"Bloombergism…is merely Democratic Party liberalism stripped of any concern for public opinion," says Jonathan Chait
Long-time readers recognize Jonathan Chait as less of an ideological sparring partner for Reason writers than as a punditry piñata that never runs out of Sweet Tarts. Nevertheless, in New York magazine's recent issue devoted to the legacy of outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chait has some very interesting things to say about Bloomberg, his place in the progressive tradition and his relationship to the liberalism of the modern Democratic Party.
In "The Dashed Dreams of President Bloomberg," Chait writes about the fading fantasy that New York City's potentate of condescension could transfer his project to the national stage. "Bloomberg was a rousing success; Bloombergism, a debacle." He continues:
Bloomberg's image of himself as a potentially unifying national figure rested all along on a series of deep misconceptions. Bloomberg imagined that his brand of good governance would transcend ideological divisions. He attracted talented civil servants, applied rigorous metrics to every facet of their performance, and made government work. In an overwhelmingly Democratic city, making government run well is indeed a recipe for broad approval.
In national politics, though, the wisdom of making government run well is a bitterly contested idea. The vision of a government managed by disinterested experts who follow the dictates of empiricism dates back a century to the Progressives—good-government types who are found today on Glenn Beck's blackboard, connected by conspiratorial arrows to various Obama-administration figures…
Later in the piece, Chait describes Bloomberg's nanny-statism as an "odd synthesis" of conservative willingness to regulate personal behavior to achieve the the goal of "forcing a liberal nanny state upon an often unwilling public." He also describes the mayor as "not merely a functional elitist but a philosophically committed one" who feels "contempt for the hoi polloi." This isn't an odd synthesis—it's progressivism at its core. Progressivism has a long history of seeking to "improve" people, from work ethic to music preferences to sexual habits, whether or not they consent to such enhancement. Progressivism also has long derided outsider groups—and even strayed into racism with an elitist and pseudo-scientific veneer.
Chait then goes on to place Bloomberg in the context of modern politics.
Bloomberg's faith that bureaucratic competence would allow him to escape partisan division was merely naïve, but his apparent belief that his views on national politics situated him in the center is downright bizarre. He is a conventional social liberal. To the degree that he has separated himself from the Democratic Party, he's done it mainly by articulating more outspoken versions of the standard liberal view on climate change, gun control, immigration reform, and gay marriage. Yes, Bloomberg assailed Obama for lacking a plan to reduce the budget deficit, which sounds conservative, except that Bloomberg's own proposal included ending all the Bush tax cuts, not just those for the rich. (The last prominent politician to advocate that? Howard Dean.)
Bloomberg did position himself clearly to Obama's right in one way, and it was very telling: He robustly defended the rich in general, and Wall Street in particular, from the widespread public revulsion it has faced since the economic crisis. Far from clashing with the general liberal cast of Bloomberg's ideological profile, this one piece completes it. Bloomberg is the candidate of the Democratic Party's donor class. He stands for the things the $50,000-a-plate social liberals wish Democratic politicians would say if they weren't so afraid of how it would play in Toledo. Bloombergism at a national level is merely Democratic Party liberalism stripped of any concern for public opinion.
After detailing Bloomberg's incursions into personal freedom and his de-legitimizing of critics, a seemingly disillusioned Chait closes, "Bloombergism is the sort of thing the Constitution was designed to prevent."
Reason gets a shout out for calling Bloomberg "Pol Pot on the Hudson"—in the context of describing Bloomberg as a "national hate figure among conservatives." Apparently repeatedly calling out the mayor for "stop and frisk" as well as soda bans is an artifact of right-wing thinking. Frankly, that seems more illuminating about Bloomberg's progressive supporters, even those who have lost their enthusiasm, than his critics of whatever ideological stripe.
Check out Jonathan Chait's whole piece. Its a rare, honest look at what may be America's most unalloyed modern progressive politician.
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Blind squirrel, Stopped clock and all that.
Chait is only disappointed that Bloomberg was not one of the fabled ‘Right People’ that could make technocracy work.
but his apparent belief that his views on national politics situated him in the center is downright bizarre. He is a conventional social liberal.
More like an antisocial liberal.
It’s seeing his in NYC politics and transferring that to the rest of the country. It is the terrible effect of NYC provincialism.
This isn’t an odd synthesis?it’s progressivism at its core. Progressivism has a long history of seeking to “improve” people, from work ethic to music preferences to sexual habits, whether or not they consent to such enhancement. Progressivism also has long derided outsider groups?and even strayed into racism with an elitist and pseudo-scientific veneer.
This is the side of progressivism that they don’t like to talk about at cocktail parties, though. See, they aren’t paternalisitc. They just want to help THE PEOPLE. Only, for some strange reason, THE PEOPLE keep making incorrect choices, like enjoying salty foods or not voting for progressive politicians. Therefore, the progressive have to make the right choices for THE PEOPLE, for their own good. As Terry Pratchett aptly observed:
People on the side of The People always ended up dissapointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up.
THE PEOPLE means everyone except any individual person.
I saved this quote to remind people of that exact point:
Boom. Gated communities; Tony; Progressivism.
And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.
Or to paraphrase Bertolt Brecht, they need to dissolve the people and elect a new one.
Hey, this is Reason – they’re working on that just as hard as they can!
In a sense the communists were more realist than the progressives. The Soviets always maintained the need to create a New Soviet Man who would outgrow man’s nature of acting in self-interest and placing personal needs above the collective.
Progressives either refuse to see that or believe it but are constrained by political reality.
It also reminds me of a piece I heard on Radio Prague today:
How dare those people use the market to sell things you don’t like? That’s not wasted space.
Do a page search for “wasted” and read the next few questions as well. There’s some really nasty bigotry going on, but it’s bigotry against the correct people.
Thomas Sowell is also really good on that subject.
And yet, the later Discworld books basically devolved into his political utopianism, a fascist dictatorship.
I almost threw Making Money out the window it was so bad.
This Mayor?
“…a Democratic Party liberalism stripped of any concern for public opinion.”
So pretty much Democratic Party liberalism then. Hasn’t he watched the Syria debate?
Or gun control. The losses they just had in Colorado were entirely based on the fact that Morse and Giron idiotically thought they could govern like New York Democrats in the American south-west.
They were mistaken.
Turnout wasn’t that high in those elections. CO is getting bluer by the day, particularly if you count the illegales whose right to vote Herr Holder is so adamant about protecting.
“illegales” isn’t a word in either English or Spanish. Either use “illegals” or “los ilegales” when you’re getting your la migra on.
the == los
Don’t criticize my Spanglish, you magn?fica pulg?n.
Yeah? Cao ni ma.
Yo dir?a que chupar mi pene, pero es necesario primero un trabajo dental.
…oy. Ihr spanisch ist nicht gut…
It’s not my Spanish, it’s Google’s.
Ah ok, that makes more sense…
I liked Tulpa better when he was hiding because he was embarassed about being a liar.
You remember that, don’t you T?
You cried, lose ANOTHER debate, cried more, and quit reason for a self determined, stated period of time…
I can’t understand why anyone bothers to give you the time of day, much less take your lying ass seriously.
C’mon, HM, if you’re going to use a foreign language with Tulpa, speak to him in his original German
I don’t know German, only Yiddish.
oy gevalt.
Some linguist you are.
I think he was referring to your use of the double l (‘ll’), which is very differently pronounced in Spanish as opposed to the ‘l’ sound.
I say “llama”, you say “yama”…let’s call the whole thing off!
There are gun owning Democrats in the Western states.
Quite so, but are there enough?
There are gun-owning Democrats in Eastern states. It’s just that they’re the criminal element other Democrats are trying to ban guns over.
And here we go with the totally fucking lame “it was turnout”. Sorry, that is bullshit. Turnout during an off-year recall election was 75% of what it was during a presidential election year. The “it was low turnout” bullshit doesn’t fly in this one.
I was thinking of their gun control debacles too.
In a different age, Bloomberg could have slaughtered his way to a perfect world; it’s a credit to our culture that he only killed hundreds and annoyed millions.
Give it another thousand years or so and maybe we can solve the problem of the compassionate sociopath who will make you a slave to save your soul.
The problem isn’t with Bloomberg’s vision or his methods. Both are undeniably perfect. The problem is that he is forced to sculpt his perfect society out of the base clay of humanity. If only they would do a little more to earn his tolerance, he wouldn’t be forced into such brutalities.
I wouldn’t say ‘forced’ as much as ‘challenged’ to shape us with his fatherly hand… his loving, fatherly hand.
Uh oh, sounds like somebody has some daddy issues…. No I dadn’t, didn’t . Daddy doesn’t love me.
While on the subject of the paternalist state…
Recognizing that most Americans have a strong attachment to their community schools, the corporate reformers have taken care to describe their aims in pseudo-populist terms. While trying to scare us with warnings of dire peril, they mask their agenda with rhetoric that is soothing and deceptive. Though they speak of “reform,” what they really mean is deregulation and privatization. When they speak of “accountability,” what they really mean is a rigid reliance on standardized testing as both the means and the end of education. When they speak of “effective teachers,” what they mean is teachers whose students produce higher scores on standardized tests every year, not teachers who inspire their students to love learning. When they speak of “innovation,” they mean replacing teachers with technology to cut staffing costs. When they speak of “no excuses,” they mean a boot-camp culture where students must obey orders and rules without question.
Yes, because public schools don’t demand you obey orders and submit to state authority.
When they speak of “personalized instruction” they mean putting children in front of computers with algorithms that supposedly adjust content and test questions to the ability level of the student but actually sacrifice human contact with a real teacher. When they speak of “achievement” or “performance,” they mean higher scores on standardized tests. When they speak of “data-driven instruction,” they mean that test scores and graduation rates should be the primary determinant of what is best for children and schools. When they speak of “competition,” they mean deregulated charters and deregulated private schools competing with highly regulated public schools. When they speak of “a successful school,” they refer only to its test scores, not to a school that is the center of its community, with a great orchestra, an enthusiastic chorus, a hardworking chess team, a thriving robotics program, or teachers who have dedicated their lives to helping the students with the highest needs…
The reformers define the purpose of education as preparation for global competitiveness, higher education, or the workforce. They view students as “human capital” or “assets” One seldom sees any reference in their literature or public declarations to the importance of developing full persons to assume the responsibilities of citizenship
Evil capitalists! Wanting students to learn useful skills necessary for future employment and success in life!
One seldom sees any reference in their literature or public declarations to the importance of developing full persons to assume the responsibilities of citizenship
In other words, they don’t propagandize. Why is this a problem?
I think ‘indoctrinate’ is a more apt word.
Arguably, developing informed citizens is the one rationale for government involvement in education.
It’s also an area where public schooling has completely failed. Kids come out of 12 years of that school less capable of being good citizens than we they go in.
It also depends on the definition of “good citizens”. Again, the proglodyte definition will vary immensely from conservative Christians, or from the majority of people who comment here.
they refer only to its test scores, not to a school that is the center of its community, with a great orchestra, an enthusiastic chorus, a hardworking chess team, a thriving robotics program, or teachers who have dedicated their lives to helping the students with the highest needs…
LOL–note the token STEM club they threw in there. There’s plenty about standardized tests to criticize–not the least of which is the fact that the more we institute these measures, the more students seem to need remedial instruction in math and reading once they get to college–but these people are harking back to a time period when the quality of education was leagues ahead of what we have today. Not to mention that their intellectual forebears were instrumental in degrading tight-knit, high-trust communities by implementing busing laws which took kids away from their neighborhood school.
Wow, Serious Man, you’re like a rat flea spreading bubonic plague from one blog to another. If I wanted to read Salon I’d go there! 🙁
See, Tulpa, this is why you get so much shit around here: 1) assuming that we don’t know a very well known piece of trivia, and 2) explaining your joke.
It’s fucking condescending and pathetic at the same time.
Doesn’t really say much for the blog’s character that its reaction to someone explaining a joke is to call them a cunt and speculate about their orally pleasuring the state at every opportunity.
Doesn’t really say much for the blog’s character that its reaction to someone explaining a joke is to call them a cunt and speculate about their orally pleasuring the state at every opportunity.
Remember earlier how you were wailing about how everybody misquotes you intentionally? Well, ummm… nothing in the post you’re responding to had the word “cunt” or any speculation about your oral habits.
