27 Aug
2016
27 Aug
'16
12:50 p.m.
http://www.essentialkids.com.au/news/current-affairs/parents-charged-after-…
Police deprive parents of their children and prosecute them for failing to feed their
children.
Libertarianism aims to stop this. To give parents full liberty they should be allowed to
starve theor children. Also the Libertarian party in the US wants to legalise child porn.
So the 7yo in question could have become a professional porn actor instead of selling his
teddy bear or relying on gifts of food from the police (which os paid for by tax money).
Just imagine how much tax could be reduced if 7yos did sex work instead of getting help
from the police!
--
Sent from my Nexus 6P with K-9 Mail.
27 Aug
27 Aug
2:21 p.m.
Quoting Russell Coker (russell(a)coker.com.au):
Libertarianism aims to stop this. To give parents full
liberty they
should be allowed to starve theor children. Also the Libertarian party
in the US wants to legalise child porn.
Uh... [citation needed]
(Disclosure: I am indeed a Yank, but for the record consider the USA
Libertarian Party to be a mixture of loons and corporatist shills. I am
a member of the USA Democratic Party, and deemed a liberal. I consider
myself neither a large-L or small-l libertarian.)
After a ~10 minute search, I find zero support for the above allegation.
I find a claim that in 2008 the USA Libertarian Party considered but
passed over for nomination an anarchist candidate named Murray Rothbard
who favoured legalising child pornography, but find nothing else
suggesting what Russell asserts.
To the contrary, I also find a Quora debunking of the claim:
https://www.quora.com/Why-has-the-U-S-Libertarian-Party-never-advocated-leg…
For larger context, unlike the case in Oz, the emergent effects of FPTP
voting in districts (winner take all) and lack of ranked-choice voting
(aka 'Australian ballot') most places in the USA creates an
unintentional huge bias towards two parties, which for the last ~100
years have been the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. See
Duverger's Law for the mechanics behind this observed effect:
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#duverger
Thus, USA Libertarian Party is one of several _incredibly tiny_
(fringe, nutcase) USA political parties. _And yet_, it appears to be
incorrect to assert that it 'wants to legalise child porn.
Here's an indication about how much a fringe concern it is:
The California 2016 Presidential Primary Election occurred on Tuesday,
June 7. Semi-official voting totals, that day:
5,173,312 69.29% Democratic Party votes
2,227,306 29.94% Republican Party votes
30,502 0.40% American Independent Party votes
21,495 0.28% Libertarian Party votes
10,123 0.14% Green Party votes
3,644 0.05% Peace and Freedom Party votes
--------- -------
7,266,382 100.00% total votes cast
========= =======
4:46 p.m.
On Friday, 26 August 2016 9:21:28 PM AEST Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
Quoting Russell Coker (russell(a)coker.com.au):
A quick Google of Mary Rewart will do. You know this of course, why do you
even ask that?
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2012/01/even-with-gary-johnson-the-lib…
The above is one of many articles that summarises this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ruwart
Mary has been active in the LP for a long time in senior positions including
representing them in a senate race.
Libertarianism aims to stop this. To give parents
full liberty they
should be allowed to starve theor children. Also the Libertarian party
in the US wants to legalise child porn.
Uh... [citation needed] (Disclosure: I am indeed a Yank, but for the record
consider the USA
Libertarian Party to be a mixture of loons and corporatist shills. I am
a member of the USA Democratic Party, and deemed a liberal. I consider
myself neither a large-L or small-l libertarian.)
The US Libertarian Party is accurately representing Libertarians then.
After a ~10 minute search, I find zero support for the
above allegation.
I find a claim that in 2008 the USA Libertarian Party considered but
passed over for nomination an anarchist candidate named Murray Rothbard
who favoured legalising child pornography, but find nothing else
suggesting what Russell asserts.
