Europe submits voluntarily

[DrZoidberg]

With one big difference. Many socialists think there is such a thing as a free lunch, and believe the country owes them a living. Conservatives on the other hand believe on reward for effort.

Inheriting money sure looks like a free lunch to me? Getting more opportunities in life because of who your parents are is free lunching like a mother fucker. Capitalism is introducing unfairness (free lunches) artificially to boost incentives for work. The reason people like capitalism is because it works. But if you want to argue it's fair, I'd say you were high as a kite.

Donald Trump is a perfect example of the failings of capitalism. He's an absolute disaster as a human. An overgrown retarded man child who's only redeeming quality was inheriting money. An inheritance that he monumentally mismanaged and pissed away. The man hasn't worked a day in his life. If capitalism was meritocratic he wouldn't be elected to run a public lavatory, let alone the US presidency. He demonstrates how capitalism doesn't necessarily encourage hard work. Yes, incentives matter.

Inheritance is bad for society. However, removing inheritance would be worse as it would mean the wealth would be squandered.

That proves my point. Conservatives don't care about fairness or that hard work should pay off. It's just something the say. They like it because it works. That's something different.

And every time conservatives do say it socialists wonder wtf they've been smoking and laugh at them. As they should.

 

[DrZoidberg]

This is really a derail, but what amuses me the most about conservatives/Libertarians is that they often fall back on natural rights and stuff they take for granted as obvious, even though it's stuff they just pulled from their ass. The concept that other people aren't allowed to play with your stuff is certainly absent from the behavior of the other primates. Squirrels steal each others nuts all the time. The concept of private property as sacred is a fucking far from sacred in nature as you can get. That includes not murdering each other. So I'm not sure from which nature these "natural rights" come from.

And I'm not having a go on conservative theory. I've read Burke. I'm well aware about what conservatism is based on. It's the notion that civilisation is a thin varnish hiding our savagery. It's a delicate web of interconnected practices that have evolved over long time to keep our savage sides in check. Best not to fuck with them too much or it might very likely all go to shit.

Burke held up the formation of USA as a warning example of how bad it can go if you let the riff raff have their say. He was an ardent opponent of democracy. This is the foundation.

What I find amusing is that conservatives tend to just string positively loaded vague words together that are diametrically opposed to what the term conservatism means. Or should mean. For people who claim to uphold tradition they certainly don't seem to give many shits about the traditions regarding the concept of conservatism. If Edmund Burke knew that modern conservatives were free market liberals he'd be spinning to fast in his grave we could power the entire globe.

And I'm not against conservatism. Liberals have a tendency to get carried away. I think we need conservatives to act as a break on headless progressive reform. But the idea that conservatists respect tradition more than liberals is retarded. Their rules are about as arbitrary and mady-upy.

 

[LordKiran]

This hasn’t worked for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and dozens of other countries. India boasts of being very developed by 2020 but it is riddled with high infant mortality, poverty, a lack of sanitation and basic health care and education. Nigeria should be one of the richest countries in the world but is riddled with poverty, mismanagement and corruption

India has a large economy but divided among 1.2 billion people it is negligible. India

https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/should-...hen-40-of-children-are-malnourished-vote-now/


Should India be sending a rocket to Mars when 40% of children are malnourished? Vote now.
November 5, 2013

Cue lots of outrage – in a country where 40% of children are malnourished and half the population have no toilets, wouldn’t the mission’s $70m budget be better spent on feeding the hungry? Or on fixing the energy system – more than 600 million Indians were hit this week by the world’s worst power cut.
And of course grist to the mill of aid opponents – how can we justify the UK’s tiny aid budget to an India that so misallocates its resources? END

India became independent in 1949 so it’s more about population pains,mismanagement but certainly non stop growing population pains.
After spending time in the Philippines, the slums of Manila seemed like Beverley Hills when compared to NEW Delhi.

