Re: Br!n: Libertarian Morality--Up with good King John, down with Robin Hood.
Libertarianism is radically individualistic. It sees civilization as a network of social contracts between individuals. Government and taxes are evil. One reason, among many, is that taxes burden the individual for the sake of the collective. Maybe an individual should contribute to the collective but it is wrong to coerce that contribution. IAAMOAC is not understood by libertarians the way you understand it. A libertarian may even deny IAAMOAC is a valid moral principle since it is not individualistic. Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel -Original Message- From: Matt Grimaldi matzeb...@yahoo.com Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:22:29 To: Killer Bs \(David Brin et al\) Discussionbrin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: Re: Br!n: Libertarian Morality--Up with good King John, down with Robin Hood. That falls in with IAAMOAC. There are dues to pay when you are a member. -- Matt - Original Message From: David Hobby hob...@newpaltz.edu To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Friday, August 7, 2009 5:11:02 PM Subject: Re: Br!n: Libertarian Morality--Up with good King John, down with Robin Hood. Trent Shipley wrote: ... The moral principle that taxes are theft suffers from a similar limitation. Logically taxes ARE theft. Newspeak! I stand behind this. When theft is understood as any taking, except as punishment, then taxes are logically a form of theft. It's a logical singularity, but its still logical. It is not reasonable however. Trent-- No, taxes are not theft. They are user fees, imposed for the privilege of being a citizen and/or being in the country. Is everybody happy now? ---David ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Politicians sell out again
John; I really dislike it when someone generalizes any group. The problem I have is with the continuous rant from the right that Everyone knows that ___ is incompetent(replace the blank with government, public schools or teachers etc) Please note that big business is never a target. In this case you just did the same with politicians. I agree that they are not taking the action on Cap and trade that I would like to see. The question is why? You might even be right that it is because they have been bought off and this issue is so complex that they feel most of the public is not watching. How have we gotten to the point that you suggest, that all of our politicians are on the take to the highest bidder? I think the answer is very simple. The cost of running a federal campaign today is staggering. A campaign manager once told a class that if you are looking for a candidate find someone prepared to spend six days a week six hours a day on the phone asking for money! The easiest source of funds is big business. Cloaked, of course, by go betweens and consultants. I suggest that rather rant in general that we begin a concerted effort to limit spending on campaigns and disallow TV and radio ads by any organization other than the candidates. Leave the newspapers and the internet open but ban TV and Radio from replaying political material garnered from open sources. Too simple? Other suggestions ? Chris Frandsen On Aug 9, 2009, at 7:29 PM, John Williams wrote: It does not take long for the new set of politicians to start selling out just like the old set. Cap and trade was supposed to raise hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue by auctioning off the emission credits, but now it seems that most will be given away for free to whoever was best at bribing the politicians. Next up, the politicians sell out to the drug companies, in what could easily amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. What a bunch of suckers we are to keep putting our faith in these politicians. http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/08/white-houses-deal-with-big-pharma.html Robert Reich wrote: Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. That's basically the same deal George W. Bush struck in getting the Medicare drug benefit, and it's proven a bonanza for the drug industry. A continuation will be an even larger bonanza, given all the Boomers who will be enrolling in Medicare over the next decade. And it will be a gold mine if the deal extends to Medicaid, which will be expanded under most versions of the healthcare bills now emerging from Congress, and to any public option that might be included. (We don't know how far the deal extends beyond Medicare because its details haven't been made public.) ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Politicians sell out again
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Chris Frandsenlear...@mac.com wrote: I suggest that rather rant in general that we begin a concerted effort to limit spending on campaigns and disallow TV and radio ads by any organization other than the candidates. Leave the newspapers and the internet open but ban TV and Radio from replaying political material garnered from open sources. Too simple? Other suggestions ? Too difficult to implement, they will find ways around whatever you do. The solution most likely to work is the simplest: fewer politicians with less power. The more politicians and the more power they have, the more sellouts we will have. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Libertarian Morality--Up with good King John, down with Robin Hood.
Dan M wrote: Of course, I knew there was another strain in libertarianism that was based in morality. This was an ideological commitment to maximize individual freedom. Basically Aleister Crowley's Harm no one and do what thou wilt, with the harm no one clause being optional--particularly when doing business. That's not a moral principle. That's principled amorality, an abandonment of social responsibility. At best it is mysticism; faith that we don't have to do anything for our neighbors because the universe will take care of them (if they deserve it, or whatever). Morality an antidote, not a synonym, for self-centered pragmatism. The antecedent for you in this thread isn't clear. I suspect it is not Trent Shipley, but I will provide my input anyway. Well, how do you define what a moral principal is? I'd argue it is an axiom of a system of ethics. Now, from your arguments, I suspect you and I both strongly differ with some of the basic axioms of, say, Objectivistic ethics, but that does not keep it from being an ethical system. I make a distinction between moral principles that are often religious or more folksy and ethical principles that tend to come from high theology or philosophy and are usually more formal. example Given: Slavery is legal. Given: You are CEO of a publicly traded company. Given: The company will make a lot of money if it uses slaves. Then: Using slaves is immoral (the CEO commits a sin). But not using slaves is unethical because the CEO deprives his shareholders of wealth. /example Futhermore, there are ethical systems, but morals are never systematic. Instead one should talk about an individuals moral collection or a group's hegemonic morality. You can't prove or disprove ethical, moral principals. Ethical principles are subject to rational and logical dispute. Moral principles, on the other hand, are dealt with using apologetics and are beyond proof. You can either posit them explicitly, or implicitly. Personally, I prefer explicit, because the principals are out there to be discussed, and the implications of those principals can be arrived at logically and more clearly. Dan M. The trick is that moral principles and the relations between them are seldom explicit. Discovering moral principles and making them explicit requires cultural, linguistic and symbolic analysis. The same applies to ethics at one remove where discovering an ethical system's deep structure, unstated assumptions, and meta-morality require analysis. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Br!n: Libertarian Morality--Up with good King John, down withRobin Hood.