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/mutual-aid-parecon-right-stealing-li…
You are being ridiculous here in describing Murray Rothbard as "an anarchist
candidate". A better (and quite commonly used) description of him is "Mr
Libertarian". He claims personal responsibility for stealing the word
"Libertarian" from the left, see the above article which is one of many about
this.
Google indicates that the book "Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the
Internet" describes Libertarians as being active on pedophile forums on the
net.
To the contrary, I also find a Quora debunking of the
claim:
https://www.quora.com/Why-has-the-U-S-Libertarian-Party-never-advocated-lega
lization-of-child-pornography-possession-and-distribution
Quora is not working now.
Mary Ruwart wrote in her book "Children who willingly participate in sexual
acts have the right to make that decision". When a senate candidate from a
party makes such a claim in writing (on many occasions) you can't seriously
claim that it goes against the party in question.
Thus, USA Libertarian Party is one of several
_incredibly tiny_
(fringe, nutcase) USA political parties. _And yet_, it appears to be
incorrect to assert that it 'wants to legalise child porn.
It's a fringe nutcase party that has a significant influence on the Republican
party.
--
My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
6:13 p.m.
Quoting russell(a)coker.com.au (russell(a)coker.com.au):
Which protracted Proudhon-centric blithering _also_ completely fails to
support your assertion.
A quick Google of Mary Rewart will do. You know this
of course, why do you
even ask that?
(Correct spelling is 'Ruwart', apparently.)
How about: Because she was never the Libertarian Party nominee? ;->
Any old idiot can join the Libertarian Party, and many do. Doing so,
and then running and failing to get nomination, does not mean you speak
for the party.
I normally do not keep track of Libertarian Party wack jobs. As I
mentioned, that and numerous other minor parties have basically zero
role in either national politics or in local politics in the USA with
extremely few exceptions.
Thank you for answering my question: You spoke in error, and now are
ignoring on-point correction.
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2012/01/even-with-gary-johnson-the-lib…
The above is one of many articles that summarises this.
Yes, I found that in my two minutes of Web-searching _too_. You'll
please note that this article Dr. Ruwart was a _contender_ for the
Libertarian Party nomination four years before the article. (Bizarrely,
the article calls her 'the _leading_ contender', which is very strange
when speaking about a nomination race multiple years in the past.) She
was -- as I noted upthread -- passed over for that nomination for the
Libertarian party presidential candidate.
Because the USA Libertarian Party are indeed crazy, but they are not
quite _that_ crazy.
Mary has been active in the LP for a long time in
senior positions
including representing them in a senate race.
And _losing_. ;-> (She got 1.16% of the vote. Not even Texans are
quite that crazy. This was a hopeless challenge to one of Texas's two
US Senators, Sen. Kay Hutchinson.)
She did manage to be one of the keynote speakers at the 2004 Libertarian
National Convention. I'll bet they carefully vetted what she said
before letting her take the mic, even though basically nobody pays
attention to minor parties in the USA. And at some point in the past,
she was an 'at-large member of the Libertarian National Committee',
which along with US $2.25 will get you a ride on the San Francisco
Municpal Railway.
And she actually did _once_ make it as far as VP candidate for the
Libertarian Party in 1992. I'll bet that was before she started
mouthing off about child pornographers.
After a ~10
minute search, I find zero support for the above allegation.
I find a claim that in 2008 the USA Libertarian Party considered but
passed over for nomination an anarchist candidate named Murray Rothbard
who favoured legalising child pornography, but find nothing else
suggesting what Russell asserts.
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/mutual-aid-parecon-right-stealing-li…
You are being ridiculous here in describing Murray
Rothbard as "an anarchist
candidate".
Why not? The late Rothbard (who died in 1995) called _himself_ that,
after all. He coined the term 'anarcho-capitalist' to describe himself.
But, seriously, his label is rather beside the point.
A better (and quite commonly used) description of him
is "Mr
Libertarian".