The growing pains I refer to are temporary job displacements and added stress on social benefits. What you describe are the results of many things, some of which you mentioned. Ultimately I don't see how Nigeria's suffering has anything to do with anything other than war, disease, corruption, civil unrest, outside interference, and just general incompetence. Nor do I see how this post refutes the core premise of my last few posts, that people are the primary resource from which all other resources are obtained; that people are the source of a nation's strength and that they should be regarded as such.

No, it doesn't necessary follow that more people means more individual prosperity.
My response was to

More people means more taxes, and business owners and investors, more scientists and engineers and mathematicians, more philosophers and thinkers and artists. More people means more soldiers, more grunts, navy and airmen, more laborors and builders and construction workers, more teachers and surgeons. People are the source of all power in our world.
India has lots of these and there is still mass squalor where hundreds of millions have lots of nothing.

I didn't say it did. I said having more people makes our society greater, and that short term growing pains are worth the long term benefits of having more people than you would otherwise. What about that is so hard for you to understand?

The fact that India has large amounts of poverty and suffering is in spite of how many people they have, not because.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's not a middle ground at all. You're playing Monday morning quarterback here.

The thing is you won't succeed in taxing away the money--they are going to spend it instead.

Good.

You're going to shift production in your society from consumer goods to luxury goods. You think that's a good thing? You're also going to seriously cripple investment.

- - - Updated - - -

Inheritance is bad for society. However, removing inheritance would be worse as it would mean the wealth would be squandered.

That proves my point. Conservatives don't care about fairness or that hard work should pay off. It's just something the say. They like it because it works. That's something different.

And every time conservatives do say it socialists wonder wtf they've been smoking and laugh at them. As they should.

So you would prefer a fair but unworkable system to an unfair but workable one?

Sounds like WWIII would be your dream world. Everyone'e exactly equal--dead.

- - - Updated - - -

This is really a derail, but what amuses me the most about conservatives/Libertarians is that they often fall back on natural rights and stuff they take for granted as obvious, even though it's stuff they just pulled from their ass. The concept that other people aren't allowed to play with your stuff is certainly absent from the behavior of the other primates. Squirrels steal each others nuts all the time. The concept of private property as sacred is a fucking far from sacred in nature as you can get. That includes not murdering each other. So I'm not sure from which nature these "natural rights" come from.

You're right that calling them "natural" is a bit problematic.

However, they're the basic rights to keep there from being armed conflict.

If you think stealing is proper why in the world shouldn't I simply shoot you?

 

[DrZoidberg]

So you would prefer a fair but unworkable system to an unfair but workable one?

I don't understand how you reached that conclusion. I haven't argued for or against any economic system in this thread.

I would prefer a world with less hypocrisy, and less empty slogans and less bullshit. Preferably avoiding the word "freedom" all together. And "people's republic".

I'm also skeptical of any one-size-fits-all solution to economic woes. I like research, studies and evidence of things working. I dislike people blinded by ideology.

Sounds like WWIII would be your dream world. Everyone'e exactly equal--dead.

That's quite some inference. Especially since I don't think equality is even desirable in a society. I think it would be bad even if it could be designed into it. Differences is what makes an economy dynamic. Dynamic is good.

You're right that calling them "natural" is a bit problematic.

However, they're the basic rights to keep there from being armed conflict.

There you go. An honestly argued position.

If you think stealing is proper why in the world shouldn't I simply shoot you?

I think murder and stealing are different things. And in a world where stealing is legal it's not stealing, is it? And if you shoot the tax man you will go to jail. So I recommend putting up with that particular theft. It's not worth the hassle.

 

[bilby]

You're going to shift production in your society from consumer goods to luxury goods. You think that's a good thing? You're also going to seriously cripple investment.

The impact on production will be to increase it in response to increased demand.

The status quo is lower demand for goods of either kind, consumer or luxury, due to extreme wealth inequality.

