Libertarianism kills ... people

[Bomb#20]

The Soviets did not defeat Germany without assistance.

If the Russians had been defeated as easily as the French the Germans would have then thrown everything at England.

The US and England armed Russia to save England.

In terms of the cost of military lives lost the US did next to nothing compared to Russia in Europe.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FMxQyleTnk&ab_channel=Boozetowne[/youtube]

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Soviets did not defeat Germany without assistance.

If the Russians had been defeated as easily as the French the Germans would have then thrown everything at England.

The US and England armed Russia to save England.

In terms of the cost of military lives lost the US did next to nothing compared to Russia in Europe.

What an odd metric to use. Yes, the Russians lost a lot... of course, Russian citizens weren't exactly provided much in the way of any sort of... care from their government. Russia's involvement was crucial... as were the allies to the West.

 

[Bomb#20]

In terms of the cost of military lives lost the US did next to nothing compared to Russia in Europe.

Also, one has to wonder how many of those 9 million dead Soviet troops would have survived if only they'd been given better orders -- and how much better their orders would have been if Stalin hadn't shot so many of their officers.

 

[untermensche]

The Soviets did not defeat Germany without assistance.

If the Russians had been defeated as easily as the French the Germans would have then thrown everything at England.

The US and England armed Russia to save England.

In terms of the cost of military lives lost the US did next to nothing compared to Russia in Europe.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FMxQyleTnk&ab_channel=Boozetowne[/youtube]

The Russians killed a lot more German soldiers.

The US killed mostly civilians. Targeted civilians.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I am dubious of the claim that the US won WWII.

In the Pacific mostly.

In the West mostly the Russians won the war.

Wars are won by logistics. It was US logistics that won, not Russian logistics. They just provided grunts.

 

[untermensche]

I am dubious of the claim that the US won WWII.

In the Pacific mostly.

In the West mostly the Russians won the war.

Wars are won by logistics. It was US logistics that won, not Russian logistics. They just provided grunts.

The Russians moved their entire military production to the East as they held off the Germans in the West.

That was logistics.

 

[SimpleDon]

I have been watching the Colonial pipeline computer hack and shutdown story. Democrats in Congress have repeatedly proposed imposing minimum standards against these kinds of hacks for private enterprises who want to connect to the internet. In all cases, the usual suspects have blocked the standards as just some more useless regulations imposing unneeded costs on the business community.

Would this be another example of where libertarianism failed us?


(To be clear, I am not talking about the Libertarians in Congress, of which there is only one who we have been told repeatedly is not a true^© libertarian. I am talking about conservatives in Congress who adopted libertarian philosophy 40 years ago. The very worse and destructive things in movement conservatism came from libertarianism.)

 

[Bomb#20]

The Russians killed a lot more German soldiers.

The US killed mostly civilians. Targeted civilians.

Ah. So the guy who wrote

The mind cannot be observed in any way. Not even by the person with it.

somehow knows the US wasn't trying to hit German military targets.

In terms of the cost of military lives lost the US did next to nothing compared to Russia in Europe.

What an odd metric to use.

Not really that odd a metric, coming from him -- it's the same mentality that motivates the far left to embrace the Labor Theory of Value. The measure of your contribution is not what you accomplish but how much you suffer in the process.

Yes, the Russians lost a lot... of course, Russian citizens weren't exactly provided much in the way of any sort of... care from their government. Russia's involvement was crucial... as were the allies to the West.

^^^^ This. ^^^^

 

[Elixir]

Would this be another example of where libertarianism failed us?

I think it speaks more to the success of Trumputin propaganda. The "usual suspects" could never get away with such blatant denial of reality in any environment wherein facts mattered.

 

[untermensche]

somehow knows the US wasn't trying to hit German military targets.

I know the US was targeting civilians.

You don't need to be able to see a mind to know that.

The US does not deny it.

