On 11/20/2016 12:34 PM, jim bell wrote:

*From:* Razer

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Robert Taylor, 29, described the conference as a “victory party.” Mr. Taylor was a committed libertarian, he said, working for Ron Paul’s >presidential campaigns and even moving to New Hampshire for a project organized by the like-minded. If Hillary Clinton had won the election, he said, he would have advocated secession. “I thought I had all the right answers and had read all the right books,” he said. “I heard about the alt-right movement, and it just lit a fire in >me.” Mr. Taylor said that with Mr. Trump, “we have breathing room; we have a little time.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/us/politics/white-nationalists-celebrate-a...

Highly, highly misleading. In a nation of 310 million people, it will be always possible to find somebody to focus on, a person who has just the right combination of negatives, as well as things you want to misleadingly attack. That's precisely what's done, here. Cherry-picking.

You (the person writing the NYT article) want to attack libertarians, right? Okay, there are millions of them, and perhaps a million more claiming that but who don't actually understand libertarianism. A few will have negative characteristics you will be able to exploit, just as we see above. Focus on just those specific people, and you think you've made a valid point. But you haven't. What superficial logic this seems to have should remind us that anti-Obama people didn't spend most of the last 8 years looking at what would probably have been hundreds of extremist groups that just happen to support him, rather than the various alternatives available.

A good contrary example, which in the end actually proves my point, is Rev. Jeremiah Wright ("God Damn America!"). Obama had spent 20 years going to this guy's Sunday sermons, presumably to boost Obama's Christian credentials. But by early 2008, Obama had a problem: He needed to help shed the extremist image Wright had. Obama couldn't just "discover" Wright's extremism: I think it was necessary to coordinary (collude; conspire) to shed this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wright_controversy Perhaps cooperatively, Wright put out a conveniently extremist statement, which Obama took and ran with it. Even then, it took months for Obama to finally "resign[] his membership in [Wright's] church".

At least that incident has an actual connection to Obama: His voluntary 20 year membership (and presumably, attendance) in Wright's church. It's not improper to point to this connection. But if there is no connection, such focussing on these people confuses and distorts the fact.

To merely identify some person, like this 'Robert Taylor', as having previously called himself "libertarian", is misleading. The above article says "Mr. Taylor was a committed libertarian, he said..." The key words are "he said". Notice that the article doesn't even bother to address the question, how accurate was his assertion? No doubt that there are people with far less questionable positions who CALL themselves "libertarian", yet misunderstand what libertarian philosophy. Is there any indication that Robert Taylor was a mainstream Libertarian, rather than just calling himself that? I did a Google search for '"Robert Taylor" libertarian', but even that was futile: The name 'Robert Taylor' is so ubiquitous as to make it clear who this specific 'Robert Taylor' really is.

Jim Bell

The definition of "Libertarian, and how it plays out in real life are two VERY different things. Just like the definition of Marxism varies dramatically from what, lets say, Doug Henwood, Marxist investment advior to American Lefties and a cruise missile marxist who never met a US invasion he didn't (initially) support, believes. I'll stick with empirically observed generalizations when discussing politics, thanks. In MY experience, EVERY SINGLE LIBERTARIAN I've ever met (a few decades ago I got to interview the Libertarian presidential candidate for a local college paper too) turns out to be an ostensibly socially permissive republican with the full set of American exceptionalist traits I despise regarding everyone else om the planet. Further, Fascists lead you to believe people have rights until your rights interfere with their sociopolitical needs. That's a US Libertarian, defined. Libertarian techies are also well known for being gentrifiers of communities belonging to others... Usually POC, So they're Fascists. and racist even if you ignore the fact that Uber drivers OBVIOUSLY don't care to be a 'sharing economy' version of an NYC Gypsy Cab. OFC you can't tell by looking at their hipster exterior. They're crypto-fascist and crypto-racist with a helluva set of rationalization and denial mechanisms. Rr Ps. The underlying philosophy that drives US libertarians (using schmucks like Ron Paul as example) dissuades me from believing in such an animal as an anarcho-libertarian, or even one that actually believes in democratic systems... Unless it's MOB democracy of course. Ie How Hipster gentrification 'does it's thing' with utter disregard to the people they're driving away from their new nest.

On 11/20/2016 03:05 PM, jim bell wrote:

"socially-permissive republican", that approximates a libertarian. But you could have also said, "an economically-permissive democrat..."

"socially-permissive republican" is not the mainstream of the Republican party, economically-permissive democrat IS in the mainstream in that party if you consider the regulations made DEFINITELY work in favor of capitalists (employers, financial industry) and not the workers. The capitalists say that's not true. Regulation hurts them. But "Hurts them" means it prevents them from having it all. Ps. You're discussing this with someone who thinks the two parties are really two right wing factions of a one party state with the belief in 'manifest destiny' and 'nationalist exceptionalism' (fascism you know?) as ideology.

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Further, Fascists lead you to believe people have rights until your rights interfere with their sociopolitical needs. That's a US Libertarian, defined.

You will have to be more specific. Which "sociopolitical needs"? Which "rights"?

Hitler needed Euro Jews for slave labor to create his great war machine sociopolitically and economically. Their rights. Libertarians are fine with underpaid labor in the fields because it's the natural order of things that bright minds with bright ideas, like (snigger) app designers and database wonks are paid a fortune and the people who feed them live in refrigerator boxes in fields ... b/c "Free Market". Their rights.

" Libertarian techies are also well known for being gentrifiers of communities belonging to others..."

Your reference to "communities belong to others" suggests a collectivist point of view. Not surprising, I suppose. "Gentrifiers" are people who are willing to buy into areas; the cumulative effect of thousands of such raises the standard of living in such areas. Is that a genuine problem? Hint: In the 1960's, when whites fled neighborhoods, this was called "white flight", and it was considered "bad". Now, it happens in reverse, and somehow it's still "bad". I don't get it.

To one person a 'raise in 'standard of living' means the power doesn't go out every time there's a storm(rural or suburban), or a new park in the neighborhood(urban), to another it's a 1/2 million dollar ticky tacky condo close to work in a town they don't even live at. Put succinctly, they don't want to live in your neighborhood. They want to live in THEIR neighborhood where you USED TO LIVE, and the truly disgusting part is they have absolutely no concern whatsoever where you go, as long as it's away. That problem, and that's just the TIP of the Shitberg. You call communities collectivist as if that's a BAD thing, and see no problem with "Feudalism (we can hire the security guards and cam towers on generators... Oakland, probably around Detroit, to keep you out) of our little empire b/c YOU can't afford to live 'round heah no mo... boy. Did I mention that Feudalism is my base social analysis of Libertarianism IRL, moreso than it's fascist tendency b/c fascism it just a ideological tool to get people to follow along as... serfs, in that so-called free market that will work in favor of the feudalists just a surely as it works in the favor of GoldmanSachs now. Rr

------------------------------------------------------------------------ *From:* Razer On 11/20/2016 12:34 PM, jim bell wrote:

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/us/politics/white-nationalists-celebrate-a...

...

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Highly, highly misleading. In a nation of 310 million people, it will be always possible to find somebody to focus on, a person who has just the right combination of negatives, as well as things you want to misleadingly attack. That's precisely what's done, here. Cherry-picking.

...

...

You (the person writing the NYT article) want to attack libertarians, right? Okay, there are millions of them, and perhaps a million more claiming that but who don't actually understand libertarianism. A few will have negative characteristics you will be able to exploit, just as we see above. Focus on just those specific people, and you think you've made a valid point. But you haven't. What superficial logic this seems to have should remind us that anti-Obama people didn't spend most of the last 8 years looking at what would probably have been hundreds of extremist groups that just happen to support him, rather than the various alternatives available.

A good contrary example, which in the end actually proves my point, is Rev. Jeremiah Wright ("God Damn America!"). Obama had spent 20 years going to this guy's Sunday sermons, presumably to boost Obama's Christian credentials. But by early 2008, Obama had a problem: He needed to help shed the extremist image Wright had. Obama couldn't just "discover" Wright's extremism: I think it was necessary to coordinary (collude; conspire) to shed this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wright_controversy Perhaps cooperatively, Wright put out a conveniently extremist statement, which Obama took and ran with it. Even then, it took months for Obama to finally "resign[] his membership in [Wright's] church".

...

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At least that incident has an actual connection to Obama: His voluntary 20 year membership (and presumably, attendance) in Wright's church. It's not improper to point to this connection. But if there is no connection, such focussing on these people confuses and distorts the fact.

...

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To merely identify some person, like this 'Robert Taylor', as having previously called himself "libertarian", is misleading. The above article says "Mr. Taylor was a committed libertarian, he said..." The key words are "he said". Notice that the article doesn't even bother to address the question, how accurate was his assertion? No doubt that there are people with far less questionable positions who CALL themselves "libertarian", yet misunderstand what libertarian philosophy. Is there any indication that Robert Taylor was a mainstream Libertarian, rather than just calling himself that? I did a Google search for '"Robert Taylor" libertarian', but even that was futile: The name 'Robert Taylor' is so ubiquitous as to make it clear who this specific 'Robert Taylor' really is.

