Crony Capitalism

[BaalChatzaf]

20 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Act as if you are free. Our local, state and national governments won't be able to keep up with you. They're just traffic you go around.

--Brant

What should one do at tax-time?

[Wolf DeVoon]

13 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Act as if you are free. Our local, state and national governments won't be able to keep up with you. They're just traffic you go around.

--Brant

Agreed, defacto anarchy, complicated by women and children.

[Peter]

Wolf wrote: Agreed, defacto anarchy, complicated by women and children. end quote

Joke. You traditionally mention an obligation to spouse and children like a good caveman.

But no Wolf, ‘Planned’ Anarchy is an anti concept. Rational Anarchism has a fundamental flaw: The question is whether multiple agencies (including individuals or the will of individuals combined) have final authority to decide when the use of force is legitimate and when it is not. This is the freedom to which Rational Anarchism refers. Traditionally known as the right of sovereignty, it means that any individual or agency can do what it sees fit without anyone’s permission. And, given the principle of personal sovereignty, it means every individual can claim to possess the same authority as any other individual or agency. But, one private agency can, and will eventually, overrule the decision of any other private agency, which traditionally means living in strife and fear.

Constitutional Government supplies longevity and surety of rights for a group of law abiding citizens. Under a rational, rights orientated Constitutional Government, you the contrarian don’t need to formally agree to being governed by those rules. You may continue to express opposition as you would under a system of *no government*. You may express physical opposition as you would under a system of *no government* but the law will fight back, as would individuals in anarchy. Under a system of *no government* you would, sooner not later, receive opposition to your actions. You may have or be part of your “personal defense agency”, for it to do your bidding. The difference is that I agree to be governed, and my defense agency is better than your defense agency.

So under your rational anarchism I have a right to support my defense mechanism and that is a Constitutional Government and its agencies, including the local sheriff who we the people elect and the Army and Navy who our tax dollars support. You should just fight back to the extent you feel is necessary, and accept the consequences. That’s the same as it would be under Rational Anarchism.     

Peter

From Rand’s “The Nature of Government,” The Virtue of Selfishness, page 114: Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals - that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government - that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizens’ protection against the government. end quote

H. Pitkin in “The American Political Science Review,” (1966), Obligation and Consent-II wrote: The theory of hypothetical consent of the governed holds that one's obligation to obey government depends on whether the government is such that one ought to consent to it, or whether the people, if placed in a state of nature without government, would agree to said government. end quote

[Peter]

This got me thinking about idealization of the anti concept of *anarchy*.

Peter  

Some snips from “America's Second Civil War,” by Dennis Prager Posted: Jan 24, 2017 12:01 AM: It is time for our society to acknowledge a sad truth: America is currently fighting its second Civil War. In fact, with the obvious and enormous exception of attitudes toward slavery, Americans are more divided morally, ideologically and politically today than they were during the Civil War. For that reason, just as the Great War came to be known as World War I once there was World War II, the Civil War will become known as the First Civil War when more Americans come to regard the current battle as the Second Civil War. This Second Civil War, fortunately, differs in another critically important way: It has thus far been largely nonviolent. But given increasing left-wing violence, such as riots, the taking over of college presidents' offices and the illegal occupation of state capitols, nonviolence is not guaranteed to be a permanent characteristic of the Second Civil War.

There are those on both the left and right who call for American unity. But these calls are either naive or disingenuous. Unity was possible between the right and liberals, but not between the right and the left. Liberalism -- which was anti-left, pro-American and deeply committed to the Judeo-Christian foundations of America; and which regarded the melting pot as the American ideal, fought for free speech for its opponents, regarded Western civilization as the greatest moral and artistic human achievement and viewed the celebration of racial identity as racism -- is now affirmed almost exclusively on the right and among a handful of people who don't call themselves conservative.