And it was Adam Smith that said all value comes from labor.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I am talking about conservatives in Congress who adopted libertarian philosophy 40 years ago.

I am unfamiliar with them.

 

[Bomb#20]

somehow knows the US wasn't trying to hit German military targets.

I know the US was targeting civilians.

You don't need to be able to see a mind to know that.

You simply consult your ideology.

The US does not deny it.

Railroads and armament factories count as military targets. Quote the U.S. government saying it targeted the German population at large. Especially, since what you wrote was "The US killed mostly civilians. Targeted civilians.", quote the U.S. government saying it targeted civilians on such a large scale that it was targeting "mostly civilians".

And it was Adam Smith that said all value comes from labor.

In the first place, quote him.

And in the second place, Isaac Newton calculated 2060 as the year of the Biblical Apocalypse. Great thinkers of the past made mistakes too; rational people do not accept their theories uncritically as the revelations of oracles.

 

[laughing dog]

Adam Smith's theory of labor value was different than Ricardo's or Marx's. Smith wrote

'The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. ' (Wealth of Nations Book 1, chapter V).

In other words, to Smith, the market value was not equal to the embodied labor in the production of the good or service but the labor necessary to acquire the good or service.

 

[Jarhyn]

Adam Smith's theory of labor value was different than Ricardo's or Marx's. Smith wrote

'The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. ' (Wealth of Nations Book 1, chapter V).

In other words, to Smith, the market value was not equal to the embodied labor in the production of the good or service but the labor necessary to acquire the good or service.

Interestingly, I think the exact point where all this breaks down is that I cannot, in fact, legally produce or acquire by any direct means a great many things.

I could make every part of my own computer. I have the knowledge required. It would be the work of decades. But I would not in the first place be afforded access to that which would be required. I could do this from the mud, but the mud I need, people would point guns at me were I to walk up and try to just pick it up off the ground.

I cannot save to myself any toil and trouble. I am over the barrel regardless of what I would be able to do with full permission to walk anywhere and dig any bit out of the earth that I may need for my goals.

So, then, I would personally demand that the value presented to me as I have no power nor right du-jour to make for myself these things that the market value embody some minimal profit, held minimal by whatever means must be leveraged to make that so, because ultimately, all that profit is due to leveraging the rest of us off the land we would need for to make it ourselves.

 

[untermensche]

You simply consult your ideology.

You mean the truth?

While the US had tried to avoid bombing civilian populations, daytime “precision bombing” had become a costly liability because German day fighters were able to detect and destroy many American fighter planes. Together under this new policy of “strategic bombing”, Great Britain and the United States command dropped thousands of firebombs on the cities of Cologne, Hamburg and Dresden incurring huge casualties.

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/ww2/projects/firebombing/targeting-civilians.htm

The US does not deny it.

Railroads and armament factories count as military targets. Quote the U.S. government saying it targeted the German population at large. Especially, since what you wrote was "The US killed mostly civilians. Targeted civilians.", quote the U.S. government saying it targeted civilians on such a large scale that it was targeting "mostly civilians".

This has the naivete of a three year old.

The US does not freely talk about it's crimes.

The Germans will tell you about it.

And it was Adam Smith that said all value comes from labor.

In the first place, quote him.

Find it yourself. Read Adam Smith for the first time. He was no a lover of capitalism. He condemned it. Smith believed it reduced humans to unthinking machines.

And in the second place, Isaac Newton calculated 2060 as the year of the Biblical Apocalypse. Great thinkers of the past made mistakes too; rational people do not accept their theories uncritically as the revelations of oracles.

No shit.

That says nothing about the labor theory of value.

Something you don't seem to know anything about.

 

[Politesse]

Find it yourself. Read Adam Smith for the first time. He was no a lover of capitalism. He condemned it. Smith believed it reduced humans to unthinking machines.