In analogy perhaps with the late Robert Taft, dubbed 'Mr. Republican',
who notably failed to be elected President. (Eisenhower defeated the
Taft faction utterly and permanently in 1952.) But at least Taft
managed to be a Senator from Ohio. Rothbard never merely spent 45 years
wearing out typewriters as an ideologue academic.
He claims personal responsibility for stealing the
word
"Libertarian" from the left, see the above article which is one of many about
this.
He can claim anything. (Well, actually, no, strictly speaking, he
cannot, being deceased for these past 21 years.) However, he could not
claim to in any way speak for the USA Libertarian Party.
One sign of good character in the late Prof. Rothbard is that he didn't
get along with Ayn Rand. On the other hand, he had the poor taste to
try to be an Objectivist. ;->
Google indicates that the book "Beyond Tolerance:
Child Pornography on the
Internet" describes Libertarians as being active on pedophile forums on the
net.
No, it doesn't. It merely says on page 97 that the Internet has a
'libertarian ethos', and that unnamed 'other Internet users' imposed a
fierce reaction after the manager of a small California ISP discovered
in 1998 a child porn Web site, reported that site to legal authorites,
and investigated in an attempt to discover more information about the
site's operators.
This has no discernible connection to the USA Libertarian Party.
Here is a more-detailed new story about that incident:
http://www.cnet.com/news/isp-attacked-after-finding-child-porn/
Essentially, Marrya VandeVen, general manager of ISP Stockton Community
Wide Web in Stockton, CA discovered a child pornography and bootleg
proprietary software Web site. She asked the advice of subscribers to
an unspecified antispam mailing list about what to do with her
discovery, and was advised by some subscribers to 'mind my own business
and let it drop', and predicting that her business would face
retaliation if she reported the site to the legal authorities.
Other subscribers said her query was off-topic for an anti-UCE online
forum, and still other subscribers gave her helpful tips.
She duly reported the criminal Web site to the US Customs Service and
Federal Bureau of Investigation the next day. Three days after that,
her ISP main (or possibly only?) Unix server got rooted and all files
deleted by unknown parties, and had to rebuilt over the next several
days.
Upshot: There are scummy people on the Internet. But this has exactly
zero to do with the USA Libertarian Party.
Quora is not working now.
Still up for me, FWIW.
Mary Ruwart wrote in her book "Children who
willingly participate in sexual
acts have the right to make that decision". When a senate candidate from a
party makes such a claim in writing (on many occasions) you can't seriously
claim that it goes against the party in question.
Yes, and she _still_ doesn't speak for that minor, fringe political
party.
It's a fringe nutcase party that has a significant
influence on the
Republican party.
No, it really doesn't.
Russell, you really should not go around making pronouncements about USA
politics, because you really have no idea what you're talking about.
6:42 p.m.
I wrote:
For thoroughness: In addition to the page 97, reference, the word
'libertarian' also occurs on 10 _other_ pages in this book, which we
will now go through individually:
Page 4:
Many other forms of deviant behavior have their reputable
defenders or at least libertarians who assert that these
activities should not be severely penalized: drug use has
its defenders, as do exhibitionism, public sex, and even
bestiatiy. For child pornography, however, there is no
such tolerance....
Page 9:
[The author, speaking of himself as someone raising the
problem of child porn:]
This is a curious position for someone who defines himself
as a libertarian, who fits poorly into most existing schemes
of political affiliations. As a general principle, I believe
that criminal law should be kept as far removed as possible
from issues of personal morality....
Page 35:
Contrary to public impression, "obscenity" is and always has
been illegal in the United States, but in order to be prohibited,
material has to be truly obscene rather than merely indecent, and
this fact is difficult to prove in court. At least since the
libertarian Supreme Court decisions of the 1950s, nudity per se
rarely made a picture obscene where adult subjects were....
Page 121:
[Speaking of 'pedo boards':]
The boards regularly feature lengthy discussion about the ethics
of the traffic, in which participants generally assert a libertarian
value system
Page 122:
The politicization of the subculture should not be exaggerated,
since the long discussions are often interrupted by protests from
those simply demanding more URLs, more dirty pictures, and rejecting
the philosophizing as irrelevant to the real nature of the board.