And in the developed world, luxury spending means spending on locally produced stuff like restaurants, instead of consumer spending which means spending money on stuff made elsewhere. There's nothing inherently wrong with boosting the Chinese economy, but I don't see it as necessarily preferable to boosting the economy right here.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't understand how you reached that conclusion. I haven't argued for or against any economic system in this thread.

You expressed a preference for a fair system over a working system.

I think murder and stealing are different things. And in a world where stealing is legal it's not stealing, is it? And if you shoot the tax man you will go to jail. So I recommend putting up with that particular theft. It's not worth the hassle.

The point of rights is to have a system where unacceptable behavior is kept in check so you don't constantly have to be defending yourself.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're going to shift production in your society from consumer goods to luxury goods. You think that's a good thing? You're also going to seriously cripple investment.

The impact on production will be to increase it in response to increased demand.

The status quo is lower demand for goods of either kind, consumer or luxury, due to extreme wealth inequality.

And in the developed world, luxury spending means spending on locally produced stuff like restaurants, instead of consumer spending which means spending money on stuff made elsewhere. There's nothing inherently wrong with boosting the Chinese economy, but I don't see it as necessarily preferable to boosting the economy right here.

Restaurants are small potatoes compared to the level of spending in question.

 

[bilby]

You're going to shift production in your society from consumer goods to luxury goods. You think that's a good thing? You're also going to seriously cripple investment.

The impact on production will be to increase it in response to increased demand.

The status quo is lower demand for goods of either kind, consumer or luxury, due to extreme wealth inequality.

And in the developed world, luxury spending means spending on locally produced stuff like restaurants, instead of consumer spending which means spending money on stuff made elsewhere. There's nothing inherently wrong with boosting the Chinese economy, but I don't see it as necessarily preferable to boosting the economy right here.

Restaurants are small potatoes compared to the level of spending in question.

Of course they are; But they remain an example of luxury spending, so why is that important?

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't understand how you reached that conclusion. I haven't argued for or against any economic system in this thread.

You expressed a preference for a fair system over a working system.

I did? I'm pretty sure I didn't.

I just pointed out the silliness of Angelo's idea that conservatives are somehow more for hard work than socialists. The whole point of capitalism is to get capital so you don't need to work anymore.

As if the goal of socialism is to have everybody loaf around on welfare. It's a straw man. I don't like any straw men in political discussions. It's hard enough to keep track of politics without the bullshit.

I think murder and stealing are different things. And in a world where stealing is legal it's not stealing, is it? And if you shoot the tax man you will go to jail. So I recommend putting up with that particular theft. It's not worth the hassle.

The point of rights is to have a system where unacceptable behavior is kept in check so you don't constantly have to be defending yourself.

Exactly. There's nothing natural or self evident about it. It's just rules. The rules can be changed if different rules do a better job. For example, upholding private property as sacred is just a religion. Angelo took up Venezuela. Before the socialist take over the country was preposterously unfair with the elites taking all the money and nothing trickling down. It was free market capitalism that wasn't working. For the majority of the people anything would have been better than that. The socialist system that followed was bad, but no worse than what they had before. Free market capitalism isn't a magic bullet that can fix all problems. Different problems require different solutions. Sometimes a strong government is needed in order to break monopolies and oligopols. Sometimes the market works best if left alone.

 

[whichphilosophy]

No, it doesn't necessary follow that more people means more individual prosperity.
My response was to

More people means more taxes, and business owners and investors, more scientists and engineers and mathematicians, more philosophers and thinkers and artists. More people means more soldiers, more grunts, navy and airmen, more laborors and builders and construction workers, more teachers and surgeons. People are the source of all power in our world.
India has lots of these and there is still mass squalor where hundreds of millions have lots of nothing.

I didn't say it did. I said having more people makes our society greater, and that short term growing pains are worth the long term benefits of having more people than you would otherwise. What about pthat is so hard for you to understand?

The fact that India has large amounts of poverty and suffering is in spite of how many people they have, not because.

There are no long term benefits in packing in hundreds of thousands of people into the UK from failed states. Ideological theory and practice don't always concur.

