It’s only because of a “popular trend” (by which I mean a government propaganda campaign) that you think it’s a bad idea.
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
orion wrote:
If you could please explain to me why everywhere else slavery ended without a bloodbath. And without introducing tariffs that strangled the Souths industry?
There were a few differences between the US and other slave-holding societies.
First, because we’re a federal system, slavery was abolished in most of the country but kept in the South. The result was that the North advanced technologically and morally while the South festered in darkness. More centralized countries had slavery legal everywhere or illegal everywhere, so regionalism didn’t play a role.
Second, Southern elites, trying to escape their own consciences, decided that slavery wasn’t a necessary evil (the viewpoint of most slave owners as of 1776, like Jefferson) but a positive good. This radicalization meant that they viewed, for example, proposals to ban slavery in the Southwest (which is unsuitable for plantation agriculture anyhow) as a personal affront to their moral code.
Third, American slavery was simply worse than in other societies. Especially after the radicalization I mentioned above, it became all but unheard of for a slave to gradually buy his own freedom, which was historically pretty common in slave societies. You also had laws banning, for example, the education of slaves or even free blacks, which I don’t think has a parallel in other countries’ histories.
The result was an extremist, uncompromising part of the country that was willing to commit violent treason rather than see a gradual rolling back of their “peculiar institution.” Other slave nations were less radical, and thus less violent.
[/quote]
A solid argument and I agree that slavery in the American South was even more of abomination than usual slavery.
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
You admit that millions of people would “disappear” and that’s a good thing.
Do play dumb…or are you not playing.
People are poor by one or a combination of these three options only:
-
They voluntarily live a life of poverty; such as the religious and students, etc. These people usually live off of charity (or their parents).
-
They end up poor because of their own dumb actions; such as gamblers, addicts, and “spendoholics”, etc.
-
They end up poor because of coercion and destruction of property. These are typically the victims of government intervention; such as every person who ever lived under socialism, except the ruling class.
I think you are garbage because you advocate violence as a means to redistribute wealth – see how effective of an argument that is.
If you never educate people, they will lack the skills to get a decent job, so they will never escape poverty. You are advocating doing just that.
And you STILL haven’t explained why you think that taxes are unjust. You have a fetishistic devotion to the the idea that a legitimate state collecting uniform taxes to provide public goods is a bad thing, but you don’t seem to realize that you can’t just assert this forever in lieu of an argument.
And “violence redistributing wealth” - police empowered by a democratically elected government fighting tax evasion - is perfectly just and effective. This is why Americans are better off than Andamese Islanders, and why modern mixed economies have far less poverty, far longer life expectancies and far more educated populations than (say) 1840s England.
[/quote]
Taxation is theft and therefore it is not just because theft is unjust; and well, violently coerced theft is even more unjust…In fact, government is the negation of liberty and therefore nothing government ever does can lead to justice.
How many different ways do I need to answer it before you understand this as an explaination?
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
malonetd wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
In my senior year of high school I had teachers who were graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Smith (plus a PHD at CUNY grad school), Cooper Union, MIT, Michigan, Oxford (as a Marshall scholar), and Wellesley. Nice try. And again, you’re comparing our imperfect system to NO EDUCATION AT ALL. Laughable.
This is laughable. Even if this is true, do you think for a moment that this is representative of most public high schools across the country? Hell fucking no!
Sure there might be a couple like here and there like your school, but for the most part the public schools in the country are a shame and an atrocity, especially in poor and inner city areas. There’s a reason California has been trying for years to allow someone to obtain teaching credentials with only a two-year degree. Quality teachers don’t want to work in shit hole public schools. Hell, sub-par teachers don’t want to teach there, so now places like California want to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
I’m arguing with a guy who literally thinks that receiving an average public education is worse, for various mystical libertarian reasons, than getting no education at all. He also insulted me for going to public school, and I felt like I had a pretty good rejoinder.
[/quote]
If you analyze your glib response than it becomes obvious that your idea of value should be rightfully substituted for those peoples feelings who should be educated at gunpoint.
I, as a fringe lunatic, at least do not work under the illusion that my deceptions are self evident.
Indeed, not having all the cool kids agree with you can be an advantage.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:Yes, because they have no guns and I can switch companies if they fuck up.
Read much labor history?
[/quote]
What is holding you back now?
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:Have you read Marx?
