"Freedom" thread or something

dtguitarfan wrote: Padraic wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: The T wrote: socialism (the purer variant) has shown to be a failed system Also - please explain why the NFL is so successful if socialism is failed. Laugh it up.  If the NFL was run the way a Libertarian would run it, it would suck. Please explain. The "socialism" of the NFL is what keeps it competitive.  We never know who's going to make it to the Superbowl.  A team could suck for years and then all of a sudden do quite well.  The profit sharing is what keeps it competitive like that.  Without it, you'd have a few teams that ALWAYS went to the superbowl and most teams wouldn't stand a chance because they'd never be able to afford to pay the good players.  I wouldn't want to watch it if it were like that.

Why wouldn't libertarian-minded people come up with such an arrangement?

This NFL ~ Socialism argument is probably the most absurd thing I've read in the 700 pages or whatnot that this thread has had. 

The T wrote: Geoff, do you really think Rob or Jacob believe that if an individual doesn't make enough money he/she should die? You have quite the disturbing ideas sometimes.

No, they think that magically all of these poor souls will just...be taken care of!  Through liberty!  Yay!

We have enough selfish b*****ds in this world to contradict that view - if people were so full of good will, they wouldn't be fighting so damn hard against a government that is trying to set up charitable programs.  They'd be saying "this is a good thing - I was going to do the same thing of my own free will, but if someone wants to organize a larger effort, that will probably be more efficient than each one of us doing it on our own!"

Yep, we're some greedy b*****ds all right!

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: Yep, we're some greedy b*****ds all right! Now explain people like the Koch brothers. A good deal of charitable giving in the US is to try to APPEAR like you are not really a greedy b*****d.  You give a very small portion of your income to alleviate the guilt of knowing that you are much more well off than others, and you make sure people see you've done so, so that people will stop bothering you about it. Like I said, if you're so charitable, you wouldn't be so damn bothered about people trying to ORGANIZE.  Because that's what this is.  You insist government is bad.  You're 100% all in on that.  No exceptions.  Then you talk about how in a libertarian society people will just naturally organize when they need to.  I call that government.  So I say you're stuck in a cycle.  You want there to be no government, so you hack away at government until you succeed, and then when you do...government springs up in its place.  So you're back at sqaure one of your ridiculous crusade.

I care about how people organize.  I care about stewardship.  I care about minimizing waste and fraud. 

If people are as greedy as you say, then how is it ever a good idea to give politicians control of other people's money?  It doesn't help that politicians regularly use the purse as leverage for their own political aspirations.

People organizing themselves is not government.  The church cannot put me in jail for not giving them money.  St. Jude's cannot garnish my wages for not supporting them.  Meals on Wheels cannot put a lien on my house because I didn't volunteer with them.

dtguitarfan wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: This NFL ~ Socialism argument is probably the most absurd thing I've read in the 700 pages or whatnot that this thread has had.  The 700 pages of this thread are the most absurd thing I've seen in my life.

Do really want to talk about the NFL?  You say it's revenue sharing policy helps competitive balance, that's absolutely right. It's also an example of you just cherry picking just about the only fact possible so that you can trot out a simulacrum of a logical argument. Let's just talk about two other things then that are similar results,

1) The draft. Not only are the NFL granted a ridiculous monopoly from competitors, but they've erected a similar barrier to entry for their own labor supply. In the name of competitiveness, or whatever bullsh*t facile soundbites major sports leagues like to tout every year, players who wish the enter the NFL have no ability to negotiate salary or even employer. It's a system that forces players to turn what should be the second most productive and lucrative period of their very short playing careers into one where they work under a severely undervalued and team controlled contract until they can hit free agency. (which, you know, has only been around for 10 years. Forget about players making any money before that).

2) Players health. I'm not even going to go into detail here. People have been debilitating themselves playing the game to the complete indifference of the owners.

So yeah the NFL is a great beacon of socialistic success. The rich capital owners become more powerful at the expense of the health and well being of the laborers.

Only thing I know about the Koch brothers is the incredibly stupid comment one of them made the other day about incomes saying that one of 34,000 puts you in the 1% of the world. It might be true when you put the poorest countries in the world in the calculations, but it's insensitive and stupid.

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: Yep, we're some greedy b*****ds all right! Now explain people like the Koch brothers. What about them? Oh goody.  They give one half of one percent of their wealth.  I should praise that.  (That was sarcasm.)

If you were running a charity, would you rather have one-half of one percent of their wealth or fifteen percent of mine?

Ah.  Missing the point.  Right. 

Geoff, do you know what percentage I pay in federal income taxes?

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: Ah.  Missing the point.  Right.  Geoff, do you know what percentage I pay in federal income taxes? Do you know what percentage the Kochs pay in federal income taxes?

I will bet you anything that it isn't negative 22%, which is about what my federal income tax rate is. 

dtguitarfan wrote: Moving on - here is a blog I wrote entitled "The Situational Leadership Model vs. Modern American Conservatism".  An appropriate Rocky and Bullwinkle alternate title might be "why I think Conservative Libertarians are idiots."

More name-calling I see.