The epicness of your butthurt about getting called out for being a shitty joke teller sort of amplifies the original point.
GS is referring to the treatment I receive in general, not just his post.
Except you referenced his post specifically as calling you a “cunt” in response to you explaining a joke. And he didn’t do so. As always, you try to bullshit us when people call you on your inaccuracies.
Wait, there are EVER MORE reasons we give him shit? I think we have more than enough reasons to give him crap without adding two more. Now it’s just overkill.
Well, it’s more about the condescension and thinking he’s the smartest guy in the room while actually being one of the dumbest than those two specific points.
“Hardworking chess team”?!
I liked “an enthusiastic chorus”: that’s going to get those students good jobs some day!
The writer, like most of the SWPLs at Salon, thinks “Glee” is just like real life.
Well, standardized testing does sometimes cause perverse incentives. That two weeks of drilling and strategic bubble-filling training before the chemistry test means two weeks less of lab work, which is where students usually take a liking to chemistry.
But for the most part that’s not why the unions hate them; they simply object to any objective performance standard for teachers.
I agree that there are many problems with standardized testing. For one thing, a huge reliance on standardized testing is one of the causes of various cheating scandals that have occurred. If that was their point, I would have no problem with that.
It isn’t really their point though. They’re saying that they prefer ‘love of learning,’ which is a totally nebulous and undefined concept that makes it impossible to hold teachers to any actual standard. As you said in your second paragraph, they just want teachers to be able to do whatever they want with no possibility of being removed from a job for which they are not capable.
Yes, I think we agree here.
As long as their intentions are pure then the results don’t matter.
^^^This^^^
For one thing, a huge reliance on standardized testing is one of the causes of various cheating scandals that have occurred.
Like convenience stores are one of the causes of armed robbery
More like, big government is the cause of political corruption and lobbying. Which is an argument libertarians make, right?
How many years and you still insist upon miss-characterizing libertarian arguments?
There will always be political corruption because humans beings, especially those who seek political power, are flawed creatures. Big government just means big corruption. Small government means small corruption. Libertarians would rather have small corruption than big corruption.
The power to dole out political favors creates an incentive to lobby. Big government means big lobbying for big political favors. Small government means small lobbying for small political favors. Libertarians would rather have small lobbying and small political favors than big lobbying and big political favors.
This is your cue to attack a straw man, move the goalposts, and otherwise Tulpafy the thread.
Interestingly, since you’re once again fulfilling your role as jerkface, I actually agree with the argument I’m presenting as libertarian here. Which is why I’m saying “big testing” causing “big cheating” is a legitimate argument.
I’m only a “jerkface” when someone repeatedly, over and over and over, despite many patient attempts to educate, insists upon attacking straw men and moving the goalposts (otherwise known as Tulpafying). It’s not something that just happens out of the blue.
I understand your point. But, I think I have to disagree, in part. For a lot of these kids, the choice isn’t between rote memorization and higher learning. It’s a choice between rote memorization and no learning whatsoever.
Actually public schools as currently set up discourage learning.
Recognizing that most Americans have a strong attachment to their community schools, the corporate reformers have taken care to describe their aims in pseudo-populist terms
Put this sentence in 1970, and you’d describe the busing movement perfectly.
If Americans have a “strong attachment” to their “community” schools, it’s only because parents don’t have a fucking choice. They don’t send their kids to their “community” school (I like the rebranding effort) because of some perceived attachment, but because THEY HAVE TO. Give them a choice on where to send their children, and I guarantee you that whatever attachment Ravitch thinks Americans to their “community” school will disappear.
And I’d like to know where she got that idea that “Americans have a strong connect to their community schools.” I have NO connection to my “community” schools other than that I am forced to help pay for them. Am I not an American? How many Americans would tell their “community” school to go fuck itself if they had a choice?
If Americans have a “strong attachment” to their “community” schools, it’s only because parents don’t have a fucking choice.
Depends on the community. A small town or bedroom suburb will be heavily invested in their neighborhood school, and will consider it a civic cornerstone. The success of the school will be seen as a proxy for the success of the community.
It’s also true that parents will do anything they can to get their kids out of ghetto schools. It’s why busing was so heavily promoted in the 70s and why charter schools have made so much headway in recent times. But this indicates the dysfunction of the overall community–the school serves as merely a window into that dysfunction.
What’s that word? Pro…pro…tection? No, that’s not it. Pro…fuck, I lost it.
Ravitch was great during her The Language Police days, but something happened to her a few years ago that made her completely, rat-fucking insane.
Yeah, it’s been quite the subject among educationistas – the former proponent of charter schools, et al, now denouncing them. Those who hated her now love her & vice versa.
Inside the Conservative Brain
First, a very brief tour of more recent political leaders and movements reveals a notable trend: conservatives tend to view human nature as competitive, while liberals are more prone to perceiving human nature as cooperative.
[…]
On the topic of human nature, Goldwater’s book addressed “the corrupting influence of power”: “the natural tendency of men who possess some power,” he wrote, is “to take unto themselves more power. The tendency leads eventually to the acquisition of all power.” In Goldwater’s worldview, man’s competitive nature had no limit.
In 1980, when the conservative politician Ronald Reagan asked Americans for their votes at the end of his presidential campaign, he said: “As you go to the polls next Tuesday and make your choice for President, ask yourself these questions: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the store than it was four years ago?” David Sears, a political scientist at UCLA, has pointed out how right-wing politicians like Reagan tend to make more appeals to the public based on the assumption of a self-interested audience.
Because force=cooperation if the state does it. Capitalism and the beneficent fruits of a free market are exploitative and tainted by ‘selfishness’.
I tried Naples Rib Co for lunch today. Moo bucket + slaw & garlic mash. 5 stars.
Next time try the tri-tip, it’s outstanding.
I like how they don’t even bother to argue with Goldwater’s statement, which is confirmed by all of human history; they just cast it as anti-cooperative.
It’s strangely honest.
Usually they gloss over the fact that what they mean by “cooperation” is “we seize power over how you live your life”.
I think it’s related to their new theme that libertarians are “nihilists” because we don’t believe in the state.
Power is cooperation and goodness. If you doubt power, you don’t believe in cooperation or goodness.
Can’t you just have a little faith that this time the people who get power will use it to help everyone? Why do you have to be so cynical? You must hate the community, otherwise the same maudlin “inspired leadership” that makes everyone else swoon would work on you, too!
Progressive: “We believe in cooperation.”
Libertarian: “OK!”
Progressive: “No, you greedy and uncaring nihilist! Not like that!”
Progressive: “What if someone doesn’t want to cooperate! They must be forced to cooperate! There can be no cooperation without coercion!”
Very good article even despite the obvious bias of the author.
The 2000 National Election Study asked Americans whether they thought that “newer lifestyles are contributing to the breakdown of our society.” Fully 80 percent of conservatives agreed with this statement, compared with 59 percent of moderates, and 49 percent of liberals.
Liberals admit that even half of all “liberals,” are not social liberals.
You can clearly see that many of the libertarians here have the same positive view of human nature and the same bizarre optimism as the liberals. Like the left, they believe that only nurture, not nature, effects behavior. They believe that “race does not exist.” They believe that we can have degenerate sexual mores and that will not result in social problems. Whenever confronted with a problem, racial tension or bastard children or war, they always blame the government, never are the individuals in question or the culture to be blamed. It is basically Marx’s view upside down.
They believe that we can have degenerate sexual mores and that will not result in social problems. Whenever confronted with a problem, racial tension or bastard children or war, they always blame the government
The social problems don’t matter until the government seizes money from me at the point of a gun to try to solve them.
Spawn all the bastards you want. As long as I don’t have to feed them, it’s not a big deal to me.
I think libertarians understand that some behaviors generate “problems”. In fact, we’re counting on that. When people get tired of trying to feed their bastard children without help, they will have fewer bastard children.
Spawn all the bastards you want. As long as I don’t have to feed them, it’s not a big deal to me.
Until they steal your food at the point of a gun. If left-libertarians don’t care about other people, they should stop promoting this degenerate culture and run away to an island somewhere. Clearly they do care, just as the Marxist does, the “I don’t care, none of my business” argument is very selective.
The day will never come when getting called a “left-libertarian” by collectivist trash like you makes me do anything but laugh at your stupidity.
Until they steal your food at the point of a gun.
The one legitimate function of the state is to destroy them when they do that.
So, yeah, “until” they do that, I don’t care; once they do that, I do care, and want to use the state to smash them. It’s called minarchy, dude. Look it up.
Here’s the thing: we can have “degenerate sexual mores without problems”. Rich people don’t create any problems when they exhibit degenerate sexual mores.
That means that using the state to suppress “degenerate sexual mores” is inherently collectivist, because you’re saying that one group of people (the rich) must sacrifice their own liberty because if they don’t, another group of people (the poor) will try to act as they do and fuck themselves up as a result. And you know what? I just don’t care. Fuck yourselves up. Reality will teach you the needed lessons soon enough. I’m content to hold you off with armed force in the interim.
The one legitimate function of the state is to destroy them when they do that.
So, yeah, “until” they do that, I don’t care; once they do that, I do care, and want to use the state to smash them. It’s called minarchy, dude. Look it up.
It works so well in the third world, doesn’t it. Because to have a functioning government, you have to have a functioning people to run it.
Rich people don’t create any problems when they exhibit degenerate sexual mores.
From the POV of the society, they sure do.
I’m not arguing for government to suppress degenerate sexual mores. I’m arguing against the left-libertarians on here who say they are a good thing.
It works so well in the third world, doesn’t it
It worked fine here until 1932.
society doesnt have a POV.
The anthropmorphoderps are the most confused and unfortunately prevalent people out there.
Are you merely speaking of the US, TIT? Because I’ve been to many places and seen hordes of street children running around.
Yes, though I would point out that in those places with street children running around it is more a result of lack of resources than lack of desire. (Of course, that might be a Christian-centric point of view; most of my intimate experiences with true poverty were in Catholic-majority countries.) Most people will give money (and force others to give money) to take care of abandoned children over almost any other social problem.
The first government buildings that came to the rural and poor town where I grew up were a police department and a public school.
After I visited India, I could clearly see why the peasants there would be inclined to want communism.
why, so millions of other peasants would die of starvation?
Heh. Tit.
Hell, I am much more small government than most people out there
Apparently not.
But clarify for me:
Are you saying that people will use the state to transfer income from the rich to the poor no matter what we do, so we may as well accept that and get used to it, or are you saying that it’s a good thing and is right and proper to do that?
Because your post seems to shift back and forth between fatalism and endorsement.
I endorse behaviors ensuring the well-being of children and see the forcible requirement of same as inevitable once you hit a certain level of income and knowledge of the social problem, as well as a certain government size.
Do you believe that most people, small government or no, would characterize their views as meaning that government has no role to play in e.g. setting up orphanages and basic care for abandoned children, and in setting f.e. child abuse laws and other statutes which would be considered impingements on liberty were they applied to a situation with two adults?
I endorse behaviors ensuring the well-being of children
IOW, Trouser is saying he’s one of those dopes we always make fun who will buy into any taking of property so long as you frame it as “FOR TEH CHILDRUNZ!!!”
And he calls us callous for not falling for it, as if it were an insult.
Do you think children came out of the ether as a libertarian bogeyman?
Here’s a thought: why don’t you think for a bit on what the differences between a child and an adult are, and what implications those differences have for the libertarian assumption of rational, profit-maximizing atomistic moral agency in the context of childhood. It may surprise you to learn that there are some things and people who are not accounted for in libertarian philosophy; for those of us who have been paying attention and thinking about what we read, this weak point in libertarian philosophy is not at all surprising.
This doesn’t mean the ideology is useless or that we should be credulous whenever someone alludes to children in a pitch for more government — it simply means we shouldn’t spout libertarian pablum like mindless chimpanzees when confronted with a situation where libertarian starting premises don’t apply.
and I am 100% in agreement with the view that running e.g. orphanages for children who would otherwise starve is a valid function of government.
I would agree to govt. funded orphanages for destitute kids. No checks for their parents, though. And any costs incurred in raising the child would be billable to the parents future income.
That is, until we can transition into private charitable institutions.
Charity ex machina swoops in and saves the free market’s ass once again!
Ummm, okay. Whatever.
