Ida know.
These guys are pretty cool…
=D hahahahahah
Total badass, right? I have no idea who this troll thinks he’s fooling.
forum ate my post
As opposed to the troll eating the thread?
ooooooo burn
Good tier: South Park, Branson, Hollywood Lib(ertarians), the two black people in the world who happen to be libertarian (actually only one, you can guess).
- Thomas Sowell
- Walter Williams
“Freedom is not compatible with democracy” tier: Theil
Too lazy to put his ideas into practice tier: Cigar guy
Old, fat, tier: Academics (they don’t count)
Really? tier: Penn, Peter “history of things that haven’t happened yet” Schiff (not a libertarian anyway)
So I take back my statement. There are some cool people in there, besides Martin Luther King Rosa Luxembourg Albert Fucking Einstein nevermind. But I’ll note your lack of estrogen and raise you:
Running for president- and not even old enough!
I’m confused. Are you saying they’re leftists?
You have a problem with this? Are you suggesting it is?
Again, I’m confused. You’re calling Doug Casey a leftist?
Why not?
I’m confused. You’re calling Penn Jillette and Peter Schiff leftists?
I would hope so.
I don’t get it.
I still don’t get it.
You literally said all the cool people in the world are leftists, I provide you some examples that refute that, and you come back thinking you’re refuting me by claiming those people aren’t all really libertarian?
Even assuming for the sake of argument you’re right…what the hell difference does it make?
I can’t believe you spent the time to create such a post in the first place…let alone more than once.
Clint Eastwood. You lose, punk.
You gonna put forth Ronald Reagan and ask the same question?
Calling them warmongering leftists is an exaggeration. More like a Rand fan and a warmongering neocon. But alright, they’re fine.
Heeey, I’m not ready to turn democracy over to David Theil’s creepiness just yet.
He said he’s going to build his Ancap Island amusement park and he isn’t getting around to it.
Sex appeal. Little known fact: it’s very important in economics.
On trade and manufacturing Peter Schiff is further left than any officeholding Democrat, while Jillette is… an athiest who choses to affilliate with the Godtards behind Ron Paul.
Name one woman libertarian. Choose carefully. We have to cover all the cards.
@mustang19: Has the possibility ever crossed your mind that perhaps, just perhaps, the mainstream political philosophical taxonomy is one-dimensional and utterly fails to take into account vast swathes of economic and political ideas?
I heartily assent to Carlin’s quotes and find very little to disagree with him on. His economics was weak (he believed in MW, SS, etc.) but still better than the man on the street and his class analysis and historical revisionism was dead on target, putting all but a few pundits like Chomsky or Vidal to shame.
I recommend you drop your preconceptions and actually read what people here write to get an idea of where a lot of folks on these forums are coming from - a lot of it doesn’t fit the one-dimensional (or even the two-dimensional-libertarians-are-anti-authoritarian!) political philosophy taxonomy.
As Carlin says, the politicians are just there to give the illusion that you have a choice. You don’t have a choice. And the politicians sure as hell can’t give you one because it’s all just a dog & pony show - and the politicians are the dogs & ponies. The #1 problem with naive political action (Vote Republican! Vote Democrat! Vote Green Party!) is that it is a complete failure to acknowledge the real structure of power. You cannot challenge the power structure if you are in near total denial that it even exists. Yet the vast majority of Americans are and discussion of this subject is not even permitted in polite conversation.
And I don’t even pretend to have the answers, either. So I don’t know why you’re trying to box and label me.
Clayton -
Nope, sorry, major revelation for me. Lemme go remove those Che tattoos.
Sadly, too much of it does.
Ah, your core differences about politics go out the window so you can feel good watching him. You funny guy.
Don’t put yourself in one. When the answer to everything related to the (largely abstract and fuzzy) constrast between “government” and “markets” is “more free markets”, that’s when you’re just setting yourself up. I hope that you aren’t like that.
And if every business was employee seized and owned, and government subordinated to agreements between these collectives, the capitalists and politicians would be out of work pretty fast. Wokka wokka.
Please explain my “core differences” with Carlin. I got to hear this since out of the several hours of Carlin I’ve listened to, there’s probably a grand total of five minutes worth of stuff where I disagree with where he’s coming from. And even that is more like “Carlin, if you just read Human Action, you’d literally attain nirvana.”
Government versus the corporations (what leftists call “the market”) is a false-dichotomy. There can be no doubt that honest competition in business would look radically different than the big-box, chrome-plated, criminal-captalism that owns and operates the government as if it were its own, private mafia. I do disagree with many libertarians on this point - many seem to think that we’re just a few “tweaks” away from free markets but this just isn’t true. The entire social order is warped from top to bottom.