Jim Bell

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The definition of "Libertarian, and how it plays out in real life are two VERY different things. Just like the definition of Marxism varies dramatically from what, lets say, Doug Henwood, Marxist investment advior to American Lefties and a cruise missile marxist who never met a US invasion he didn't (initially) support, believes.

If you are simply saying that there is variation among people who declare themselves libertarians, I have to agree with you. If you are saying, instead, that few people who call themselves "libertarian" would meet that standard, I must disagree. There's a difference between these two positions.

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I'll stick with empirically observed generalizations when discussing politics, thanks.

As long as you don't misrepresent reality, fine.

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In MY experience, EVERY SINGLE LIBERTARIAN I've ever met (a few decades ago I got to interview the Libertarian presidential candidate for a local college paper too) turns out to be an ostensibly socially permissive republican with the full set of American exceptionalist traits I despise regarding everyone else om the planet.

Look at the Nolan Chart, and the World's smallest political quiz. Look at "social freedoms" and "economic freedoms". Stereotypically, "liberals" are people who believe in social freedoms, but not at all in economic freedoms; conservatives believe in economic freedoms, but not social freedoms. A libertarian believes in both. When you say, a "socially-permissive republican", that approximates a libertarian. But you could have also said, "an economically-permissive democrat". Why didn't you say that? Perhaps your biases are showing. In my one experience doing the WSPQ survey at Clark County fair in about 1990, the results on the chart strongly clustered around 70/70 on the Nolan Chart. ("Libertarian" was 100/100). In other words, at least 50% of the public were 'closer' to libertarians than conservatives, or liberals. Naturally, I can imagine that conservatives and liberals don't like this.

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Further, Fascists lead you to believe people have rights until your rights interfere with their sociopolitical needs. That's a US Libertarian, defined.

You will have to be more specific. Which "sociopolitical needs"? Which "rights"?

" Libertarian techies are also well known for being gentrifiers of communities belonging to others..."

Your reference to "communities belong to others" suggests a collectivist point of view. Not surprising, I suppose. "Gentrifiers" are people who are willing to buy into areas; the cumulative effect of thousands of such raises the standard of living in such areas. Is that a genuine problem? Hint: In the 1960's, when whites fled neighborhoods, this was called "white flight", and it was considered "bad". Now, it happens in reverse, and somehow it's still "bad". I don't get it.

Jim Bell

From: jim bell To: Razer ; cypherpunks Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2016 8:30 PM Subject: Re: What % of the so-called alt-right were just plain ol' libertarians before? From: Razer On 11/20/2016 03:05 PM, jim bell wrote:

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"socially-permissive republican", that approximates a libertarian.  But you could have also said, "an economically-permissive democrat..." "socially-permissive republican" is not the mainstream of the Republican party, True.  But they are getting closer to this ideal.

economically-permissive democrat IS in the mainstream in that party NUTS!   In any society where some people can be taxed at 50% of their income (add federal, state, local, sales tax, property tax), that is NOT "economically-permissive"!!!  Obviously, your idea of "economically-permissive" is CRACKED. Libertarians believe taxation is left.  If you don't believe that, you can't be a libertarian.  And if you truly don't even understand that libertarians believe taxation is theft, you are utterly clueless. if you consider the regulations made DEFINITELY work in favor of capitalists (employers, financial industry) and not the workers. The capitalists say that's not true. Regulation hurts them. But "Hurts them" means it prevents them from having it all." It's hard to know what you are talking about.  "Economically-permissive" doesn't merely mean "permissive only for business people".  That would be called "crony-capitalism", not to be confused with "crony socialism", etc.

Ps. You're discussing this with someone who thinks the two parties are really two right wing factions of a one party state with the belief in 'manifest destiny' and 'nationalist exceptionalism' (fascism you know?) as ideology. Yes, and I consider myself an anarchist.  But that does not mean that the Republicans and Democrats arent at least distinguishable.  They have different faults, for instance.

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Further, Fascists lead you to believe people have rights until your rights interfere with their sociopolitical needs. That's a US Libertarian, defined. You will have to be more specific.  Which "sociopolitical needs"?  Which "rights"?

Hitler needed Euro Jews for slave labor to create his great war machine sociopolitically and economically.

Their rights.

Your last few lines would make sense, except for your "convenient" insertion of "US Libertarian" into the mix.

Libertarians are fine with underpaid labor in the fields because it's the natural order of things that bright minds with bright ideas, like (snigger) app designers and database wonks are paid a fortune and the people who feed them live in refrigerator boxes in fields ... b/c "Free Market". What's your definition of "underpaid"?  Libertarians believe in the Free Market.  Well, we don't have much of a free market, but at least the concept is understandable.           Jim Bell Oops:  Taxation is THEFT.

From: Razer

economically-permissive democrat IS in the mainstream in that party

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NUTS!   In any society where some people can be taxed at 50% of their income (add federal, state, local, sales tax, property tax), that is >>NOT "economically-permissive"!!!  Obviously, your idea of "economically-permissive" is CRACKED.

50% of $50 million (for instance) must be REALLY TOUGH on them. While the guy who picks the food they eat lives in a cardboard box in the >field or a TB-infected "Campo" (A few of these in the Monterey area look as bad as any NYC tenement with exposed wiring, black mold etc. I've >seen them personally.) Oh!  I see you are justifying robbing people based on the mere assertion that they can 'afford' it.  Hey, why don't you start using this logic:  If a person makes $10 million per year, government should taken 50% of it, because they "can afford it".  But WAIT!  The guy STILL has $5 million left!  So, let's take ANOTHER 50%, or $2.5 million, leaving him with $2.5 million.  But WAIT!  The guy STILL has $2.5 million left.  So let's take ANOTHER 50%, leaving him with $1.25 million.   But WAIT!!!.... See the problem?  If the TRUE justification for taxation is that the victim can 'afford' it, that would seemingly justify virtually any percentage of taxation, as long as you leave him 'enough' to 'live'.See the problem?  

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Libertarians believe taxation is theft.  If you don't believe that, you can't be a libertarian.  And if you truly don't even understand that >>libertarians believe taxation is theft, you are utterly clueless.

I don't believe that taxation in and of itself is theft. I think the people who diburse the taxes (the government) are thieves. THEY get to decide >what the money is used for ... in the interest of people who are often QUITE Libertarian, instead of the people in the community or society at >large deciding... You need the chart from Gilens and Page for that statement about who has say in US policy decisions? You're diverting.  

http://auntieimperial.tumblr.com/post/85720026694

Oh RIGHT I extrapolate on your previous statement about communities being evilly collectivist. You don't believe that communities and >societies people live within should have a say, that it all about ME and MY MONEY and fuck you! I'll build the road and YOU can't use it b/c MY >money (or play favorites ...Ie cronyism, or toll the road)... etc ad nauseum No, your previous phrasing indicated that you believe that property (communities) is collectively owned, bought and sold.  While this may very well be true for public property, it is NOT true for private property.

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if you consider the regulations made DEFINITELY work in favor of capitalists (employers, financial industry) and not the workers. The >capitalists say that's not true. Regulation hurts them. But "Hurts them" means it prevents them from having it all." It's hard to know what you are talking about.  "Economically-permissive" doesn't merely mean "permissive only for business people".  That would be called "crony-capitalism", not to be confused with "crony socialism", etc.

The libertarians I know who own small businesses EXEMPLIFY Crony Capitalism Yup... One's a stone cold racist who owns a coffee shop and made a point of naming a Kenyan blend after Obama. What does naming a type of coffee after Obama have to do about "crony capitalism""BTW, Obama's Kenyan relatives are certain he was born in Kenya.  Why is that?

Ps. You're discussing this with someone who thinks the two parties are really two right wing factions of a one party state with the belief in 'manifest destiny' and 'nationalist exceptionalism' (fascism you know?) as ideology. Yes, and I consider myself an anarchist.  But that does not mean that the Republicans and Democrats arent at least distinguishable.  They have different faults, for instance.

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Further, Fascists lead you to believe people have rights until your rights interfere with their sociopolitical needs. That's a US Libertarian, defined. You will have to be more specific.  Which "sociopolitical needs"?  Which "rights"?

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Hitler needed Euro Jews for slave labor to create his great war machine sociopolitically and economically.

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Their rights.

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Your last few lines would make sense, except for your "convenient" insertion of "US Libertarian" into the mix.

Duly noted. It's called cognitive dissonance. You need to explain why merely mentioning "US Libertarians" in the context of a different subject is relevant.  Merely putting the characters "US Libertarians" near the characters "Fascists" does not make them that, does it?

Libertarians are fine with underpaid labor in the fields because it's the natural order of things that bright minds with bright ideas, like (snigger) app designers and database wonks are paid a fortune and the people who feed them live in refrigerator boxes in fields ... b/c "Free Market". What's your definition of "underpaid"?

See above or earlier about fieldhands living in a cardboard box or TB-infested Campo. That's because they can't afford rent despite the fact they work 12 hours a day 7 days a week sunrise to sunset, until the harvest is finished. Part of the problem is that 'they' let in a lot of cheap labor.  If the farmers had to hire Americans to do the work, wages would necessarily rise.  And fewer people would be on Welfare, etc, etc.  Fewer people would be dependent on Government.  Oh, I forgot!  THAT'S the problem!

