How can you achieve either when you censor or misrepresent my posts?
You need to show how the quotes that I choose are somehow being displayed out of context, which alters the meaning of the quote. You don’t do this, you just go into arguments from emotion and ad-hominem whenever absolutely everything wasn’t quoted from start to finish.
Which is just silly, most of the world does not do this. Scientific journals will simply put an annotation to the relevant material and not even quote a single line. Are scientific journals all trying to play games with the source material? Certainly not, you’re just being a baby, because there’s a certain way you like to respond to posts that don’t match everyone elses.
This is exactly what I’m talking about.
I explained why you shouldn’t be editing and cherry-picking my posts – again. Yet, you came back by editing and cherry picking it anyway, and then innocently ask why you shouldn’t. Isn’t that hypocritical? You even ridiculously compared a forum discussion to a ‘Scientific journal’. How can we hold a conversation when you won’t respond to my entire posts? When you only respond to parts that are convenient to your narratives?
Look at the silly Hitler subject you brought up. I answered your question, you edited it out two posts ago, and asked me the same question again, and then agreed with my original contention. Isn’t that childish? Or when I demonstrated the fallacy of your Banning example - you just cut that portion out so you don’t have to concede on being wrong – as you have been so many times over the past four days. Or when you avoided responding to my question about your apparent lack of interest in corporate subsidies that amounts to more than the welfare you're trying to abolish.
I am re-posting your Mr. tough guy routine here so you can be reminded again of your childish attitude. Grow a pair, man.
please stop cherry picking my posts.
Or what?
What have you added in the remaining paragraph of this quote? I’ve read it, and a quick click to the link above will take anyone including yourself to read it to get the context. There’s nothing substantive here, so I cut it out.
I don’t like wading through massive walls of quotes just so that I can read something, and I expect others might feel the same.
Or what? Ooh, internet tough guy here, folks.
Or it might enhance your reputation as a sneaky poster who picks and choose sentences, segments and questions to respond to while grandstanding to an invisible audience? In case you forget, you are having a discussion with
me. You have to present your arguments to me, while defending yours. How can you achieve either when you censor or misrepresent my posts? How will you learn, evolve and grow if you choose this path?
Honestly, what do you hope to achieve with this childish attitude? Do you think this evasiveness will make anyone take you or your ideas seriously? You know I can see this, you know others can see it as well, so why do you do it? Is your pride so enormous that you must be right even when you’re wrong?
On one hand, you have a crystal ball on how society in a tax free environment will react to those in need, but on the other hand, you don’t have a crystal ball (never mind that we’re talking about the past and present) to explain why charitable donations did not rise when the economy is flooded with $6.6 trillion. The air is thick with hypocrisy.
No, not really. All you’ve proven is I’m not omniscient and Austrian Economics cannot predict with utmost certainty outcomes in a marketplace because marketplaces are inherently chaotic and unpredictable.
There are certainly activities that you can do that are ultimately harmful to society, but tracking down all the variables and seeing where the harm took place is an extremely difficult thing to do. This doesn’t undermine Austrian Economics or Anarcho-Capitalism one bit.
We are not talking about Austrian Economics or Anarcho-Capitalism one bit. We couldn’t , even if I want to. You lack sufficient understanding of either subject as you have amply demonstrated over the past couple of days.
What we are talking about is, indeed, you are not omniscient. You can’t predict the real life consequences of your abstract ideas. You can’t predict how society will react towards the poor in a tax free environment. This is blindingly obvious to anyone, but it took you three days to concede that point. And still you want to revoke welfare spending because of something you believe might happen - something you, nor anyone else for that matter, have been unable to empirically demonstrate.
Of course you won’t admit it - even after presented with your own words… and are absolutely reveling in my use of the word ‘altruism’ and ‘altruistic’, completely oblivious to the fact that I am using the catchword of self-professed paleolibertarians.
This is how you defined altruism, not me;
Err, have you forgotten Oxford’s definition I posted three days ago?
The Oxford Dictionary said that if there are any altruistic people in society then altruism means “that
all of the 400,000 orphans that society as a whole do not want would be adopted by families annually -
now”?
I must of missed that.
My quote above, which you have deviously snipped off context again, was in response to your over the top claims. Yet you are falsely positioning that as my definition of altruism. Why? Is your position reduced to misrepresenting me?