What I don’t understand is how you admit that government is owned and operated by the Elites, then turn around and think that government is the solution to this problem. Please explain how the politicians are going to change things. Bush came in 2000 promising “I will not engage in nation-building.” LOL Obama came in 2008 promising “I will bring the troops home from Afghanistan and close Gitmo.” LOL Promise what they like, the fact is that the President doesn’t even have the authority to do those things. This fact doesn’t exonerate them, of course, because the entire political scam is predicated on promoting this facade that you have a choice! and the President plays a crucial role in maintaining the illusion.
Clayton -
Five minutes, plus all the times where you think you agree with what he means. But even those five minutes are the part where he’s actually giving his opinion and not trying to avoid turning people off by saying what actually has to be done.
That is not what I was calling the market; my definition is the same as yours. Our difference here is that you think workers shouldn’t seize their workplaces, and the profit from running them should instead flow to the elite.
Government is a tool, not a solution. Eventually the workers will have to seize ownership of capital themselves. In the meantime we can do what we can to tax and regulate the elites and slow them up a bit. Certainly raising the capital gains tax as high as possible, punishing business owners for obstructing labor organizers, stop jobs from moving overseas and outlawing all commerical media companies and campaign donations would be a start. It’s hard to be against the elites and support corporate personhood at the same time.
No I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
Still don’t know what you’re talking about.
Still have no idea what you’re talking about.
a) I didn’t realize there were people in this forum (including trolls such as you) who actually believed democracy was a good thing.
b) I have no idea who David Theil is.
…and that makes him a leftist?
Prove it.
…and that makes him a leftist?
Why? Why is this even relevant? What do libertarians have anything to do with anything we were discussing? Do you have a mental handicap we should be made aware of?
Right. On.
I was actually gonna wait for Maiku to come in with his avatar, but I figured it was time.
forum is a cookie monster for my posts
What we need is more of it, and better informed citizens, with politics decentralized down to the local level and strong grassroots activism. Without that, this is what happens. But that’s for another thread.
Sorry, Peter Theil. I think.
Okay, he’s careful not to explicitly support any tariffs. But he does seem to hail China despite it being far more protectionist than we are.
Someone’s jimmies are ruffled. I was just curious if you could find any.
Clayton:
He’s pissed that the businessmen own, as he says, everything- which means he might just think workers should take back ownership rather than “respect” these businesses’ private property. And you seem to be willing to consider that, too.
When it’s fallen as low as it is, that may be untrue.
Doesn’t mean we can’t do as much as we can to muck up the system in a way that hurts the elites. Taxing them is one way. But priority number one is seizing the elite’s property and wealth, and ultimately replacing the state.
We can, and it has to do with wage competition. When companies can relocate anywhere, Americans have to accept lower wages to compete with the rest of the world.
Why do I feel like I’m talking to BirthdayPony? Hmmmmm…
Seriously, that’s what I want you to explain to me. Because Carlin doesn’t mince words, so it’s pretty damn clear what he’s saying … please explain to me where I’m not “getting it.”
*shrug - he thinks minimum wage helps poor people and I think he’s just factually incorrect on that. A lot of people like Carlin didn’t spend too much time thinking out the economic consequences of price floors on labor so I can easily forgive him for making this common mistake. He thinks Social Security could have helped retirees. I think he fails to understand that these measures - MW, SS, unions, etc. - were subverted by the Elites a long time ago and turned to their own purposes.
That’s what I think?!
I don’t know what the short-term solutions are. Seize, don’t seize. Violence, don’t violence. I don’t know but I have my own guesses. Nevertheless, I do know what are some of the long-term problems in the social order that will be corrected sooner or later. A worker owning the fruit of his own labor is also-known-as (wait for it, drum-roll please)… property! Ownership! Rightful possession! I guess that makes me a drooling, right-wing, neocon Bush-tard.
Government is a very vague and ill-defined word that means everything from exterminating Jews to hacking people to death in the African jungle to throwing the homeless in jail for taking a nap on the public sidewalk. If we’re going to talk about “tools”, I would recommend that we first start defining terms so we have some idea what the hell we’re actually talking about.
But they own and operate the government which administers the taxes and regulations. How can you miss this??
*shrug - I’m not strongly for or against any of the measures you’ve mentioned. I think we should look at why jobs are moving overseas rather than simply advocating for more post-hoc interventions.
Clayton -
Yeah, the forum tried to eat one of mine. Damn.