vileru Wrote:The only difference between these people and libertarians is where they draw the line.

Pretty much this. Different degrees of "F*** you, got mine!"

qwertyytrewq Wrote:In other words, the State should have the right to discriminate for (or against) homosexuals and under Ron Paul's hypothetical Government, they would support that decision.

Shoot. Don't stop there. South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas. They could pass laws again saying negro and latinos aren't actually worthy of the same life as us, lets put them back in the fields; or make it so they can't ever take a job of a white man.

vileru Wrote:However, libertarians don't necessarily have to be opposed to reasonable health care and minimum wages.

Yeah, I know they're not opposed to such things. They're just opposed to doing anything to ensure they exist. If they are to exist in a libertarian world, it will be out of the goodness of people's hearts, and I think most people recognize that as a foolishly optimistic view of human nature.

toshiromi Wrote:The only sane candidate was Ron Paul. Too bad most American citizens were/are so utterly foolish and brainwashed not to vote for him. America and the world would have been a better place.

Ron Paul has far more integrity than anyone else in the Republican primary or Obama, but he is not sane. I think Noam Chomsky sums this up pretty nicely

I think I like this year's Green Party candidate, but who knows if she has the chops needed to be president, as all third-party presidential candidates are essentially non-existent as far as the political process is concerned.

wow. all sorts of misunderstanding of libertarianism here. Not that I'm surprised...

Most libertarians are not motivated by some underlying philosophy of arseholism, we just interpret the workings of society in a fundamentally different (more accurate) way. Arguing libertarianism to most other people, you encounter the same brick wall of incomprehension that I'm sure any atheist can relate to.

It seems sometimes that some people are just incapable of understanding things involving a certain level of complexity and abstraction.

this article explains it pretty well.

nadiatims Wrote:It seems sometimes that some people are just incapable of understanding things involving a certain level of complexity and abstraction.

Perhaps, perhaps not. At the same time, it could be argued that the Libertarian's claim that "the Free Market will solve everything!" (a core tenant of libertarianism) is an oversimplification of a complex and abstract reality, so I don't think it's unreasonable to be skeptical of this ideology in general. Remembering that the "free market" consists of both rational and irrational individuals leading to the possible scenario whereby the free market may indeed not be able to solve things.

nadiatims Wrote:It seems sometimes that some people are just incapable of understanding things involving a certain level of complexity and abstraction.

I would argue that *nobody* can understand things involving more than a certain level of complexity. There's inevitably a limit to the set of interactions that the human brain can handle simultaneously. The only reason computer programs remain within this limit is that we carefully design them to be modular and comprehensible, so you can reason about some parts without having to worry about some remote part of the system invalidating your conclusions. Indeed when this modularity is not maintained old codebases have to be abandoned because it's just not possible to work on them any longer.

The real world is *not* carefully designed and modular. The global financial system, world climate, and the growth of a human embryo into a child are just three examples of systems that are simply too complicated to understand: they have too many interacting parts. The best we can hope for is to apply some simplifying model, while remaining aware that some unexpected effect might make the model give totally wrong answers, and that reasonable people might disagree about the most useful models to use.

This is why I'm sceptical about the wisdom of trying to apply a single supposedly "more accurate" model in all cases.

nadiatims Wrote:It seems sometimes that some people are just incapable of understanding things involving a certain level of complexity and abstraction.

Holy condescension, Batman! And the page you linked to wasn't much more than several pages of condescension and backpatting. "libertarians can think deeply and abstractly about society and everyone else is just chasing ghosts."

The analogy he uses in that article is quite broken. Yes, of course deeply analyzing problems and fixing the problems rather than treating the symptoms should be the ideal, and if that's the message that he wants to impress upon us, I think that's great. But it really seems like he's trying to take a leap in reasoning and suggest that almost any kind of government intervention is simply "treating the symptom" and that's not a coherent argument.
To use his analogy, if there's a problem in a computer program, you analyze the situation and then you go in and fix it. You don't wait for an invisible hand to go in and fix it for you (if the free market decides it should be so), and you don't go in and rip out most of the if() statements because they're imposing artificial constraints on the code's ability to execute freely.