Yet ethical and political themes do surface very frequently and
usually remain within a broad libertarian context. Feminism is
particular castigated for its role in demanding anti-pornography
laws and creating a climate of puritanism....
Page 123:
Sometimes, political ideologies expressed go much further than
mere libertarianism to a kind of right-wing anarchism, which rejects
both police authoritarianism and the various manifestations of
political correctness....
Page 137:
Whenever this photo set appears, as it does regularly, some
commentators will invariably denounce it as sick and contrary
to the whole libertarian purpose of the boards....
Page 157:
In theory, the combined efforts of the FBI, NSA, GTAC, and alied
units should be able to detect most illicit porn traffic on the
Web, in a stunning example of global law enforcement cooperation.
In addition to alarming civil libertarians, these developments
sparked panic on the pedo boards: pornographers are well aware
of the new ice age in which they operate and of the dangers of
intensified international police cooperation....
Page 191:
An international desire to curb child exploitation overseas has
led to new legal devices in Europe itself, including countries
that once had been regarded as libertarian havens....
Page 252:
[footnote:]
...-ing, "New Encryption Rules Lave Civil Libertarians Unhappy",
NYI, January 18, 2000....
Not a single one of these in any way concerns the Libertarian Party.
Google
indicates that the book "Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography
on the Internet" describes Libertarians as being active on pedophile
forums on the net.
No, it doesn't. It merely says on page 97 that the Internet has a
'libertarian ethos', and that unnamed 'other Internet users' imposed a
fierce reaction after the manager of a small California ISP discovered
in 1998 a child porn Web site, reported that site to legal authorites,
and investigated in an attempt to discover more information about the
site's operators.
29 Aug
29 Aug
6:48 p.m.
On Saturday, 27 August 2016 1:13:22 AM AEST Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
I normally do not keep track of Libertarian Party wack
jobs. As I
mentioned, that and numerous other minor parties have basically zero
role in either national politics or in local politics in the USA with
extremely few exceptions.
OK you win.
I should have just said "Libertarians" instead of "Libertarian party"
when
referring to the legalising of child porn.
Libertarianism aims to be a logical consistent way of running society. If you
compell people to feed their children then it logically ends up with providing
medical treatment for kids, using tax money to pay for hospitals for poor
people, and a decent standard of living for everyone.
It's not consistent to argue for banning all child porn (where "child" is
defined as 17yo) but provide no social security so that 18yos are forced into
sex work. The Rothbardian approach would be to legalise all child porn.
Note that decriminalising (*) the non-commercial act of a child sending
pictures of themself to another child the same age would be a reasonable thing
to do, there is a big difference between a teenager sending a rude pic to
their BF or GF and commercial child exploitation. Also clarifying the
statutory rape laws such that 2 kids the same age can't be accused of jointly
raping each other would also make sense. But in the US political discussion
introducing the same laws as we have in Australia is apparently regarded as
"THAT crazy" (to use your term).
(*) Decriminalise doesn't mean legalise. I have to note this because there
are stupid people in Australian political discussions too.
--
My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
7:49 p.m.
Quoting russell(a)coker.com.au (russell(a)coker.com.au):
I should have just said "Libertarians"
instead of "Libertarian party" when
referring to the legalising of child porn.
Libertarianism aims to be a logical consistent way of running society.
I tend to think in operational terms, and the USA Libertarian Party
seems to have only erratic and inconsistent adherence to any specific
theoretical framework for 'libertarianism'. The latter term is so ill
defined in USA political discourse that a slightly different term,
'civil libertarian' arose in contradiction, meaning someone protective
of fundamental liberties.
But in contrast, 'libertarian' (in USA discourse) is just a political
football and means any of a variety of rather different things depending
on the speaker.
