Poor people. To think that you are nearly done with Uncle Vanya, but they keep pulling them back in. Here's hope they can finally break free.-- theircompetitor, Dec 08 2013 Ukraine Protests http://www.cnn.com/...e/ukraine-protests/ [theircompetitor, Dec 08 2013] The good work of "Uncle Joe" Stalin. http://www.ibtimes....stalin-kill-1111789Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet eh Joe? [doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013] Mao: kills poor people dead. Accept no substitutes. http://www.independ...-years-2081630.htmlEh, 40 million plus killed but who's counting? [doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013] Wired article on jobs and robots http://www.wired.co...-what-were-good-at/ [theircompetitor, Dec 13 2013] Power to the people baby!-- doctorremulac3, Dec 08 2013 ok, so Putin and Medvedev voted, where's everyone else?-- theircompetitor, Dec 09 2013 <Pterry Pratchett>
"One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the One Man, and he had the One Vote".
</PP>-- 8th of 7, Dec 09 2013 I voted because as far as I can see the idea - which I am guessing is to be taken from a careful reading of the idea subtitle and the category choice, rather than from the main text - is "permit or encourage immigration to country X for those whose political ideology is Y", which is not a good idea for any values of X or Y. But maybe I'm a bit too laissez faire on the principle of free movement of persons. For the record, I am not Russian, have never been to Russia and on balance prefer Polish vodka.-- calum, Dec 09 2013 so I gather you'd be against the current immigration reform efforts in the US, calum, if the jurisdiction applied :)
For the record, I was born in the USSR, was lucky to immigrate to the US, and thank my parents, my lucky stars, and the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
It must be incredibly sad for freedom loving people both there and in the neighboring states to watch Russia inexorably slide into authoritarian rule, perhaps past it, and drag them along with it. And yes, I would want every single person that goes to those demonstrations to have a chance to be in the US, we could in fact use them.-- theircompetitor, Dec 09 2013 Two kinds of immigrants coming into the U.S. One is those seeking the promise of the welfare state with the stipulation that they mindlessly support the self-appointed permanent ruling class doling out the goodies.
The second is people like theircompetitor's parents who have had enough of living in a state where Politburos rule over a permanently stratified society where you do what you're told, take what's given to you and keep your mouth shut accepting your permanent serf status.
It's those in the latter category that make this country great. I live in a town where about half the parents I've met at my daughter's school have accents. They come from all over the world to work here in Silicon Valley in the high tech industry and they're very welcome. Of course when you disagree with the idea of low education workers being brought in for the benefit of the corporations so they can depress wages while taxpayers pay for their healthcare, welfare and housing you're called a xenophobe by the permanent ruling class who make a fine living in the poverty pimp business.
I'm half Ukrainian. My grandparents came over here to escape the worker's paradise and its associated gulags so I'm always very moved by stories of people rising up against tyranny. Enthusiastic bun. I don't care if it's an invention or not.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 09 2013 Well, if you give back Alaska, you get a porous border for those not happy to be living under a typical Russian state, and lose Sarah Palin at the same time.
It's a win-win.-- not_morrison_rm, Dec 09 2013 We were more likely to give Louisiana back to the French, but the success of Duck Dynasty has made that politically unfeasible. I think I'll keep both Sarah and Alaska.-- theircompetitor, Dec 09 2013 Hear hear.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 10 2013 Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand that Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I read this idea as a gross modification of the above towards a preference.
Both 'types' of people are simply trying to escape their current situations to what they perceive as a better opportunity elsewhere. Some come from more industrious cultures than others. In earlier generations it was the Irish, the Jews, the Blacks, the Slovaks, the Russians, etc that were out of favor because they weren't 'worthy.'
In my little corner of the world, immigration is pretty high as well, legal and otherwise, and the illegals I run across are busy beavers, usually doing landscaping work or such.-- RayfordSteele, Dec 10 2013 Bring in all who hunger for freedom and bring the ethic of hard work.