The left, however, is opposed to every one of those core principles of liberalism. Like the left in every other country, the left in America essentially sees America as a racist, xenophobic, colonialist, imperialist, warmongering, money-worshipping, moronically religious nation. Just as in Western Europe, the left in America seeks to erase America's Judeo-Christian foundations. The melting pot is regarded as nothing more than an anti-black, anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic meme. The left suppresses free speech wherever possible for those who oppose it, labeling all non-left speech "hate speech." To cite only one example, if you think Shakespeare is the greatest playwright or Bach is the greatest composer, you are a proponent of dead white European males and therefore racist.

Without any important value held in common, how can there be unity between left and non-left? Obviously, there cannot. There will be unity only when the left vanquishes the right or the right vanquishes the left. Using the First Civil War analogy, American unity was achieved only after the South was vanquished and slavery was abolished.

How are those of us who oppose left-wing nihilism -- there is no other word for an ideology that holds Western civilization and America's core values in contempt -- supposed to unite with "educators" who instruct elementary school teachers to cease calling their students "boys" and "girls" because that implies gender identity? With English departments that don't require reading Shakespeare in order to receive a degree in English? With those who regard virtually every war America has fought as imperialist and immoral? With those who regard the free market as a form of oppression? With those who want the state to control as much of American life as possible? With those who repeatedly tell America and its black minority that the greatest problems afflicting black Americans are caused by white racism, "white privilege" and "systemic racism"? With those who think that the nuclear family ideal is inherently misogynistic . . . .

[Wolf DeVoon]

9 hours ago, Peter said:

Wolf wrote: Agreed, defacto anarchy, complicated by women and children. end quote

Joke. You traditionally mention an obligation to spouse and children like a good caveman.

Nope. I agree with Heinlein and Churchill: women and children first, but let's move along to Dennis Prager's civil war thesis. I heard him say it because I monitor the bad guys, all types, including the toxic Salem Jews. Undoubtedly, Donald Trump's presidency will amp up (shit, already has amped up) majority Left militancy that will segue to street warfare this summer. It has been mooted that police will contain it. I doubt it. Police are outnumbered, no better than garbage collectors with sidearms, as evidenced by their inability to stop thug wars in Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore. Los Angeles, Philadelphia, etc. We're on our own as individual men. Stopping immigration now is like bolting the barn door after millions of dangerous animals have escaped, politically and physically impossible to recapture and deport, without the kind of "nazi" rule that the Left already hurled as an Trump epithet. Prager's war was lost during Rand's lifetime, and Prager's Judeo-Christian mystics stupidly fought on the wrong side, enabling the secular Left.

[Brant Gaede]

On 1/23/2017 at 8:43 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

What should one do at tax-time?

What you do. Paying taxes doesn't mean fucking yourself up in the head about what a victim you are. If you object to the taxes don't create a taxable income. Frankly, let your accountant handle it. It's his pleasure, after all. For you, just some money.

Laugh.

--Brant

here comes the big bad government: run, run, run

[william.scherk]

10 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

I monitor the bad guys, all types, including the toxic Salem Jews.

Tell us about the toxic Salem Joo. Is it badder than non-Salem Joo?

[anthony]

5 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Tell us about the toxic Salem Joo. Is it badder than non-Salem Joo?

Yup, it's another Witch Hunt I'm telling ya, William!

(Salem?)

[BaalChatzaf]

13 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

Nope. I agree with Heinlein and Churchill: women and children first, but let's move along to Dennis Prager's civil war thesis. I heard him say it because I monitor the bad guys, all types, including the toxic Salem Jews. Undoubtedly, Donald Trump's presidency will amp up (shit, already has amped up) majority Left militancy that will segue to street warfare this summer. It has been mooted that police will contain it. I doubt it. Police are outnumbered, no better than garbage collectors with sidearms, as evidenced by their inability to stop thug wars in Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore. Los Angeles, Philadelphia, etc. We're on our own as individual men. Stopping immigration now is like bolting the barn door after millions of dangerous animals have escaped, politically and physically impossible to recapture and deport, without the kind of "nazi" rule that the Left already hurled as an Trump epithet. Prager's war was lost during Rand's lifetime, and Prager's Judeo-Christian mystics stupidly fought on the wrong side, enabling the secular Left.