But maybe I still don't really understand what libertarianism is about (and that article didn't do much to elucidate it for me). So take me back to the first decade of the 1900s. If workers' rights and minimum wage laws are not an appropriate way to address poverty and slavelike work environments, then what is the solution?

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Certainly, there's much to like about Ron Paul but at the same time, there are some things that aren't likeable.

The things that you or anybody else doesn't find likeable about him are far outnumbered by his stance on foreign policy. The fact that he is the only candidate that would actually do what he says, namely bring the troops back and stop this insane foreign policy the US is running should be reason enough for any sane citizen to vote for him. But alas, the "stupid American" stereotype is there for a reason; and rightly so. Not that I wish to insult anyone here, but hey, truth hurts.

Most of the troops voted for Ron Paul, because they have had enough. They don't want to die any more in the desert, they don't want to kill any more innocent people. But they will have to keep on dying, and they will have to keep on killing innocent people, only because selfish voters have voted for Obama because he is "more open" on completely irrelevant things such as homosexuals being able to marry. It's a sad day when people think marriage between homosexuals, a tiny minority of people, is more important than saving human lives. Not that I expected anything better from liberals...

Remember how Obama lied in 2008 about decreasing the troops, about bringing them home? Yeah, he actually increased the number of troops abroad. And here I thought the Republicans were known for war-mongering... I guess not. His "Nobel Peace Prize" should be taken away from him.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Is it not just as likely that you have been brainwashed by Pro-Ron Paul propaganda?

Not at all. I look at it from a perspective that makes the world a better and safer place for everyone. Both Romney and Obama, or Bush and Clinton for that matter, are candidates that have zero integrity, say one thing then do another. You know, "same s**t, different a**hole." They are all essentially the same when it comes to foreign policy; all are war-mongers. I wouldn't shake their hand if I had the chance and if they paid me to do it. Ron Paul is the only candidate that is none of those things. He is the only candidate with integrity, and the only candidate that is anti-war. I grab my head and ask myself "when did the world become so stupid?", when people fail or simply refuse to realize this and vote for either Obama or Romney because one will let Adam and Steve marry, and the other will keep sending military aid to "America's number one ally," Israel.

Once again, there is a reason for the stereotype of Americans being stupid, and by the looks of it, this won't change any time soon.

I'm sorry, but what does any of this have to do with RTK?

喫茶店 (Koohii Lounge)

Take a break and enjoy insanely off topic discussions.

toshiromiballza Wrote:But they will have to keep on dying, and they will have to keep on killing innocent people, only because selfish voters have voted for Obama because he is "more open" on completely irrelevant things such as homosexuals being able to marry. It's a sad day when people think marriage between homosexuals, a tiny minority of people, is more important than saving human lives. Not that I expected anything better from liberals...

Human rights is "irrelevant" and the minority don't matter eh?. Firstly, if the rights of homosexuals are irrelevant, then it should be easy to quickly afford them their equal rights so that we can forget about that issue ASAP. Obviously, the Christian support base of the Republicans disagree and are doing everything in their power to prevent that.

Secondly, America, being a Democratic Republic, is all about protecting the minority from the majority. They (homosexuals) might be the minority, but they still matter. Unless of course you don't care about their rights. In that case, that's understandable.

Thirdly, we can multi-task. We can bring the troops home at the same time as giving homosexuals their equal rights. Society will slow down like a snail if we simply focused on the top priority items (in your opinion, foreign policy) before doing anything else

Finally, the main reason I bring this issue up in the first place is because I was replying to this statement:

toshiromiballza Wrote:I see no difference between an Obama voter or a Romney voter; they are both brainwashed fools, putting it extremely lightly.

Since you acknowledge that Liberals support Obama because he is perceived to be friendly to gays, I assume that you agree that on average, Liberal/Democrats support equal rights, while on average, Conservatives/Republicans don't? And therefore, their is a difference between voters on both sides?

Then there's your difference and your statement is rendered false. And that's the reason for voting Obama over Romney: while they're both evil, one is demonstrably less evil than the other. Besides, you don't need to lecture me on Ron Paul. There are some things I like about him, and some I don't, and I like him more than Obama/Romney. My main issue of content is your assertion that people on "both sides are the same".

toshiromiballza Wrote:Not at all. I look at it from a perspective that makes the world a better and safer place for everyone.