If not, I suggest you do before commenting further on the vehicle he enumerated.
lim@infinity
Yes I’ve read Marx you fucking dolt, that’s why I’m telling you you’re wrong. Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production (this is the defining characteristic, and the rest of the criteria which you pulled from the Manifesto that everybody shrieks about are of secondary importance) and , and communism is the theoretical final stage after the disappearance of classes and the state. Simply because two things have characteristics in common does not make them the same thing.
Now, it wouldn’t matter that much if not for the constant cries of socialism on here, when in reality, socialism is the last thing that a ruling class wants.
[/quote]
This is what my Soviet socialist expatriate parents told me communism was in 2003, when Bush was in office. Then I read the manifesto for myself and found out that they read it through a thick layer of bias.
The entire and ongoing history of society is and will be a history of class struggle.
Marx was right: class struggle leads to uprising and the restructuring of societies.
It’s communism that is the farce.
Obviously we comprehended it differently…
and should just leave it at that.
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
What is the literacy rate in the United States?
[/quote]
Being able to read does not necessarily make one literate nor does being able to add and subtract make one a mathematician.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Taxation is theft and therefore it is not just because theft is unjust; and well, violently coerced theft is even more unjust…In fact, government is the negation of liberty and therefore nothing government ever does can lead to justice.
How many different ways do I need to answer it before you understand this as an explaination?[/quote]
Nope. You actually have to make arguments, not just assert lunacy. Everything you say is objectively false.
“taxation is theft”
Here’s a regular definition of theft: [quote]the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny.[/quote]
and here’s a legal definition:
[quote]1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner’s consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery. [/quote]
Note the requirement that the thing has to be taken wrongfully or unlawfully; since taxes are mandated by law, they aren’t unlawful. It’s really disingenuous to twist the plain meanings of words to suit your particular agenda. For example, I’m opposed to the death penalty, but it would be dishonest to call an execution carried out with sufficient due process to be “murder”, since murder is necessarily extra-judicial.
“government is the negation of liberty”
[quote]
liberty:
- freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
- freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
- freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.
- freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint: The prisoner soon regained his liberty. [/quote]
Democratic government clearly doesn’t violate 1 or 2. It can violate 3 or 4 in a trivial sense, but so does any restriction whatsoever on what people can do; you might as well call a ban on murder to be “the negation of liberty.” Also, the requirements of 3 are not met in an anarchy. Since most people will be poor and ignorant without education, they will have severe “hampering conditions” preventing them from doing what they want.
“nothing government ever does can lead to justice”
There are a few different definitions of justice, but the main idea is people getting what is due to them. But there’s no mechanism for people to get what is due to them in the absence of a central authority. So, on the contrary, government is necessary for justice.
So besides shoddy definitions, do you have anything to support your strange “philosophy”?
[quote]orion wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
malonetd wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
In my senior year of high school I had teachers who were graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Smith (plus a PHD at CUNY grad school), Cooper Union, MIT, Michigan, Oxford (as a Marshall scholar), and Wellesley. Nice try. And again, you’re comparing our imperfect system to NO EDUCATION AT ALL. Laughable.
This is laughable. Even if this is true, do you think for a moment that this is representative of most public high schools across the country? Hell fucking no!
Sure there might be a couple like here and there like your school, but for the most part the public schools in the country are a shame and an atrocity, especially in poor and inner city areas. There’s a reason California has been trying for years to allow someone to obtain teaching credentials with only a two-year degree. Quality teachers don’t want to work in shit hole public schools. Hell, sub-par teachers don’t want to teach there, so now places like California want to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
I’m arguing with a guy who literally thinks that receiving an average public education is worse, for various mystical libertarian reasons, than getting no education at all. He also insulted me for going to public school, and I felt like I had a pretty good rejoinder.
If you analyze your glib response than it becomes obvious that your idea of value should be rightfully substituted for those peoples feelings who should be educated at gunpoint.
I, as a fringe lunatic, at least do not work under the illusion that my deceptions are self evident.
Indeed, not having all the cool kids agree with you can be an advantage.[/quote]
I honestly have no idea what you’re trying to say here. Could you rephrase it?
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
orion wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
malonetd wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
In my senior year of high school I had teachers who were graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Smith (plus a PHD at CUNY grad school), Cooper Union, MIT, Michigan, Oxford (as a Marshall scholar), and Wellesley. Nice try. And again, you’re comparing our imperfect system to NO EDUCATION AT ALL. Laughable.
This is laughable. Even if this is true, do you think for a moment that this is representative of most public high schools across the country? Hell fucking no!