If not the police, then the army.  

[Samson Corwell]

On 1/21/2017 at 10:38 AM, anthony said:

I need to keep it simple for my simple mind. Every other 'right' but the right of an individual's freedom of action (individual rights) isn't a "right", it is a "claim" - upon others' freedom. Much of so-called "human rights" today has become entitled, utilitarian claims.

Oh, you've stepped in it. Property rights are claims upon other people's freedom, too. Every legal right has a corresponding claim on the actions of others. As far as "entitled" goes, here is the definition of a "right" from Google: "a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way".

[Samson Corwell]

On 1/24/2017 at 2:47 PM, Peter said:

This got me thinking about idealization of the anti concept of *anarchy*.

Peter  

Some snips from “America's Second Civil War,” by Dennis Prager Posted: Jan 24, 2017 12:01 AM: It is time for our society to acknowledge a sad truth: America is currently fighting its second Civil War. In fact, with the obvious and enormous exception of attitudes toward slavery, Americans are more divided morally, ideologically and politically today than they were during the Civil War. For that reason, just as the Great War came to be known as World War I once there was World War II, the Civil War will become known as the First Civil War when more Americans come to regard the current battle as the Second Civil War. This Second Civil War, fortunately, differs in another critically important way: It has thus far been largely nonviolent. But given increasing left-wing violence, such as riots, the taking over of college presidents' offices and the illegal occupation of state capitols, nonviolence is not guaranteed to be a permanent characteristic of the Second Civil War.

There are those on both the left and right who call for American unity. But these calls are either naive or disingenuous. Unity was possible between the right and liberals, but not between the right and the left. Liberalism -- which was anti-left, pro-American and deeply committed to the Judeo-Christian foundations of America; and which regarded the melting pot as the American ideal, fought for free speech for its opponents, regarded Western civilization as the greatest moral and artistic human achievement and viewed the celebration of racial identity as racism -- is now affirmed almost exclusively on the right and among a handful of people who don't call themselves conservative.

The left, however, is opposed to every one of those core principles of liberalism. Like the left in every other country, the left in America essentially sees America as a racist, xenophobic, colonialist, imperialist, warmongering, money-worshipping, moronically religious nation. Just as in Western Europe, the left in America seeks to erase America's Judeo-Christian foundations. The melting pot is regarded as nothing more than an anti-black, anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic meme. The left suppresses free speech wherever possible for those who oppose it, labeling all non-left speech "hate speech." To cite only one example, if you think Shakespeare is the greatest playwright or Bach is the greatest composer, you are a proponent of dead white European males and therefore racist.

Without any important value held in common, how can there be unity between left and non-left? Obviously, there cannot. There will be unity only when the left vanquishes the right or the right vanquishes the left. Using the First Civil War analogy, American unity was achieved only after the South was vanquished and slavery was abolished.

How are those of us who oppose left-wing nihilism -- there is no other word for an ideology that holds Western civilization and America's core values in contempt -- supposed to unite with "educators" who instruct elementary school teachers to cease calling their students "boys" and "girls" because that implies gender identity? With English departments that don't require reading Shakespeare in order to receive a degree in English? With those who regard virtually every war America has fought as imperialist and immoral? With those who regard the free market as a form of oppression? With those who want the state to control as much of American life as possible? With those who repeatedly tell America and its black minority that the greatest problems afflicting black Americans are caused by white racism, "white privilege" and "systemic racism"? With those who think that the nuclear family ideal is inherently misogynistic . . . .

God, Prager's an idiot.

