On 8/7/2013 5:22 PM, Shay wrote:
> "Patrick Elliott" <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message
> news:52018f9a$1@news.povray.org...
>> On 8/6/2013 11:01 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>>
>> US "libertarians" are not like those every place else. The best
>> descriptions for their philosophy I have seen are -
>
> Is this really what you think the 25y/o Ron Paul supporters have in
> mind. Disagree if you will, but know your "enemy."
>
Maybe not, but they are not the actually people who make the policy. 
Just look at what Obama ended up "supporting", after he got in, never 
mind what he actually did try to do, which liberals actually support. 
But, no.. I am not talking about what the 25 year olds "think" they 
would do, I am talking about what they actually have done, every time 
they get elected some place. Well, that and what they have said when 
they imagine that there isn't a camera around.

>>
>> On government help: The government is too big, and doesn't help
>
> On government help: The beast has many faces. More money to the
> government means more guns, more bombs, more drones. You can't fill only
> the left half of the bucket.
>
Actually.. Sort of true, and sort of not. A lot of that depends on who 
is in charge, and what they are actually trying to do. So, in the US, 
the right has gone farther right, and the left (or rather the party that 
claims to be them) has gone center. And, well... the center isn't 
exactly against guns, bombs, and more drones...

>>
>> On worker wages: They can always find a job with more pay, even though
>> 90% of all jobs are not "service" in the US, and they all pay minimum
>> wage (this isn't even necessary, since they ran the numbers, and fast
>> food places could pass on 100% of the difference to the customer, at a
>> mere 50 cent increase in the cost of the food, while **doubling** the
>> salaries of everyone that worked for them, including the CEOs).
>
> On worker wages: "Minimum wage" isn't the minimum wage: ZERO is the
> minimum wage. Many of us worked for less that minimum wage (I did) to
> get into certain trades. Salesmen are some of the highest-paid
> professionals; Many of the best started off door-to-door, making less
> than minimum wage. We’re kicking the ladder out from under would-be
> salesmen, mechanics, musicians, and carpenters. MUCH more importantly
> ... (see below)
>
Ah, yes, once more the hypothesis that libertarians push, that, despite 
all disparities, the limitations of the job market, or minor things like 
starving to death, because you don't actually have the education, or any 
number of other things, that the much smaller number of people who 
actually succeed that way do, "You to can succeed!". Hell, 90% of 
businesses opened by people that have money, do, more or less, know what 
they are doing, and shouldn't fail, fail anyway. Some of us, if we had 
to take that "sub-minimum wage" would never survive the experience. 
Some... would thrive in it. Still others, would, on finding they 
couldn't succeed by legitimate means, add to the drug, prostitution, 
gang violence, and so on, crimes (at least one of which is only a crime 
because of the far right, that think its "sin", and refuse to accept 
"legitimate" versions of it, never mind extend legal protections to the 
people involved, and.. kind of like the drug business, only the sellers, 
and the buyers, end up in jail, the suppliers.. usually, just find more 
sellers, and more buyers.)

>>
>> On price gouging: You can always buy something else, somewhere else,
>> which is cheaper.
>
> On price gouging: Mercantilism is WRONG. The same people who would set
> prices ...
> Would exclude Walmart from local taxation in the name of economic growth
> ...
> Would literally go to war to grow the economy.
>
Hmm.. See, the problem there is, more and more people buy, "off the net" 
now, rather than from the mercantile businesses. How long before its not 
"Walmart" that is killing things, but "The internet"? Hint: I have 
bought about 2 things, out of like 30, in the last few months, because 
no local company sells any of them, nor can they "special order them". 
Hell, I couldn't even buy faux fur, for making ears, to go on a costume 
I plan to make for Halloween, because no material store in town sells 
it, K-Mart no longer has a fabric department, Walmart is fazing their 
own out, and didn't have anything other than basic stuff in the first 
place, and the "craft store", in this case, Hobbie Lobby, had jack all 
of anything either (even though they had much more selection).

There are too many products for "any" store to provide access any more, 
unless its like jewelry, or some other, "make as needed, or buy 
something we happen to have in stock", type thing, at this point. In the 
end, they are probably all dead, even the mercantile ones. But, in the 
mean time, insisting that, without them, somehow it would never have 
gotten this screwed up, is.. just not reality. At best, it might have 
taken longer, but.. US libertarianism, since it fundamentally denies 
parts of the problem, and insists that the market can somehow "fix 
itself", isn't an answer. The only times in history that the "market" 
was ever allowed to do that, real people suffered the consequences, 
until it **eventually** did fix itself, decades later, or someone 
stepped in and changed the system.

>>
>> On crappy products: Well.. you can always buy the more costly item,
>> which won't be a piece of total crap.
>
> On crappy products: We agree that our government is selected by
> billionaires for the benefit of billionaires. The difference is one of
> us would give that government the power of selective taxation (tarriffs).
>
Uh.. I am not sure why you imagine I would. Mind.. There is a difference 
between doing that to "support" the growth of new industry, and doing it 
to just screw them. For example, the energy companies pretty much lie, 
and lie, and lie, about wanting to get away from doing things the same 
way, for as long as they can manage, while only pretending that they 
actually give a damn about finding "other" sources.

>>
>> On regulation: Regulations are bad, if they stifle my business, but
>> good, if they stifle worker's rights.
>
> On regulation: Regulation is how we cut up the big fish (and feed them
> to the giant fish).
>
Bullshit. When its done right, it keeps the big fish from eating up the 
small fish, and towns, and people, and so on. The problem, of course, if 
that when you let the damn corporations buy the regulations, *then* they 
start eating everyone else, and getting bigger, exactly as you describe. 
Its interesting how that actually works. Its sort of like patents, or IP 
rights. When they "worked" patents only applied to demonstrable things, 
not vague ideas, or trivial ways of doing things. IP right, used to 
reach the public domain. What has happened in the last 20-30 years, and 
which I haven't heard one damn libertarian attack, instead of defending 
- Patents are now so vague that, if you worded it right, you could 
probably patent breathing, and IP, as of just this year, can be taken 
from the public, and sold to some big company, at the governments 
discretion, on the theory that "corporations have rights to own things", 
but, apparently, the "public" doesn't.

>>
>> On personal responsibility: Everyone should be responsible for their
>> own mistakes, but.. uh, I didn't actually mean "me" when I said that!
>
> On personal responsibility: If you wish to share the consequences of
> your choices, you'll also have to share the authority over those choices.
>
Cute.. But, in reality, its always the rich business owner, even among 
libertarians, who gets the "authority".

It was bad Sci-Fi, seriously, and Ayn Rand was a nutcase.

> -Shay

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