So, basically Act I of Les Miserables is your plan for caring for kids.
Charity is part of the free market, dumbass. Charity is people voluntarily giving away money or something of value because they value what the money will do, like helping orphans. Exchanging something of value for something of value. Oh, wait! You mean that value has to be monetary? Goalposts have been moved! Conversation has been Tulpafied!
Charity in a consumer good. There’s no reason at all to think a free market wouldn’t supply the quantity demanded.
The free market doesn’t supply things for free. It’s not the flerking Easter Bunny.
“Demand” is not just desire for something, but a willingness to pay for it at a given price.
Yeah. Like a willingness to give money to charity because you (not you personally, but a euphemistic you used to describe someone who puts a value on helping others without expecting anything in return) place a value upon helping others without expecting anything in return.
Didn’t you already thoroughly boned on this point in the other 300-post thread today?
The free market doesn’t supply things for free. It’s not the flerking Easter Bunny.
Funny that, neither does the unfree market, aka, Government.
I don’t find this true at all. Goldwater (who is quoted above) had a bit in conscience of a conservative about how society was made up of the people who could get together and have a lemonade in amity, or something along those lines. He was a great admirer of Native American and Hispanic southwestern culture, a recurring subject of his photography.
How did Bloomberg get elected in a city that overwhelmingly voted for Obama. Here’s how. Not surprising really, considering the hypocrisy of liberals in their personal lives. Just as they live in gated communities while demanding “diversity” for everything else, New York’s White liberals vote a “Republican” to run their city but a Democrat to run the country. Why the disconnect? Well that’s a different question, a question you’ll have to think about culture to understand. Unfortunately the political correctness of many libertarians prevents them from thinking critically about culture.
It’s simpler than that. Bloomberg only ran as a Republican to avoid the crowded Democratic primary. He is an authoritarian progressive through and through.
Bloomberg’s view of the world is very similar to Barack Obama’s. They’re both authoritarian progressives, and therefore New York elected both of them. No mystery there.
The Crown heights pogrom was the main issue of the 1992 election which saw Giuliani take power. Giuliani promised, ans delivered, a tough-on-crime policy that meant ignoring the “disparate impact” of their policies on the Blacks. The most notable of these polices was the “stop and frisk” policy. But at the same time this was occurring in New York, Obama and co went after Arizona for daring to enforce immigration law, supposedly this constitutes “racial profiling” in Obama’s mind? Why the disconnect? Because they live in New York and hate the people who live in Arizona.
Another leftist discovers some truth about Cops:
Show me someone who trusts the police and I’ll show you someone who has never had to deal with them in a professional capacity other than a traffic ticket.
That’s Canadian cops, an entirely different breed.
That’s Canadian cops, an entirely different breed.
TOP. MEN.
the wisdom of making government run well is a bitterly contested idea.
Now, come on. Who doesn’t want the trains to the re-education camps to run on time?
Er, are you sure Chait is actually criticizing Bloomberg here? It sounds eerily similar to the left’s constant complaints about BO not explaining his wonderful policies well enough, or “moving too far ahead of public opinion”. Which are not really criticisms at all, of course.
Bloombergism at a national level is merely Democratic Party liberalism stripped of any concern for public opinion.
someone tell me when this was EVER a concern for the left?
They care about their voters, unlike the Republican party. The left gives corporate cronyism to its donors. Welfare to the single mothers. Affirmative action to the Blacks. Mass immigration to the Hispanics. Abortion to its sluts.
The Republican party gives corporate cronyism to its donors. Its voters get death in war to its voters. Their jobs are given to Mexicans and their factories are shipped to China.
Dems give inner city blacks the Drug War, mass imprisonment, rampant eminent domain abuse, and squash school voucher programs wherever they crop up.
the Drug War, mass imprisonment,
I don’t think the Democrats can be blamed for that. The “tough on crime” politicians were mostly republicans. And even without “the drug war” Blacks would still be greatly overrepresented in prisons, they commit over half the murders in America despite being 13% of the population.
rampant eminent domain abuse
How rampant? Most Blacks will never see it. A very good portion will see a welfare check.
squash school voucher programs wherever they crop up
Most Blacks don’t support those. Why? They take jobs away from Black public school teachers.
And even without “the drug war” Blacks would still be greatly overrepresented in prisons, they commit over half the murders in America despite being 13% of the population.
Most of those murders are drug war disputes. When you create a black market of any size, participants in that market will resolve disputes with personal violence.
Meh, their is a black subculture that celebrates violence and thinks victimhood is empowering.
And even if the blacks suffer because of the drug war formulation is correct, one has to wonder why that is the case, since they are only 12% or so of the population.
Go into the lily white rural areas in SW Pennsylvania, see how the white kids behave, and keep telling me about that black subculture problem.
It’s a low-income, hopelessness phenomenon, not a skin color phenomenon.
It’s a low-income, hopelessness phenomenon, not a skin color phenomenon.
I never said it was a skin color problem, race baiter. I said that is was a subculture problem and yes there are dysfunctional white sub cultures too.
Most of those murders are drug war disputes.
Show a source for that. And while you are at it, I’d love to see you explain the disproportionate rate of rape in left-libertarian terms.
Marihuana Tax Act of 1937: passed by an overwhelmingly Dem congress, signed into law by the most treasured Dem president of the century.
Can you think of a prominent Democrat politician who wants to end or even question the Drug War? Me either. Certainly nobody anywhere near a position of power.
There was a time when Bill Cosby was just a statistically average black kid growing up in North Philly, when the black crime rate was lower than the white, black unemployment was lower than white unemployment, and gains in wealth for them were at a level that would not be accomplished again until the second Clinton administration. But around the time our immigration policy changed in the mid 60s you saw a decline. That was when we let in all of those Dominicans and Trinidadians who fucked those stats up for the rest of the blacks. Okay, made that last part up to see if you you were paying attention, and to point out, given the actual positive stats of those three factors for those immigrant groups you can’t just pretend it was a change of the immigration policy that caused the decline as labor economist traditionally do to explain away the extent to which the welfare state corrupts culture.
And it’s not a popular observation here but immigration has hurt black people more than any other group.
Which “Black” people? I’m sure Jamaicans, Nigerians, and Somalians who came to live in America are pretty cool with it.
Sure, all those mindless savages are riding the welfare gravy train of an industrial civilization they could not rouse themselves to emulate–but at least they could hitch-hike their way here in order to loot it, which seems to be A-OK with the open borders nihilists.
…what? Why should a black immigrant or child be responsible for creating industrial society in Africa? You do realize that colonialism of the British variety was at least in part an attempt by some of the smartest minds in Western civilization to do just that, over a period of more than a hundred years, right? Why should an immigrant be held responsible for failing to do what a superpower could not accomplish?
The British strangled industry in the crib in most of their colonies, forcing them to export their raw materials to Britain and import manufactured goods from Britain.
Which “Black” people?
Poor black Americans that have seen the competition for low skilled and semi skilled jobs increase dramatically in the last thirty years.
They’ve also have more competition for the government services that they use.
This is the same tired argument used with regard to European immigrants of the 1800s and 1900s, Chinese immigrants of the late 1800s, black migrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s, etc.
You know, it is possible to favor expanded immigration and at the same time admit that it causes problems for specific groups.
And anyway, my comment was another example of blacks being betrayed by the party that they slavishly vote for.
Somalis are Black? Just like Beethoven!
Didn’t see this nonsense before I posted above. I’m a fuckin’ profit.
Of course liberalism is stripped of public opinion, why do you think they have to use the courts to get their way? cuz no one would vote for it to being with.
Cop kills unarmed man who was seeking help after car wreck
CHARLOTTE, N.C. An unarmed man who may have been looking for help after a vehicle wreck was shot and killed by a police officer Saturday as he ran toward him, police said. The officer was later charged with voluntary manslaughter.
A statement issued by police said officers responded to a breaking and entering call on the city’s east side around 2:30 a.m. Someone had knocked on the door of a residence, and the homeowner opened the door, thinking it was her husband. When she discovered it wasn’t, she closed the door and called 911.
When officers arrived, they found Jonathan A. Ferrell, 24, a short distance from the home, and he matched a description given by the homeowner, police said.
The statement said officers approached Ferrell to investigate the original call. Ferrell ran toward the officers and was hit with a Taser. Ferrell continued to run toward police when Officer Randall Kerrick fired his weapon, hitting Ferrell several times. Ferrell was pronounced dead at the scene.
[…]
Monroe said at a news conference that Kerrick was in custody. Police say he was charged with voluntary manslaughter after an investigation found that the shooting was excessive.
Two other officers at the scene have been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of a probe into the shooting.
Doesn’t this dispute the meme that shooting investigations always clear the cop?
Depends on how corrupt the police department is and how egregious the shooting.
Shooting an unarmed man multiple times after he’s been tazered is pretty indefensible.
As usual, some dumb hysterical bitch got a man killed over her bullshit.
This is why there are no female cosmotarians.
Oh come on, we don’t know how the guy was acting. Maybe he seemed crazy. Maybe he was crazy or drugged. Certainly running toward police who are aiming a taser at you seems odd, and it’s even odder to keep running toward them after they tase you and then pull out a gun and (I assume) warn you, again, to stop.
I suspect there is more to this story.
(I assume)
The cop was arrested and charged. I’m “assuming” he was tazed and then shot dead while trying to report an accident.
Nonetheless, my point is that it’s very strange to run toward a cop who is aiming a weapon at you, and even stranger to continue running after being shot by a taser, and so it may have been reasonable for the woman to call the cops on the guy.
He may have been in shock or had some kind of traumatic head injury from the car accident he crawled away from through his smashed out back window that affected his behavior. Citizen Jane may or may not have overreacted to the guy’s behavior, but the cops definitely did.
David Sears, a political scientist at UCLA, has pointed out how right-wing politicians like Reagan tend to make more appeals to the public based on the assumption of a self-interested audience.
Later, he observed, “I just put my hand out the window, and it got wet. It might be raining.”
Would it be accurate to say that Obama, Gore, Clinton also made appeals based on self-interest i.e. elect me and I will take on those rich people who have robbed you of your wealth.
“Obamaphone,” “Obama’s stash,” etc.
Good read. Why Gen Y yuppies are unhappy:
http://www.waitbutwhy.com/2013…..happy.html
Actually rather good, although once again it reveals the standard trope of “the [[insert group here]] are unhappy, it must be economic! Political correctness prevents you from looking at the social aspect.
It did cover the social aspect (with unicorns!). Gen Y yuppies have unrealistic expectations, are entitled and envious, and believe that they are exceptional.
Why do you respond to American? Why, dear god, why, Playa?
By responding to him, you get played, playa.
Is it him? So many personalities to recognize.
It did cover the social aspect (with unicorns!). Gen Y yuppies have unrealistic expectations
And the facebook effect, wherein it is easy to think that friends have better lives, happens more in social than economic parts of life. IE they’re having more fun, sex, better spouses and kids and hobbies etc.
That certainly does play a huge role in the rise in envy…
in envy? of envy? Whatever, I’m sure you get what I mean…
Can there still be a Facebook effect once people write articles describing the Facebook effect?
Personally, I just check Facebook these days to see who’s getting divorced.
Do you check for schadenfreude, or to find newly single women?
If it’s the former, I would call that the reverse Facebook effect.
Can there still be a Facebook effect once people write articles describing the Facebook effect?
Absolutely, because 90% of Facebook’s userbase may or may not be functionally retarded and possibly illiterate.
Social psychology is only a post hoc reaction to the conditions, economically determined ones, where horrible monetary policy reigns supreme. The GYPSY lifestyle of valuing fulfillment over security would not be out of balance with the formula of reality – expectation otherwise.
formula of reality – expectation getting you closer to happiness otherwise.
Although, beating up on baby boomers and Gen Ys is fun, to be honest, in the context of the mores ironed out between the greatest gens and the boomers, where those mores were prevalent in a stateless society, we would be a happier and hippie-ier society, and nothing like SomaliaRoadz that critics of anarcho-capitalism believe to be the inevitable result of the state being abandoned.
It doesn’t even make sense that the one thing would follow another in a healthy civil society, whereas the opposite, states corrupting civil society with profligate squandering of wealth and resources is well documented. If the state had been abandoned, a reaction to the disgust the people had for Johnson, Vietnam and Nixon around 1972-73, the Gen-Ys would not be so unduly tasked with the burdens that previous generations have propped on their shoulders — Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, debt and the generational Cantillon Effect of insane monetary policy propping up the metastasized cancer of the state eating at their wealth before they can accumulate any.