Sure there might be a couple like here and there like your school, but for the most part the public schools in the country are a shame and an atrocity, especially in poor and inner city areas. There’s a reason California has been trying for years to allow someone to obtain teaching credentials with only a two-year degree. Quality teachers don’t want to work in shit hole public schools. Hell, sub-par teachers don’t want to teach there, so now places like California want to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
I’m arguing with a guy who literally thinks that receiving an average public education is worse, for various mystical libertarian reasons, than getting no education at all. He also insulted me for going to public school, and I felt like I had a pretty good rejoinder.
If you analyze your glib response than it becomes obvious that your idea of value should be rightfully substituted for those peoples feelings who should be educated at gunpoint.
I, as a fringe lunatic, at least do not work under the illusion that my deceptions are self evident.
Indeed, not having all the cool kids agree with you can be an advantage.
I honestly have no idea what you’re trying to say here. Could you rephrase it?
[/quote]
OMG!
I bet LM knows what I mean.
So who is grazy?
Him, me, or you?
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
So besides shoddy definitions, do you have anything to support your strange “philosophy”?
[/quote]
I would not call my definitions “shoddy” at all but rather complete and more reflective of reality than what Webster dared write down in his book.
Taxation is theft. War is murder, and in special cases, genocide. Conscription is slavery.
[quote]orion wrote:
So who is grazy?
Him, me, or you?
[/quote]
Not it!
Being educated at one of the finest public schools you think he would have understood your meaning…I mean, come on, serially…it is one of the top three in the country and everything.
This is one of the best that our fine schools has to offer, right here in this very forum, dude!!
We should be honored.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
So besides shoddy definitions, do you have anything to support your strange “philosophy”?
I would not call my definitions “shoddy” at all but rather complete and more reflective of reality than what Webster dared write down in his book.
Taxation is theft. War is institutionalized murder, and in special cases, genocide. Conscription is slavery.[/quote]
Here’s what you’re doing. You’re using a word (“theft”) with a different meaning than the one you’ll find in any dictionary and that almost all people will agree on. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. People redefine words all the time. But by using a word which, in its proper meaning, has strong negative connotations, you muddle the waters. You try to attach the bad associations from the standard definition of the word to something (taxes) that only fits your new definition of the word. That’s deceptive.
Let’s try associating your new definition (roughly, “taking something without permission”) to a word that doesn’t have negative conotations, say “snuffleupagus.” We can now boldly proclaim “Taxation is snuffleupagus!” without any risk of being misunderstood. But you still aren’t any closer to proving that taxation is wrong.
Now, of course there’s a long history of people using seemingly nonsensical assertions to make a point - I’m thinking of Proudhon’s “Property is theft!,” Nietzsche’s “God is dead!” and PETA’s “Meat is murder!”. But it both of these cases, they don’t stop with dumbly asserting these contradictions. Instead, they provide an actual argument. The PETA activist might say “Because of [insert Peter Singer summary], animals are morally equivalent to people. Therefore, killing an animal for food is wrong for the same reason that killing people is wrong, so it’s essentially the same act as murder.”
But you don’t do this. You keep on reciting “taxation is theft” without bothering to explain the argument, if any, behind this assertion, repeating it over and over, unthinkingly, like an autistic child whose favorite toy has been taken away.
[quote]orion wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
orion wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
malonetd wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
In my senior year of high school I had teachers who were graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Smith (plus a PHD at CUNY grad school), Cooper Union, MIT, Michigan, Oxford (as a Marshall scholar), and Wellesley. Nice try. And again, you’re comparing our imperfect system to NO EDUCATION AT ALL. Laughable.
This is laughable. Even if this is true, do you think for a moment that this is representative of most public high schools across the country? Hell fucking no!
Sure there might be a couple like here and there like your school, but for the most part the public schools in the country are a shame and an atrocity, especially in poor and inner city areas. There’s a reason California has been trying for years to allow someone to obtain teaching credentials with only a two-year degree. Quality teachers don’t want to work in shit hole public schools. Hell, sub-par teachers don’t want to teach there, so now places like California want to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
I’m arguing with a guy who literally thinks that receiving an average public education is worse, for various mystical libertarian reasons, than getting no education at all. He also insulted me for going to public school, and I felt like I had a pretty good rejoinder.
If you analyze your glib response than it becomes obvious that your idea of value should be rightfully substituted for those peoples feelings who should be educated at gunpoint.
I, as a fringe lunatic, at least do not work under the illusion that my deceptions are self evident.