Just for the record, when you say corporations help everyone, does that include them opening sweat ship factories overseas to avoid paying real, livable wages to workers here?
You would prefer they opened factories here to avoid overseas workers having the opportunity to work themselves out of third world status?
Just When you say they help everyone, regardless of race, class, gender or age, does that include business owners that
(i) Do not hire people based on their race, class, gender or age?
“Hiring” itself is not a benefit to mankind, first of all.
The goal of businesses is to provide goods and services, and they will provide goods and services to any race, class, gender or age, pretty much all the time. I know there are outliers, but competition will drive out businesses that are incorrectly discriminating against their employees or their customers.
Note that there are perfectly acceptable reasons to discriminate. If you have severe Parkinsons, you shouldn't be doing triple bypass surgery, for instance.
See, another example of your hiding from your original assertion. This is your original claim.
They help everyone; Regardless of race, class, gender, or age.
You deviously snipped of the portion, and try to reframe the discussion into “hiring”.
Besides, what competition? If there are no laws or taboo against discrimination, what incentive would there be for businesses and business owners to intentionally create barriers against themselves?
And please, we’re not talking about doctors suffering from Parkinsons.
(ii) Pay lower wages to people based on their race, class, gender or age?
Competition will drive this out. Consider if we lived in a society that didn’t want to hire any woman. This would be a huge business opportunity for you, because there are all these highly intelligent and hard-working woman that are not being hired over men that are less intelligent and less hard working. You could outcompete by hiring the best woman and the best men.
You might say that the culture wouldn’t allow that, but that’s a cultural problem, not a free-market one.
And yet historically, businesses have always paid women lower, to this today. Why would competition emerge involving stable, socially acceptable factor? Did businesses pave the way for civil rights or women’s suffrage, or were they compelled by law to do so?
(iii) Exploit entire communities for their natural resources such as timber, oil or and diamond?
I love how “exploit” has turned into some kind of a bad word, and that’s somehow enough to replace an argument. Businesses get diamonds and wood from certain places in the world, ok. Did you have a point you wanted to make with that?
You really shouldn’t start on the topic if you need an explanation on something so elementary.
I’m re-quoting you one more time, to keep the discussion in perspective.
They help everyone; Regardless of race, class, gender, or age.
Here’s a one example. When Western diamond retailers and their agents force people (including children) in parts of Africa to work in mines for low wages (at times, without wages, at gunpoint) from dusk to dawn under harsh and dangerous conditions, which part of the community there are they helping? Or do you include company owners and shareholders in the U.S. or Europe as part of the communities in Sierra Leone, Angola, etc?
You can call them whatever you want. It only reflects on you and your mentality.
And the ad-hominems just keep flowing, should I keep a tally and we can see which one of us has used less? You seem very concerned about reputation after all.
See, another cowardly attempt at misrepresentation. Shall I repost the conversation to make your lunacy more understandable? And for the record, you are the one who is grandstanding to a silent audience. I am debating you. To reemphasize my point, I have no overlords. The fact that you think you have overlords “only reflects on you and your mentality”.
And again, I have no ‘overlords’. You seem very convinced that you do – I am beginning to sense that is the root of your problem.
In what way are they not overlords? They are class of people that follow different rules than we do, they decide how we should run our lives however they see fit, they’re paid more than most, they don’t do any kind of industrial work, they don’t provide any service themselves that benefits anyone, they have titles and demand respect in their presence, um.. Ya, they’re our supreme overlords alright.
Would you prefer if I called them semi-temporary overlords that get into power based on how well they promised what they couldn't deliver to as many people as possible?
I’m sure you’ve heard of “Stockholm syndrome”.
Do you realize how ridiculous it sounds when you make statements like “Voluntary contributions are better than State welfare”, when you yourself have conceded that you can’t empirically prove it?
I said that neither one of us can empirically prove it to either of our benefit. This isn’t “ridiculous” this as an old and well established fact of Economics.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/071103.asp I don’t have to prove the existence of federal welfare. It exists. You, on the other hand, cannot prove your abstract assertions that voluntary private charitable contributions will take over in a tax free society. It’s a notion based on zero empirical data.
Besides, you’re being dishonest again. Let me post the entire conversation.