None of that is their fault, and living like GYPSYs and happily doing so is an opportunity our statist lifestyles have denied to them.
Okay, Obamacare is in part the fault of the ones who voted for Barry. But only because they were brainwashed by boomers and gen-xers into trusting any black guy who looks in a suit.
black guy who looks in a suit.
Could not bring myself to write ‘good’ even though that was my intent. He doesn’t look good in anything. He’s an ugly guy.
Doesn’t this dispute the meme that shooting investigations always clear the cop?
One good call is certainly welcome, but that hardly vaporizes our concerns regarding the likelihood of police accountability for lethal fuckups, intentional or not.
And let’s wait for the plea agreement before we start dancing in the end zone.
Bloomberg, and to a lesser extent Giuliani, rode a wave of economic and demographic change in NYC that made their skill at governing essentially irrelevant.
Manhattan is a world city. As long as its governance was any less corrupt and brutal than, say, Moscow’s, it was impossible for it to fail, once the crisis of the 70’s passed.
Its mayors just had to avoid really simple and obvious mistakes (“Don’t ban condo conversion! Don’t institute a 90% city income tax! Don’t shut off electrical power to Wall Street!”) for the city to succeed, as a planet’s worth of wealthy people drove the poor out of first Manhattan and then most of Brooklyn.
The problem is that Bloomberg thinks you can transfer his style of governance to other places. And if you tried to apply it to, say, Cleveland, it would comically and horribly fail. Because NYC gives you compelling reasons to stay there and take Bloomberg’s shit. Cleveland gives you no such reasons.
I think NY is going to lose a lot of its luster.
The internet has made place matter much, much less. It used to be that you could only find certain products in New York, or conduct certain financial transactions. That is no longer the case where everyone with an internet connection can trade stocks and get any kind of product delivered to their door.
The only thing you can now get in New York that you simply can’t anywhere else is live theater, and I doubt that is a big enough draw to get people shelling out the outrageous amount of money that it takes to live in New York.
Fair point, Irish. I guess I’m mostly just thinking of the whole Broadway and Off-Broadway scene.
The only thing you can now get in New York that you simply can’t anywhere else is live theater,
That and a good pastrami sammich at 4am.
First, it’s not about what you can get anywhere else, but what you can get everywhere else. Major cities have provided goods that other cities have for a long time. What was important is what you can get in other areas. This has changed in that now you just have to wait to get damn near anything shipped in instead of it being completely unavailable. Howwver, I can by living in LA and knowing where to go get almost anything nearly immediately, no shipping required. That’s a pretty big deal.
7 million people are living there so they can get boutique items? I dunno bout that.
Some of the people responding to me are implying that NYC is about shopping, but I never said that.
After a certain critical mass was reached, living in NYC was about living around other rich people.
The concentration of finance capital in NYC, and the hangers-on of finance capital like the art world, became too large and dense to be moved once they had accumulated. Or, at least, it would take changes that occurred in the cultural equivalent of geologic time. And now those dual concentrations have attracted wealthy people from all over the world who definitely cannot be moved; I can imagine scenarios where very wealthy Americans picked up and moved to other American cities, but if Russian billionaires leave New York, it will be to go to London or Paris or Moscow.
You can’t turn Cleveland into Manhattan by an act of governance or many acts of governance because the people who live in Manhattan just aren’t going to move to Cleveland. Maybe you could do it if they started guillotining the rich on Fifth Avenue, but that’s not in the range of possible policy choices.
I would rather live in a log cabin in the Adirondacks than NYC.
Bummer
Lawrence H. Summers, one of President Obama’s closest economic confidants and a former Treasury secretary, has withdrawn his name from consideration for the position of chairman of the Federal Reserve amid rising opposition from Mr. Obama’s own Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.
In a statement released by the White House on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Obama said he had accepted the decision by his friend even as he praised him for helping to rescue the country from economic disaster early in the president’s term.
“Larry was a critical member of my team as we faced down the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it was in no small part because of his expertise, wisdom and leadership that we wrestled the economy back to growth and made the kind of progress we are seeing today,” Mr. Obama said in the statement.
Another great and noble citizen run out of politics by those venal Republicans.
Summers was done in by Dem Senators on the Banking Committee (Brown, Merdley, and Warren) who held a grudge for his opposition to Brooksly Born’s (CFTC) plan to regulate the derivatives that crushed AIG.
The feminists would scream bloody murder if Summers, who was run out on a rail from Harvard for merely SUGGESTING that maybe genetics had something to do with less women in STEM professions, was chosen over Yellin.
^This. Obama is already getting feminist flak for “not enough women,” etc.
In a letter to the president, Mr. Summers said that he had “recently concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interests of the Federal Reserve, the administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation’s ongoing economic recovery.”
And the angels wept.
Well, it’s nice to see Tulpa is over his butt-hurt fit, and apparently doesn’t care about being a proven liar.
Welcome back.
Who’s the greater fool — the fool, or the fool who follows him around to every thread and complains about him?
But much of the advocacy behind Ms. Yellen was framed as a critique of Mr. Summers. Many liberals said Mr. Summers was too closely connected to Wall Street and to the culture of deregulation that they blamed for the economic crisis.
In a letter signed by 20 Senate Democrats in July, the lawmakers urged Mr. Obama to nominate Ms. Yellen saying that “at a time of persistently high national unemployment, the next chairman must focus on returning our economy to full employment.”
This is a rhetorical question, mind you, but WHAT KIND OF RETARD THINKS THE FEDERAL RESERVE HAS ANY EFFECTIVE CONTROL OVER EMPLOYMENT?
…Milton Friedman?
(With the caveat that he believed employment targets were a bad, no-good idea.)
WHAT KIND OF RETARD THINKS THE FEDERAL RESERVE HAS ANY EFFECTIVE CONTROL OVER EMPLOYMENT
Retards in Congress that made full employment a mandate for the fed in the 1970s.
Well obviously that mandate was there to correct the unemployment brought upon by gov pegging the minimum wage with inflation in the 50s and 60s….duh.
Yellen’s gonna get it because Summers was seen as too reluctant to crank the QE up to 11.
But remember, the Independence of the Fed must be protected from those awful Pauls and their silly audit.
FTA:
Effective at what?
The public schools aren’t that much better, the MTA does not run much more efficiently, the crime rate is down (a trend that began before Bloomberg)… so, I guess the answer, GBN, is giving liberals warm fuzzy feelings.
and that is all that matters…THE FEELIES!
Today is the 5th anniversary of Lehman’s bankruptcy.
Five years after Lehman, Americans still angry at Wall St. – poll
The cost of the crisis has been severe. A paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimated that the financial crisis and the recession cost the U.S. economy as much as $14 trillion, or about $120,000 for every household.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/…..cAVTiTmYlQ
So why did they elect Wall Street’s guy twice in a row?
Did they have a choice? Was the other guy a non-Wall Street guy?
Turning victimhood into a career, ch. 6,492
When Holly Jacobs sent nude photographs of herself to a long-distance boyfriend she loved and trusted, the 22-year-old woman never imagined the horror that would befall her.
In August 2009, less than a year after the pair mutually ended their three-year relationship, Jacobs did a Google search of her name and discovered the naked photos on a so-called “revenge porn” website.
“I just went completely into shock,” said Jacobs, who hired a lawyer and eventually changed her birth name from “Holli Thometz” to Holly Jacobs.
“This is cyber-rape,” Jacobs, now 30, told FoxNews.com. “It’s all about the guy having control over the woman and exploiting her in a sexual way — the same way real-life rape does that. It violates you over and over again.”
What came next was perhaps more shocking to Jacobs. Police in Miami, where she lived at the time, took no action. They told her that “because you are over 18 and you consented, technically they are his property and he can do whatever he wants with them,” she recalled.
What would she do if she found out he gave those cufflinks she so lovingly selected to some homeless guy? Bonus awesome bitchface photos at link. She looks like she could deliver a bite that would make a gila monster look like a toothless old hound.
It’s all about the guy having control over the woman and exploiting her in a sexual way — the same way real-life rape does that. It violates you over and over again.”
You gave him the photos fool. Next time you want to send nude pictures to your significant other have him sign a contract stating he won’t post them online.
Otherwise be willing to live with the consequences of your actions.
-You gave him the photos
Good point. Consent is, after all, a defense against actual rape.
And equating this to rape otherwise? What silliness. What makes rape so horrible is not ‘exploitation’ or so much ‘violation’ but that it is a violent crime, which is lacking in this case.
There are rapes which are not accompanied by physical violence (other than the rape itself). Drugged rapes, deception rapes, etc.
Tulpafied!
There are murders which are not accompanied by physical violence (other than the murder itself).
“Deception rapes” are generally not rapes, because fraud in the inducement does not vitiate consent to the intercourse.
or just dont show your face
It’s all about the guy having control over the woman and exploiting her in a sexual way — the same way real-life rape does that.
No, dear.
When people touch you without your consent, that’s rape.
When people think about you and engage in speech about you without your consent, that’s just too fucking bad.
What kind of shaking-chicken-bones-in-a-gourd fucking jungle savage is this chick, when she openly admits that she thinks that possessing a photo of someone constitutes exercising control over them?
“You no steal soul with evil shiny box!”
Her fault. That said, the site is pretty vile. They post your name, address, phone number, and facebook profile along with the nude pics. They then encourage the site’s commenters to contact the subject’s family, friends, bosses, and co-workers to draw attention to the pictures. The guy who started this whole thing, Hunter Moore, is a douchebag of the highest order.
This is the guy:
http://www.villagevoice.com/20…..anyone-up/
Apparently, he was stabbed by one of the women he featured on his website…
Wanna bet feminists cheered?
Hell, I cheered.
Guy’s a douche.
Does he make it money off of the site? Commercial use of photos that he doesn’t own or license would be another avenue to sue him on.
He claimed that he was pulling over $10K a month. And yes, he has been sued a lot, including a successful defamation suit for $250K in damages.
Wouldn’t there be a *slight* copyright problem? The person who takes a photo owns the rights – people with family photos have had hassles because they didn’t get the photogs consent to enlarge or clean up the old photo (and sometimes the original photog can’t be found).
So I would assume that the woman owns the copyright on her photo, so unless she specifically consented to her ex copying it onto the Internet, I would say it violates her intellectual property rights (cue response that there ought not to be any IP rights).
So you give your emails to Google, and they share them with the NSA: it’s bloody murder and a horrendous violation of privacy.
Woman gives a guy her naked picture, and he posts it on the Internet for everyone to see: her own stupid fault for handing them over.
Indeed. I’m going to have to agree with Tulpa, at least if these pictures are published with names and addresses — it’s a huge violation of a person’s privacy and when attached to names and addresses creates a situation which could put a person’s life in danger. IMO this is at least a tort-worthy offense from a legal standpoint, and certainly a dirtbag move from a purely moral perspective.
The day the communication of true information in the absence of a written agreement to maintain confidentiality becomes tortious is the day we should hang every lawyer from the nearest lamp post.
This isn’t the Pentagon Papers, Fluffy. It’s a picture of a girl’s tits, who never intended the picture to be shared with the public.
Let’s test your principle, though: say he took a picture of her through her bathroom window without her noticing, and posted that online. Still true information (assuming she didn’t gain weight or get a tattoo in the interim). Still no confidentiality agreement.
OK for him to post those pictures online?
It depends on whether he crossed a property line or used extraordinary technical means to secure the photo.
Well, you’re consistent on this at least.
Peeping Tomism has always been interesting to me from a libertarian point of view because it’s one of those things that you can’t really pull in to a definition of “force”, but pretty much everyone agrees should be illegal.
I think it should be illegal to creep on to someone’s property surreptitiously to observe them, whether they’re naked or not.
Peeping Tomism doesn’t require being on someone else’s property. One of the most common examples these days is of “Tom” installing a camera in his own bathroom/fitting room on his own property.
One of the most common examples these days is of “Tom” installing a camera in his own bathroom/fitting room on his own property.
Are we talking landlord / tenant? Because the lease tenant takes over certain property rights in that situation.
But for more theoretical discussion, I will move this below.
