Quote :

"To legitimize mob rule."

To legitimize capitalism

6/16/2011 6:24:50 PM

Quote :

"Does democracy become unjust each time a vote occurs?"

When the resultant legislation violates an individual's human rights, you bet it does.

Quote :

"workers that disagree with the current trajectory of industry (but who are outvoted) are just that: outvoted"

But no one ever promised to take their opinion into account.

The rules of capitalism are quite simple: don't hurt others and keep your promises.

6/16/2011 6:32:21 PM

Quote :

"When the resultant legislation violates an individual's human rights, you bet it does. "

I'm really uninterested in having a discussion on rights with a guy who believes that "private property of industry" is a fundamental one whereas health care and other things essential to the renewal of labor are not. Your values are backwards and value "cheddar stacking" over "human life". No thanks.

Quote :

"But no one ever promised to take their opinion into account. "

If it's truly a democratic system then their opinion is taken into account. Their opinion was measured during a vote. What's the better option, ensuring peoples decisions get weighted by the amount of dollars they have?

Quote :

"The rules of capitalism are quite simple: don't hurt others and keep your promises."

The rule of capitalism is quite simple: stack cheddar forever at whatever cost.

6/16/2011 6:38:13 PM

Quote :

"I'm really uninterested in having a discussion on rights with a guy who believes that "private property of industry" is a fundamental one whereas health care and other things essential to the renewal of labor are not"

I assume you have heard the slavery argument, right? If you have a fundamental human right to healthcare, what happens when the doctor says no?

I don't get the cheddar reference.

Quote :

"If it's truly a democratic system then their opinion is taken into account. Their opinion was measured during a vote. What's the better option, ensuring peoples decisions get weighted by the amount of dollars they have?"

Two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner. Two white men and a black man voting on who picks the cotton.

It would be better if all parties to the vote had a choice of whether to participate or not.

6/16/2011 6:48:28 PM

[Edited on June 16, 2011 at 6:59 PM. Reason : something weird is happening here]

6/16/2011 6:55:38 PM

Quote :

"1) protect individual rights* 2) protect the nation against foreign threats 3) enforce private contracts *Every individual has the right to do whatever they please, as long as they don't, without consent, unreasonably harm or endanger anyone else's person, property, liberty, or right to the same. (The commons are private, and belong to everyone, therefore, protection and maintenance of basic infrastructure and the environment are included.) (Also, corporations aren't individuals.) That's it, y'all!"

I'd have to go with

4) To do jobs no one else wants or can do, but is completely necessary for the well being of the nation.
-trash duty, sewer duty, power regulator, gas regulator, water regulator, price gouge regulator, monopoly buster

6/16/2011 7:23:56 PM

Quote :

"The rules of capitalism are quite simple: don't hurt others and keep your promises."

Dishonesty can be quite profitable in capitalism.

And how, by taking more than you need from people who have less than they need, are you not hurting others?

6/16/2011 7:38:11 PM

Quote :

"The rules of capitalism are quite simple: don't hurt others and keep your promises"

I think bodyguards and hitmen would disagree with the first point. And every person that has done a ponsy scheme would disagree with the second.

I wish I could find that paragraph going through someones day and listing what government agency contributed to each task you do each day. (roads, clean drinking water, etc.)

6/16/2011 8:01:24 PM

Government is whatever the majority chooses it to be.

Human rights are whatever we decide they are.

There are no natural rules.

Except for physics.

[Edited on June 16, 2011 at 10:12 PM. Reason : .]

6/16/2011 10:11:33 PM

Quote :

"And how, by taking more than you need from people who have less than they need, are you not hurting others?"

All you can know is that they agreed to the exchange and therefore you can rest assured that the trade made them better off than they would have been without it. If they do indeed have unmet needs and no way to satisfy them through exchange, then thank goodness for capitalism and the freedom it provides to help them with charity.

I wish I could find that paragraph going through someones day and listing what corporation contributed to each task you do each day. (roads, clean drinking water, etc.)

And before it breaks down, do keep in mind that "capitalism" is not "anarchy". An ideal purpose of government is to make sure people keep their promises to each other. Small claims court and a sheriff to enforce the rulings is perhaps the most important service our government provides.

6/17/2011 12:33:15 AM

Quote :

"Socialism is economic democracy"

This is untrue. There are democratic forms of socialism and undemocratic forms of socialism. Instead, you should say that socialism is not mutually exclusive with democracy.

6/17/2011 12:36:50 AM

necessary evil

6/17/2011 1:12:36 AM

Quote :

"This is untrue. There are democratic forms of socialism and undemocratic forms of socialism. Instead, you should say that socialism is not mutually exclusive with democracy."

Not as I understand it at all. Where are you getting your definition? By observing practice? If so we could conclude that racist colonialism is an essential part of capitalism

6/17/2011 6:12:24 AM

Reading comprehension. Like he said, you should say that racist colonialism is not mutually exclusive with capitalism.

6/17/2011 7:08:13 PM

That'd work if it were the correct definition but it isn't so whoops I guess

6/18/2011 1:11:15 AM

Quote :

"All you can know is that they agreed to the exchange and therefore you can rest assured that the trade made them better off than they would have been without it."