The ones who want to sit on their asses and collect welfare can stay home. I'm fine with adding that to the base of the Statue Of Liberty.
As far as those busy yardworking folks, I think that's great as long as I, as a taxpayer, don't have to subsidize some rich man's gardening expenses by covering the difference between what he pays and a living wage. Let Thurston Howell the Third push his own damn lawnmower. Better yet, let him put his spoiled kids to work rather than sending them to the Hamptons this summer. Either that or pay his workers a living wage.
And by the way, a living wage is simply determined by this: "Do your workers need government assistance? Then you're not paying them enough." That's where I split from the Libertarian party. I'd be fine with the free market determining wages if the government, (meaning the taxpayers) didn't have come in and make up the difference but it does, so let's get real. You want a human to do something for you 40 hours a week you need to pay for it's upkeep, just like if you were to go rent any other labor saving device. That being said, I know the free market CAN provide a living wage without government interference, it's government subsidies that allow corporations to pay their workers crap.
Ok, end of rant.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 10 2013 And the Democrat answer is to enslave generations of the working population to the idle rich monied class by taking out loans that can never be paid back thus keeping the hated bourgeois middle class in their place supporting the permanent ruling class and the permanent ward-of-the-state class.
I don't see blind tribalism as being much of a solution. The only positive thing to say for a two party system (aside from it being better than a 1 party system) is hopefully one group of morons keeps the other group of morons in check.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 // The only positive thing to say for a two party system (aside from it being better than a 1 party system)//
And yet the utility of parties rapidly decreases after 2. There's got to be some Newtonian way to represent this -- more parties introduce more angular momentum, or simply put, more spin.-- theircompetitor, Dec 12 2013 Well, the party I support the most, the Libertarian guys do have some pull. What happens is their ideas sometimes get enough grass roots support to be adopted by a Republicrat here and there. More discussion from different viewpoints can be good.
But here's the main problem I see with democracy itself. Let's say me and you were running for office and you propose sound fiscal policies that will insure a good balance of funding our social programs with economic growth. Then I come out and promise a 3 hour work week with full benefits and free pizza on Tuesdays, then to top it off I call you a racist whose only motivation is to deny pizza to our native Inuit. Guess who's going to win.
The solution? Dhunno. We struggle on with a political discourse made up of stuff like "People! We must band together or George Bush will break into your home and pee on your carpet!"
I feel like our country has two instruction manuals our politicians work from, the Bible and the Communist Manifesto. It might be nice to have some new perspective here. I would propose that instead of referring to a very ancient text or a ranting manual on how to do everything written by some brooding, angry German huckster, that we look critically at what's worked in the past and what hasn't. The good news is this is pretty well documented if you take the time to look.
But tribalist slogans are more fun, so there you are.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 But the problem I see is the largest amount of blind tribalism coming from the far right, usually libertarian-leaning end of the conservative party. Let's have both parties move back to the middle, please.
Hyperbolics deriding one party as beholden to the Bible and the other to the Communist Manifesto aren't going to help.
And why does every Libertarian I run into feel the need to start a grandstand lecture?-- RayfordSteele, Dec 12 2013 The whole system breaks down when you no longer need human labor. When farm machinery, mining apparatus, milling machinery, casting gangs, the whole apparatus of human productivity can be operated by .01 percent of the former labor force, and that fraction looks set to migrate into the .001 range within a few generations the whole "get a job" concept becomes quite ridiculous. If even service sector jobs, the fall back of human labor, can be mechanized then what work is there for most people?-- WcW, Dec 12 2013 //But the problem I see is the largest amount of blind tribalism coming from the far right, usually libertarian-leaning end of the conservative party.//
Ironic statement.