Dan M wrote: -Original Message- From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On Behalf Of Trent Shipley Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 3:23 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: Br!n: Libertarian Morality--Up with good King John, down withRobin Hood. While writing this I tried to imagine how a certain kind of libertarian thought about the world. It is a shallow exercise in participant observation. To appreciate what I wrote you must at least partially empathize with our libertarian subject. I have a question for you Trentdon't libertarians assume that, in a free market, those that create wealth get to keep at least a tenth of a percent of the wealth they create? I've got a trillion dollar counterfactual that I've discussed here before for that argument. Dan M. I don't know. Personally, I don't assume any per se structure to the income and wealth curves produced under highly libertarian markets. Brin's says that libertarian marketism, let alone fundamentalist marketism, tend to produce aristocracies or oligarchies. I agree with the implication that over time libertarianism is prone to produce pronounced income and wealth curves, and furthermore individuals will be structurally stuck near their originating socio-economic status. That said, one expects there should be some limit to how pronounced the wealth ratio can get, but 1:1000 seems arbitary and low. You also use the term creators of wealth, this sounds like a gloss for the Marxian term labor with labor as the critical input for creating capital. Dan, you know that all Marxian ideas are inadmissible because they are socialist. Labor deserves only what the market apportions to it. Under libertarianism there will be no lumpen proletariat, and the un-lumpen proletariat will be free. You wanted to make a point, however. For the sake of argument I will stipulate that within three standard deviations of the mean individual wealth holding the wealth ratio will not exceed 1:1000. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Politicians sell out again
At 02:57 PM Monday 8/10/2009, Chris Frandsen wrote: John; I really dislike it when someone generalizes any group. The problem I have is with the continuous rant from the right that Everyone knows that ___ is incompetent(replace the blank with government, public schools or teachers etc) Please note that big business is never a target. No, the problem with _them_ is that they are _all too_ competent (at getting money for themselves). Any number of people have said (and editorial cartoonists have drawn cartoons illustrating) during the past (roughly) year that a/the problem is that Wall Street and others are too _greedy_. In this case you just did the same with politicians. I agree that they are not taking the action on Cap and trade that I would like to see. The question is why? You might even be right that it is because they have been bought off and this issue is so complex that they feel most of the public is not watching. How have we gotten to the point that you suggest, that all of our politicians are on the take to the highest bidder? I think the answer is very simple. The cost of running a federal campaign today is staggering. A campaign manager once told a class that if you are looking for a candidate find someone prepared to spend six days a week six hours a day on the phone asking for money! And then willing to spend the same for the next two or four or six years trying to find ways to get money out of taxpayers? . . . ronn! :) ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Brin: On Incomprehensibility'
At 08:05 AM Monday 8/3/2009, KZK wrote: David Brin Wrote: Today's DVD's 1- are not universal if you record on minus or plus mode and many units throw fits, even then 1a. Get a better Player. Sony. Avoid Philips/Magnavox for electronics. See earlier exchanges about people (frex on Social Security) who had to get what they could to avoid losing all TV, including local news and weather. . . . ronn! :) ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Politicians sell out again
At 06:53 PM Monday 8/10/2009, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Aug 10, 2009, at 5:57 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: No, the problem with _them_ is that they are _all too_ competent (at getting money for themselves). Any number of people have said (and editorial cartoonists have drawn cartoons illustrating) during the past (roughly) year that a/the problem is that Wall Street and others are too _greedy_. I'd go somewhat farther and say that the Wall Street culture institutionalizes and rationalizes greed as a virtue, if not a sacrament. (Greed is good. Greed works.) Which doesn't make it any more RIGHT than it was 20-odd years ago when that movie came out . . . The market does what it's designed to do quite well, and very efficiently. The problem is in the philosophy behind the design and the assumptions it makes about what's important and what has value .. You certainly recall what happens when you assume . . . ;) It is the mark of a higher culture to value the little unpretentious truths which have been discovered by means of rigorous method more highly than the errors handed down by metaphysical and artistic ages and men, which blind us and make us happy. -- Nietszche This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. ~ Douglas Adams . . . ronn! :) ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Politicians sell out again
Sorry but the rant against Wall Street and Big Business in general has never reached the level of the constant drum beat heard everywhere you turn about lawyers, politicians, school systems and government bureaucrats, etc. Of course the references to Government bureaucrats was dialed back quite a bit during the Bush years. This is one of the key strategies used to destroy any organization. You know the big lie: You say something long enough and loud enough some people will believe it! learner On Aug 10, 2009, at 5:57 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: Any number of people have said (and editorial cartoonists have drawn cartoons illustrating) during the past (roughly) year that a/the problem is that Wall Street and others are too _greedy_. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Politicians sell out again
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Bruce Bostwicklihan161...@sbcglobal.net wrote: I'd go somewhat farther and say that the Wall Street culture institutionalizes and rationalizes greed as a virtue, if not a sacrament. (Greed is good. Greed works.) One of the differences between a politician and a market participant is that the market participant is at least honest about their self-serving behavior. The politician pretends to be acting altruistically while still behaving in a self-serving manner. Another difference is that in a free market, a business can only get your money if you decide to give it to them. But the politicians take your money by force and THEN give it to the businesses. The problem is not greed in free markets, it is greed in politics. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Late anniversary cards . . .
http://www.gocomics.com/nestheads/2009/08/10/ http://comics.com/moderately_confused/2009-08-10/ http://comics.com/pc_and_pixel/2009-08-10/ Ob: . . . ronn! :) I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