And most _particularly_, the biggest problem about talking about small-L
libertarians is that it becomes an all-purpose vague descriptor for
anyone who favours more freedom of action in any area. Thus, it's
basically meaningless.
As to political parties, it is in my experience more useful to classify
them according to what they _do_ rather than what they profess to
believe, for lots of reasons including the professed beliefs often being
given only lip service. Unfortunately, it is difficult to judge the USA
Libertarian Party by that metric, because to my knowledge its candidates
have won exactly zero national offices, and only a few hundred state and
local ones in its entire history.
Of course, it can be equally objected that it's not clear what the two
_major_ USA parties stand for. Of the two, the Republican Party is the
one that's always stood for an ideology, though the ideology it stumps
for has changed repeatedly and drastically over its 162 years. By
contrast, the Democratic Party (mine) really has never had a unifying
ideology. It's always, over its 188 year history, been a disparate
coalition of interests, some of them sectional.
But anyway, _no_ party in the USA, major or minor, has ever endorsed
legalisation of child porn, and it doesn't signify what you feel is the
logical extension of any of their programmes.
8:12 p.m.
On Monday, 29 August 2016 2:49:43 AM AEST Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
Quoting russell(a)coker.com.au (russell(a)coker.com.au):
It seems to be usually about liberty for the powerful people to oppress others
and almost never about liberty for the less powerful people to not be
oppressed. An example is the discussions about freedom for business owners to
discriminate against some customers.
I should have just said "Libertarians"
instead of "Libertarian party" when
referring to the legalising of child porn.
Libertarianism aims to be a logical consistent way of running society.
I tend to think in operational terms, and the USA Libertarian Party
seems to have only erratic and inconsistent adherence to any specific
theoretical framework for 'libertarianism'. The latter term is so ill
defined in USA political discourse that a slightly different term,
'civil libertarian' arose in contradiction, meaning someone protective
of fundamental liberties.
But in contrast, 'libertarian' (in USA discourse) is just a political
football and means any of a variety of rather different things depending
on the speaker. As to political parties, it is in my experience more
useful to classify
them according to what they _do_ rather than what they profess to
believe, for lots of reasons including the professed beliefs often being
given only lip service. Unfortunately, it is difficult to judge the USA
Libertarian Party by that metric, because to my knowledge its candidates
have won exactly zero national offices, and only a few hundred state and
local ones in its entire history.
Doesn't Ron Paul count?
Of course, it can be equally objected that it's
not clear what the two
_major_ USA parties stand for. Of the two, the Republican Party is the
one that's always stood for an ideology, though the ideology it stumps
for has changed repeatedly and drastically over its 162 years. By
contrast, the Democratic Party (mine) really has never had a unifying
ideology. It's always, over its 188 year history, been a disparate
coalition of interests, some of them sectional.
Both the main parties are stumping for the rich quite effectively. Although
Trump seems to be changing things, not that he wants to stop giving money to
the rich (he wants his share) but he seems too crazy for the Koch brothers
etc.
--
My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
3 Sep
3 Sep
8:02 a.m.
Quoting russell(a)coker.com.au (russell(a)coker.com.au):
It seems to be usually about liberty for the powerful
people to
oppress others and almost never about liberty for the less powerful
people to not be oppressed. An example is the discussions about
freedom for business owners to discriminate against some customers.
No, as I said, AFAIK it's in USA discourse just a political football,
meaning almost anything at all depending on the whim of the speaker.
It's effectively duckspeak, hence functionally a useless term.
Doesn't Ron Paul count?
Ron Paul has always, consistently, served in the US House of
Representatives (and likewise in his failed run for the US Senate) as a
member of the Republican Party for the state of Texas.
Both the main parties are stumping for the rich quite
effectively.
Sure.
True electoral reform will require getting the money out of politics,
which means meaningful public financing for (at least) national-office
campaigns and overturning of the very harmful 2009 US Supreme Court
decision Citizens United, Appellant v. Federal Election Commission,
558 U.S. 310, in which the five-member corporatist majority banned the
rest of the Federal government from restricting so-called independent
political expenditures by corporations, citing 1st Amendment freedom of
speech.