 

[bilby]

No, it doesn't necessary follow that more people means more individual prosperity.
My response was to

More people means more taxes, and business owners and investors, more scientists and engineers and mathematicians, more philosophers and thinkers and artists. More people means more soldiers, more grunts, navy and airmen, more laborors and builders and construction workers, more teachers and surgeons. People are the source of all power in our world.
India has lots of these and there is still mass squalor where hundreds of millions have lots of nothing.

I didn't say it did. I said having more people makes our society greater, and that short term growing pains are worth the long term benefits of having more people than you would otherwise. What about pthat is so hard for you to understand?

The fact that India has large amounts of poverty and suffering is in spite of how many people they have, not because.

There are no long term benefits in packing in hundreds of thousands of people into the UK from failed states. Ideological theory and practice don't always concur.

There were people like you a few hundred years ago who felt that there were no long term benefits in sending a bunch of misfits and criminals to the Americas.

That ideological theory of yours is certainly out of step with practice.

 

[whichphilosophy]

There are no long term benefits in packing in hundreds of thousands of people into the UK from failed states. Ideological theory and practice don't always concur.

There were people like you a few hundred years ago who felt that there were no long term benefits in sending a bunch of misfits and criminals to the Americas.

That ideological theory of yours is certainly out of step with practice.

The UK is no longer a wilderness where settlement criteria is different.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Restaurants are small potatoes compared to the level of spending in question.

Of course they are; But they remain an example of luxury spending, so why is that important?

You're using them as evidence the spending will be local.

 

[LordKiran]

No, it doesn't necessary follow that more people means more individual prosperity.
My response was to

More people means more taxes, and business owners and investors, more scientists and engineers and mathematicians, more philosophers and thinkers and artists. More people means more soldiers, more grunts, navy and airmen, more laborors and builders and construction workers, more teachers and surgeons. People are the source of all power in our world.
India has lots of these and there is still mass squalor where hundreds of millions have lots of nothing.

I didn't say it did. I said having more people makes our society greater, and that short term growing pains are worth the long term benefits of having more people than you would otherwise. What about pthat is so hard for you to understand?

The fact that India has large amounts of poverty and suffering is in spite of how many people they have, not because.

There are no long term benefits in packing in hundreds of thousands of people into the UK from failed states. Ideological theory and practice don't always concur.

Oh? None at all? Are you certain you've thought this bold assertion completely through?

 

[whichphilosophy]

There are no long term benefits in packing in hundreds of thousands of people into the UK from failed states. Ideological theory and practice don't always concur.

Oh? None at all? Are you certain you've thought this bold assertion completely through?

In fact strict immigration controls would force its populations to develop at home.

 

[TSwizzle]

Note that this is diametrically different than what Zoidberg wants to do, which is to bring ISIS fighters back to Europe and pay them a stipend. I prefer the Williamson doctrine.

Well it looks like some of the European ISIS brigade may be delayed;

According to Wille of Human Rights Watch, “The problem with the U.S. and the U.K, in particular, is because of their history in Iraq,” referring to the 2003 invasion. “They’re staying far away.” She also noted there isn’t an appetite in the foreigners’ home countries to have “these people brought home and stand fair trials. They’re going to stay here,” she said, “[and] be convicted under counterterrorism laws and likely executed.”

For captured ISIS fighters in Iraq, justice is swift and conviction certain

 

[DrZoidberg]

Note that this is diametrically different than what Zoidberg wants to do, which is to bring ISIS fighters back to Europe and pay them a stipend. I prefer the Williamson doctrine.

Well it looks like some of the European ISIS brigade may be delayed;

According to Wille of Human Rights Watch, “The problem with the U.S. and the U.K, in particular, is because of their history in Iraq,” referring to the 2003 invasion. “They’re staying far away.” She also noted there isn’t an appetite in the foreigners’ home countries to have “these people brought home and stand fair trials. They’re going to stay here,” she said, “[and] be convicted under counterterrorism laws and likely executed.”