You love changing the facts of the situation when asked a question, don’t you? (and I know NYS had to pass a law especially regarding the tenant-landlord case, so the courts don’t recognize any inherent right to privacy in that situation)
Let’s make it simple for you. Woman goes into bathroom at restaurant and is filmed doing her biz inside a stall by a camera placed there by the owner. Ok for him to do this in the first place, and/or to share the video online?
You love changing the facts of the situation when asked a question, don’t you?
Holy fucking shit. Coming from Tulpa. Seriously, dude?
…really? So telling a brownshirt and his gang that Henri down the block is a quarter-Jew shouldn’t be an actionable tort?
No, it shouldn’t.
I am entitled to operate under the assumption that ordinary laws will be obeyed.
If someone asks me for directions to 10 Main Street, I am entitled to give them those directions. If the person I so direct commits a burglary when they get there, that’s an unfortunate event, but one for which I should assume absolutely no liability.
That wasn’t what he asked about. He was asking about a situation where the malicious intent was clear. So in the burglary example, suppose two guys with ski masks on and crowbars and lock picking equipment ask where that house is.
Who says that makes their malicious intent clear?
In any event, I still don’t care.
If supporting the absolute right to make true statements means that once in a while burglars might use street maps, oh fucking well.
Bullshit. No one is that naive.
There are many circumstances in which it cannot be considered reasonable for a person to hold to the assumption that laws will be obeyed by the party you are speaking to. In the situation I described, the brownshirts in Germany had become well-known for mob violence and intimidation of Jews in the context of a political movement characterized by its virulent and aggressive anti-Semitism. A brownshirt in front of his posse asks you if you know any Jews in the neighborhood, there’s a reasonable conclusion — and it’s not the one you’re asserting.
There was a debate last week that broached on this topic, where it was asserted that the possible existence of a pubescent teen consenting to sex implied that age of consent laws are anti-libertarian — you are making the same mistake, by pretending that laws cannot be based on a reasonable standard and applying idealized conditions to scenarios that do not approach that standard.
Just as it can be considered reasonable to not be aware of the age of a 17-year old for the purposes of consensual sex, it can be considered unreasonable to not be aware of the age of an 8 year old for that same purpose. Likewise with this scenario.
That’s incredibly stupid, because “speech” includes writing things down. Which includes maps.
So if it’s actionable negligence for me to give guys with ski masks directions to your house when they ask, it should be actionable negligence to print maps that guys with ski masks might buy and use to find your house.
The problem is that you confuse what is reasonable (and sure, it would be reasonable for me to not be a dick and not tell the guys where your house is) with what should be actionable.
“might”
You know what that word means, Fluffy?
If I print a map, I know, without question, that it is possible a burglar will use it to find a house to burgle.
In fact, I would be even more sure that my action would aid burglary than in the case of giving verbal directions to people on the street. Because my written communication is available to anyone and is durable. Eventually someone will probably put that information to some nefarious use. (Drunk driving, maybe.) But with the guys on the street, if those guys who hear my speech don’t go and commit a burglary right away, my speech was harmless.
The difference being that a printed map would have information that could be reasonably construed as “common knowledge” whereas “Henri is a quarter Jew” probably wouldn’t be in that category.
No one is saying that *every* interaction or possible facilitation is actionable; rather that this does not apply to the whole range of information provision that is *possible*. It comes down to what is reasonable.
If guys with ski masks ask me where St. Peter’s Basilica is, it’s unreasonable to hold me accountable for what they do with common knowledge. If the guys with ski masks ask me the combination lock to a safe and I’m not in danger, then it’s irrelevant whether or not I know the right answer to that question or whether I signed some contract or other — it is unreasonable to give them that information and assume that a lawful activity is all that is imminent.
Law and justice as applied by humans is absolutely dependent on reasonableness standards, or it ceases to function. The tendency of libertarians to insist on reducing it to a bizarre, unattainable type of axiomatic thinking when put into practice by human beings is utopian.
The tendency of libertarians to insist on reducing it to a bizarre, unattainable type of axiomatic thinking when put into practice by human beings is utopian.
Dude, this is asinine.
Why is it so critical to you to retain the option to punish someone who gives directions to people on the street?
Why is rejecting that utopian?
Just catch the fucking burglars and punish them. They’re the ones who committed the burglary.
It’s almost as if some of you are obsessed with finding extraordinarily rare and bizarre exceptional circumstances that would make true speech morally questionable precisely so you can retain the moral option of using the state to punish other true speech you don’t like.
If we make it an axiom that you can’t punish true speech, and you end up with a situation where you can punish burglars but not random passerby who gives burglars directions – so fucking what? Where’s the crisis here?
Why is it so critical to you to retain the option to punish someone who gives directions to people on the street?
Because you’re using it as a wedge to justify publishing naked pictures of an ex-girlfriend online.
Because you’re using it as a wedge to justify publishing naked pictures of an ex-girlfriend online.
Again, so what?
That’s your big libertarian horror, that shows what a terrible dystopia we would create?
At least when we argue about libel, we’re talking about lies.
Now you’re branching out and asserting that you should be entitled to suppress true statements (including accurate photographs) when they make somebody feel bad.
Because a world where you aren’t entitled to control what other people say about you and think about you would just be too unthinkable a hell to imagine.
Amazing.
You never got around to dealing with the Peeping Tom issue, Fluffy.
You can’t have a working society where people’s naked pictures can be broadcast and published without their consent. It’s not justifiable within the NAP or libertarianism in general, but it’s part of realty.
You can’t have a working society where people’s naked pictures can be broadcast and published without their consent.
Sure you can. We have a working society with that very situation right now.
For your restaurant example, I’m torn. I don’t think you should be able to enforce a privacy claim on someone else’s property. But I’ll err on the side of grudgingly giving you that if you obtain the photos by stealth in an area where people believe themselves alone, and which is not visible from a public way, that we can go ahead and consider that theft (of the images) by deception.
If the restaurant had a sign that said, “All premises under video surveillance” though, you’d be SOL. Or if there were cameras left everywhere in a club for people to play with, and drunk chicks decided to flash each other and take pictures, and the club owner published the pictures, I would consider those people SOL also. And those situations are MUCH, MUCH more like Ms. Jacobs case than your example.
that we can go ahead and consider that theft (of the images) by deception.
How is it theft? The woman in the images didn’t ever own the image or the equipment used to produce and store them.
I’m arguing this point to get you to admit the inadequacy of doctrinaire libertarianism.
How is it theft? The woman in the images didn’t ever own the image or the equipment used to produce and store them.
I secured a recording of a performance by deceit.
If I sent Katy Perry into a closet in my restaurant and said, “Just go in there and sing, Katy. Don’t worry, there are no cameras or anything in there,” and she did so and it turned out I recorded the whole thing, that would be theft by deception.
And before you decide to split hairs about whether a recording of someone taking a piss is a “performance”, let me tell you that I think it’s safe to say we won’t be able to deal with the entire conception of IP here this evening, because that would require another discussion longer than the one we’re already having.
You’re chainging details again. I never said that the restaurant owner verbally guaranteed that there were no cameras in the bathroom to induce the woman into going there. (That would be getting close to fraud territory)
And of course, Ms Perry’s reasons for not wanting her singing performances distributed are quite different from the woman not wanting her naked image distributed. If this were a Playboy model suing to keep people from distributing her Playboy spread because it hurt her profits, that would be a better analogue to the Perry situation.
I never introduced the map example or agreed that it was actionable, and if the information given is common knowledge then it shouldn’t be actionable.
Common knowledge and reasonableness are determined by context. In most contexts, “Henri is a quarter-Jew” or the combination to a vault is far from common knowledge — dispersing such information when there is reasonable cause that the person who gave you said information will be hurt is tort material, straight-up.
I would argue (and you are free to argue otherwise) that surreptitiously publicizing naked pics of a person of a sexualized nature with that person’s address and # number on a website characterizing these women as morally suspect are similarly actionable, esp when that information is used for criminal intent.
I would argue (and you are free to argue otherwise) that surreptitiously publicizing naked pics of a person of a sexualized nature…
That’s not what happened in this particular case. There was no surreptitiousness in the acquisition of the photos. If her boyfriend had stolen her mobile phone and acquired the photos without her consent, then proceeded to distribute them online, you’d be within spitting distance of a useful analogy here.
Yup.
In exactly the same way, if I see you fucking a goat and I tell Sugarfree, that’s private free speech and you can go pound sand if you don’t like it.
But if the government comes and threatens me with jail if I don’t tell them everything I know about your goat-fucking, and then forbids me from telling you that they’re making such inquiries – yup, that’s a gross violation of the rights of everyone involved.
So you don’t support the lawsuits against the companies that handed over your private data without a warrant? Do recall that most of them weren’t forced.
If they did it in defiance of representations they had made to their users, sure I would support law suits.
Which they didn’t.
Which they didn’t.
I’ve admittedly not read Google’s user agreement in its entirety, but I’d be amazed if it includes any provisions for the sharing of the content of your emails with federal spy agencies (not law enforcement agencies, mind you) without warrant. The fact that they publicly denied the existence of the program under which they were sharing data is also something of a misrepresentation on their part. It’s lying. Not even lying by omission, since they persisted in denial even when asked directly.
And still none of this is in any remote way analogous to one private citizen sending a photo, or email, or anything else, to another private citizen.
So you give your emails to Google, and they share them with the NSA: it’s bloody murder and a horrendous violation of privacy.
Maybe you missed this bit of trivia, but you sign a contract with Google when you accept their user agreement. Nothing in that agreement indicates that your emails will be data mined by the NSA without knowledge, consent, or even the pretense of an administrative warrant, which we came to found out was common practice. This bears no resemblance to the situation at hand, where two private individuals with no contract in place gave each other photos and then analogized it to “rape” when the photos were made public.
A more proper analogy would be that I typed out a really embarrassing email, the recipient then forwarded it to everybody in their contacts, and I ended up looking like a jackass. That might piss me off, but I certainly wouldn’t trivialize rape by comparing my predicament to it, nor would I lobby congress to ensure that the recipients of my personal emails must maintain the confidentiality of my writings to prevent my embarrassment.
changed her birth name from “Holli Thometz” to Holly Jacobs
Why would do that and then connect both by going to the media?
It looks like she Streisand’ed herself. Google her old name and you can still find her nude pictures, which have been mirrored all over the internet thanks to her media blitz.
Today is the 5th anniversary of Lehman’s bankruptcy.
So what?
Loosen up, Brooks. Mika will be back in the morning.
Los Angeles city government refuses to fix pot holes, goes after woman for having a tree house instead.
Democratic governance. They might not fix your roads or provide you with any of the services you’re supposedly paying for, but by God can they hound you for having an out-of-code tree house!
I included the Herbalife thing because it made me laugh.
Erickson has been speaking out against McMansionization of houses in Venice, and she suspects that one of the local mansionizers tried to get back at her by reporting the treehouse to City Hall.
So luckily, I don’t have to be angry about this because she’s only getting exactly what she deserves.
Exactly. The gander fucked the goose good and hard if this is the case. Delicious.
yeah, that’s a “people in glass houses” story. Dumb bitch has a big huge glaring code violation in her yard and tries to make trouble with her neighbors for building big fancy houses that are perfectly legal but she didn’t like the aesthetic and someone got pissed and smacked her down calling in code enforcement.
SLD: she should be allowed to have the treehouse.
But the salty ham tears from a statist bitch getting bit in the ass by the state are too delicious.
The piece isn’t clear just how she “[spoke] out” against mansions, there’s not enough info to conclude she wanted to prevent it using government. If it IS the case though, her own predilections certainly did come back to bite her.
Yes. That makes her seem like she got what was coming to her.
Hopefully being the victim of government malfeasance will show her the errors of her statist ways. Of course, she’ll probably just think that the government was ridiculous in this instance and go back to state worship tomorrow.
Yeah. Notice the writer of the piece doesn’t say, nor quotes anyone as saying, that they should just change the codes to be less moronic.
No, they just want an EXCEPTION to the rule, they want the code regulators to play favorites under public pressure rather than just acknowledge the rule itself is stupid and change it.
There’s nothing wrong with the rule. We just need the right Top Men to make sure it is applied fairly. Which is to say, in such a way that satisfies my sensibilities.