Ok, but that's not really the same thing as "not hurting people". If it were allowed, you could probably get someone to agree to be paid to be tortured and murdered, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't have hurt anyone.

6/18/2011 9:13:29 AM

Well, some people already pay others to torture them (they get off on it somehow) people get paid to be tortured all the time. My friend was just paid $300 so a dental hygienist could practice on him, as I understand, it was torture. So you need to define the word "hurt".

Physicians are sometimes paid to murder people. We call it doctor assisted suicide. Are we sure this is a bad thing that should not be legal?

6/18/2011 9:35:50 AM

Quote :

"So you need to define the word "hurt"."

I don't need to define it, any of those things you said are fine. You originally used the word, if you meant something else by it, you should define the word.

6/18/2011 10:31:21 AM

Fine. To hurt or harm me is to leave me worse off in my perspective of being worse.

As such, if I decide to sell you a kidney in exchange for money, the extraction of which is torturous and might even kill me, you have not hurt or harmed me because from my perspective my losses and risks were worth the benefits, leaving me better off than I was before and therefore unharmed.

6/18/2011 10:55:05 AM

Suppose I was intoxicated when I agreed to sell you that kidney and I want it back. Is it "hurt" then?

6/18/2011 11:19:06 AM

The gov't should ensure that our water is safe to drink, our food is safe to eat and the air is breathable.

Republicans don't believe in these things.

Quote :

"House Republicans vote to cut funds to implement food safety law By Lyndsey Layton, Published: June 16 Arguing that the U.S. food supply is 99 percent safe, House Republicans cut millions of dollars Thursday from the Food and Drug Administration’s budget, denying the agency money to implement landmark food safety laws approved by the last Congress. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-republicans-vote-to-cut-funds-to-implement-food-safety-law/2011/06/16/AGMS82XH_print.html

6/18/2011 12:35:04 PM

They intentionally label laws like this "The Food Safety Modernization Act," because they know people like you won't actually bother to read the legislation.

As should be expected, the legislation would benefit big agriculture (Monsanto for instance, who has many connections in Washington and specifically the Obama administration) by pricing out competition. The law would literally make it illegal to grow your own crops, with the justification of "we're protecting you from yourselves." It would also require use of "best practices," which of course, are determined by the big agriculture lobbyists that wrote the bill, which is a major, major threat to organic farming.

Do your homework.

[Edited on June 18, 2011 at 1:12 PM. Reason : ]

6/18/2011 1:06:00 PM

I have.

Quote :

"shall not apply to produce that is produced by an individual for personal consumption. "

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc111/h2751_enr.xml

You've been schooled, fool.

6/18/2011 1:18:16 PM

Do you not see how that will still hurt local organic farmers? Does it not bother you that the writers of this legislation are seriously fucking working for Monsanto? Why are we giving lobbyists power over the one of the most basic human survival needs?

6/18/2011 1:29:29 PM

the "tester amendment" exempts most farmers markets and similar facilities and most farms that produce less than $500,000 of produce a year

http://tester.senate.gov/Legislation/upload/tester_amendment_agreement.pdf

6/18/2011 1:59:49 PM

There are plenty of farmers that grow 500k worth of produce a year, and they're not what you would probably think of as big operations. The fact is, big agriculture had a hand in the creation of this legislation, and we shouldn't be handing power over to them.

6/18/2011 3:03:04 PM

Quote :

"Today, a problem at a single factory can swiftly lead to an outbreak that extends nationwide. Last year’s peanut butter recall illustrates what can go wrong. Executives at the Peanut Corporation of America knew that peanut butter from their filthy, rodent-infested plant was testing positive for salmonella — but shipped it anyway, for months. Thousands of different products, manufactured by more than 200 companies, including candies and cookies marketed to children, were potentially tainted thanks to that one plant. And in the end, roughly 20,000 Americans got salmonella; about half of them were under the age of 16 and one-fifth were younger than 5. The enormous rise in imported food also exposes American consumers to food safety lapses overseas. In recent years, China has been responsible for food scandals that bring to mind the United States in the days of Upton Sinclair: Chinese companies have been caught adding lead-based whiteners to pasta and selling beverages made with industrial alcohol. Two years ago, almost 300,000 Chinese infants were sickened by baby formula that had been adulterated with melamine, a cheap but toxic chemical. The overuse of antibiotics and pesticides in Chinese agriculture is rampant. Despite those food safety problems, China has become the largest exporter of food to the United States after Canada and Mexico. About 60 percent of the apple juice in America — like peanut butter, a product consumed largely by children — now comes from China. This is yet another reason that passage of the F.D.A. modernization act is so urgent; it would, for the first time, subject foods from overseas to the same standards as those produced in the United States. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/opinion/25schlosser.html

6/18/2011 4:49:17 PM

It's almost comical how willing you are to accept corporatism, even though you pretend to be opposed to it half the time.

6/18/2011 6:13:59 PM

Government should only consist of whoever has to arrest and throw in jail the guy that crosses me. I'd say that person should be me, but then I'd have to leave the couch.

6/27/2011 1:21:40 PM