Indeed, not having all the cool kids agree with you can be an advantage.
I honestly have no idea what you’re trying to say here. Could you rephrase it?
OMG!
I bet LM knows what I mean.
So who is grazy?
Him, me, or you?
[/quote]
Humor me. What is my opinion of value, why should or shouldn’t it be rightfully substituted for “those people”, who are “those people”, who is educating them at gunpoint, and what are my deceptions?
What you wrote just seemed like word salad. I had no idea what you were trying to say.
especially with ivy league public school teachers no less…
LOFUCKINGL!
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
Okay, you’re a crackpot. Thanks for clearing that up. [/quote]
Yes, when the looneytarians start getting twitchy about Lincoln, rest assured you are about to have to read some of the dumbest drek available on PWI.
Masterful argument, as usual dunderbolt.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Masterful argument, as usual dunderbolt.[/quote]
Do you do anything around here except lower the collective IQ?
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
dhickey wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
You think Lincoln was a tyrant? You think every government that has ever existed was a tyranny? You’re really hard to take seriously.
Lincoln was most certainly a very bad man. He was a democratically elected tyrant for sure – just like many of them are.
Okay, you’re a crackpot. Thanks for clearing that up.
What do you call a person who murders over half a million people because he does not want them to have their own freedom?
I am afraid I am not the crackpot but rather you are because you, like many others, willingly swallow all the “educational” propaganda you’ve been fed.
There are acceptable reasons to rebel against a lawfully elected government. Defending chattel slavery is not one of them.
This just about sums up you knowledge of the republic, lincoln, and civil war. Why don’t you stick to things you know something about? Maybe the SAMA board?
What sources do you rely on,
[/quote]
ummm…historical fact
I don’t have to rely on anyone’s qualifications.
Fact : The institution of Slavery had just been upheld by the Supreme court
Fact : Most southerners had no slaves. If anything, they felt slaves were taking jobs from free whites. Many northers felt this way as well.
Fact : Slave states already had restrictions on importation of more Slaves
Fact : Many slave owners where preparing their slaves for immancipation, including generals that fought for the confederacy.
Fact : Tensions between North and South were over much more than slavery. Tarriffs were one of the major contensions.
Fact : Abolishionists were in the minority, even in the North.
Really. Who says this and what are their qualifications?
[quote]dhickey wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
dhickey wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
You think Lincoln was a tyrant? You think every government that has ever existed was a tyranny? You’re really hard to take seriously.
Lincoln was most certainly a very bad man. He was a democratically elected tyrant for sure – just like many of them are.
Okay, you’re a crackpot. Thanks for clearing that up.
What do you call a person who murders over half a million people because he does not want them to have their own freedom?
I am afraid I am not the crackpot but rather you are because you, like many others, willingly swallow all the “educational” propaganda you’ve been fed.
There are acceptable reasons to rebel against a lawfully elected government. Defending chattel slavery is not one of them.
This just about sums up you knowledge of the republic, lincoln, and civil war. Why don’t you stick to things you know something about? Maybe the SAMA board?
What sources do you rely on,
ummm…historical fact
and do the people writing them have any qualifications?
I don’t have to rely on anyone’s qualifications.
Fact : The institution of Slavery had just been upheld by the Supreme court
Fact : Most southerners had no slaves. If anything, they felt slaves were taking jobs from free whites. Many northers felt this way as well.
Fact : Slave states already had restrictions on importation of more Slaves
Fact : Many slave owners where preparing their slaves for immancipation, including generals that fought for the confederacy.
Fact : Tensions between North and South were over much more than slavery. Tarriffs were one of the major contensions.
Fact : Abolishionists were in the minority, even in the North.
There’s a canard that’s worth repeating here: “People who don’t know anything about the Civil War know it was caused by slavery. People who know about the Civil War know it wasn’t caused by slavery. People who REALLY know about the Civil War know that it was caused by slavery.”
Really. Who says this and what are their qualifications?
[/quote]
Cute. Adages don’t need to be sourced. Facts, if contested, do.
Okay. What are we debating here? I said that the primary reason the Southern states rebelled was to protect slavery. To prove this, I quoted a prominent Southern politician as well as the ordinance of secession of South Carolina (the first state to secede). Both texts basically declare that Southerners left because they feared Northern Republicans (ha) would interfere or abolish slavery, and they weren’t down with that.
Are you saying the opposite - that causes other than slavery were more important? Some of the facts you just quoted are correct, but how do they amount to an argument against my position?