          Jim Bell

From: Razer On 11/20/2016 09:49 PM, jim bell wrote:

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Oh!  I see you are justifying robbing people based on the mere assertion that they can 'afford' it. No. I justify it on the fact that they're the criminals and taxes appropriately applied are really a form of restitution. If they don't like it they can hire an army. They can afford it. After all that's how they robbed the rest of us in the first place. You have not qualified the term, "they".  Are you saying that all income must necessarily be theft?  I would have thought people like you would have taken the position, something like "All income over $100,000 per year is theft".  Or, you know, limit the number of people who are called thieves to, perhaps, the famous "1%".  

Thing is taxes aren't appropriately applied. That 50% tax on the wealthy you speak of doesn't really exist after deductions and writedowns nd donations of high-heeled shoes to the Haiti relief fund. Right? Some wealthy people pay less taxes than that guy living in a box in a field. Actually most wealthy people pay almost nothing percentage-wise after all the bennies their plutocrat friends write into tax codes compared to their UNEARNED (as in they didn't actually work or produce anything useful to society) income. Do you have specific statistics to back up your claims?  I have read, elsewhere, that the total Federal government expenditures, as a portion of GDP, tends to remain relatively constant at approximately 20%.  Why should there be any tax rate dramatically greater than that?

And then there's sales tax, which rips workers off way out of proportion to the wealthy. What's wrong with what amounts to a flat tax based on what you spend?  (arguendo; I'm a libertarian, but I can still argue these issues).A person who makes $1 million per year doesn't use 100x the food, transportation, housing, manufactured goods as a person who makes $10K per year.  It sure sounds like you are, at least, assuming that taxes should be proportional to income.  Why?   Also, you still haven't addressed the issue about the specific person cited in the article, the guy who claimed to have been a libertarian. After all, the thread is titled, "What % of the so-called alt-right were just plain ol' libertarians before?"  The entire relevance of your reference is based on what so far is unprovable:  Was that guy actually ever a "libertarian" as most other libertarians would recognize.  Now, I can't prove that he wasn't a libertarian, but I find your focus on libertarians here to be misleading.  The way I see it, "alt-right" (what does that actually mean?!?) people probably 'came from' a lot of different political philosophies.  Why do you point solely to libertarians? I should also add that this guy may STILL be libertarian:  He may not believe in the "initiation of force or fraud" against his fellow person, the "non-initiation of force or fraud principle".  (NIOFF).  That he may have other identifiable beliefs might be interesting, but at the same time wouldn't have to be damning of him.  For instance, hypothetically an "alt-right" person might believe that American government has been used, for many years, to allow certain groups to sponge off the rest of the population.  Merely  believing that, or saying that out loud, doesn't make him non-libertarian, does it?  In fact, he is objecting to the way the government itself has initiated force, threatening people into paying "taxes", and them disbursing those taxes in order to obtain political advantage.  (votes.)   If anything, his making this argument would make him a consistent libertarian.    Now, you may object to libertarians for precisely this reason:  You may believe that it's okey-dokey for government to threaten people to pay "taxes", so the government can use that money for political-benefit reasons.  But taking that position merely identifies you as being non-libertarian.

        Jim Bell

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 11/21/2016 10:02 AM, Razer wrote:

On 11/20/2016 09:49 PM, jim bell wrote:

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Oh! I see you are justifying robbing people based on the mere assertion that they can 'afford' it.

No. I justify it on the fact that they're the criminals and taxes appropriately applied are really a form of restitution. If they don't like it they can hire an army. They can afford it. After all that's how they robbed the rest of us in the first place.

Taxes are payment for services rendered. In the United States, 500 billionaires presently own about 1/2 of the capital assets; to retain control of those assets they need a legal system that defines their rights of ownership and enforces them, civil Courts to arbitrate their internal disputes and legitimize abuses of power against outsiders, civil infrastructure built and maintained at public expense to support the productivity of their capital assets, and a propaganda regimen to persuade the rest of us that this is all for the best. The sovereign State is /their/ collectivist system, taxing the poor to subsidize the rich with all of the above services. Taxes even support cash payments and no-interest loans to the very rich, where and as bailing out one corporation benefits enough of the others to create a consensus to do that - at public expense.

Thing is taxes aren't appropriately applied. That 50% tax on the wealthy you speak of doesn't really exist after deductions and writedowns nd donations of high-heeled shoes to the Haiti relief fund. Right? Some wealthy people pay less taxes than that guy living in a box in a field. Actually most wealthy people pay almost nothing percentage-wise after all the bennies their plutocrat friends write into tax codes compared to their UNEARNED (as in they didn't actually work or produce anything useful to society) income.

I was wondering when someone would mention this. Rich people pay a very small fraction of the taxes they whine about and want to see abolished; instead they pay accountants and attorneys to advise them on how to avoid taxation. Some few billionaires do pay enough taxes that the numbers look impressive to illiterate peasants, for propaganda purposes. I recall there was a bit of a flap in the press at the turn of the century when some ungrateful assholes publicized the fact that Microsoft Inc. paid no corporate income tax; I believe this was "fixed" by arranging for token payments thereafter.

And then there's sales tax, which rips workers off way out of proportion to the wealthy.

It's not the tax. It's how it's collected, and certainly how it's disbursed (almost all of it to the war machine owned or invested in by the wealthy.)

Currency inflation is also a tax on the poor for the benefit of the rich. The lower classes store much of their wealth in the form of dollars that diminish in value, while the ruling class stores its wealth in instruments denoting ownership of physical assets whose value is not affected by currency inflation. Inflation also depresses wages, as the same "dollar amount" progressively buys less and less. The U.S. minimum wage from 1968, adjusted for inflation, would be $24.00/hr today. Political activists are presently running a "Fight For Fifteen" campaign in the U.S., asking for a de facto 40% pay cut relative to 1968's more or less "living" minimum wage. How fucked up is that?

I suppose you actually believe that bullshit about hard work and determination leading to affluence too.

Affluence requires collectivism, in the form of social and economic class loyalty; join the united front in support of employment and wage discrimination or you are out in the cold. Getting a "really good job" is a pay to play proposition. It is possible for independent entrepreneurs to "work around" class barriers; wildcat free enterprise works, for the tiny minority whose bright ideas and hard work do pay off. But when capitalist enterprises notice something chewing on the edge of their markets they crush it, as a matter of routine business practice. Counter examples can be found, but you will need a magnifying glass and tweezers. Libertarian and other alt-Right propaganda teaches us that Capitalism and Free Enterprise are the same thing, but in the real world they are natural enemies and when they collide, Capitalism always wins. Work will make you free? Sure it will. The spreading red stain on the U.S. political map happens to exactly match maps showing the geographic distribution of poverty, which brings with it both ignorance and anger - a fertile field for Fascist indoctrination. The less intelligent in that audience self-select KKK flavored messaging, the more intelligent gravitate toward Libertarian bullshit. Both flavors of alt-Right propaganda assert that their audiences are inherently superior to other people, that that if certain scapegoats were neutralized that audience would "regain all they have lost, and more." Just by coincidence, the ruling class - our billionaires - are never named as scapegoats, but instead are portrayed as fellow victims of an imaginary conspiracy of the weak and inferior. Changing out "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" for Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ayn Rand does not convert Fascism to Freedom, unless the freedom in question is that of the very rich to do whatever they want, restrained only by other factions within their same class, at everyone else's expense. In that case, a little rebranding to make Fascism more palatable to a U.S. market might be all it takes to get 360+ million peasants "off the backs" of those 500 billionaires who own 1/2 the capital assets in the U.S. By definition, organization and united action is political power. If you want the U.S. ruling class and its government off YOUR back, the fact that your fellow peasants outnumber your aristocratic overlords by more than a half million to one is the key to success: Your rulers have effectively unlimited financial assets and control of the State on their side, you have - or might be able to get - the power of massive numbers of boots on the ground on your side. Collectivism is the key to power: The very rich do it, cooperating to assure that nothing threatens their established collective power. Our rulers' propaganda contractors have been busy for generations teaching the rest of us that Collectivism is the Ultimate Evil; they are paid to pump out this message because collectivism is the only thing that can challenge the power of a well entrenched ruling class. The cure for Libertarianism is Populism. If you don't know what that is, there are a few clues here, but be forewarned: It requires getting up off your ass and actually doing things, not just bitching about how stupid those other people are. http://pilobilus.net/Strategic_Nonviolent_Conflict.zip :o) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJYMyjdAAoJEECU6c5XzmuqxcoH/1ma0nOBIRA/BI/Y2MkJjpcC hg8jqYHhgznipD8P7nKgPeqpXrKcEZRPDyKhy7VX16ByCztIi3svtqDR5bTtIGXG f4OD8bTZGzcs0Ohx0YAn2TqOV2YCqdOMXkscgLEJ06ZZyjLeJsTEa5J0UXE2iMyd Kenm1K17U/7kD7A09EzLNMCzE5SD+iXuk/TvaQ0nc3YTUpFV547p6uQYBOkWJ2Ev CikNFV9Qrr4DUFb45ue0iG0EgbNmdxoZzBWXF+R4GircCfCh0GlqZ8YsXZi7Djc0 23FPSu/t544N6TMJtxTiK1uXFgPgN/JgEnJkzLQSXFURJtGvgF/5BQr1VwaYFQk= =ENEL -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Mon, 21 Nov 2016 18:11:11 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

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Steve Kinney In the United States, 500 billionaires presently own about 1/2 of the capital assets;

Did they obtain them legally or illegally?  

