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If people had as much concern for their right to property as they did for their right to freedom of speech, we'd all be free. Shayne

It's just hyperbole. It's not. If you exercise free speech and are shot, you call it fascism, but if you exercise property rights and are shot, you call it "hyperbole" to point it out. Something is wrong with you. Shayne

By and large, I agree with this characterization, but I'm puzzled as to when you are shot. Do you mean literally shot? You are shot when you don't submit to the judge's order to yield your property for daring to violate their fascist regulations. You know this already subconsciously. Every regulation is ultimately backed up by a death threat, payable on your demand that your rights be respected. Shayne

If you want civity, be civil. --Brant I want civility in my definition of it, not yours. Shayne

Nope, not rhetorical at all. They're directly related to your assertion - and reality. They have to be answered or your principle is just another 'floating abstraction'. Bob How about we just agree that your mode of thought appears just as strange to me as mine does to you. Shayne - Principled people are from Mars, pragmatists are from Venus.

It went through the door long ago. What do you think fascism is, swastikas and gas chambers? That's not what it is at all. It's intensive control over the economy from a top down dictatorship, and if you step out of line, you are shot. That is what we are living in. So why aren't people getting killed all the time? Because they OBEY. They SUBMIT. Which is quite prudent of course. But if they acted as free men, they would be shot. You see no one getting shot so you think there is no fascism, as if you wouldn't see slavery if no slaves complained or tried to escape. But slaves know the principle of the hidden gun, at least subconsciously: it's there waiting to be used, and so they OBEY and SUBMIT. Shayne

Not only would I point the gun, I'd pull the trigger. Brant, what more evidence do you need? Shayne So, you're disagreeing with pulling the trigger on a thief? That wasn't the scenario. Does your perversion of basic communication know no bounds? Are you aware that you are perverting, or just utterly incompetent? Shayne

And the absurdity of your rejection is eclipsed only by its immaturity. "Innocent" individual. Well, who decides on his innocence? Or is this 'principled' philosophical innocence that is axiomatic and self-evident? Peaceful? In words or in actions? Can he libel you? Who decides what is libelous? Can he call you a dishonest moron with impunity? Bob It is interesting that Bob asks his questions rhetorically. He believes no answer to these questions exist, and that because there are no answers, then that justifies his brutish authoritarianism. For him, impossibility of knowledge is his God. He is the pragmatist who actually knows the principle underlying his pragmatism. What a specimen. Shayne - Brant: Does he have to have "fascist" tattooed on his forehead?

Not only would I point the gun, I'd pull the trigger. Brant, what more evidence do you need? Shayne

Doesn't elucidate to me why you think it's civilized to be polite to unapologetic fascists. Shayne

What do you have against apt names? It's called A is A. Shayne - Not sure what it is you want me to do.

"You are so blinded by some kind of pathological anti-authoritarian bias ..." I guess we should ask Bob how much ass-kissing boot-licking of authority is a "healthy" amount. It's not a mere "bias" Bob, it's a worldview. I reject any and all claims of authority over an innocent individual that they did not consent to. The individual is sovereign so long as he is peaceful. Shayne

Every time I think I've grasped the depth of your stupidity you demonstrate new lows... Shayne

Selene, I think you're blaming me for your poor sense of humor and taste. If you want to know what kind of humor makes me laugh, here's a sample: Shayne

I have no idea what you are talking about Selene. Regarding my use of this phrase, neither it seems does Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia....a_spade_a_spade Edit: I stand somewhat corrected regarding the last para of this. Shayne

Also Brant, you should be lecturing GHS about civility, not me. He brazenly proceeds in bad faith, whereas I consistently deal in terms of rational argument. And then I point this out, and I am gagged. And yet you're mad at me because I call a spade a spade. Shayne

Politeness is a virtue when people deal in terms of reason. When they threaten initiation of force or justify the initiation of force, then they've crossed the line. They started the incivility, and it is uncivil to return politeness to them when in fact they are criminals or apologists of criminals. So my view Brant is that you are the one who is not being civil here. Shayne