[Samson Corwell]

On 1/20/2017 at 11:05 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Brant,

I'm turned off by the word "abandonment" in that excerpt. A system of thought is not abandoned if the people who practice it are conquered, killed off or forced into slavery and/or second class status, and further forced to adopt a different culture. "Abandonment" sounds like the conquered folks chose to do this.

The victor not only gets to write history, it sets up the prevailing religion and philosophy on the conquered (if it wants to keep being the victor for a while, that is  ). When it is incompetent at that, it generally falls before too long.

To me, abandoning a philosophy is one concept and getting your ass kicked hard from one end of the country to the other and having something shoved down your throat is a different concept.  

(I also have issue with the word "overthrow" as if there were some kind of ideological contest. I'm not sure the savage victors were even aware of the ideas they were replacing. They merely imposed their culture on whoever was there and, initially, stuck to their favorite pastimes, that is sacking, looting and pillaging.   The contest was with force, not ideas.) 

Michael

If you don't think liberalism (e.g., libertarianism, Objectivism, conservatism, social liberalism, etc.) don't impose their ideas on others through force, then I have to wonder how ingrained this view is in the views of Westerners. If libertarians got their way, for instance, the police power of the state (or "private defense agencies") would crush the sorts of sit-ins done by members of the civil rights movement (this is something that, when it comes, makes for some very interesting conversations between the two sides of the debate). There surely is an ideological contest in politics because on one particular issue only one stance may prevail. If, say, some of the Objectivists at ARI or TAC got their way on environmental policy, they would surely have to forcibly exclude environmental values from the public sphere.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

51 minutes ago, Samson Corwell said:

If you don't think liberalism (e.g., libertarianism, Objectivism, conservatism, social liberalism, etc.) don't impose their ideas on others through force, then I have to wonder how ingrained this view is in the views of Westerners.

Samson,

Of course they impose their ideas through force. Try to take their shit and see what happens. Hell, try to take mine...

Private property is an idea.

The catch-phrase is "initiation of force" or "retaliatory force." If you don't think a sit-in (or blocking traffic) is not imposing force on people who have nothing to do with anything, we have huge differences in the concept of rights and which people are "more equal" than the others.

btw - I agree that many on the O-Land and l-land side seem to have a very selective view of when to apply NIOF. It's one of my gripes. I don't mind being selective, but it always seems to fall on the side of unearned self-interests. I find that hypocritical.

In other words and from another angle, I'm not a hardcore NIOF person. I think it's a great rule of thumb, but a lousy rule for all contextless situations. For example, if I see someone in danger, say trying to commit suicide, I will initiate force against the person to get them to stop if I believe that will work. (Talk is good, too.) They can commit suicide if they want, but not in front of me--not without a fight.  I base my view on human nature, what being human means, not just a contextless political principle.

Not everyone agrees with me, but hell, that's what the world is about.

If you check my views, you will see I am no friend of large-scale wars based on crony corporatism. Especially endless unwinnable wars for profit. In fact, I'm no friend of insider ruling-class elites (although there are a few exceptions--some of the ones I've met are nice people with good but misguided hearts). That means I have been out of step with the American government for a long time. (And I love President Trump.  )

I lived in Brazil for 32 years and I saw what the CIA did with the secret police (among other things) down there. I personally knew people who worked in Operation Condor (I met them due to a protest singer I produced--believe it or not, not all the rank and file on the Brazilian side were evil, but the commanders sure were--I didn't meet any of the Americans). I have been against the Patriot Act since it was proposed in 2001. In the first Iraq war, I was still in Brazil. When CNN announced the bombing on TV, at that very moment I went into the bathroom and threw up. (True story.)

Michael

[anthony]

7 hours ago, Samson Corwell said:

Oh, you've stepped in it. Property rights are claims upon other people's freedom, too. Every legal right has a corresponding claim on the actions of others. As far as "entitled" goes, here is the definition of a "right" from Google: "a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way".