I think it is dubious to place Bloomberg as a progressive. He was the successor to Giuliani. He ran as a Republican and then Independent. He was featured at the 2004 Republican National Convention. I have read he was once a registered Democrat, but to my knowledge he has never run as a Democrat. Every time he has run he has faced a Democrat.
I understand that he espouses causes which usually find support with progressives nationally, but that is not unusual for urban, Northeastern conservative and Republican politicians. It was true for Rockefeller, true for Giuliani, and today you can see it with Chris Christie. There is a distinct ‘brand’ of Northeastern Republican with quite a tradition and many examples where Bloomberg falls quite nicely. They usually marry some amount of social liberalism with ‘good government’ and ‘tough on crime’ (the latter which is not exactly a marker of liberalism) focus. That is Bloomberg to a ‘T.’
It’s not dubious at all. Bloomburg’s career has been about advancing a vision of governance wherein technocratic “experts” concoct and implement new and innovative approaches to resolving social maladies where such approaches did not previously exist. There is nothing conservative about this approach to governance. All of the prominent social maladies which Bloomburg identifies are nestled safely within the cultural assumptions of groups that correspond as progressive, and dealing with them requires significant disruption of the quality and patterns of life of established groups within the body politic — also not a conservative tendency. In terms of overarching vision and broad policy strokes, Bloomburg is indisputably acting within the progressive philosophical tradition.
It is not really relevant to discuss Bloomburg’s history with the Republican party in discussing whether he is or is not a progressive, since the Republican party (especially in the northwest) has been a more than capable vehicle for progressivism both in the past and in present.
As you often do you make good points. I do not disagree with your description of progressivism historically (I think modern day progressives, or liberals, are somewhat different, but that is not central to our discussion). Where I depart from you involves two points. The first is that early progressivism was somewhat, but not totally, affiliated with ‘good government’ movements that wanted to clean up Democratic urban machines, crime and city corruption. These ‘good government’ movements were not the sole province of progressives, but included conservatives. I think Bloomberg, Giuliani and such can be traced to this.
My second point has to do with relative points. Of course in these heavily blue, progressive areas even Republicans and conservatives will have to often take more progressive stances than conservative politicians in other regions, but they usually present themselves as the less progressive choice. If Bloomberg is a progressive then what were his many opponents? Repeat for Nelson Rockefeller, John Chafee, Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, etcetera? These were the ‘less progressive’ choices in their respective races.
-A ‘good government’ movement is just that — a movement to make government operate better within its current confines.
I think this point is the crux. This is how Bloomberg (and the others I have named) ran and represented himself. Remember, the ‘current confines’ of Northeastern urban governments that each of them came to run were quite broad.
…is banning of food items usually in keeping with current confines? I can tell you that banning trans-fats (suggested by Bloomburg) would have a huge impact on the NYC ethnic communities, and certainly would be outside the bounds of what was considered appropriate to regulate even for the Northeast.
I submit that when Reagan is offered as a ‘progressive’ then the term has essentially become ‘politicians that did not do what I wanted them to do.’
I submit that when Reagan is offered as a ‘progressive’ then the term has essentially become ‘politicians that did not do what I wanted them to do.’
Well, it’s a good thing nobody said then, isn’t it?
One could even argue that Reagan was fatally undermined by having to kow-tow to them.
Read that again, for comprehension.
“Progressive” isn’t a party – it’s an ideology. Using party affiliation as a stand-in for progressivism is moronic. All the more considering that progressivism, as Irish pointed out, once had complete ownership of the Republican party in the United States, and, as VG Zaytsev points out below, the Republican party’s standard bearer as of 5 years ago identifies himself most strongly with one of the early progressive movement’s biggest icons. I know that shilling for a TEAM is a lot easier than actually having to think, but it’s still a poor substitution.
Bush 2 wasn’t remotely a Rockefeller Republican. He was a well-meaning evangelical dunderhead who got snookered by the neocons, who are a very different animal from the RRs.
Neocons are progressives with strong religious convictions (other than the state).
“right wing trostskyites” is more fitting- world wide revolution, a permanent revolution. They come from the left and bring that bullshit with them.
McCain describes himself as a progressive Republican in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt.
I still can’t believe Eli has two Super Bowls and Peyton one.
Life is unfair. Maybe the government can do something about this injustice?
They’d take away one of John Larroqutte’s Emmys, chop of the head and give it to Peyton and call it good.
You mean like vacating all three Super Bowls? 🙂
The reason Eli has two rings and Peyton has one is because the Colts never had a defense like the Giants did in 2007 and 2011.
60 Minutes interviewing Bassar and Obama. Bassar said Obama is helping Al-Queda.
Syria defending itself from terrorists he claims; Obama supporting terrorists is what I get so far.
Obama blinks a lot.
As with most Obama interviews, he used a lot of words to really say nothing.
He was skating like Bobby Orr waiting to insert his point: People will come to see it my way. You just see, Scott.
I don’t care what his household thinks – yes, because two young children and a wife who advocates for people to drink more water (perhaps even breath more air I don’t know) are the perfect strawman to push his views.
Yeah, noticed that too. Maybe it’s a way of replacing his ‘ums’ and other stutterings.
Would be hilarious if he’d develop a facial tick.
Obama still bent on some form of military action. It’s like he has autism.
It’s not autism. It’s altruism. He has a Piece Prize you know.
“All I want is peace. Peace.
Peace!
A little piece of Libya
A little piece of Chad,
A little piece of Yemen
And Syria perchance.”
Was I supposed to put that to the tune of Mambo No. 5?
No, it’s a reference to the Mel Brooks song from Hitler’s perspective in his film To Be or Not to Be:
It goes on from there.
Springtime for Hitler!
Came very close to nailing two upsets in the Pick ‘Em league today but neither Tennessee or Tampa Bay could close. Damn it.
Did a fan’s whistle blow the play dead?
Moving our theoretical discussion about photographs down here:
I would hope it would go without saying that a website where people posted written or recorded verbal statements about their exes would be perfectly kosher, and that exes would didn’t like it would have to go pound sand.
So if an ex of Ms. Jacobs posted voluminous descriptions of her tits, or descriptions of how she would masturbate for his amusement over Skype, or something of that sort, it would just be too damn bad for her and she’d have to take it.
Or if the guy was a talented sketch artist and drew pictures of her tits from memory, again she’d be out of luck.
So what’s magical about photographs? It’s merely a more accurate version of a sketch, ultimately.
If a technology was developed that allowed direct mind-to-mind communication, and I used that technology to communicate to you my explicit memories of fucking Ms. Jacobs up the ass, would that be “cyber-rape” or plain old speech in a new technological wrapper?
To me, it’s got to be the latter. Because otherwise we’re saying that my half-ass recollections mediated via text or voice are protected speech, but my exactly and perfectly truthful recollections aren’t. And that makes no sense to me.
So in addition to being a fucking no-good Communist, you’re also an authoritarian.
If someone read that and approached the wife and purposefully ignored her protestations that she was not consenting, that person would be a rapist. And his legal jeopardy would just be the price he paid for deciding to believe that her refusal wasn’t serious and was part of a game.
But if the statement is true, the statement is true. Full stop.
So in addition to being a fucking no-good Communist, you’re also an authoritarian.
That’s the 0.5% spirit, Fluffy!
Oh come on, that was affectionate hyperbole.
You can’t provide private information to potentially dangerous people that would put another individual’s well being at risk.
If it’s my information, and it’s true, I can provide it to anyone I want or the general public at large. TIT specified that the information was true.
If it’s illegal to make true statements about my sex life with my ex wife, why isn’t it illegal to make true statements about how to build plastic explosive?
I’m providing information to potentially dangerous people that puts other individuals at risk.
In his analogy, you’re not dealing with potentially dangerous people, but obviously malicious people.
No, I’m not.
He had me publish it to the public at large. Reading his description, I imagined a random Craigslist post.
So I don’t know anything about the people reading it. Just like I don’t know anything about the people reading my description of how to make explosives.
“Explosives” is so highly generalized, so tied in with basic chemistry, and are so useful for non-violent endeavors that banning public knowledge of them would also impinging on those positive and valid uses of that knowledge. Publicize confidential plans to the atom bomb in the 50s, you have a different story…
It all comes down to reasonableness.
Likewise, the specificity of the above, ability to obtain information through other channels (‘common knowledge’), the audience it is addressed towards, and likelihood of harm (among other considerations) play into whether something is reasonable or not in terms of causing harm. As I alluded to above in reference to age of consent laws, idealized circumstances of either best-case or worst-case possibilities are not good examples of reasonableness.
As we use language to communicate to others, what are other possible reasonable interpretations of outcomes or intent from disbursing the above information on Craigslist or FB? I would argue that not many would make sense except that the person posting the above wants his ex to suffer have a negative sexual encounter with a potential reader — and if such a thing were to happen, then it would be reasonable to make this message actionable.
Publicize confidential plans to the atom bomb in the 50s, you have a different story…
No, you don’t.
This is actually a useful example.
If I was a state employee working on the Manhattan project and I stole the plans, maybe it would be espionage (depending on what you could prove about my intent).
But what if I’m just a super-genius and I figure out how to build an atom bomb because I’m just so damn smart? Can the state legitimately make it illegal to publish that information?
Nope.
It all comes down to reasonableness.
Which is to say, capriciousness. If there is one goddamn word I would love to see stricken from legislative language for the rest of eternity it is “reasonable”. What constitutes “reasonable”? At the end of the day, worst case scenario it’s what one asshole in a black robe says it is. Best case scenario, it’s what 9 assholes in black robes say it is. “Evolving standards” and all that. Well and good until standards “evolve” in a way you disagree with.
Providing information about plastic explosive would be different than saying ‘here is how you make plastic explosive. Oh, by the way, the governor will be taking the following route tomorrow. If you place plastic explosives at the following three locations and set them off at the proper time, it will destroy a bridge as he’s crossing it and he will die.’
If you provide information that clearly seems to be provided in order for someone to take advantage of it and kill someone, you’re essentially an accomplice who is giving information to someone who will actually commit the crime.
If you provide information that clearly seems to be provided in order for someone to take advantage of it and kill someone, you’re essentially an accomplice…
In your construction, no one is obligated to act upon the information, which doesn’t seem particularly unique or confidential anyway. Even in the previous construction, there is perhaps innuendo, but you’d have to do a lot of mind reading to create criminal intent. Posting embarrassing information, even when coupled with personal information, is a long way from orchestrating rape for hire.
All of which is fairly ridiculous anyway considering the original issue: voluntarily sharing crotch shots and masturbation videos with your ex who posts them on a public website, along with other already-public info like your name, address, and Facebook account that anybody at a public library with access to Google could find in 10 seconds anyway.
If you’re willing to draw liability that broadly, you have no defense against the types of people who file lawsuits against gun manufacturers as accessories to murders carried out with their wares.
So what I’m getting from this is that for every human interaction I have with anyone about any potentially sensitive subject, I should have a legal document on hand to ensure that any information disclosed does not constitute an open invitation to publicize said information to rapists, thieves, or murderers. As the good anonbot says, Sounds like a solid plan to me dude, lol.
Doctrinaire libertarians don’t like to compromise with reality. The lefties do have a point about it being easy to be principled and consistent when you don’t actually have to govern.
Say Ron Paul had become president by some miracle. Say Congress was totally on board with ending the drug war, having a balanced budget, ending the wars overseas, ending Social Security and Medicare, freeing the Gitmo prisoners, but refused to get rid of the income tax. Should Ron Paul cross his arms and refuse to do shit until he gets every libertarian policy implemented?
Should Ron Paul cross his arms and refuse to do shit until he gets every libertarian policy implemented?
Nope.
But if he’s sitting around talking about shit, and some Congressman says, “Hey, we gave you all those other points, can’t you just be a pal and admit that the income tax is great?” I’d expect him to still say “Nope.”
Because they’re having a theoretical discussion.
Doctrinaire libertarians don’t like to compromise with reality.
That is because reality never compromises. Reality knows that it will always win in the end.
What you should be getting from it is that the information created by or arising from any human interaction you have isn’t just your information. It’s the other person’s information too.
And you can’t expect to bind the other person’s use of their information in ways that are convenient for you.
So, when Google hands over your emails to the NSA….
My user agreement with Google is executed in the United States.
That means I’m entitled to assume that it will operate under the laws of the United States, including the Constitution.