Do you have to ask? Basic political economy and natural rights theory should inform you...But the answer is, for the record, ILLEGALLY.

If illegally, enforce the law.  If legally, change the laws if necessary.

I'm not really following. Why should libertarian anarchists bother with state legislation? That doesn't mean that 'restitution' by means of taxes makes much sense either. Obviously the state, whose purpose is to TAX THE POOR and give the money to the RICH is not going to do the opposite.

Below, I posted the entire chart on taxes collected versus position in taxpayers. From: jim bell From: juan On Mon, 21 Nov 2016 18:11:11 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

...

...

Steve Kinney In the United States, 500 billionaires presently own about 1/2 of the capital assets;

...

Did they obtain them legally or illegally?  

   Do you have to ask? Yes, I DO have to ask.  Chalk it up to my not being PC.  Sorry if that microagression offends the snowflakes.

Basic political economy What is "political economy"?  Are you simply talking about economics?   Remember, I'm a LIBERTARIAN.  I believe "taxation is theft".  This means that I don't automatically accept the idea that government is somehow entitled to rob people of their assets and income.   and natural rights theory should inform you...But the answer is, for the record,     ILLEGALLY. What is "natural rights theory".  At least, how do "natural rights" somehow allow a system (American, for example) of taxation that didn't exist for 99% of world history?  Doesn't sound too 'natural' to me.

If illegally, enforce the law.  If legally, change the laws if necessary.

    I'm not really following. Why should libertarian anarchists     bother with state legislation? Despite being a libertarian anarchist, I can engage in discussions which do not assume that libertarian anarchy exists or is proper.  For example, I can consider the existing political system, and discuss various improvements to it, ones short of actually implementing libertarian anarchy.    Properly used, brains can do things like that.

   That doesn't mean that 'restitution' by means of taxes makes  >   much sense either. Obviously the state, whose purpose is to TAX  >  THE POOR and give the money to the RICH is not going to do the  >   opposite. If the job of the government is to "tax the poor", it isn't doing an especially effective job.  As I previously cited, " "The Top 50 Percent of All Taxpayers Paid 97 Percent of All Income Taxes; the Top 5 Percent Paid 57 Percent of All Income Taxes; and the Top 1 Percent Paid 35 Percent of All Income Taxes in 2011" Assuming you agree that "the poor" inhabit the region "the bottom 50 percent of all taxpayers", then those "poor" are only paying 3% (100%-97% = 3%) of the total Federal taxes collected.  That's not very effective "tax the poor" results, is it?  If "the poor" are those in the bottom 10% of taxpayers, then the statistic (which I don't have) would probably be even more extreme. Looks to me if they are trying to CONCEAL their taxing the poor, they are doing an excellent job. But then again, if you are content with simply inventing reality, such statistics aren't much of an impediment.              Jim Bell

 BTW, I decided to post the entire chart, here:    http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data    It isn't clear whether the "bottom 50% of taxpayers" include, or do not include, people who don't file Federal income tax returns.  But one thing is quite obvious:  "The poor" are hardly taxed AT ALL, at least on the Federal level. × | Table 1. Summary of Federal Income Tax Data, 2011 | |   | Number of Returns* | AGI ($ millions) | Income Taxes Paid ($ millions) | Group's Share of Total AGI (IRS) | Group's Share of Income Taxes | Income Split Point | Average Tax Rate | | All Taxpayers | 136,585,712 | 8,317,188 | 1,042,571 | 100% | 100.0% |   |   | | Top 1% | 1,365,857 | 1,555,701 | 365,518 | 18.7% | 35.1% | > $388,905 | 23.5% | | 1-5% | 5,463,429 | 1,263,178 | 223,449 | 15.2% | 21.4% |   | 17.7% | | Top 5% | 6,829,286 | 2,818,879 | 588,967 | 33.9% | 56.5% | > $167,728 | 20.9% | | 5-10% | 6,829,285 | 956,099 | 122,696 | 11.5% | 11.8% |   | 12.8% | | Top 10% | 13,658,571 | 3,774,978 | 711,663 | 45.4% | 68.3% | > $120,136 | 18.9% | | 10-25% | 20,487,857 | 1,865,607 | 180,953 | 22.4% | 17.4% |   | 9.7% | | Top 25% | 34,146,428 | 5,640,585 | 892,616 | 67.8% | 85.6% | > $70,492 | 15.8% | | 25-50% | 34,146,428 | 1,716,042 | 119,844 | 20.6% | 11.5% |   | 7.0% | | Top 50% | 68,292,856 | 7,356,627 | 1,012,460 | 88.5% | 97.1% |  > $34,823 | 13.8% | | Bottom 50% | 68,292,856 | 960,561 | 30,109 | 11.55% | 2.89% |  < $34,823 | 3.13% | | *Does not include dependent filers. |

let this fucking thread die. Pay your fucking taxes like everyone else and shut the fuck up no one cares - burn your computer get new hobby it making you sick. -------- Original Message -------- On Nov 21, 2016, 12:41 PM, Razer wrote: On 11/21/2016 12:13 PM, jim bell wrote: Below, I posted the entire chart on taxes collected versus position in taxpayers. Looks good to me if actually correct. "Tax the rich. Feed the poor. Till there are no rich no more" ~Alvin Lee, Ten Years After Next, as long as there IS government, find leaders who don't spend it all nepotistically on their military-industrial complex welfare mothers bffs and war. Then MAYBE we can have government paid health insurance and rainbows unicorns and ice cream for all! Rr .

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 11/21/2016 01:11 PM, jim bell wrote:

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In the United States, 500 billionaires presently own about 1/2 of the capital assets;

Did they obtain them legally or illegally? If illegally, enforce the law. If legally, change the laws if necessary.

Under the jurisdiction of State institutions created for the benefit of the very rich, anything they agree among themselves to permit is "perfectly legal." That includes running a rigged house game supported by massive deception and economic coercion, and assuring that theirs are the only games in town.

...

to retain control of those assets they need a legal system that defines their rights of ownership and enforces them,

I thought that personal property is to be considered a "right", rather than a "privilege". I guess you have a different opinion.

Libertarian ideology relies heavily on false context. When people hear "personal property" the think "physical objects under my control, and the fruits of my personal labors." This context is not comparable to possession and trading of legal instruments defining ownership over geographically dispersed industries, vast tracts of land, anticipated profits from as yet unexploited resources, etc., in locations occupied and facilities operated by what the commies call "wage slaves." In the U.S., most people's personal property is actually a collection of legal instruments specifying the rent they pay on a finance company's car, a mortage company's house, etc. Low wages plus expensive Real Estate creates forced dependency on land lords for the majority of Americans.

...

civil Courts to arbitrate their internal disputes and legitimize abuses of power against outsiders,

Again, if there are genuine problems, fix them.

How? By litigating against offenders whose ability to pay attorneys, expert witnesses, etc. exceeds one's own by five or more orders of magnitude? By lobbying for changes in the law, in competition with these same offenders, their massive financial resources, and their long standing alliances with dominant political and Deep State factions?

...

civil infrastructure built and maintained at public expense to support the productivity of their capital assets

Numbskull Obama said, "You didn't build that!". A factory-owner may have a road in front of his factory for transportation. But the government didn't pay for that road: The people who paid gasoline taxes (including the factory-owner) paid for that road. Ascribing all this infrastructure to "the government" misleads.

Ah so: Taxation is payment for services rendered when that supports a Libertarian argument, otherwise not. :D

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, and a propaganda regimen to persuade the rest of us that this is all for the best.

Blame the MSM. I do.

I blame full saturation propaganda operations paid for by the ruling class who also happen to own the "mainstream media," working hand in hand with State propaganda assets and of course, the organized efforts of our DemoPublican Party which itself represents the interests of our ruling class. Political controversies in the mainstream occasionally reflecting differences of opinion among dominant factions with regard to whose commercial interests should be favored at the expense of other commercial interests; but maintaining the integrity of ruling class control and expanding same is a goal shared by the DemoPublican Party as a whole, as is locking out participation by competing Parties.

From: http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-dat a × // //

"The Top 50 Percent of All Taxpayers Paid 97 Percent of All Income Taxes; the Top 5 Percent Paid 57 Percent of All Income Taxes; and the Top 1 Percent Paid 35 Percent of All Income Taxes in 2011"

I consider this to be evidence of a very serious problem. Actually, a big set of problems. You won't see it, however.

Libertarian ideology relies heavily on cognitive bias and false assumptions. The argument presented above is persuasive - as long as a "normative" distribution of assets and incomes is assumed. But in reality, a fraction of 1% of the population dominates in both income and assets. The models presented above does not have sufficient resolution to accurately describe the subject matter addressed. Check this high resolution model out: http://www.lcurve.org/ Note also that "income tax" applies to personal income, not capital gains. Personal income as understood by John and Jane Q. Public is only a small fraction of what members of our ruling class "make" in the course of a successful year.