//The whole system breaks down when you no longer need human labor.//
No doubting that we're on our way to a labor free society where robots do everything, but in the mean time the concept of having a job is still valid. I'm just looking at real numbers in terms of real time I spend during my day working to pay for other people's upkeep, and I'm not talking about the poor, I'm talking about rich people who hold these loans our government is taking out to the tunes of hundreds of billions of dollars a year. I believe there is balance to be struck between a nanny state and a free for all. Tough to discuss solutions when you're dealing with people who have loyalty to a certain party that should be reserved for their local football team.
In my opinion.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 I think that there's way too much discussion of legislation of sex in our society, who puts their whatever in whomever's whatever. I really don't care myself, but I think these hot-button issues keep people riled up while their pockets are being picked.
Anyway, I've made my point for whatever it's worth but political discussions get boring pretty quick. People think what they think and it quickly becomes a test of who can make the other person look more stupid in an argument.
I'm finding the discussion over at "Pants For Wiener Dogs Shaped Like Balls" to be more interesting than this political stuff.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 Given the state of the far right sector of the media, I'd say the statement is right on.
Witness WorldNetDaily, Glenn Beck's continuous melodrama, the 'colorful' world of Alex Jones, etc.-- RayfordSteele, Dec 12 2013 Well, best to listen to all sides, dull and ignorant or brilliant or somewhere in between . There are very few people that don't have at least some valid points and even fewer that are right all the time about everything. And I'll be the first to admit I in no way fit into that latter category any more than anybody else.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 I don't find much value in listening to rabid conspiracy theorists and the like and prefer to listen to folk smarter than myself; not enough signal-to- noise with the former.
// I believe there is balance to be struck between a nanny state and a free for all. Tough to discuss solutions when you're dealing with people who have loyalty to a certain party that should be reserved for their local football team.//
Amen to that.-- RayfordSteele, Dec 12 2013 There's probably more that we agree on than we disagree on Ray. (hand shake, pat on back)-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 Probably.-- RayfordSteele, Dec 12 2013 //But the problem I see is the largest amount of blind tribalism coming from the far right//
Ray, take it from a 3D programmer -- it all depends on your camera angle :)
The balance of the nanny state is actually a straw man, here. The real balance is the balance, i.e. available resources. It is basically impossible to have a rational discussion when available resources are defined as what is printable, versus what exists.-- theircompetitor, Dec 12 2013 You missed the whole point that I was saying people should be paid a living wage.
The opinion that I made perfectly clear is that if you hire somebody to work for your company you should pay an adequate wage that covers their food, clothing, housing, healthcare, insurance and retirement.
Read the post and understand it before you start calling names.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 Don't forget the football teams. Now there's a promising form of government.
I just can't decide whether the players should govern or the politicians should have to play.-- normzone, Dec 12 2013 WcW makes an excellent point about the dialectical nature of industrial capialism. It changes the mode of production from labour intensive to capital intensive so the worker, or the people, don't own anything or have any skills from preindustrialsm, and the means of production are controlled by the capitalist creating a dialectic conflict. Despite the comparative politics between capitalism and sovietism, the Soviet Union represented a massive front of resistance against right- wing ideology when the hyperindustrial capitalism of nazi germany pushed the globe to a pivotal position where the future existence of the united people of the world hanged in the balance. Today the united people of the world number seven billions despite continued global conflicts between them. Despite the disharmony an equality between them prevails despite the wealth of some and the poverty of others. The fact remains that if the wealth of the capitalist countries was enjoyed by all the billions that system would soon break down. The main difference between western capitalism and eastern communism, is capitalism reviles the poor and in eastern communism poverty is the standard of humanity. It indeed is the worldwide standard of humanity where the person in nature has little but the food they eat. I will never condemn eastern communists when western capitalism has created immense global problems, descended into World War 2, and continues to dehumanize the poor. The fact that capitalism is a system for just a relative few greedy pigs and not for everyone in the world who would soon deplete the planet in a consumer frenzy, justfies the soviet resistance. The '68 resistance in France which soon spread globally, was a liberal revolution against right- wing conservativisms found in important western religious institutions that are supposedly important to the basis of capitalism and influenced the Nazis and South Africans and white segregationists in southen USA and in the UK (NI)(in other words a link between capitalism and fascism namely in semiotic hermeneutics). Max Weber discusses this in the Spirit of Capitalism, and Baudrillard discusses these semiotics in his early radical writings during the height of the sixties revolution on this illiberal capitalist communitarianism.-- rcarty, Dec 12 2013 yup... read it as "...Topless" again.-- FlyingToaster, Dec 12 2013 But who is responsible for paragraph breaks?-- normzone, Dec 12 2013 //I will never condemn eastern communists when western capitalism has created immense global problems, descended into World War 2, and continues to dehumanize the poor.//
So you don't condemn Stalin and Mao's genocide of millions of innocent people? Almost all of whom were dirt poor by the way.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 The free market pays people a living wage every day. Anybody who's not receiving government assistance and is getting a paycheck, medical, dental and life insurance, retirement plan etc is getting paid a living wage. I believe this should be mandatory.