It's not a stretch. A spade's a spade. Why do you think there is so much fascism if it's not because of fascists? An environment where you can't call a spade a spade is conducive to only one thing: evil. So that's why we have so many politeness-mongers running amok. Note how much politeness-mongering there is in the Federalized public education system. Everyone's opinion counts, and you're just supposed to politely entertain vile nonsense. Bob is OK with threatening two parties in a consensual transaction with deadly force. He may not be aware that that's what he's doing, but that's not my issue, it's his (I think he is quite aware actually). He points a gun and tells people what they can and can't do, according to his own ignorant opinions on what the standard ought to be, ignoring a proper standard based on individual rights. I see this in a flash from his sputtering and am outraged by it. You should be too. When the human race finally grows up, then tyranny will be quelled. And it will be kept at bay by sternly calling a spade a spade. It won't be kept at bay by being nice and polite to it. You think I'm apoplectic as a character trait, when really the issue is that I'm responding to matters that should rile any actually rights-respecting person up. I'm only different in that I actually have a deep respect for rights, I can see the long-term beneficial consequences of respecting rights and the insidious harm of violating them. I respond to injustice in kind. So I've explained why righteous indignation is virtuous. Please explain why you think it's not. Shayne

Actually I said he was a fascist troll. Anyone who defends fascism is a fascist, whether they admit it to themselves or not. Shayne

Revealing. Thanks for that post. Rand was a moralist. She didn't see things primarily in economic terms but in terms of rights. This is the only proper way to frame these economic issues. Shayne

"If you're not angry, then you're not paying attention." Shayne

It's interesting that you're more upset by the insults than by the bizarre illogic of my "opponents." And they're still at it. They continue to try to argue that the interposition between buyer and seller is either not really there (even though it's plainly obvious that it is), or that even if it is there, it is of no consequence (thereby rejecting a key free market tenet, and also, ignoring the real-life example I gave). They are fascist trolls or patsies. A true free market defender would focus not on how one might be able to get around the regulations (and deluding themselves that one can when one can't), but on their injustice. Their machinations are aimed at only one thing: keeping the status quo in place. Shayne

What is economic regulation? It is central control of business property by a dictatorship. The owners of the business can't actually dictate what they do with their own property. They aren't permitted to trade value for value without meddling by the dictatorship. This is Ayn Rand's definition of fascism. The aspect I'm highlighting here is that it's also "one neck ready for one leash" corporatism. And of course we all know -- or should know -- that fascism and corporatism go hand in hand. Regulatory burden on the market is a more severe hit on weak and small businesses than on big ones. This makes as such regulation a de facto prop to big business. Now, occasionally, they purposefully lighten the burden on small business in order to prevent killing them altogether (e.g., employment law is written in terms of businesses over so many employees vs. under so many), but that's a pragmatic affair and only blunts the pain to a limited degree. Without these pragmatic hacks we'd see an even worse tendency toward bigger and bigger business. Shayne

Because up until this last post you hadn't said anything idiotic, you'd just pointed out a few factual issues. Of course, you reversed course here, but even here you haven't been obnoxious. It's clearly illegal for them to raise money in the manner fitting to their business values. To submit to an SEC-approved approach would clearly cause a substantive change to their business and violate their core values. So yes, this is having a severe effect on this particular plan of theirs, and if someone had a business idea where this kind of plan was integral to the business, then it would kill the business. I have no idea how to explain why this is so difficult for you people to comprehend other than something like mental retardation, bad motives, or a mind that is so corrupted by fascism that you honestly can't grasp what I'm saying. It reminds me of when I went to the city to see about what kind of shed I was permitted to build on my property. They said it had to be 3' from my house. Given my yard layout, that was very inconvenient. I knew it wouldn't do any good, but I asked why. They said maybe my shed would burn down. But my garage stores precisely the same things I was going to put in the shed, and is constructed in the same way. So that answer was obviously asinine. I asked the guy "Forget about the rules for a second. Do you think this makes any sense? I know, I still have to obey the rules. But human being to human being -- do you think it's right?" He looked like a deer in headlights. All he could do is repeat the rules to me. He had absolutely no idea what I had just said or why I would say it. He was the perfect bureaucrat/slave. That's what you people are. Something has been completely corrupted in your brains and you simply can't comprehend. It's rather amazing. Shayne

Merlin, you deny a key free market tenet: controls breed controls, with insidious untoward consequences. Your fascist system interposes itself between buyer and seller, prohibiting the free market from functioning naturally. You justify this with unprincipled presumptions about what creative people can come up with. This is all clear to an actually principled supporter of the free market and shouldn't have to be explained in this forum. So it is not my motives that are in question here, it's yours. Shayne