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instead they pay accountants and attorneys to advise them on how to avoid taxation.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. If a person lost, regularly, 30% of his income to burglary and theft, he'd see nothing wrong with hiring some form of protection to see it reduced or stopped. Naturally, people who don't think it's theft would disagree, and would resent the fact he was trying to reduce that theft. Even more naturally, a person who actually benefits from that theft would really, really hate the fact that the person paying the taxes would even THINK about seeing them reduced, in any way.

Libertarians see absolutely nothing wrong with the very rich "gaming the system" for personal advantage in every way that having a lot of money to spend makes possible. This leaves everyone else on the losing end of every deal that was supposed to be "fair and honest" under rule of law. Perhaps this explains why the Libertarian Party was co-opted by well funded right wing extremists around the turn of the century and has been working under their direction ever since. What may have been a disruptive influence on national politics is now only a propaganda platform, pushing political discourse to the Right as far as it is able. If you are too smart for the RNC, the Libertarians have a better idea - and the same domestic economic agenda, both functional and fictional.

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Political activists are presently running a "Fight For Fifteen" campaign in the U.S., asking for a de facto 40% pay cut relative to 1968's more or less "living" minimum wage. How fucked up is that?

I guess you're confused. After WWII, America became the de-facto manufacturer to the world. Little competition. Wages were (relatively) high. The rest of the world was, relatively, poor. Most families got by with only one breadwinner, usually the man. This continued through most of the 1960s, and even the 1970's. Then Europe and Japan turned on as manufacturers. Then Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico, now China and India. America has a great deal of competition. America's wages needed to be reduced to compete, or at least they couldn't rise as much as they ultimately might have done. That is simple economics.

I guess your definition of Libertarian embraces both NeoLiberal and NeoConservative agendas and policies. That makes sense, as the synthesis of NeoLiberal and NeoConservative policy is Fascism - the foundation of Libertarian economic ideology. Europe and Japan became industrial powerhouses in the 1950s due to the aging industrial infrastructure destroyed in WWII being replaced with the latest and best facilities and equipment, with assistance from the Marshall Plan. Military and economic alliances including NATO and the Trilateral Commission participants were firmed up at that time, as were strong trans-national alliances among the ruling classes of the nations involved. The collapse of the manufacturing sector in the United States was engineered by that alliance, by removing "protectionist" regulatory and tax policies to permit dumping on U.S. markets. The principal objective was to break U.S. labor unions. Exploitation of the resulting political power vacuum to facilitate a hard "Right turn" in U.S. domestic policy was also a major goal. This program was successful, and income inequality began growing exponentially as the U.S. ruling class began looting the assets of the U.S. middle class, a process that is still ongoing today. The new manufacturing bases in Europe /created/ new middle class income brackets in those nations. Looting of the asset base this post-WWII middle class started a couple of decades ago. I hear it's going really well, and Fascism is now on the rise in Europe.

So, when you say, "asking for a de facto 40% pay cut relative to 1968's more or less "living" minimum wage", you are really railing against the fact that America has had to begin to compete with the rest of the world in manufacturing. But either you don'[t realize that, or you are pretending not to. The world has changed, and not for the worse. But if anything, this rise in manufacturing, outside America, has actually resulted in a large increase in the standard of living of the rest of the world. What's wrong with that? If anything, it reduces "income inequality", measured on the entire world.

The world has changed, not for the worse but for the worst: The enlightened stewardship of our economic ruling class, unchecked by any meaningful feedback from those ruled over, has driven exponential growth of toxic and resource-depleting industrialism worldwide. We are now well past the point of no return and a global economic and population crash can not be avoided. Our rulers are well aware of this, and their response to date has not included any but token efforts at mitigation, far more than counterbalanced by a mad dash to make more money faster and concentrate it into fewer hands before the game ends. The rulers of today's world fully intend to rule the post-collapse world unchallenged, and for all time. If this means making the population crash happen sooner, massively increasing the early body count and destroying the means for recovery in presently habitable regions, so be it: From a Libertarian ideological stance, one might say that the world is their property and they have a natural right to do with it as they please. If you don't like it, sue them. In their Courts, before Judges who appointed by their club. :o/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJYM13XAAoJEECU6c5XzmuqxYwIAK3KztBYj4JO5/8gNDSMr3SF 1ppRehk/Lc4VDXWowFs1CFkdm07dAC6FcGSrbz0Zi4vGZ4yIY9RLcIHI/ZqgEbg1 Z6+wNOZCPEdZwmWU1xrO+/mQy+jacX5Xm7aojPMwaqInOGGq/W/gKv1m7noSXg9P gcNHnWfWHS1A014N1XM34lUquvXNOsHoKGHUti3foLp8l5O52H4CT2qjDtYOfumo TXqPPCt+hsojXdROv/oB87fhkUVtmJcndLT795wel/2kuQ78222wIrmPc+J5YBNI FHW+q0Db9/o3ODHJmiJsC7vAniPmg8s/Sq6kW55lptDvwUAVOg8Utf+DK/8rVY0= =Ga6Z -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Steve:

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Libertarian ideology relies heavily on false context. 

Jim:

Chuckle.  Vague.

It should be noted that Steve is mostly taking the libertarian side of the argument although he talks as if he were not, while Jim seems to be defending the american fascist status quo, and pretending that this fascist-corporatist-mercantilist status quo is somehow 'libertarian'. Perhaps the problem is that somebody struck Jim's head with an ayn randroid book in the past...

Hardy har har!  Get off it!  "Fascism", as I have always understood it, is GOVERNMENT CONTROL of the means of production.

Fascism is cooperation of 'private' industry and government. A phenomenom that is obviously rampant in the US. Other main components of fascism are nationalism and militarism. Obviously rampant in the US too. A police state is also a nice touch. I think the US has a wold-wide, cyber police state plus highest incarceration rate in the world? et cetera.

 (Communism is government ownership of the means of production).   Libertarianism is PRIVATE ownership and control of the means of production.  What word-games are you playing to come to a different conclusion?

In short, what's your name for the economic system of the US and the rest of the 'first' world? Or even most of the rest of the world.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 11/21/2016 05:17 PM, jim bell wrote:

*From:* Steve Kinney On 11/21/2016 01:11 PM, jim bell wrote:

...

...

In the United States, 500 billionaires presently own about 1/2 of the capital assets;

Did they obtain them legally or illegally? If illegally, enforce the law. If legally, change the laws if necessary.

Under the jurisdiction of State institutions created for the benefit of the very rich, anything they agree among themselves to permit is "perfectly legal."

Okay, then. legal. But it sounds like you simply resent the fact that people can become wealthy.

It sounds like you believe critics of today's economic power structure are opposed to anyone getting rich. This belief is systematically indoctrinated in Libertarian propaganda, borrowed from anti-Communist propaganda from days gone by. The meme in question is keyed to create maximum animosity because after all, every Libertarian who's worth a shit aspires to become "wealthy." By some piss-ant peasant standard of wealth, of course. If you want to turn a few million a year providing a product or service to appreciative customers I'm all for it, make a sales call. But don't confuse that with Big People money. At risk of being repetitious: http://www.lcurve.org/ Note the quantum discontinuity of the top half-percent or so, relative to the human species as a whole.

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That includes running a rigged house game supported by massive deception and economic coercion, and assuring that theirs are the only games in town.

I don't like government either. I want to have it eliminated. But somehow, most of the people who resent government don't act as if they want to see it eliminated. They LIKE big government. It's just, they want that big government to work for THEM, and people who think as they do.

Sorry, I wasn't talking about Government, I was talking about the private sector, a.k.a. economic ruling class. Deception and economic coercion are their primary tools. Courts and cops are necessary to the survival of their enterprises, but may occasionally restrain some of them from "irresponsible" abuses of power. That's why total deregulation of everything and reduction of rule of law to civil cases is a prime Libertarian platform plank: The government serves our rulers well, but under present conditions it would serve them better if it was less protective of the health of the workforce and more engaged in putting down civil uprisings caused by those abuses of power. The traditional Far Right shares the Libertarian deregulation agenda, and is making slow but steady progress implementing it. Libertarian contributions to propaganda on this topic are more than welcome; that's one of the reasons the Party exists. Progress has been slow because a large faction within our ruling class believes maintaining a stable, productive workforce, keeping up morale in the managerial class, and preventing major civil uprisings is better for business than a "reign of terror" approach. Nonetheless, the power players who like "stable" markets are aging out, a new generation that thrives on chaos is rising, and the parable of the boiling frog describes the present situation of "regular folks" who just want to be left alone to tend their vinyards: Jump out or die. There's a significant trend among our Millinials toward jumping out, and if they are not provided with a safety net by established economic institutions they will do just that. No such safety nets are visible now, nor any signs that they are under construction. When steam engine time comes, people railroad. We are getting there fast right now, with regard to wholesale rejection of ruling class authority among the "best and brightest" of our young adults. So you old farts out there in radical-land better get busy, nobody was born knowing how to Smash The State™ with love in their hearts, a tear in their eyes, martyrs to mourn and a new world to build.

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...

to retain control of those assets they need a legal system that defines their rights of ownership and enforces them,

...

I thought that personal property is to be considered a "right", rather than a "privilege". I guess you have a different opinion.

...

Libertarian ideology relies heavily on false context.