Haha, Chairman Mao had the same sentiments!

Actually, that's exactly what we in this thread are discussing right now: Will Ron Paul's Libertarian paradise make the world a better and safe place for everyone? The jury is still out on this one.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Once again, there is a reason for the stereotype of Americans being stupid, and by the looks of it, this won't change any time soon.

Well, let's hope you (or me) are not one of those.

toshiromiballza Wrote:vote for either Obama or Romney because one will let Adam and Steve marry, and the other will keep sending military aid to "America's number one ally," Israel.

Actually, the main reason people will vote for Obama is because he's not Romney, and the main reason people will vote for Romney is because he's not Obama.

American politics has been stuck in a vicious cycle where only two parties get elected because they're the only ones people will vote for, and they're the only ones that people will vote for because they're the only ones that get elected.

It would be nice if they could improve the election process so that other candidates' voices were heard and those with some merit could amass some more votes than the pitiful results that they've had so far. Unfortunately, boxing out competition from other parties is probably one of the few things Republicans and Democrats can uninanimously agree on.

I guess as asinine as it was, the Tea Party was a baby step in that direction, but at its heart, it was really just a Republican marketing ploy and people lost interest in it pretty quickly.

toshiromiballza Wrote:Both Romney and Obama, or Bush and Clinton for that matter, are candidates that have zero integrity, say one thing then do another. You know, "same s**t, different a**hole." They are all essentially the same when it comes to foreign policy; all are war-mongers. I wouldn't shake their hand if I had the chance and if they paid me to do it. Ron Paul is the only candidate that is none of those things.

How are you so sure that Ron Paul wasn't just as packed to the brim with lies as everyone else and wouldn't have kept even half of his promises? Maybe he would have been unable to keep the promises even though he'd have wanted and intended to because in the end, the president isn't a monarch.

The main reason we know Ron Paul isn't packed to the brim with lies is that he has been in politics for over 30 years and the stuff he says has been consistent for pretty much that whole time. Romney has been known to change his opinions on a daily basis depending on who's listening and Obama doesn't have a stellar track record on consistency either.

Of course no president can accomplish everything they set out to do, but that's not what toshiro is talking about. When it's a question of who's going to stick to the principles they claim to espouse, I think Ron Paul wins that point hands down.

Well, that makes sense. Still, even though as I've understood it foreign policy is where the president gets the most say, I don't think it's a given that he would've been able to pull out the military forces as easily as toshiro's post seems to suggest.

Surreal Wrote:Well, that makes sense. Still, even though as I've understood it foreign policy is where the president gets the most say, I don't think it's a given that he would've been able to pull out the military forces as easily as toshiro's post seems to suggest.

Yeah, probably not. And even if we could, doing so without leaving the respective locations in some semblance of order would have been deplorable and brashly irresponsible. Whether we should or shouldn't have been there in the first place, it's our responsiblity to clean up the mess we made.

JimmySeal Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:It seems sometimes that some people are just incapable of understanding things involving a certain level of complexity and abstraction.

Holy condescension, Batman!.....

But maybe I still don't really understand what libertarianism is about (and that article didn't do much to elucidate it for me). So take me back to the first decade of the 1900s. If workers' rights and minimum wage laws are not an appropriate way to address poverty and slavelike work environments, then what is the solution?

Yeah, i have no idea what a libertarian answer would be here, but my bet is that it contains the word "eventually".

And it's here that the problem lies for me. Even if, contrary to all available evidence, a libertarian strategy would eventually work (we don't even have to go back to the 1800s to see this, you can observe it in any country with a shoddy government today), the human sacrifice involved is absolutely unforgivable. The means cannot possibly justify the ends.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:

toshiromiballza Wrote:But they will have to keep on dying, and they will have to keep on killing innocent people, only because selfish voters have voted for Obama because he is "more open" on completely irrelevant things such as homosexuals being able to marry. It's a sad day when people think marriage between homosexuals, a tiny minority of people, is more important than saving human lives. Not that I expected anything better from liberals...