Now that Justice Antonin Scalia performed his one unequivocal service to
the republic (dying, six months ago), the latter reform is suddenly
possible if Ms. Clinton ascends to the Presidency after the Nov. 8th
general election. (For those who don't know, the US Supreme Court
has remained deadlocked at 4 votes to 4 votes, since Scalia's death --
which is on the one hand a disabiling of that institution and on the
other an improvement in the eyes of many of us.)
Back in 1982, the late Gore Vidal ran to be junior senator for
California (my state) and rather charmingly asserted that he was running
for the 'Democratic wing of the Property Party'. He got my vote, of
course.
Quoting Vidal's May 1975 essay 'The State of the Union' (_Esquire_
magazine):
There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...
and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are
a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire
capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more
corrupt – until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to
make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists
get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the
two parties.
There now _is_ a difference between the parties even to someone of
the late Mr. Vidal's jaundiced eyes -- on account of the bizarre
eruptions among the Republicans, and signs of the left wing of the
Democratic Party reviving some power at the same time. Perhaps I will
post some speculations on those matters here soon.
4:44 p.m.
On Friday, 2 September 2016 3:02:06 PM AEST Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
Getting money out of politics is like trying to prevent politicians from
lying. It's a good aim to work towords but it's not an objective you are
likely to achieve.
Quoting russell(a)coker.com.au (russell(a)coker.com.au):
You could say the same about most political terms. If you were to rule out
all words that could be considered to be political footballs then it would be
impossible to have a discussion about politics.
It seems to be usually about liberty for the
powerful people to
oppress others and almost never about liberty for the less powerful
people to not be oppressed. An example is the discussions about
freedom for business owners to discriminate against some customers.
No, as I said, AFAIK it's in USA discourse just a political football,
meaning almost anything at all depending on the whim of the speaker.
It's effectively duckspeak, hence functionally a useless term. Both the main
parties are stumping for the rich quite effectively.
Sure.
True electoral reform will require getting the money out of politics,
which means meaningful public financing for (at least) national-office
campaigns and overturning of the very harmful 2009 US Supreme Court
decision Citizens United, Appellant v. Federal Election Commission,
558 U.S. 310, in which the five-member corporatist majority banned the
rest of the Federal government from restricting so-called independent
political expenditures by corporations, citing 1st Amendment freedom of
speech. There is only one party in the United States, the
Property Party...
and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are
a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire
capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more
corrupt – until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to
make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists
get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the
two parties.
There now _is_ a difference between the parties even to someone of
the late Mr. Vidal's jaundiced eyes -- on account of the bizarre
eruptions among the Republicans, and signs of the left wing of the
Democratic Party reviving some power at the same time. Perhaps I will
post some speculations on those matters here soon.
Having a stated aim of an organisation matters. The Democratic party claims
to be a left-wing party and attracts left-wing voters. Translating that into
support for right-wing financial policy is always going to be a battle for
them.
--
My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
5:18 p.m.
Quoting russell(a)coker.com.au (russell(a)coker.com.au):
You could say the same about most political terms.
But with huge and critical differences in degree.
If you were to rule out all words that could be
considered to be
political footballs then it would be impossible to have a discussion
about politics.
I'll take care not to do that, then. ;->
Getting money out of politics is like trying to
prevent politicians from
lying.
Sanders's campaign proved it's still possible in 2016 to have a highly
credible big for a major-party USA Presidential candidate, without big
funding. This actually surprised a lot of people.
It's a good aim to work towords but it's not
an objective you are
likely to achieve.
They said that to Bernie Sanders about even making a creditable showing
against Clinton, too. ;->
It's indeed serious work -- but not impossible.
Having a stated aim of an organisation matters. The
Democratic party claims
to be a left-wing party and attracts left-wing voters.