If you want to fight about something you might want to pick a subject on which we disagree.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 I condemn the social process of mass sytematic slaughter. I don't fully understand what happens in those events and without proof that the ideology and event are connected cannot condemn both. For example I can condemn Nazis for the mass communitarianism that led to the mass slaughter of WW2 and the holocaust. The communitarian system of the nazis that was dependent on strict conformity and obedience to authority directly facilited the genocide of millions of jews in a systematic fashion. Militarism in general usually features strong communitarianism so perhaps it was the same phenomena that caused the holocausts you mention. I would argue communitarianism is the problem in those catastrophes and not communism, but I could be wrong. Extreme right wing and left wing ideologies manifest similairly in communitarianism in political ideologial continuum models. Because right wing paramilitaries and left wing paramilitaries have comitted similar atrocities globally in the modern period I can't make an ideological decision.-- rcarty, Dec 12 2013 Can I just ask what communitarianism is?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 12 2013 //without proof that the ideology and event are connected cannot condemn both.//
So it wasn't Communism that caused the genocides, it was just the Communists?
//Can I just ask what communitarianism is?//
It's like Communism but better. Now with 10% fewer mass executions.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 Thanks. Can we also tackle //right wing and left wing ideologies manifest similairly in communitarianism in political ideologial continuum models//?
I'm guessing it means...actually no, I can't guess.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 12 2013 Cambridge dictionary philosophy: communitarianism derives from Hegel, rejects individualism, and that collective rights exist and individual rights do not. Individuals are constituted by institutions and practices and their rights correspond solely to those institutions and practices.
Right and left wing ideologies converge in communitarianism usually through militarism. In continuum models liberalism is usually the centre with conservatism and socialism flanking the right and left. Right of conservatism is fascism. And left of socialism is communism. Fascism and communism theoretically converge in communitarianism which is the polar opposite of liberalism.-- rcarty, Dec 12 2013 //Can I just ask what communitarianism is?//
For the love of Gawd NO! you can't ask. Please.-- AusCan531, Dec 12 2013 I look at political philosophies as what they are, a product made by people just like, say, shampoo. They purport to be better than all those other products which is why they should be the only product out there. It can have all sorts of fancy words on the label like "zinc pyrithione" or "manifest similairly in communitarianism in political ideologial continuum models" which can get confusing.
So I might not be an expert on shampoo but if one brand of shampoo has left tens of millions of people piled up in mass graves, I'm thinking that's some crappy shampoo.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 That's my point right wing and left wing armies have both filled mass graves. Why do people have selective memories? I just mentioned right wing nazis. Left wing communists tended towards the same erroneousness.