Chuckle. Vague.

Nope. Express and explicit. Libertarian propagandists sell their propositions with abstract arguments grounded in false assumptions supported by cognitive biases. This is consistent across their messaging, and in the ideology of the True Believers. It indicates that the Party is dominated by propagandists with hidden or dual agendas, not by idealists struggling to solve real problems in the real world the old fashioned way, by working on them. I won't bother to cut and paste my text that followed the sentence quoted above, it was an explicit deconstruction of propaganda presenting forced conclusions based on creating a manipulated context for evaluating statistical data.

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When people hear "personal property" the think "physical objects under my control, and the fruits of my personal labors."

That's part of it.

...

This context is not comparable to possession and trading of legal instruments defining ownership over geographically dispersed industries, vast tracts of land, anticipated profits from as yet unexploited resources, etc., in locations occupied and facilities operated by what the commies call "wage slaves."

Sorry, I disagree that it "is not comparable". It's called personal property, what distinguishes freedom from slavery, for instance.

Abstract absolutes: Libertarians excel at using them to sell their agendas, because that's the language that attracted and recruited them in the first place: Simple, easy to understand, easy to remember and repeat, the very STUFF of propaganda. By contrast, real world cases tends to make the propositions "proven" by ideological arguments fall apart on inspection. Did the indigenous people of the U.S. eastern seaboard own the land they lived, worked and died on, or did the holders of Crown charters? Can a hunting party from the mainland "sell" Manhattan Island for $24.00 worth of glass beads and junk jewelry - a fortune in trade goods - to some stupid whitemen? Conflating the common sense meaning of property with the enforcement of legal abstractions regarding corporate assets, is like asking someone who knows nothing about electricity except Ohm's Law to analyze the power dynamics of a three phase electric motor: They just have to take your word for how it works .

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In the U.S., most people's personal property is actually a collection of legal instruments specifying the rent they pay on a finance company's car, a mortage company's house, etc.

Actually, I'd call that "other people's property". If you want to buy an item, but you don't have the full price, there are arrangements which can be made.

Consumer credit is paying more than it costs to buy things you don't need because you can't afford them. (I made that up years ago and never tire of repeating it.) But as a fact of life, once an unwary person gets on that treadmill, it becomes a trap - especially if they have children to raise. They end up working at jobs they hate for wages just sufficient to keep them "up even" with their "payments," and the penalty for withdrawal from that closed loop is often prohibitiv e.

...

Low wages

How do you define, "low wages"? Low, compared to what?

Compared to the economic value delivered to their employers, and to the cost of living. Splitting the difference on the first item usually covers the deficiencies on the second; that's what trade unions were for - and they were instrumental in creating economic boom times. Happy, healthy workers add value like nobody else. Desperate workers turn sullen and under-produce as best they are able, even when that is to their own long term disadvantage.

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plus expensive Real Estate creates forced dependency on land lords for the majority of Americans.

If you want to buy property, paying for it over time, you can do so. Why resent this?

People with landlords don't buy property and pay for it over time, they buy the right to sleep indoors one month at a time. It's called rent. I don't "resent" anything. Being told that I do is an instance of Name Calling, which anyone can look up in any list of classic propaganda techniques. In front of an audience of True Believers or easily influenced rubes, it always works. That's why it a go-to option; even in front of an audience that's up for grabs, it often works: Change the subject and denigrate the other party. Everyone's attention is pulled off the change of subject by the Name Calling.

Ah so: Taxation is payment for services rendered when that supports a Libertarian argument, otherwise not. :D

I'm not sure what you mean by "supports a Libertarian argument". I'm objecting to others (such as Obama) who tried to use the existence of roads (which are generally not financed by a single entity, as being justification for taxation. There is a valid system in place to allocate the costs of road-building and maintenance between users of those roads. It's not perfect, but at least it should prevent the argument that roads are solely constructed by public funds.

Wait, what? A valid system? I was under the impression that "taxation is theft," but maybe I am over-generalizing. :o) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJYM5UaAAoJEECU6c5XzmuqdJYH/1ErhE7irTlNOmOouljDpDCZ 8cd/E93lAaxzbZCFs5rE9Kzkgft7BbgF9fT1of/uT0s4JnzyQCSo3aurb+TDdM5N VsPBAMOyF24mkj0LY8UQqRMh3k0RlxPnIZatfIJ9H3Y96/KMXuruYuvlDzxMIjc2 RCGIaYs3eBGKcYSdDXqzSNXmOJ0ChxJPYjC/f5DOaeBZ7AlPlQJCyJCs8/9qlShN WBrYzx8GAMflc1l1fONY7/SaPa4dTSC/q+9wXE+H5vNqvyPYTS0WmhKP5tLEF/3N e/erl93U0mBRJA8MVYatjJAdiFzyiC6eeyozvBqLF27BiilJLAnSDAs5Bsz9fBY= =awpB -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

From: Razer On 11/21/2016 12:49 PM, Steve Kinney wrote: THIS!"Libertarians see absolutely nothing wrong with the very rich "gaming the system" for personal advantage in every way that having a lot of money to spend makes possible. " WRONG! This libertarian, and I suspect most libertarians, object to the EXISTENCE of a "game-able" system, one that employs something called a "government", to take "personal advantage" over others. The existing gameable system was not constructed by libertarians. It was constructed, in America, by Republicans and Democrats. Libertarians, in America, have to operate within the existing system. "This leaves everyone else on the losing end of every deal that was supposed to be "fair and honest" under rule of law." The existing system, to whatever extent you believe it was "supposed to be fair and honest", is NOT that, and never was. Not libertarians' fault. "Perhaps this explains why the Libertarian Party was co-opted by well funded right wing extremists around the turn of the century and has been working under their direction ever since. Be much more specific. Which "right-wing extremists"? And "extremist", how? "What may have been a disruptive influence on national politics is now only a propaganda platform, pushing political discourse to the Right" I have to laugh! Gary Johnson got 4 percent of the vote this year, far more than the 1% which libertarians have had to settle for in previous years. For a "propaganda platform", they did pretty well!! "as far as it is able. If you are too smart for the RNC, the Libertarians have a better idea - and the same domestic economic agenda, both functional and fictional." Provide a little evidence for your fictional allegations. Jim Bell On 11/21/2016 01:11 PM, jim bell wrote:

...

In the United States, 500 billionaires presently own about 1/2 of the capital assets;

Did they obtain them legally or illegally?  If illegally, enforce the law.  If legally, change the laws if necessary.

Under the jurisdiction of State institutions created for the benefit of the very rich, anything they agree among themselves to permit is "perfectly legal."  That includes running a rigged house game supported by massive deception and economic coercion, and assuring that theirs are the only games in town.

...

to retain control of those assets they need a legal system that defines their rights of ownership and enforces them,

I thought that personal property is to be considered a "right", rather than a "privilege".  I guess you have a different opinion.

Libertarian ideology relies heavily on false context.  When people hear "personal property" the think "physical objects under my control, and the fruits of my personal labors."  This context is not comparable to possession and trading of legal instruments defining ownership over geographically dispersed industries, vast tracts of land, anticipated profits from as yet unexploited resources, etc., in locations occupied and facilities operated by what the commies call "wage slaves." In the U.S., most people's personal property is actually a collection of legal instruments specifying the rent they pay on a finance company's car, a mortage company's house, etc.  Low wages plus expensive Real Estate creates forced dependency on land lords for the majority of Americans.

...

civil Courts to arbitrate their internal disputes and legitimize abuses of power against outsiders,

Again, if there are genuine problems, fix them.

How?  By litigating against offenders whose ability to pay attorneys, expert witnesses, etc. exceeds one's own by five or more orders of magnitude?  By lobbying for changes in the law, in competition with these same offenders, their massive financial resources, and their long standing alliances with dominant political and Deep State factions?

...

civil infrastructure built and maintained at public expense to support the productivity of their capital assets

Numbskull Obama said, "You didn't build that!".  A factory-owner may have a road in front of his factory for transportation.  But the government didn't pay for that road:  The people who paid gasoline taxes (including the factory-owner) paid for that road. Ascribing all this infrastructure to "the government" misleads.

Ah so:  Taxation is payment for services rendered when that supports a Libertarian argument, otherwise not.  :D

...

, and a propaganda regimen to persuade the rest of us that this is all for the best.

Blame the MSM.  I do.

I blame full saturation propaganda operations paid for by the ruling class who also happen to own the "mainstream media," working hand in hand with State propaganda assets and of course, the organized efforts of our DemoPublican Party which itself represents the interests of our ruling class.  Political controversies in the mainstream occasionally reflecting differences of opinion among dominant factions with regard to whose commercial interests should be favored at the expense of other commercial interests; but maintaining the integrity of ruling class control and expanding same is a goal shared by the DemoPublican Party as a whole, as is locking out participation by competing Parties.

From: http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-dat a × // //

"The Top 50 Percent of All Taxpayers Paid 97 Percent of All Income Taxes; the Top 5 Percent Paid 57 Percent of All Income Taxes; and the Top 1 Percent Paid 35 Percent of All Income Taxes in 2011"

I consider this to be evidence of a very serious problem. Actually, a big set of problems.  You won't see it, however.