No, it doesn't.
There is no meaningful statement of mission for that party. (There are
party platforms fought over at both major parties' nominating
conventions, but they're utterly without meaning.)
Speaking for myself, I'm perfectly happy with the fact that the
Democratic Party has never had a coherent ideology. IMO, it's been
better for that.
5 Sep
5 Sep
10:27 a.m.
Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
True electoral reform will require getting the money
out of politics,
which means meaningful public financing for (at least) national-office
campaigns and overturning of the very harmful 2009 US Supreme Court
decision Citizens United, Appellant v. Federal Election Commission,
558 U.S. 310, in which the five-member corporatist majority banned the
rest of the Federal government from restricting so-called independent
political expenditures by corporations, citing 1st Amendment freedom of
speech.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the rationale was something like this:
1. corporations are people.
2. corporations can't vote or go to rallies like human people.
3. therefore, to exercise their first amendment right to free speech,
they NEED to be able to pour funding into political entities that
promote their pro-corporate, anti-human agenda.
Quoting Vidal's May 1975 essay 'The State of
the Union' (_Esquire_
magazine):
There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...
and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are
a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire
capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more
corrupt – until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to
make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists
get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the
two parties.
Cf.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/political-failure-modes…
With hilarious Mencius Moldbug rejoinder buried in the comment section.
4:16 p.m.
Quoting Trent W. Buck (trentbuck(a)gmail.com):
Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
I think not so, because I believe it was decided more narrowly. I'll
confess lameness, here: This is one of the recent USSC cases I've not
actually read, only the summaries of the court's holding. I often rely
on SCOTUSblog, but in this case they had a bunch of links rather than
unified coverage, so these might be good enough:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html?pagewanted=all
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/who-are-citizens-united/
It was one of the classic 5-4 decisions that _now_ would deadlock,
following Scalia's blessed demise. Quoting the second link:
The Court majority argued:
1. barring independent political spending amounts to squelching free speech
protected by the First Amendment.
2. the First Amendment protects not just a person’s right to speak, but the
act of speech itself, regardless of the speaker. Therefore the First
Amendment protects the speech of corporations and unions, whether we
consider them people or not.
3. although government has the authority to prevent corruption or “the
appearance of corruption,” it has no place in determining whether large
political expenditures are either of those things, so it may not impose
spending limits on that basis.
4. the public has the right to hear all available information, and spending
limits prevent information from reaching the public.
In any event, it tops most people's list of Most Awful USSC Decision
Since Plessy v. Ferguson, and there's a widely felt desire to erase it
through either USSC or Congressional action, whichever works soonest.
True electoral reform will require getting the
money out of politics,
which means meaningful public financing for (at least) national-office
campaigns and overturning of the very harmful 2009 US Supreme Court
decision Citizens United, Appellant v. Federal Election Commission,
558 U.S. 310, in which the five-member corporatist majority banned the
rest of the Federal government from restricting so-called independent
political expenditures by corporations, citing 1st Amendment freedom of
speech.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the rationale was something like this:
1. corporations are people.
2. corporations can't vote or go to rallies like human people.
3. therefore, to exercise their first amendment right to free speech,
they NEED to be able to pour funding into political entities that
promote their pro-corporate, anti-human agenda. Cf.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/political-failure-modes…
With hilarious Mencius Moldbug rejoinder buried in the comment section.
Charlie is very much One of Us in lots of ways (technical, and I also
like his politics). Strangely, a couple of times in person at SF
conventions, I got the impression that he thought I was some sort of
reactionary, perhaps because Eric Raymond is a friend of mine (despite
politics and economics, e.g. he's Austrian School and I'm a
neo-Keynesian), perhaps because I grew up in a British colony and he
thinks I'm one of those unspeakable people nostalgic for empire.
Or maybe he just finds American liberals boring. No offence taken.
I'll still read everything he writes.