Despite the fact I'm left leaning, I'm a liberal and would never be militantly more than a liberal. Apparently as politics moves away from liberalism people become mass slaughtering robots. But the conflict between capital and the social is not invalidated.-- rcarty, Dec 12 2013 //right wing and left wing armies have both filled mass graves. Why do people have selective memories?//
Like forgetting that the National Socialists were, well, Socialists?
Totalitarian statism is totalitarian statism. When a man decides he has the right to kill another man because he doesn't want to play by his philosophy, I don't care what stupid little button they have on their cap. They're the bad guys.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2013 Please, just because it's called National Socialism doesn't make it socialism. It's a historical fact Germany was right- wing at the time. There are some socialist parallels but let's not obscure historically important facts like the political orientation of nazi germany. Right wing paramilitaries in Latin America , Asia and Africa have mass graves of their own. The West also has to take some responsibilty for Eastern mass murders because they were actively trying to create resistance in those countries. Global conflict between capitalism and communism was the ultimate context of the killing not just communism. That doesn"t make it right obviously, but the world is a politically FUCKED place so understanding should be the goal and not just blame.-- rcarty, Dec 12 2013 Well I don't disagree with you. Basically I think everyone is entitled to basic housing and food. That's what any human animal could produce for himself in nature. Using homelessness and starvation as an inducement to work is against my liberal and socialist values. That would be a right-wing policy. Currently the right-wing refuses to build low rent units for the poor in western economies because it will negatively affect the housing market. Fuck the housing market. As a liberal I'm against systemic coercion to make people work, and a socialist, I'm against the housing market regulating itself.-- rcarty, Dec 13 2013 [doc] how is guaranteeing a living wage different than guaranteeing a job, long a hallmark of communism?
[bigsleep] the free market has never yet failed. Though I believe that saying that bubbles are a failure is like saying supernovas are a failure (meaning, they are a law of the universe), but regardless, if you can point to a case of regulation actually preventing a bubble, I would be much obliged. e.g. during the banking crisis, it became fashionable to blame deregulation in part. During that entire time, have you noticed that credit card disclaimer got smaller? Bank statements? # of papers you had to sign to buy a car? A house?
The reason to oppose regulation is not that it either prevents bubbles or exacerbates them (though it does). The reason to oppose it is that it is simply a pointless tax that typically just feeds a lobbying class and doesn't achieve anything.
As to the value of human capital: Nothing -- not food, not water, not land, not sex, not views, not real estate, not status, not jewelry, not art, nothing -- nothing is worth even one more penny than what someone is willing to pay for it. All else is illusion. Buildings falling down? Do you think they weren't falling down during the Industrial Revolution? How do you think the West got its wealth? The incredible wealth that distanced us from the rest to a degree unprecedented even in Roman times was achieved at a time of little regulation. And it eliminated more starvation and poverty than 2,000 years of praying did, or ever will, in just over 100 years.
The problem of humans not having jobs is not going to be solved by laws on wages, anymore than we can outlaw asteroids hitting the planet. It means drastic changes in both culture and education. Luckily, the singularity and the post scarcity economy are around the corner, so no worries.-- theircompetitor, Dec 13 2013 And I don't know how liberal I woud classify the Arab cultures, Iran, etc.-- RayfordSteele, Dec 13 2013 The Nazis were totalitarian fascists, the Communists were totalitarian fascists. The dead don't really give a shit about any further distinction between the two nor to I. Both groups were formed by a bunch of intellectuals that decided smart people like them should be able to kill anybody that disagrees with them.
Any person can sit at their stone tablet, papyrus, parchment, typewriter or computer and design a great world where everything works as long as everybody does things their way. If however for their society to work, anybody who doesn't fall in line needs to be stoned, sent to the mud pits, concentration camps or gulags, it's a crappy society.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 13 2013 //[doc] how is guaranteeing a living wage different than guaranteeing a job, long a hallmark of communism?//
Hey, you're absolutely right. Telling a business they need to pay a particular wage IS Socialist, or at least not a free market action. But it's the lesser of two evils. Right now we have taxpayers paying for worker's upkeep so some business don't feel they have any incentive to provide everything that worker needs to survive. It's almost like we have this un- holy hybrid of the worst of capitalism and communism. Underpaid workers and over burdened tax payers indirectly subsidizing these companies by providing social support for their workers.