Libertarian ideology relies heavily on cognitive bias and false assumptions.  The argument presented above is persuasive - as long as a "normative" distribution of assets and incomes is assumed.  But in reality, a fraction of 1% of the population dominates in both income and assets.  The models presented above does not have sufficient resolution to accurately describe the subject matter addressed. Check this high resolution model out: http://www.lcurve.org/ Note also that "income tax" applies to personal income, not capital gains.  Personal income as understood by John and Jane Q. Public is only a small fraction of what members of our ruling class "make" in the course of a successful year.

...

instead they pay accountants and attorneys to advise them on how to avoid taxation.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with this.  If a person lost, regularly, 30% of his income to burglary and theft, he'd see nothing wrong with hiring some form of protection to see it reduced or stopped. Naturally, people who don't think it's theft would disagree, and would resent the fact he was trying to reduce that theft.  Even more naturally, a person who actually benefits from that theft would really, really hate the fact that the person paying the taxes would even THINK about seeing them reduced, in any way.

Libertarians see absolutely nothing wrong with the very rich "gaming the system" for personal advantage in every way that having a lot of money to spend makes possible.  This leaves everyone else on the losing end of every deal that was supposed to be "fair and honest" under rule of law.  Perhaps this explains why the Libertarian Party was co-opted by well funded right wing extremists around the turn of the century and has been working under their direction ever since. What may have been a disruptive influence on national politics is now only a propaganda platform, pushing political discourse to the Right as far as it is able.  If you are too smart for the RNC, the Libertarians have a better idea - and the same domestic economic agenda, both functional and fictional.

...

Political activists are presently running a "Fight For Fifteen" campaign in the U.S., asking for a de facto 40% pay cut relative to 1968's more or less "living" minimum wage.  How fucked up is that?

I guess you're confused.  After WWII, America became the de-facto manufacturer to the world.  Little competition.  Wages were (relatively) high.  The rest of the world was, relatively, poor. Most families got by with only one breadwinner, usually the man. This continued through most of the 1960s, and even the 1970's. Then Europe and Japan turned on as manufacturers.  Then Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico, now China and India.  America has a great deal of competition.  America's wages needed to be reduced to compete, or at least they couldn't rise as much as they ultimately might have done.  That is simple economics.

I guess your definition of Libertarian embraces both NeoLiberal and NeoConservative agendas and policies.  That makes sense, as the synthesis of NeoLiberal and NeoConservative policy is Fascism - the foundation of Libertarian economic ideology. Europe and Japan became industrial powerhouses in the 1950s due to the aging industrial infrastructure destroyed in WWII being replaced with the latest and best facilities and equipment, with assistance from the Marshall Plan.  Military and economic alliances including NATO and the Trilateral Commission participants were firmed up at that time, as were strong trans-national alliances among the ruling classes of the nations involved. The collapse of the manufacturing sector in the United States was engineered by that alliance, by removing "protectionist" regulatory and tax policies to permit dumping on U.S. markets.  The principal objective was to break U.S. labor unions.  Exploitation of the resulting political power vacuum to facilitate a hard "Right turn" in U.S. domestic policy was also a major goal.  This program was successful, and income inequality began growing exponentially as the U.S. ruling class began looting the assets of the U.S. middle class, a process that is still ongoing today. The new manufacturing bases in Europe /created/ new middle class income brackets in those nations.  Looting of the asset base this post-WWII middle class started a couple of decades ago.  I hear it's going really well, and Fascism is now on the rise in Europe.

So, when you say,  "asking for a de facto 40% pay cut relative to 1968's more or less "living" minimum wage", you are really railing against the fact that America has had to begin to compete with the rest of the world in manufacturing.   But either you don'[t realize that, or you are pretending not to.  The world has changed, and not for the worse. But if anything, this rise in manufacturing, outside America, has actually resulted in a large increase in the standard of living of the rest of the world.  What's wrong with that?  If anything, it reduces "income inequality", measured on the entire world.

The world has changed, not for the worse but for the worst:  The enlightened stewardship of our economic ruling class, unchecked by any meaningful feedback from those ruled over, has driven exponential growth of toxic and resource-depleting industrialism worldwide.  We are now well past the point of no return and a global economic and population crash can not be avoided.  Our rulers are well aware of this, and their response to date has not included any but token efforts at mitigation, far more than counterbalanced by a mad dash to make more money faster and concentrate it into fewer hands before the game ends.  The rulers of today's world fully intend to rule the post-collapse world unchallenged, and for all time. If this means making the population crash happen sooner, massively increasing the early body count and destroying the means for recovery in presently habitable regions, so be it:  From a Libertarian ideological stance, one might say that the world is their property and they have a natural right to do with it as they please.  If you don't like it, sue them.  In their Courts, before Judges who appointed by their club. :o/

From: Razer On 11/21/2016 07:35 PM, jim bell wrote: From: Razer On 11/21/2016 12:49 PM, Steve Kinney wrote: THIS! "Libertarians see absolutely nothing wrong with the very rich "gaming the system" for personal advantage in every way that having a lot of money to spend makes possible. " >>WRONG! This libertarian, and I suspect most libertarians, object to the EXISTENCE of a "game-able" system, one that employs >>something called a "government", to take "personal advantage" over others.

In my experience with LIbertarians IRL that is ABSOLUTELY NOT what I'm seeing. Maybe you should consider the moniker's been usurped like >"Marxist" and "Socialist" have been and borged into the belief system and demands of the existent US society. Ha ha!  Let me explain what I think you are doing.  You don't realize how weak what you just wrote, above.  You said "that is absolutely not what [you're] seeing".  But I notice that you don't explain at all what you meant, what you saw, and where you saw it. In 40+ years of going to libertarian meetings, I have rarely (and, perhaps never) been in the situation where another attendee was even in the position of demonstrating a "Libertarian [seeing] absolutely nothing wrong with the very rich 'gaming the system' for personal advantage".  It just doesn't happen!  They are usually a bunch of people in a room, talking, none of whom engage in "gaming the system."   They may certainly talk about living with the existing system, true.  But not "gaming".  Maybe you are talking about something you saw, perhaps on TV?  But again, libertarians are rarely in positions of power (yet) so it is hard for me to imagine that you have actually observed that kind of behavior.     See the problem?  It sure sounds like you simply invented that claim.  The fact that you don't respond to anything else in my comment, below, suggests that you just wanted to exit the discussion as quickly as you could.  Inventing a vague, certainly unsubstantiated, and even UNDESCRIBED circumstance as somehow refuting what I have said, is a very weak way to convince others.  Maybe you realized that it would be hard to invent a plausible scenario in which you could have observed what you just claimed to have observed.    Who was it?  Where?  When?  What was the issue involved?  What was the 'gaming' you are asserting was happening, or being planned? Go ahead, and actually tell us of a few incidents where you claim some libertarian was 'gaming the system'.  We are all waiting.

              Jim Bell See, below, you've responded to nothing else.  Why? The existing gameable system was not constructed by libertarians. It was constructed, in America, by Republicans and Democrats. Libertarians, in America, have to operate within the existing system. "This leaves everyone else on the losing end of every deal that was supposed to be "fair and honest" under rule of law." The existing system, to whatever extent you believe it was "supposed to be fair and honest", is NOT that, and never was. Not libertarians' fault. "Perhaps this explains why the Libertarian Party was co-opted by well funded right wing extremists around the turn of the century and has been working under their direction ever since. Be much more specific. Which "right-wing extremists"? And "extremist", how? "What may have been a disruptive influence on national politics is now only a propaganda platform, pushing political discourse to the Right" I have to laugh! Gary Johnson got 4 percent of the vote this year, far more than the 1% which libertarians have had to settle for in previous years. For a "propaganda platform", they did pretty well!! "as far as it is able. If you are too smart for the RNC, the Libertarians have a better idea - and the same domestic economic agenda, both functional and fictional." Provide a little evidence for your fictional allegations. Jim Bell On 11/21/2016 01:11 PM, jim bell wrote:

...

In the United States, 500 billionaires presently own about 1/2 of the capital assets;

Did they obtain them legally or illegally?  If illegally, enforce the law.  If legally, change the laws if necessary.

Under the jurisdiction of State institutions created for the benefit of the very rich, anything they agree among themselves to permit is "perfectly legal."  That includes running a rigged house game supported by massive deception and economic coercion, and assuring that theirs are the only games in town.

...

to retain control of those assets they need a legal system that defines their rights of ownership and enforces them,

I thought that personal property is to be considered a "right", rather than a "privilege".  I guess you have a different opinion.

Libertarian ideology relies heavily on false context.  When people hear "personal property" the think "physical objects under my control, and the fruits of my personal labors."  This context is not comparable to possession and trading of legal instruments defining ownership over geographically dispersed industries, vast tracts of land, anticipated profits from as yet unexploited resources, etc., in locations occupied and facilities operated by what the commies call "wage slaves." In the U.S., most people's personal property is actually a collection of legal instruments specifying the rent they pay on a finance company's car, a mortage company's house, etc.  Low wages plus expensive Real Estate creates forced dependency on land lords for the majority of Americans.

...

civil Courts to arbitrate their internal disputes and legitimize abuses of power against outsiders,

Again, if there are genuine problems, fix them.