Why aren’t you concerned about its effectiveness and reach?
Doesn’t the entire point of your argument rest on the fact that voluntary contributions in a tax free society trumps government welfare?
I did not say that I am not concerned about it’s effectiveness and reach, I said “I am not concerned with the effectiveness of charities in terms of ‘reach’”.
Voluntary contributions are better than State welfare, but I was appealing to the logic of it rather than go through empirical data all day and still never come to any better understanding about the world.
Economists use a term called “Ceteris Paribus” because economists understand that societies are complex structures that are immune to traditional experimentation. There is no way to control the variables and rerun an experiment.
For example; I can say, “Look at the United States in the 1800’s, it had tremendous growth and innovation under little taxation and essentially no public welfare system.”
You could say, “Well that was another generation at another time, that won’t work with the culture of today.” (I know this isn’t an argument of yours.)
Strictly speaking, this isn’t “wrong”. I couldn’t disprove that by taking our culture back in time and giving it to the people of the 1800’s and see what happens.
So we’re always struggling with hypothesis without experimentation or accurate conclusions.
Austrian economics gets around this problem by looking at society from a logical perspective starting with the concept of “Human Action”. This is called Praxeology.
https://mises.org/rothbard/praxeology.pdf Do you realize how ridiculous it sounds when you make statements like “Voluntary contributions are better than State welfare”, when you yourself have conceded that you can’t empirically prove it?
“For example; I can say, “Look at the United States in the 1800’s, it had tremendous growth and innovation under little taxation and essentially no public welfare system.”
Aren’t you forgetting something? The slave labor advantage that early America had? You know, the subhumans without wages who we used to exploit the enormous natural resources of the land and as farm workers and later on, railroad and factory workers? Yeah, we had no public welfare system. Why would we? They’re not humans, right?
You bandy around terms like praxeology and ceteris paribus as if these somehow lend any weight to your arguments. Like “diminishing marginal utility” you used earlier, I don’t even think you understand what “ceteris paribus” means, judging by how you are using it.
“For example; I can say, “Look at the United States in the 1800’s, it had tremendous growth and innovation under little taxation and essentially no public welfare system.”
Aren’t you forgetting something? The slave labor advantage that early America had? You know, the subhumans without wages who we used to exploit the enormous natural resources of the land and as farm workers and later on, railroad and factory workers? Yeah, we had no public welfare system. Why would we? They’re not humans, right?
You bandy around terms like praxeology and ceteris paribus as if these somehow lend any weight to your arguments. Like “diminishing marginal utility” you used earlier, I don’t even think you understand what “ceteris paribus” means, judging by how you are using it.
Ok, you didn’t address what I was talking about, which is the well-established fact that economics is not testable. My point was about why the term “ceteris paribus” is used. Why do you suppose that "ceteris paribus" is not used in mathematics?
When I was using “diminishing marginal utility” I was pointing out a reason why it’s so hard to predict what will happen under certain scenarios. People have different chains of wants that they satisfy depending on the amount of any particular good they have, including discretionary money.
We are not talking about economics now. Your position is that the sociocultural habits of society with regards to charitable contributions will suddenly change in a tax free environment.
So can you or can you not demonstrate this empirically?
No one can demonstrate it empirically in either direction with any certainty.
What are talking about? Federal welfare exists now. It helps the citizens. Some may argue it is not enough or not efficient, but it is there. That’s empirical evidence.
There is empirical evidence of private charities as well, though maybe there’s not enough of it (Private charity). That doesn’t help us understand which is a fundamentally more moral and efficient system.
Our discussion is not centered on understanding “which is a fundamentally more moral and efficient system.” It is centered on your radical assertion that federal welfare should go down to zero and in a tax free society, people will voluntarily make charitable contributions for the weaker members of society, including the old, sick, handicapped and children.
Voluntary charitable contributions as a form of a credible social safety net does not exist – it has never existed. You are arguing that in a tax free society, it will exist. The onus is on you to prove that. Fourth day on, you still can’t prove it (not that you can, of course).
The onus is not on me to prove that a “charitable contributions as a form of a credible social safety net” will absolutely exist under any particular circumstance.
Why not? You are proposing to end federal welfare, and (I’m repeating myself here) “
in a tax free society, people will voluntarily make charitable contributions for the weaker members of society, including the old, sick, handicapped and children.”