The Constitution allows Google to share my information with any other private citizen, if I don’t have their explicit agreement not to do that (and I do). It does not allow the federal government to force Google to turn my information over to them, without a judicial warrant issued on the basis of probable cause. (At least, by my reading of the Constitution.)
Like many people, you mistake my 4th Amendment right to be protected from the state with some sort of general right to protect my “privacy” from people with whom I’ve voluntarily shared information. (Like naked photos of myself.)
The constitution doesn’t prevent Google from sharing the information with the feds without being forced to.
The constitution doesn’t prevent Google from sharing the information with the feds without being forced to.
As soon as the feds have punished anyone anywhere ever for not sharing information with them in a timely way, they are (to my mind) barred from claiming that any interaction they have with a citizen is non-coercive, forever, or until the government falls, whichever comes first.
In other words, once the purge begins, Stalin does not get to claim that any of his informers came forward of their own volition.
Sorry, that’s one thing that sucks about being the state. It’s the one instance of true group moral responsibility and guilt that’s durable and heritable.
Well, there’s the Constitution and Fluffy’s idea of what the Constitution should be.
You know I’ve always been skeptical about whether the 4th amendment really prohibits warrantless wiretapping (SCOTUS didn’t think so for the first 90 years of the telephone). Definitely not homes or persons, effects really doesn’t apply, so you’re hinging your hopes on “papers’. Which is a stretch, needless to say.
Definitely not homes or persons, effects really doesn’t apply, so you’re hinging your hopes on “papers’. Which is a stretch, needless to say.
No it isn’t.
The purpose of “papers” is to record and transmit words or images.
Therefore, any technological advance which supplies us with additional means of recording and transmitting words and images falls under “papers”.
Saying that a voice recording is no longer a “paper” is like saying that a building built out of steel is no longer a house.
The purpose of “papers” is to record and transmit words or images.
“papers” meant “records” and “personal documents” in 1789 as it does now, including woodcuts, parchments, or stone tablets. It didn’t apply to communications.
The purpose of spoken conversation is to transmit words, and that is plainly not protected by the 4th amendment (jailhouse snitch testimony etc.)
Except we’re talking about the records of such communications and you know it. Tapping into communications in progress is a different issue, though one that’s also been coming up (with fed “requests” to tap directly into communications).
If they have records of communications, those are just as protected as records of name, age, sex, etc. If the gov wants a piece of information they need a warrant, except they’ve decided with secret decisions in secret courts (now a bit less secret) that they don’t have to, which is the main problem here.
“papers” meant “records” and “personal documents” in 1789…including woodcuts, parchments, or stone tablets. It didn’t apply to communications.
Wow. I’m not sure which the founders would be more surprised to hear: that “papers” didn’t refer to any type of personal correspondence, or that woodcuts, parchments, and stone tablets are not “communications”. We are through the looking glass here, people.
Seriously, in all of your fascist apologia for government spying, that may possibly be the most retarded thing you’ve ever managed to pound out on a keyboard. You’re getting to Tony levels of Poe’s law at this point.
“papers” meant “records” and “personal documents” in 1789
Dude. Letters.
All those assholes walked around with like a giant IM history in their ‘papers and personal documents’. And you telling the missus what you want to do to her is most certainly personal.
It was how they had conversations, including private personal conversations. What other ‘personal documents’ do you think people are even going to have? It was their only means of remote communications. You think everyone was walking around with reams of TPS reports in 1789?
So, when Google hands over your emails to the NSA….
That still isn’t even remotely the same thing, and has no analogy to this discussion. Your unbelievably superficial understanding of two completely unconnected issues doesn’t make them any more connected.
So, when Google hands over your emails to the NSA….
That still isn’t even remotely the same thing, and has no analogy to this discussion. Your unbelievably superficial understanding of two completely unconnected issues doesn’t make them any more connected.
So what I’m getting from this is that for every human interaction I have with anyone about any potentially sensitive subject, I should have a legal document on hand…
You also have the option of not being a moron and sharing sensitive personal information willy nilly. You even retain the option of being butthurt when that sensitive information is made public and embarrasses you. Your shitty personal decisions are much of a case for putting a gun to the rest of society’s head though, if that’s what you’re asking.
*aren’t much of a case…
Not sure if today’s message via the libertarian decoder ring was that today’s your day to play the role of Aggrieved Internet Libertarian, but this really has nothing to do with you or me — stop trying to personalize and hyperbolize it; you’re sounding like a Jezebel poster.
One hardly needs to share information “willy nilly”; if you’re in a bad divorce or a relationship that goes awry, it’s very easy to ruin the life of a friend or co-worker through the internet if you are that sort of person. Fortunately most people are mature enough not to stoop so low, but for the ones who do there is definitely a potential tort for them. That is how it works now, and that is how it should work. When others make themselves agents in another person’s revenge scheme and this results in actual harm, both parties should be held accountable. Free speech has never been held as protecting criminals who tell their victims “your money or your life”; likewise it should not spare a person from incitement of criminal harm.
and that is how it should work.
Citation needed.
I think there’s a difference between posting a photo, and posting the address/phone number. I can’t quite put my finger on where the line is, though.
I just got back from Mount Vernon. It’s about 90 minute drive for me, first time there, although I have often thought about going down. What a beautiful day on the banks of the Potomac, today. 75 degrees and sunny. Perfect day.
Anyway, I’m into history a lot, but I never really studied that much about Washington. After being there today and listening to the guides and touring the little museum there, I haven’t made up my mind if Washington was a libertarian or a statist. The guy could have been king and willingly gave up power. He freed his slaves upon his death, or gave Martha the power to do so, anyway. So, couple of possible libertarian points there. But then there are the troubling things like the whiskey rebellion, which seemed to me like a very early form of cronyism backed up by force. The jury is still out for me, Washington; libertarian or statist?
I don’t think Washington was a libertarian, but he deserves every accolade because he gave up power twice. He could have used the army to seize power but instead resigned his command, and he could have held the presidency for the rest of his life if he wanted to but instead refused to run for a third term.
Can you imagine Nixon or Obama ever voluntarily conceding power?
Can you imagine Obama’s supporters ever voluntarily conceding power?
They wouldn’t allow it.
So, basically the plot of Dave?
Can you imagine Nixon or Obama ever voluntarily conceding power?
No. That’s why I am giving Washington some libertarian points for that alone. Well and the fact that he, at least according to some sources, would have freed the slaves if he could have, but knew that it was impossible at the time. But he still at least freed his(after he obviously wouldn’t need them anymore). Better late than never, I guess.
I don’t think he was a libertarian either. I tend to think of Jefferson more when I think of the founders being libertarian.
My favorite (and only) quote from GW.
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
-George Washington
Government is not nice. It’s not warm and fuzzy. Everything it does is predicated on a real threat of violence. He understood this and knew how it could be abused and corrupted. Was he a libertarian? I dunno. But he understood some of the principles upon which libertarian thought is founded.
Government is not nice. It’s not warm and fuzzy
Yes, but it could be, if only we get the right people this time.
/progressives
Unfortunately, probably not a Washington quote. Still a good one.
What about the Louisiana Purchase?
That was Jefferson.
I know. I was responding to Hyperion’s last sentence. I probably should have quoted it in my reply.
continue.
I’m mixed on the whiskey rebellion. The revolution left the new government with a lot of debt. They had to pay it somehow. So they taxed liquor. In fact, up to Prohibition, and the income tax that enabled it, liquor taxes were the the federal government’s major source of revenue. I’m mixed because while taxing liquor made a criminal out of anyone who distilled without permission, it was still a tax that could be avoided. How? Don’t drink liquor. What should they have taxed instead to pay for the war debt?
Yeah, but my problem with that… is it just a coincidence that Washington was one of the biggest whiskey distillers in the nation? His biggest source of income may have been whiskey.
The small guys couldn’t afford the tax and it drove many of them out of business. When they rebelled, Washington went after them. That just reeks of cronyism.
Farmers would convert the grain or corn that they didn’t sell into whiskey so it wouldn’t go bad. Then they sold that whiskey or used it as currency. Pretty much every farm had a still. It was ubiquitous. At that time we were a nation of drunks. Seriously. I doubt it was an effort by Washington to put his competition out of business by volunteering to be taxed. I think it was one of those “Hey, we gotta tax something to pay for this debt, and whiskey is everywhere. Let’s tax it” kind of things. But I could be wrong.
Well, I don’t know either. I need to do some research into this.
Nope. Typical (Proto-)Progressive bullshit:
Wasn’t it also Hamilton, who argued for the existence of a powerful central bank, against Jefferson, and won out?
This was interesting. I’m signing off. Hasta!
At least Washington had the stones to personally lead the troops used to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. Can you see any modern President personally leading troops in the field?
Can you see any modern President personally leading troops in the field?
I’m actually glad they don’t, as I’m sure their subordinates are as well. What a disaster that would be.
What should they have taxed instead to pay for the war debt?
Tea?
plus ca change…
If he hadn’t put down the Whiskey Rebellion that would have undermined the federal government, and the Constitution, at its very beginning.
Yep.
Yeah, but why whisky, Washingtons biggest cash cow?
He was independently wealthy. He didn’t need to tax his competition out of business. Especially since he understood the true nature of government as evidenced by that quote.
Well, I don’t even know what was the extent of his involvement in passing the tax. But you know, these are the kinds of questions that come to mind for a libertarian.
Many of our politicians today are independently wealthy. Does that stop them from trying to fuck with anyone and everyone? Nope.
Today’s politicians are opportunistic pieces of shit who were corrupt before they even began to seek out political power. My limited understanding of Washington is that he was more of a right guy at the right time kind of deals. But I could be wrong.
The way I see it is, and I know many will say it’s overly optimistic, is that when libertarians finally gain control of some somewhere at some future time, that we take what the founders did right, and learn from their mistakes. Maybe next time, we can have a truly free society for more than 200 years before the statists ruin it again.
Libertarians will never gain control because people who abhor the abuse of power generally aren’t the kinds of people who seek out power. That’s the libertarian conundrum. How do you put power into the hands of people who don’t want it?
Eh. All governments have sell-by dates; I predict that whoever the next Madison is, he or she will be far too contextualized in his own cultural and political milieu to account for all possible abuses.
When it comes down to it, every human has been endowed with a brain more powerful than any computer on the planet –and a substantial number of them dedicate their brainpower to figuring out ways to circumvent government and game the system. As any MMORPG player can attest to, the ingenuity of the user base is as much a boon as it is a frustration in developing a system that players can use without abusing. What is remarkable is not that government fails; it is that government manages to work at all.
What is remarkable is not that government fails; it is that government manages to work at all.
I dunno. When you’ve got the monopoly on initiating violence without consequence you do have a distinct advantage.
Well, this is interesting:
The whiskey tax was repealed after Thomas Jefferson’s Republican Party, which opposed Hamilton’s Federalist Party, came to power in 1801
I am still thinking that Jefferson was the real libertarian among our founders.
And to think, the only elected libertarians today in our federal government, are in a party with the same name.
The one who tried to convict Aaron Burr of treason on fabricated evidence (and only one witness). The one who got us involved in a North African war without a declaration of war from Congress? Without getting into his own slaveholding.
The one who got us involved in a North African war without a declaration of war from Congress?
This is a neo-con lie. Jefferson did consult with and get authorization from Congress to conduct war against the barbary pirates.
Hey Tulpy-poo! Did you notice that I agreed with you? In public? That’s because I will acknowledge when someone is right, even if I don’t like them. Neat, huh?
Good for you. Pick up your cookie on the way to the Go Fuck Yourself level exit.
I really miss having the opportunity to point out your straw men and goalpost moving during the week. Normally I leave the weekend HyR alone, but now that I know you stink the place up on weekends I just might have to make a point of pointing out your shit!
There are cookies? Macadamia-chocolate chip?
To be a libertarian, I guess, one must not raise any taxes and if one does one should let people get away with not paying them.
And apparently, you don’t even know what the conversation is about.
Shhh! He’s got the straw man on the ropes!
May hap or may hap not ol George was bangin some saucy breedin hips when Martha was busy in the sewin room, don’t have no bearins on whether he was libertarian, or not!
Are you kidding? The breedin’ hips controversy is one of the biggest and most argued in libertarian thought. I refer you, sir, to the several debates between Misters sarcasmic and John. The ideas presented form the schwerpunkt of modern libertarian thought.