That might be overstating things. His view on "commercial society" was fairly nuanced. It is definitely true that he was worried about mindless factory labor and its cost to the human spirit, though, and that governments should be responsible for (among other things) educating the populace to the point that they could make rational decisions about their future, rather than feeling compelled by circumstance to toil purely for another's gain.

Funny how common a perspective that is among the great foundational analysts of capitalism.

 

[Politesse]

Find it yourself. Read Adam Smith for the first time. He was no a lover of capitalism. He condemned it. Smith believed it reduced humans to unthinking machines.

That might be overstating things. His view on "commercial society" was fairly nuanced. It is definitely true that he was worried about mindless factory labor and its cost to the human spirit, though, and that governments should be responsible for (among other things) educating the populace to the point that they could make rational decisions about their future, rather than feeling compelled by circumstance to toil purely for another's gain. And education is only one of many projects he advocated for that are now seen as "socialism" by modern conservatives.

Funny how common a perspective that is among the great foundational analysts of capitalism.

 

[untermensche]

Find it yourself. Read Adam Smith for the first time. He was no a lover of capitalism. He condemned it. Smith believed it reduced humans to unthinking machines.

That might be overstating things. His view on "commercial society" was fairly nuanced. It is definitely true that he was worried about mindless factory labor and its cost to the human spirit, though, and that governments should be responsible for (among other things) educating the populace to the point that they could make rational decisions about their future, rather than feeling compelled by circumstance to toil purely for another's gain.

Funny how common a perspective that is among the great foundational analysts of capitalism.

His view was based on his morality and his view of the inherent desire for dignity and fulfillment and autonomy in all human lives.

 

[Bomb#20]

The US does not deny it.

According to Wikipedia...

An inquiry conducted at the behest of U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, stated the raid was justified by the available intelligence. The inquiry declared the elimination of the German ability to reinforce a counter-attack against Marshal Konev's extended line or, alternatively, to retreat and regroup using Dresden as a base of operations, were important military objectives. As Dresden had been largely untouched during the war due to its location, it was one of the few remaining functional rail and communications centres. A secondary objective was to disrupt the industrial use of Dresden for munitions manufacture, which American intelligence believed was the case.​

As you can see, yes, the U.S. denies it. There were no doubt similar denials about Cologne and Hamburg -- to claim there weren't is an extraordinary claim. So your argument from the U.S. not denying it fails. So how the heck do you figure you can possibly be in any position to know the U.S. planners were targeting noncombatants, when you claim their minds could not be observed by any means?

The US does not freely talk about it's crimes.

The Germans will tell you about it.

What would they know? According to your theory, they have no more access to the minds of the planners than you have.

And it was Adam Smith that said all value comes from labor.

In the first place, quote him.

Find it yourself. Read Adam Smith for the first time.

I have of course read The Wealth of Nations. How many times have we debated? And yet here you are still assuming you can just make up personal garbage about me and you'll automatically be right. It's as though you think the universe cursed you with infallibility. Arguing on TFT is kind of like being a lawyer -- it's prudent not to ask a question you don't already know the answer to. I challenged you to quote Smith because I knew you wouldn't be able to. It was Ricardo who said all value comes from labor.

And in the second place, Isaac Newton calculated 2060 as the year of the Biblical Apocalypse. Great thinkers of the past made mistakes too; rational people do not accept their theories uncritically as the revelations of oracles.

<expression of agreement snipped>
That says nothing about the labor theory of value.

No, but it says a great deal about your notion that name-dropping Adam Smith qualifies as an argument in favor of the LToV, even if he really had been the one who invented it.

 

[untermensche]

What would they know? According to your theory, they have no more access to the minds of the planners than you have.

They would know if civilians were targeted simply by looking at where the bombs dropped.

No need to see any minds.

And it is simply naivete to take the word of the US military about anything.

I suggest you compare the Pentagon Papers to what military leaders were telling the public at that time.

It's as though you think the universe cursed you with infallibility.

All it cursed me with is the ability to grow and learn from my many mistakes.