I know you’re trying to slowly back down from you original assertions, but your pride keeps getting in the way.
Is this not in principal true;
Because welfare is achieved through taxation, it can remain perpetually indebted, show poor results, and have high overhead. For the population to do anything about it, they need to have a majority vote hampered by the votes of the welfare employee’s themselves and the recipients.
If it is true, is this not superior;
No, it’s not true. Because
(i), blaming the government’s level of indebtedness to welfare spending (0.066%) is silly,
I didn’t do that, try again.
I highlighted your own words for your own convenience
(ii) ‘poor results’ can be improved upon
That’s not the point, the point is that it can show poor results with very little recourse by those who pay into it.
Changing the goalposts, are we? Fine. Then fight to fix the system to enhance its efficiency instead of advocating its complete abolishment, at the cost of death and suffering of the needy. Instead of advocating some abstract solution absent of any hard data, rectify the situation. If you say it can’t be done, then how has the conservatives successfully placed the federal budget for family and children on a steady downward spiral?
Family and children (
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_detail_fy12bs12015n_4041_605#usgs302)
FY 2011 FY 2012 FY 2013 FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016
Billion 283.8 266.9 270.7 264.4 259.8 264.4
% of GDP 0.074% 0.007% 0.068% 0.066% 0.062 0.059%
(iii) The population includes the welfare recipients. Being poor does not mean you should not be involved in decision making process.
I didn’t say that just because you’re poor you should not be involved in decision making processes. I was pointing out a distinct conflict of interest.
By your reasoning, the figures I gave above shouldn’t be happening.
the agency gets money by the consent of their customers, the benefactors. For them to stay in business they have to succeeded in several ways; Most of the money they receive needs to make it to the people they’re trying to help, they have to show positive results, and they must stay solvent. If at any time the benefactor’s don’t like what’s going on with this business they can withdraw their funding immediately, no questions asked, and no theft permitted.
And if no benefactors exist in your tax free market utopia?
It is not a utopia. If there would be no benefactors in the free market then there would be no votes in a democracy. Or I suppose there would be votes from those that want the benefit, but if all the votes were coming in this manner, then that would mean 51% are literally voting for something from the other 49%, which is unethical and unsustainable.
If there are votes coming from the people that are giving, then we already know there would be benefactors in an anarcho-capitalist society consisting of the same people.
I can afford to donate only very little time or money to the needy. But I am happy that my tax dollars are used to protect, feed, clothed and educate children.
In a tax free society, why would I, or anyone, be compelled to make monetary sacrifice if my neighbors, people like you for instance, won’t do so?
Doesn’t that make your abstract an utopia?
So once again, if no benefactors exist in your tax free market utopia? What happens to the needy?
Yup, you can’t guarantee anything. You can’t guarantee that people will voluntarily contribute time, money and resources to take care of the sick, aged, handicapped. You can’t guarantee that in your tax free utopia, people will take care of orphans. Thank you so much for admitting that. It took four days, but you finally caved. If you recall, this was your initial point of contention with me four days ago. Now that you have conceded that point, are you going to find something else to argue with me?
Haha. I’m not omniscient, you caught me. That has absolutely nothing to do with why private charity is better than public welfare.
For example; Can you prove to me absolutely that welfare voting won’t be used to ultimately hurt society? You can’t prove it? Then welfare is bad, QED.
Private charity is better because it’s structurally superior and because it’s morally superior, not because I'm omniscient.
Huh. Your pride just had to force you to make a 180, huh?
See, this is a textbook example a circular argument.
You have stated several times that you cannot prove your assertions, yet still maintain it's superior.
That’s farcical.
And when you say morally, by whose moral standards? Yours?
If I use your flawed argument about diminishing marginal utility, it actually does predict that “Bill Gates wouldn’t be charitable”. Remember what you said?
“when applied in this instance means that people certainly might not immediately put their money into charity as soon as discretionary spending comes up”
“when applied in this instance means that people certainly might not immediately put their money into charity as soon as discretionary spending comes up”
To be honest, I don’t think you really understand what diminishing marginal utility even means.
Do you know what “might” means? As in the difference between “might not” and “always will not”?
Oh give it, up. You have no clue what you’re talking about.