For captured ISIS fighters in Iraq, justice is swift and conviction certain

“I don’t necessarily think they care that much if they get it right or not,” Wille added. “A lot of this is a symbolic statement for the government to show [it’s] tough on ISIS.”

Not necessarily. It's only true if they are the ISIS brigade. Just because they're found guilty in Iraq doesn't seem to mean that they're actually guilty. I somehow don't think a suspension of justice is a move toward western freedoms. I care whether or not convicted criminals are actually criminals.

 

[angelo]

With one big difference. Many socialists think there is such a thing as a free lunch, and believe the country owes them a living. Conservatives on the other hand believe on reward for effort.

Inheriting money sure looks like a free lunch to me? Getting more opportunities in life because of who your parents are is free lunching like a mother fucker. Capitalism is introducing unfairness (free lunches) artificially to boost incentives for work. The reason people like capitalism is because it works. But if you want to argue it's fair, I'd say you were high as a kite.

Donald Trump is a perfect example of the failings of capitalism. He's an absolute disaster as a human. An overgrown retarded man child who's only redeeming quality was inheriting money. An inheritance that he monumentally mismanaged and pissed away. The man hasn't worked a day in his life. If capitalism was meritocratic he wouldn't be elected to run a public lavatory, let alone the US presidency. He demonstrates how capitalism doesn't necessarily encourage hard work. Yes, incentives matter.

You clearly haven't thought this through.

I'm pretty liberal in my outlook. But I'm a pragmatist at heart. I support whatever works. I don't believe in a one size fits all solution. We often forget that we tried neo-liberalism in the West in the 19'th century. We stopped because it was a fucking disaster. That was the society that spawned socialism as a reaction to it.

Libertarianism is trendy today, but those guys need to read more history. It wasn't a well oiled society. It was in many way utterly dysfunctional. I really don't want to go back there

In your opinion then, anyone who inherits a family fortune should not be entitled to it, and perhaps hand it over to the bums who have never done a fair days work in their lives? ?

 

[Jokodo]

With one big difference. Many socialists think there is such a thing as a free lunch, and believe the country owes them a living. Conservatives on the other hand believe on reward for effort.

Inheriting money sure looks like a free lunch to me? Getting more opportunities in life because of who your parents are is free lunching like a mother fucker. Capitalism is introducing unfairness (free lunches) artificially to boost incentives for work. The reason people like capitalism is because it works. But if you want to argue it's fair, I'd say you were high as a kite.

Donald Trump is a perfect example of the failings of capitalism. He's an absolute disaster as a human. An overgrown retarded man child who's only redeeming quality was inheriting money. An inheritance that he monumentally mismanaged and pissed away. The man hasn't worked a day in his life. If capitalism was meritocratic he wouldn't be elected to run a public lavatory, let alone the US presidency. He demonstrates how capitalism doesn't necessarily encourage hard work. Yes, incentives matter.

You clearly haven't thought this through.

I'm pretty liberal in my outlook. But I'm a pragmatist at heart. I support whatever works. I don't believe in a one size fits all solution. We often forget that we tried neo-liberalism in the West in the 19'th century. We stopped because it was a fucking disaster. That was the society that spawned socialism as a reaction to it.

Libertarianism is trendy today, but those guys need to read more history. It wasn't a well oiled society. It was in many way utterly dysfunctional. I really don't want to go back there

In your opinion then, anyone who inherits a family fortune should not be entitled to it, and perhaps hand it over to the bums who have never done a fair days work in their lives? ?

You were the one to bring up "free lunches". Inheriting a fortune without ever having done a fair day's work to contribute to it is the very definition of "free lunch". If you were halfway consistent in your principles and not just making up stuff as you go along to support your desired conclusion of "fuck the poor, let them starve, and when they're dead, piss on their graves", you shoud be the one arguing for 100% inheritance tax.