I completely understand the argument that it's better to pay a worker something than nothing, but when we swell the welfare rolls with underemployed people brought in to make these businesses prosperous, can't we just skip the middleman and have the businesses pay everything for their workers?
Look, nobody says "Fuck communism" more than me, but Henry Ford, nobody's idea of a left wing commie was big on a living wage. He's not the only one. Lots of evil capitalists believed in taking full and complete care of their workers. I'm just not a fan of welfare be it for people who don't need it or businesses. Save the welfare for the old and sick. If a business can't cut it, let it die. Good riddance. With businesses, we should be all about sweeping the week aside so the strong can take their place. Save the kindness for the humans.
Good point though.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 13 2013 So I agree with your point -- that certain business benefit unfairly from the benefits to people at the low end of the ladder. I'm not sure that this problem would exist if the benefits wouldn't exist, though. These policies distort the market in a way that tends to achieve the opposite from intended results. In other words, if there were no food stamps, people would "shop" for a job that would provide enough food, and not the other way around. Are there some who would need foodstamps? Sure. But nothing like what is happening now. Hell, food would be cheaper if not for food stamps, as is obvious. Rent lower if not for rent controls -- it's just a law of nature that cannot be repealed.
I think the social safety net is simply a convenient crutch that lets us kick the more difficult problems down the road. As I said here elsewhere -- a family in NYC with 3 kids in the public schools -- $1M in taxpayer money through 12 years, 1/2 of that in Detroit -- and that's just for school. We are incredibly wealthy, but not that wealthy, not forever. We have to get at least our money's worth for such extravagance -- instead, we are setting up people to be clients of these programs for generations.
99 weeks of unemployment insurance -- 2 years! Meantime, Uber is fighting Lyft for drivers, average revenue of a fully utlized Uber car is exceeding 6 figures, Uber provides financing for the car. WTF?-- theircompetitor, Dec 13 2013 Well, there you go. You've injected reality into the situation. Reality and un-intended consequences seldom have a place in political discussions.
Unfortunately, like you've pointed out, reality and un-intended consequences have a big place in what really happens with these social systems we set up. We start throwing welfare around to anybody who wants it, businesses just start paying less and the taxpayer gets screwed.
As far as the 2 years of un-employment insurance, I don't know about anybody else, but if I've got 2 years of un-employment coming to me guess when I'm going to really start looking for a job. Right before it runs out which is from what I've heard when most people magically get a job.
I believe in the safety net not being turned into a hammock. Let's apply some reality to our social programs lest they do more harm than good.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 13 2013 And hence we're back to the original point of this idea :) The reason I've always been very pro-immigration -- besides being an immigrant myself :) -- is that you want the energy of those who are willing to do anything -- whether running the border or toppling statues -- you want the energy of those who are not waking up every morning and saying I guess this is it, and this is what it is going to be. You want those who wake up and say I can do better. It is a key reason why the US is still different from many other places, and we can use as many of those people as are interested in coming.-- theircompetitor, Dec 13 2013 Right on brother. Wish I had more than one bun to give.
Night all. Thanks to everybody, including ray, big and carty for a spirited discussion.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 13 2013 I've been on unemployment insurance in the past. It most certainly won't pay the bills; motivation to find work was not lacking. You'll find that keeping the lights on and the water running so you can bathe is often a prerequisite to landing another well-paying job, as nobody hires the homeless. I find a short- term safety net to be a good thing. Maybe the longer-term one could be coupled to some prerequisites of conducting some migrant farm labor work...
Peace.-- RayfordSteele, Dec 13 2013 random, halfbakery