You said that “diminishing marginal utility” somehow means Bill Gates wouldn’t exist. Please make that argument or concede. How you can come to that conclusion, make no argument for it, and then accuse me of not knowing what “diminishing marginal utility” means, is beyond me.
I already did. Bush tax cuts, $6.6 trillion, etc - remember the part of my post which you’ve edited out? That still is a different matter though. Because when I say you really don’t understand what “diminishing marginal utility” means, it is based your own words – not mine. I highlighted it again for your convenience.
Really? You left in a question mark, but did not bother explaining what that question mark is for? Go on, explain it to me.
It means that the reported GDP went down, but the author went on to explain why he suspects that the records weren’t correct. So the author was saying that it is unclear whether or not this record accurately shows an increase or decrease in the welfare of the population.
Actually, no. Leeson states that “Per capita GDP (PPP) is lower than its 1989–1990 level, but the data overstate the size of average income in the pre-1991 period, which was likely lower than it is under anarchy.” His reasons for saying so, other than trying to prove his point, are overreporting, pre-anarchy economy produced “a great deal of” military hardware that “citizens didn't consume” , and a large amount of foreign aid. Of course, all three factors are also present during the period of anarchy, but that is too inconvenient to consider I suppose.
Anarchy only ended three years ago. Your data, using 15-20 year gap, showed fractional improvements in several areas (while ignoring the effect that foreign aid has on those numbers, and the presence of regional warlords). The data I presented showed vast improvements in just two years, which completely negates any arguments about how anarchy is better for Somalia.
It doesn’t, you said that removing the welfare state would decrease the welfare of the people in the given region. I showed that there was actually an improvement in Somalia during anarchy, which shows that your contention is not always the case.
So no, your argument didn’t negate any arguments about how anarchy is better for Somalia than the preceding state of affairs, which was my argument.
So two years of explosive growth under a government compared with 15-20 years of fractional growth using uncorroborated data doesn’t negate your arguments? You never cease to surprise me.
Would it interest you to know that even Leeson didn’t make the claim you did?
“This essay makes a simple point: although a properly constrained government may be superior to statelessness, it doesn't follow that any government is superior to no government all.”
Leeson also qualifies his findings several times, but this attracted my attention.
“Although this analysis helps exclude some alternative factors that might be driving Somali improvement apart from state collapse, only a tentative conclusion can be drawn on the basis of the available data. Further, the comparison in Table 9.2 doesn't help exclude other possible sources of Somalia's improvement unrelated to anarchy. For example, the period of Somalia's state collapse coincides with the rise of a large Somali diaspora, which supports an enormous remittance economy that has undoubtedly been important to Somalia's improvement. Similarly, in 1993–1994 UNOSOM intervened in Somalia and provided large quantities of humanitarian and other aid to Somali citizens, which might also have contributed to Somalia's improvement without government.”
Anything else?
Here, let me requote myself.
“You are resorting to Godwin's law once again. Yes, Hitler was elected. But you are intentionally ignoring the years of unchecked abuse he inflicted on the government culminating with him holding the entire Reichstag hostage while forcing the passing of Ermächtigungsgesetz, which elevated his powers to near monarchy.”
Again, Ermächtigungsgesetz happened after he was elected, so what’s your point?
Exactly what I wrote. He was no longer operating under a democratic government. Do you disagree?
He arose through a democracy, what he did from there was only possible because he was elected.
Do you deny that he was no longer operating under a democratic government?
Do you deny that he seized power by threatening members of the Reichstag?
Let’s go with your idea. Go and game the election presidential election in 2016, and the 2018 midterms since you make it sound so easy. Once your candidates win the Presidency and two thirds of the seats in the House and Senate, then go on to appoint supportive Justices into the Supreme Court. Then, dissolve the union, disband the government and you can have your tax free utopia.
I never said that it was easy, nor that it is gamed in favor of smaller government. In fact, it is gamed in favor of larger government largely because it is not easy.
Really? You make it sound so.
“It’s a good thing there’s no one with resources or patience to game the system.”
Anyway, so you are actually agreeing with my original contention which you have craftily edited out again.
“Elections cannot be easily gamed”
Now excuse me while I go an address your position on sex with minors.
That was rich, since I didn’t actually tell you my position on sex with minors.
Really?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=827010.msg9403771#msg9403771
