing, rather than a more moderate submission to the intermediary hierarchies interpoised between the state and the individual. The authoritarian principle is innate to democratic desires, providing the authority remains bureaucratic rather than personal.
We have now acceded to such traditions in democratic life, that most people cannot even imagine life under any other arrangement.
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On October 03 2013 22:59 Acritter wrote:
No, it's a bit more than that. Someone who purely believes in personal self-interest stops believing in the very idea of society. If all that matters is what you personally get out of something, then of course the other members of your society don't matter at all outside of what they can directly provide to you. The closest to community that such a person can achieve is rank tribalism. Looking back at classical literature, I would have thought we'd moved past this mindset thousands of years ago.
As you would disagree with the description of community in medieval times, I too must disagree with this assessment of tribalism. In fact, of all forms of community, the "Natural Living Arrangement" of the "Tiyoshpaye Way" as the Lakota Sioux calls it, is anything but self-serving and even a foreign concept and antithesis to such philosophy, for example. This government shutdown reminds me of something a Native American said once on a forum I used to visit (though I have no delusion of breaking the addiction):
"It isn’t so much “the world who would benefit by more of Her Human Children recovering the integrity of their Organic Function, though She sure would appreciate that, it is those inmates of the “civilization” CONtraption regaining their free wild Natural Estate who would really feel its mutually beneficial effects."
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