I'll readily admit to being politically unreliable. ;-> And one of the
reasons for that is I'll talk to just about anyone who's not actually
trying to kill me.
30 Aug
30 Aug
10:25 a.m.
Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
I tend to think in operational terms, and the USA
Libertarian Party
seems to have only erratic and inconsistent adherence to any
specific theoretical framework for 'libertarianism'. The latter
term is so ill defined in USA political discourse [...]
[...] 'libertarian' (in USA discourse) is just a political football
and means any of a variety of rather different things depending on
the speaker.
Cf.
The word "Fascism" has now no meaning except in so far as it
signifies 'something not desirable'.
-- George Orwell in "Politics and the English Language"
Productive intercourse is impossible with people using such terms.
1:13 p.m.
Trent W. Buck via luv-talk wrote:
Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
Some (me for example) would claim that Continental philosophy is rife
with such terms;
not to mention much idiosyncratic jargon and scholasticism.
So though I sympathise with Hume's complaint:
“If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics,
for instance;........."
eg
:http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7327-if-we-take-in-our-hand-any-volume-of-divinity
The subsequent attempt in Positivism and Analytical Philosophy to
restrict discourse to
objective langauge; seems to have had the effect of reducing philosophy
to the aridity of symbolic logic
Perhaps the problem is that if the word 'science' is used in the narrow
sense of an "objectively falsifiable theory";
then a science of langauge (the claim of linguitics.) is not strictly
possible since words as the fundamental,
contituents of language, consist of objective symbols AND an associated
phenomenological (ie subjective) meaning.
If one comes from a scientific or technical background ; the suggestion
that a dictionary definition is a theory ;
which SHOULD be a:
"Concise, precise, exhaustive and reductive description of prefered
usage(s) in a given demographic "
probably doesn't seem all that contraversial.
What would seem contraversial is my suggestion that the thing it
describes (ie the meaning);
is a phenomenological category !
........but I digress from the serious matter of politics !:-)
regards Rohan McLeod
I tend to think in operational terms, and the USA
Libertarian Party
seems to have only erratic and inconsistent adherence to any
specific theoretical framework for 'libertarianism'. The latter
term is so ill defined in USA political discourse [...]
[...] 'libertarian' (in USA discourse) is just a political football
and means any of a variety of rather different things depending on
the speaker.
Cf.
The word "Fascism" has now no meaning except in so far as it
signifies 'something not desirable'.
-- George Orwell in "Politics and the English Language"
Productive intercourse is impossible with people using such terms.
3:11 p.m.
On Tuesday, 30 August 2016 10:25:47 AM AEST Trent W. Buck via luv-talk wrote:
Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
We just need to try and be consistent about the use of words.
The word "conservative" in a non-political sense means to not want to change
things. But in terms of politics "conservative" means not wanting to conserve
the environment. The solution is not to try and say that the Republican party
is not "conservative" but to accept that the most commonly used definition of
"conservative" means Trump etc.
Rothbard was correct when he claimed that he stole the word "libertarian".
The most commonly used definition of the word is the one he invented. We just
have to accept that and move on.
Fascism never lost it's meaning because people who violate the Godwin rule
aren't applying any specific meaning to it.
Words such as "socialist" and "Marxist" are commonly used as terms of
abuse in
low quality tabloids like the Wall Street Journal. Again that doesn't change
the meaning of those words because the WSJ and other poor excuses for
journalism don't have any meaning.
--
My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
I tend to think in operational terms, and the USA
Libertarian Party
seems to have only erratic and inconsistent adherence to any
specific theoretical framework for 'libertarianism'. The latter
term is so ill defined in USA political discourse [...]
[...] 'libertarian' (in USA discourse) is just a political football
and means any of a variety of rather different things depending on
the speaker.
Cf.
The word "Fascism" has now no meaning except in so far as it
signifies 'something not desirable'.
-- George Orwell in "Politics and the English Language"
Productive intercourse is impossible with people using such terms.
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Trent W. Buck