No, you don’t have to remind me of that. If I were George, I would have banged all of the saucy breedin hips. I’m with John on this one. (;
It was sort of funny today down at Mount Vernon, because it’s the one day they have their tent markets, and there were lots of people hanging around dressed for the period, mid/late 1700s.
I noted how the women wore dresses that exaggerate the hell out of their hips and scrunch down their waist.
I told wife that being a guy back then and actually having to marry a woman to see what’s under there would suck, because how can you tell if she has a nice ass, or not?
They must have had ways.
Did you know Washington was a great dancer? Women lined up to dance with him at parties and social functions.
And a painter. He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon, two coats!
I did read something about that in the museum.
I was surprised also to see that the guy was 6′ 2″. I think people were a lot shorter back then, so he must have been very tall.
Motherfucker had, like, 20 dicks.
I just think, reading about him, he was a true reluctant leader. A genius mind but a pragmatic one immune to ideology. Able to adjust with the times. That sort of thing.
This has got to be a record for number of games postponed by lightning in one season.
“My ex was a total nympho who was really into surprise sex and rape fantasies when I was with her. She really liked not knowing where our sexual encounters were going, and insisted that her male partner be dominant, so much so that she would get annoyed if I’d ask her if she wanted to have sex and tell me to “just get on with it”. She lives on XXX Maplethorpe St, her number is 555-555-5555, and she keeps a key in a potted plant to the left of the door. I hope the next guy she’s with has as much fun with that information as I did :)”
MNG, is that you?
Just to fan the flames, what if the hypothetical former boyfriend truthfully tells the world at large, “She was really into getting it on with random strangers, singly or in groups; we used to go to X’s parties. You might even see her there. What if some lonely perv sees that, goes to the party and hooks up with her and they have the BEST SEX EVER? What if they drive all night to Vegas and get married by an Elvis impersonator and live happily ever after?
I always wondered how your mom and dad got together.
You’d be surprised how lucrative the wedding chapel racket is. A preacher, a witness, and an Elvis suit.
WHAT?
Maher Gets Bill Nye to Explain Science to Republicans Like They’re Children
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/mah…..-children/
You’re fucking stupid, really, do you know that?
Don’t get him angry. He gets really homophobic when he’s angry.
Yeah, but I’m not gay, so I don’t care.
I think his favorite activity must be wearing some sort of team blue cheerleader outfit while he worships his life size O statue.
Except I get things right. It must really piss you off.
Yes, not caring at all about your stupid team blue cheerleading really enrages me. You’re a joke. Don’t you have some old Obama speeches that you are dying to watch just one more time, so that you can get that old tingle up your leg?
So bashing Team Blue is the only thing allowed here?
We have a major party in the GOP that is openly hostile to science like many Dems are to guns. Both are problems.
We bash team red here all of the time, you disingenuous asshole.
Now, go fuck yourself, you idiot.
You’re only mad at Team Red for letting Bloomberg join them.
McCain, Graham, Boehner, McConnell, Romney, and Bush…yeah when does anyone here criticize the Republicans?
Don’t even waste your time, Irish; he doesn’t argue in good faith. He’s here just to fling shit.
Instead, enjoy this video of a dog twerking.
That twerkin’ dog was hilarious.
Palin’s Buttplug| 9.15.13 @ 10:11PM |#
“So bashing Team Blue is the only thing allowed here?”
Asshole, I’m sure there’s a reading comprehension course in some adult ed program near you.
You should try it; you might not look so stupid.
So bashing Team Blue is the only thing allowed here?
Oh hai! You must be new here! Yeah, we only bash on TEAM Evil! Never mind those posts where the commentors lay into Boehner, McCain, Graham, Romney, BOOOOOSSSSHHHH, Cheney. They were just provocateurs from HuffPo.
We have a major party in the GOP that is openly hostile to science
Failure to cut a big enough check for chicken-neck Nye to stare out into space is “open hostility to science”?
I learn new things every day.
so the pro science libs are in favor of:
ending the DDT ban?
Nuclear Power?
*gasp* have an honest discussion about IQ?
admit that there are diffences between men and women? and these differences may reflect themselves in the marketplace, like an income disparity?
make up their mind on global cooling/global warming/climate change/climate chaos?
They are not scientific-they are a priorist, there is a difference.
Palin’s Buttplug| 9.15.13 @ 10:03PM |#
“Except I get things right.”
On the tenth try or so.
Are you so stupid you think no one notices your constant mendacity?
I love his Rethuglicans hate science thing he’s got going now.
Next thing, he’ll hold up an example of a Dem, Al Gore, being the greatest scientist of modern times.
But here’s the thing, even if the GOP hates science meme were true, I couldn’t give a shit less as I’m not a scientist working in the public sector; however the truth that Democrats hate economics effects us all. It unjustly takes food out of my kid’s mouth to fund the vainglorious boondoggles of Washington.
I’d have no problem if the Democrats wanted more science spending and were willing to cut the shit out of social security, SNAP, public pensions or Medicare.
Social security pensions and Medicare are the primary drivers of our debt and half of all SNAP spending goes to sugary drinks and colas, which sort of refutes the idea that SNAP is necessary to keep people from starving. If we gutted these unnecessary programs that have no effect but to rob the American public, we could spend a shitload more on science, infrastructure and ROADS!
Those are the things liberals claim to care so much about, but they won’t willingly get rid of any other funding to finance these things. They must not really care much about science if a total mess like SNAP takes precedence.
It’s part of science, socially engineering people to agree with them and act like sheep, that is.
If the government cuts funding for finite element method research, the damage to the human race would be incalculable. And not just because it depends on solving a hyperbolic PDE.
Fine. I don’t know about that topic, but legitimate scientific research is fine by me.
It’s the fact that liberals always want to spend more money on science while refusing to cut funding to anything else that aggravates me. They complain about the lack of spending on science or infrastructure while actively supporting the parts of government that cost so much as to crowd out spending on the things government actually should do.
Look at Detroit. The pension spending and taxes forced Detroit to cut spending to important things like police, road maintenance and working street lights. This caused the people of Detroit to spend more and more money for diminishing services which further forced wealthy people out of the city and sent them into a death spiral. By the same token, most of our spending goes to direct wealth transfers which crowds out other sorts of spending that might have a more positive impact on human welfare.
That was supposed to be a joke — it was my area of research, for which I had to apply for several NSF grants over the years.
Not sure if serious….
I wasn’t sure if he was serious either. Sarcasm doesn’t transfer over the internet well.
Since I have no idea what the fuck finite element method research is, I just decided to go with it.
You never get things right, though. Remember when you ignorantly used the term “historical criticism” incorrectly? Remember how you gnashed your teeth and wailed when I pointed that out?
And every single time I expose your lack of education, ignorance, and stupidity, you can only muster violent homophobic slurs.
You’re a sad little man not even worth a modicum of pity or empathy.
He’s also using Bill Maher, a man who doesn’t believe in vaccination or that germs make us sick, and Bill Nye, a man whose preferred policies would cripple worldwide economic growth and consign billions to poverty due to his fear of climate change, as examples of the ‘pro-science’ side.
Two real luminaries right there.
Listen, the only “science” that counts is “climate science” and whatever theory that says fetuses are a-ok with getting scrapped out of uteri.
Everything else is patriarchal, racist, othering.
…”and Bill Nye, a man whose preferred policies would cripple worldwide economic growth and consign billions to poverty due to his fear of climate change, as examples of the ‘pro-science’ side.”
When Nye stuck to science, he was wonderful. When he decided that, as a celebrity, he could pitch policies ‘way beyond his expertise, he became an idiot.
When he decided that, as a celebrity, he could pitch policies ‘way beyond his expertise…
Much of what he’s been pitching since his career in the public view has been “way beyond his expertise”. He’s a fucking mechanical engineering undergrad with a few years at Boeing under his belt. What in the name of Jehuty made him the arbiter of all things science, let alone a climate science expert, has always escaped me. His TV show was geared to elementary students. A high school grad with a couple of elective science credits and a lab coat could have put together the same thing. His personality and enthusiasm made the show, not his mind-blowing scientific expertise.
but one of his profs was Carl Sagan. he’s a demi-god.
Nye was a Boeing engineer before he was a kiddie show host. I bet he made a pretty penny off the military-industrial complex, the fucking hypocrite.
What Bill is saying is that his friends in the aerospace industry need to get their beaks wet a little, and they don’t want to go through the bother of learning Mandarin Chinese.
Every failure in society, everywhere, for all time of time, past and future, is ALWAYS a failure to spend enough.
/proggies
Nothing says ‘I’m pro-science’ like talking about science with someone who doesn’t believe in germ theory. Maher also doesn’t believe in vaccines.
It seems to me that if Bill Nye was actually interested in attacking a science denier, as opposed to ranting and raving in favor of his chosen climate change policies, he could do a better job by explaining science to Bill Maher.
George Stephanopoulos asks Obama about “Assad must go.” Obama doesn’t give a fuck, keeps on lying.
US drones can tell the difference between fighters and infants?
Actually, they probably can, with the advances in pattern recognition.
The shrapnel and incendiaries from the Hellfire missile probably can’t, though.
Actually, they probably can, with the advances in pattern recognition
Hey, look at this digital tape here of the drone strike.
Hey, look at those tiny feet, and that tiny head over there! Those must have been infants!
Wow, good that we know that, now it’s all better for the parents of the dead babies. Team Murika, FUCK YEAH!
Beat me to it.
But, you know, it’s the great and benevolent one who’s calling those drone strikes. So, you know, if we kill a few chillins by accident, it was for all the right reasons, and that makes it all better.
Drone pilots rack up more points for infants, as they are smaller, harder to hit targets.
Almost as hard as bulls-eying womprats in your T-16.
I thought senior citizens scored the most points?
(sorry for explaining the joke, Generic Strangler)
Stephanopoulos needs to pull out a dictionary and go after the definition of “go”, like he did with “tax”.
Make up your fucking mind – do you want airstrikes on Syria or not?
Because a politician evading a question happens about once a minute.
what we can do is make sure that the worst weapons, the indiscriminate weapons that don’t distinguish between a soldier and an infant, are not used.
Unlike bombs and bullets that have consciousness and can distinguish between a soldier and infant.
Bush 2 wasn’t remotely a Rockefeller Republican.
You don’t think Compassionate Conservatism is largely synonymous with Rockefeller Republican do-gooderism?
Well, it’s true that the various statist philosophies share much in common. But insofar as they can be distinguished, CC and RR aren’t really the same thing. Gerry Ford would never have endorsed invading Iraq or pushing abstinence training.
Bush is a prog, just like Obama and McCain.
Where is everyone? Seems early for our west coaster and Canuckistanian amigos to abandon ship.
You Know Who Else abandoned ship?
A Tamil boy from Pondicherry?
+1 Richard Parker
Palin’s Buttplug| 9.15.13 @ 10:23PM |#
“You’re only mad at Team Red for letting Bloomberg join them.”
Here is the archetype of the ‘big lie’.
Asshole repeats the lie constantly, in the hopes that it will somehow be accepted.
There is no better example; Goebbels would be pleased and asshole would be proud if it got traction.
Hey, asshole! Go suck your daddy’s dick! No one is buying your bullshit!
Why isn’t NLF rewind working yet? All of the Sunday games are over. WTF?
NLF, are you french?
no wait, that’s LNF
you’re just drunk
carry on.
Did you just out yourself as a member of the Viet Cong?
Charlie don’t surf!
“progressives” haven’t merely “strayed into racism”. It’s part and parcel of their whole nasty world view, starting with their campaign to wipe out the plains indians, and their plan to ship all the freedmen to Africa once they’d conquered the southern states. Even today, it’s the “progressives” who insist that racial discrimination must be maintained as an official policy, due to their unshakable belief that blacks can’t improve their lives without nannies to tell them what to do.
-jcr
WARNING: Do not watch this video unless you are willing to face the reality of the kind of barbarians we are dealing with when we deal with the Muslim Middle East.
There she is, Miss America
Not bad, not bad at all. Indian girls can be so beautiful.
But the real story is…wait for it…wait for it…RACIST TWEETS.
Huh… First Miss America I’ve cared to look at since Vanessa Williams.
-jcr