Human rights is "irrelevant" and the minority don't matter eh?. Firstly, if the rights of homosexuals are irrelevant, then it should be easy to quickly afford them their equal rights so that we can forget about that issue ASAP. Obviously, the Christian support base of the Republicans disagree and are doing everything in their power to prevent that.

Secondly, America, being a Democratic Republic, is all about protecting the minority from the majority. They (homosexuals) might be the minority, but they still matter. Unless of course you don't care about their rights. In that case, that's understandable.

Thirdly, we can multi-task. We can bring the troops home at the same time as giving homosexuals their equal rights. Society will slow down like a snail if we simply focused on the top priority items (in your opinion, foreign policy) before doing anything else

He/She talked about a choice between tｗo things, and viewed the voting this round as picking a choice. One of the choices must be more important that the other, and in this case it seems combining both is not possible. So, unfortunately, all what you said is irrelevant.

Edit: typos

JimmySeal Wrote:American politics has been stuck in a vicious cycle where only two parties get elected because they're the only ones people will vote for, and they're the only ones that people will vote for because they're the only ones that get elected.

It would be nice if they could improve the election process so that other candidates' voices were heard and those with some merit could amass some more votes than the pitiful results that they've had so far. Unfortunately, boxing out competition from other parties is probably one of the few things Republicans and Democrats can uninanimously agree on.

I think the best suggestion I've heard to try to move forward here is to start at the local politics level. Locally it's possible to vote in independents, to push for candidates in the major parties whose views are closer to your own, and to try to build support for a third party. If you can demonstrate a regional pool of support for a third party then it's possible to persuade people gradually that a vote for that party at a national level (MP in the UK, presumably senator/congressman in the US) isn't wasted. The Lib Dems in the UK have worked up from local/regional support in this kind of way.

First past the post sucks as a system, but if it's the system you've got you have to deal with it. (and recent history in the UK suggests that a lot of people actually like it...)

listen i know it's hard to believe but as an american I can say it,... most americans are stupid.

it's not their fault... most people live in the middle of the country being spoonfed this religious mindf*ck and increasingly can't afford to go to college. that's why they(romney's 47% of gov't dependents in fact) always vote repub despite the further economic disenfranchisement resulting from that decision. these people really are that conservative and although one rarely meets them there are hordes all over the country's non-urban locations. visit a yahoo comments board on any political story and witness their spelling and grammatical prowess.

then there is also the intentionally misleading nature of our political discourse. dumbing-down isn't even appropriate... outright untruths perpetuated on heavy rotation. and to try to explain them would assume an unreasonably high attention span or iq on the part of the listener. for example the chorus of this year's election ads is Obama's responsibility for the economy. well neither this president nor W. nor Clinton bore any responsibility for their economies. presidents lead the army and handle foreign affairs and lead their political party...pretty exclusively. Any power to enact legislation that would create jobs would happen in congress. But rather than try to explain this to people Obama responds by saying it was really Bush's fault, further perpetuating this nonsense, because he knows who he's talking to.

so you have both sides lying to an increasingly uninformed electorate. its all very dark... probably predictable given the amount of money involved, but thoroughly disheartening.

dtcamero Wrote:then there is also the intentionally misleading nature of our political discourse.

Largely this. The media in this country is absolutely horrific. Fox news, a fairly largely news organization in the country, and sort of the rallying center for the right, constantly misinforms and misrepresents information CONSTANTLY. News in the country is no longer about news its about an agenda. Fox is the right and CNN is slightly centrist-left and MSNBC being pretty left. Additionally, there is a hard push to maintain viewer numbers which results in lots of absurd presentation of news and events.

If the media was better and less watered down like you mention. I think they'd be better informed (maybe not smarter, but education is the only thing that can fix that).

[Zgarbas]

Oh man, I remember when we had this chick from the US visiting and she called us socialists because we have health care. We had to slowly explain to her what socialism is outside the US; it was awkward. I wanted to also point out how rude it is to call someone a socialist in the former Eastern Bloc but that would have been one history lesson too many, I guess.

I mean, I know socialism became synonymous to whatever the democrats are doing around there, but can't you find a better term for it?

And quit swinging the libertarian word around so lightly! there's a gazillion types of libertarianism which have very little in common with one another.