How?  By litigating against offenders whose ability to pay attorneys, expert witnesses, etc. exceeds one's own by five or more orders of magnitude?  By lobbying for changes in the law, in competition with these same offenders, their massive financial resources, and their long standing alliances with dominant political and Deep State factions?

...

civil infrastructure built and maintained at public expense to support the productivity of their capital assets

Numbskull Obama said, "You didn't build that!".  A factory-owner may have a road in front of his factory for transportation.  But the government didn't pay for that road:  The people who paid gasoline taxes (including the factory-owner) paid for that road. Ascribing all this infrastructure to "the government" misleads.

Ah so:  Taxation is payment for services rendered when that supports a Libertarian argument, otherwise not.  :D

...

, and a propaganda regimen to persuade the rest of us that this is all for the best.

Blame the MSM.  I do.

I blame full saturation propaganda operations paid for by the ruling class who also happen to own the "mainstream media," working hand in hand with State propaganda assets and of course, the organized efforts of our DemoPublican Party which itself represents the interests of our ruling class.  Political controversies in the mainstream occasionally reflecting differences of opinion among dominant factions with regard to whose commercial interests should be favored at the expense of other commercial interests; but maintaining the integrity of ruling class control and expanding same is a goal shared by the DemoPublican Party as a whole, as is locking out participation by competing Parties.

From: http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-dat a × // //

"The Top 50 Percent of All Taxpayers Paid 97 Percent of All Income Taxes; the Top 5 Percent Paid 57 Percent of All Income Taxes; and the Top 1 Percent Paid 35 Percent of All Income Taxes in 2011"

I consider this to be evidence of a very serious problem. Actually, a big set of problems.  You won't see it, however.

Libertarian ideology relies heavily on cognitive bias and false assumptions.  The argument presented above is persuasive - as long as a "normative" distribution of assets and incomes is assumed.  But in reality, a fraction of 1% of the population dominates in both income and assets.  The models presented above does not have sufficient resolution to accurately describe the subject matter addressed. Check this high resolution model out: http://www.lcurve.org/ Note also that "income tax" applies to personal income, not capital gains.  Personal income as understood by John and Jane Q. Public is only a small fraction of what members of our ruling class "make" in the course of a successful year.

...

instead they pay accountants and attorneys to advise them on how to avoid taxation.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with this.  If a person lost, regularly, 30% of his income to burglary and theft, he'd see nothing wrong with hiring some form of protection to see it reduced or stopped. Naturally, people who don't think it's theft would disagree, and would resent the fact he was trying to reduce that theft.  Even more naturally, a person who actually benefits from that theft would really, really hate the fact that the person paying the taxes would even THINK about seeing them reduced, in any way.

Libertarians see absolutely nothing wrong with the very rich "gaming the system" for personal advantage in every way that having a lot of money to spend makes possible.  This leaves everyone else on the losing end of every deal that was supposed to be "fair and honest" under rule of law.  Perhaps this explains why the Libertarian Party was co-opted by well funded right wing extremists around the turn of the century and has been working under their direction ever since. What may have been a disruptive influence on national politics is now only a propaganda platform, pushing political discourse to the Right as far as it is able.  If you are too smart for the RNC, the Libertarians have a better idea - and the same domestic economic agenda, both functional and fictional.

...

Political activists are presently running a "Fight For Fifteen" campaign in the U.S., asking for a de facto 40% pay cut relative to 1968's more or less "living" minimum wage.  How fucked up is that?

I guess you're confused.  After WWII, America became the de-facto manufacturer to the world.  Little competition.  Wages were (relatively) high.  The rest of the world was, relatively, poor. Most families got by with only one breadwinner, usually the man. This continued through most of the 1960s, and even the 1970's. Then Europe and Japan turned on as manufacturers.  Then Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico, now China and India.  America has a great deal of competition.  America's wages needed to be reduced to compete, or at least they couldn't rise as much as they ultimately might have done.  That is simple economics.

I guess your definition of Libertarian embraces both NeoLiberal and NeoConservative agendas and policies.  That makes sense, as the synthesis of NeoLiberal and NeoConservative policy is Fascism - the foundation of Libertarian economic ideology. Europe and Japan became industrial powerhouses in the 1950s due to the aging industrial infrastructure destroyed in WWII being replaced with the latest and best facilities and equipment, with assistance from the Marshall Plan.  Military and economic alliances including NATO and the Trilateral Commission participants were firmed up at that time, as were strong trans-national alliances among the ruling classes of the nations involved. The collapse of the manufacturing sector in the United States was engineered by that alliance, by removing "protectionist" regulatory and tax policies to permit dumping on U.S. markets.  The principal objective was to break U.S. labor unions.  Exploitation of the resulting political power vacuum to facilitate a hard "Right turn" in U.S. domestic policy was also a major goal.  This program was successful, and income inequality began growing exponentially as the U.S. ruling class began looting the assets of the U.S. middle class, a process that is still ongoing today. The new manufacturing bases in Europe /created/ new middle class income brackets in those nations.  Looting of the asset base this post-WWII middle class started a couple of decades ago.  I hear it's going really well, and Fascism is now on the rise in Europe.

So, when you say,  "asking for a de facto 40% pay cut relative to 1968's more or less "living" minimum wage", you are really railing against the fact that America has had to begin to compete with the rest of the world in manufacturing.   But either you don'[t realize that, or you are pretending not to.  The world has changed, and not for the worse. But if anything, this rise in manufacturing, outside America, has actually resulted in a large increase in the standard of living of the rest of the world.  What's wrong with that?  If anything, it reduces "income inequality", measured on the entire world.

The world has changed, not for the worse but for the worst:  The enlightened stewardship of our economic ruling class, unchecked by any meaningful feedback from those ruled over, has driven exponential growth of toxic and resource-depleting industrialism worldwide.  We are now well past the point of no return and a global economic and population crash can not be avoided.  Our rulers are well aware of this, and their response to date has not included any but token efforts at mitigation, far more than counterbalanced by a mad dash to make more money faster and concentrate it into fewer hands before the game ends.  The rulers of today's world fully intend to rule the post-collapse world unchallenged, and for all time. If this means making the population crash happen sooner, massively increasing the early body count and destroying the means for recovery in presently habitable regions, so be it:  From a Libertarian ideological stance, one might say that the world is their property and they have a natural right to do with it as they please.  If you don't like it, sue them.  In their Courts, before Judges who appointed by their club. :o/

On 11/21/2016 09:30 PM, jim bell wrote:

Ha ha! Let me explain what I think you are doing. You don't realize how weak what you just wrote, above. You said "that is absolutely not what [you're] seeing". But I notice that you don't explain at all what you meant, what you saw, and where you saw it.

Because I'd have to write a fucking book about it. You want my WORK history? I mentioned one of the jackasses, a racist antihomeless "Libertarian" who who psychologically abused every female college student (he only hired females college students... good for biz fuck equal employment) he ever employed leaving them a sobbing mess for me to console as I cleaned the shop in the evening and who thought the Chicano family renting next door in his junk-mortgage-purchased home (using his mommy and daddy's credit like he did to open the store) were "Drug Dealers" because their kids left toys on the lawn and they had family over to visit regular that he described as "Traffic". He bought a shotgun and "Doorway-clearing" shot shells on that basis. One day a construction worker walked in and when the cunt found out the worker was a marine combat vet started talking him up on guns. A few minutes later the worker came outside where i was smoking a cigarette and exclaimed to me "That guy's NUTS!" Anyway. That's just ONE of the narcissistic vicious midgets I've met in my life who calls himself a "Libertarian". But you probably think that story's bullshit. People who live lies ALWAYS think others are lying I just reminded myself why I said "This convo's over. Fuckoff laughingboy. Go hide in a bunker and die. rr

On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 03:35:00AM +0000, jim bell wrote:

From: Razer

...

THIS!"Libertarians see absolutely nothing wrong with the very rich "gaming the system" for personal advantage in every way that having a lot of money to spend makes possible. "

WRONG! This libertarian, and I suspect most libertarians, object to the EXISTENCE of a "game-able" system,

"non game-able system" - there's an excellent term to contemplate on!

one that employs something called a "government", to take "personal advantage" over others.

"a government", in particular USA govt, is an artificial entity, created by the people at referendum (wait wait!) ...

The existing gameable system was not constructed by libertarians. It was constructed, in America, by Republicans and Democrats.

BUT, it was designed by empowered men to appease 'the regular folks" and to be game-able by those powerful men ('forefathers").

Libertarians, in America, have to operate within the existing system.

No, they have to start from the existing system, and existing programmed humans, when considering appropriate future changes and the propaganda required to get those "existing programmed humans" to that future. (This is probably what you meant - "to operate" didn't sound right to me.)

From: Zenaan Harkness On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 03:35:00AM +0000, jim bell wrote:

Libertarians, in America, have to operate within the existing system.

No, they have to start from the existing system, and existing programmed humans, when considering appropriate future changes and the propaganda required to get those "existing programmed humans" to that future. (This is probably what you meant - "to operate" didn't sound right tome.) Yes, that's what I meant.  It's unfair, as Razer did, to somehow blame libertarians for the state of the American political system.  We can try to change it, and we do, but that takes time.                      Jim Bell