Property is the manifestation of thought turned into action. Property rights are then simply one corollary of the basic right to act freely (so, to think freely).

 

[anthony]

16 hours ago, Samson Corwell said:

God, Prager's an idiot.

"God", indeed. If you subtract out his religious premises from Prager's columns, you may find that he's highly rational. I've read many and I think he's one of the best conservative thinkers around. His remark "left wing nihilism" and its bankrupt inability to deal with radical opposition I'd say is consistent with Objectivism.

[Wolf DeVoon]

On 1/25/2017 at 11:39 AM, anthony said:

Yup, it's another Witch Hunt I'm telling ya, William!

(Salem?)

Salem Radio Network headliners are Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Gallagher, Larry Elder, and Eric Metaxas, 100% wall-to-wall Zionist + Evangelical Christian agenda. Medved and Prager are relentlessly mystical. Undoubtedly clever men with the exception of Gallagher and Elder. I monitor them to gauge what's up with conservatives in Congress. My local Salem affiliate also plays Mark Levin, distributed by Cumulus, a multi-market station conglomerate that gave Hannity his start in broadcasting. I don't watch TV and have zero interest in listening to mainstream news or reading newspapers, although I scan Zero Hedge and Drudge.

What conservatives care about is religion, abortion, and Israel, period. They wanted Ted Cruz to be the Republican nominee and got their clocks cleaned by blue collar voters in the Rust Belt. We're down to survival issues. Cut all foreign aid, shut the border.

[Samson Corwell]

6 hours ago, anthony said:

"God", indeed. If you subtract out his religious premises from Prager's columns, you may find that he's highly rational. I've read many and I think he's one of the best conservative thinkers around. His remark "left wing nihilism" and its bankrupt inability to deal with radical opposition I'd say is consistent with Objectivism.

I don't find him rational. His remarks about feminism are the usual dumb remarks made by anti-feminist conservatives. As far as "the left" wanting the "state to control as much of American life as possible", I've never seen anything in reality that can be used to reach that conclusion unless "the left" is taken to mean Marxist-Leninists. Where he is correct, he uninteresting.

[anthony]

2 hours ago, Samson Corwell said:

I don't find him rational. His remarks about feminism are the usual dumb remarks made by anti-feminist conservatives. As far as "the left" wanting the "state to control as much of American life as possible", I've never seen anything in reality that can be used to reach that conclusion unless "the left" is taken to mean Marxist-Leninists. Where he is correct, he uninteresting.

Hmm. Well I won't disabuse you your innocence. No, I shall. You have not seen the mass ideological mind control by the Progressive Left in operation?!! Talk about "social engineering"...

 

"It's your minds they want". JG

[Samson Corwell]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

Hmm. Well I won't disabuse you your innocence. No, I shall. You have not seen the mass ideological mind control by the Progressive Left in operation?!! Talk about "social engineering"...

 

"It's your minds they want". JG

No, I don't see it. Perhaps your mind is simply off in a different reality. Don't worry though. You're not alone. I see the same thing in Marxists who talk about wage slavery and "hegemonic discourse".

[anthony]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

 

 

3 minutes ago, Samson Corwell said:

No, I don't see it. Perhaps your mind is simply off in a different reality. Don't worry though. You're not alone. I see the same thing in Marxists who talk about wage slavery and "hegemonic discourse".

Wow. See no evil, hear no evil. Alone in a dream world.

[BaalChatzaf]

8 hours ago, Samson Corwell said:

No, I don't see it. Perhaps your mind is simply off in a different reality. Don't worry though. You're not alone. I see the same thing in Marxists who talk about wage slavery and "hegemonic discourse".

Marx was not trying to "control minds" other than to convince others  finding a Hegelian contradiction  in Capitalism and Property Ownership (thesis and anti-thesis butt heads in a logical collision).  He was far more wrong than right,  but he was not trying to manipulate  minds.  He was a Hegelian on steroids.