I'm a minarchist (individual libertarianism), and I love paying taxes. And free health care, though it would be cool if I lived somewhere where the free doctors aren't so well-known for malpractice (still have a sore throat from a botched biopsy, I am immune to antibiotics thanks to being given the wrong treatment when I was little, and all sorts of similar problems). Free schooling is also cool, though I wish our universities were of higher quality.

(on our next episode of political ideologies gone wrong, anarchy!)

Maybe socialist not as much offending as communist, although, thanks to communist propaganda, some people in Eastern Europe seem to think that they are the same thing.

Also, comparing to US most European states *are* socialist (even Australia is) – just watch Sicko by Michael More to see how the American (sorry, the US) system is screwed up.

Inny Jan Wrote:Also, comparing to US most European states *are* socialist (even Australia is) – just watch Sicko by Michael More to see how the American (sorry, the US) system is screwed up.

America is a mixed economy and so are most European economies. It's just many European economies have more aspects of a planned economy. Saying that they 'are' socialist is a bit muchじゃない? Maybe a couple individual cases you could argue for.

Zgarbas Wrote:I'm a minarchist (individual libertarianism)

please could you explain what this is?

Wait, i see, it's just the minimal state concept. Ayn Rand. ew.

i guess this is a reaction against communism on your part? but really, the state can be a lot better than that.

one of the major points to me is that minarchism wouldn't do anything to redress the balance from the uneven nature of transactions in society. Whoever has the capital has the power to make unfair transactions to their own advantage. In other words, letting the market determine wages, except indirectly through the value of products or services, is always wrong. Which is why i will always believe in wealth redistribution as a concept.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Human rights is "irrelevant" and the minority don't matter eh?

I'm pretty sure any sane and rational person would prioritize the saving of lives, both military and innocent, over some non-issue like the right to marry. It's like your house is burning down, but you're worried that you forgot to make your bed. Looking at it from this perspective, I can see why America is being hated across the world.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Thirdly, we can multi-task. We can bring the troops home at the same time as giving homosexuals their equal rights. Society will slow down like a snail if we simply focused on the top priority items (in your opinion, foreign policy) before doing anything else.

No you can't. Not with Obama, and not with Romney. With Paul at least, you would have at least done the more important task of bringing the troops home, thus save thousands of potential lives, not to mention save billions of dollars. It's sad and disgusting when this is not the opinion of everyone.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Then there's your difference and your statement is rendered false. And that's the reason for voting Obama over Romney: while they're both evil, one is demonstrably less evil than the other.

True in that regard, but I take those differences between them as non-issues and irrelevant. My point of concern is first and foremost their foreign policy, in which both are pretty much the same s**t by taking the orders from AIPAC. Thus, I see no difference between Democrats or Republicans, as both vote for war. Being "evil" is subjective. Quite frankly, I don't think either one of them is "more evil" than the other, but indeed, both are.

Hyperborea Wrote:Well, not exactly. Some of those things that he used to say are now not so politically expedient. They're "fine" to say when you're just a small potatoes candidate trying to win over the whacko fringe but when you want to get enough votes to be president you have to hide away your real feelings and thoughts.

Being politically "correct" or not should not matter. Often, it is the politically incorrect statement that speaks the truth, but it is ignored or shunned by the masses because it is not "politically correct."

It's a fact that African-Americans are by far the most criminally inclined group in America (or Britain, for that matter), being 7 times more likely to be in prison for a crime, even though they are only 13% of the population or so. So while the first quote is exaggerated, I can definitely see the point he is making, but I guess you need to put down your PC glasses to see it. The second quote follows the same logic of them being more likely to be criminals, so I see the point again. Also the context is missing, for all we know he could have been talking about some city filled with ghettos, and you won't convince anyone not to be afraid walking through one. The third one is missing context too. Likely there was a riot going on in some street, and they actually did stop when it was time to pick the welfare check. Just because it sounds racist shouldn't be a reason not to speak the truth. The MLK quote speaks the truth again. He did have sex with prostitutes, and he did beat them. The paedophilia part I have never heard before, so I can't comment. I don't know who Barbara Jordan is, so I don't have much to say, but the context is missing, and she could have actually said something moronic for all we know.