Michael Stokes Paulsen, University Chair and Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas, in Minneapolis and co-director of its Pro-Life Advocacy Center (PLACE), argues that CJ John Roberts got the ObamaCare ruling correct: while the power to tax is the power to destroy, Paulsen argues, “the power to elect is the power to repair” — that is, a political solution is the best and really only legitimate way to repeal ObamaCare (which repeal Paulsen is for, incidentally).
Fine. Now look at how Paulsen gets there:
[…] a tax is a tax, within Congress’s constitutional power to impose, regardless of what Congress calls it—a “fee,” an “exaction,” a “revenue enhancement,” or a “penalty.” Wielded with skill (or perhaps sinister finesse), Congress’s power to tax is an enormous and fearsome constitutional power, explicitly granted and subject to few limitations. It follows, then—unfortunately—that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, which upheld the individual mandate provisions of the “Affordable Care Act,” was constitutionally correct. […]
[…]
NFIB v. Sebelius confirms that there is more than one way for the federal government to skin a cat. The Court held that the individual-mandate requirement, enforced by a penalty paid to the IRS with income tax payments, fell within Congress’s power to regulate or induce conduct through the power to tax. It made no difference that Congress did not label its financial exaction a tax. Something can fall within the taxing power of Congress even if Congress does not have the political courage to call it a “tax.”
Let’s pause here to unpack what’s being argued, because it is crucial to either side’s argument. For Paulsen (and, he argues, for Roberts, as well), the fact that they have determined, as interpreters met with the problem of having to navigate the constitutionality of an explicitly written (and passed, legislatively) “penalty,” that by “penalty,” Congress really meant”tax,” but lacked the courage to write a tax into the law. But that doesn’t mean that Congress doesn’t retain taxing authority — and that doesn’t mean the penalty they wrote into the law and ratified, because it functions like a tax, isn’t therefore a tax in effect, and so a tax in fact.
Or, to put it simply: Roberts thinks Congress lied; he thinks they intended not to call something that functions like a tax a tax; and he decided that just because Congress tried to hide the tax inside the language of a penalty, that doesn’t mean they changed the tax into a penalty — nor that they lack the authority to tax.
This is, to harken back to some earlier discussions of intentionalism, a valid reading of the statute. And yet it is an invalid ruling for the same reason: because Congress explicitly rejected the notion that what they were passing was a tax, the fact that we all know they meant to tax us is, per legal convention, immaterial. And that’s because there is no way, by looking at the legislative history or by reading the plain text of the law, to argue that Congress had not explicitly intended their tax in effect to take some other non-tax form in fact. Hence, “penalty”. And because there is no way of looking at the text of the law as written conclude that Congress hadn’t intended to avoid writing a tax, John Roberts’s ruling relies on subverting the conventions of legal interpretation and replacing the “penalty” with “tax” in explicit contradiction to the legislative desires and intent of Congress for passing the law — a distinct intent from how they hoped the “penalty” might ultimately function.
Which is an important distinction for purposes of the linguistic assumptions contained in just such a ruling. To wit: argues Paulsen:
[…] it is difficult to come up with a good, principled, fully persuasive argument that Congress lacks constitutional power to impose a tax for not having health insurance, as an incentive to get people to buy such insurance. The dissenters certainly did not come up with such an argument. They did not argue that Congress could not impose such a tax. Indeed, they conceded that Congress had the power to do so. Rather, the dissenters argued only that Congress did not impose a tax, because the legislation insisted on calling the exaction a “penalty.”
That is not an argument about constitutional power; it is not a claim that the taxing power is narrower than the majority said it was. Rather, it is an argument that the taxing power requires the invocation of magic words—that to use the taxing power, one must use the word “tax,” or something close to it, or at least something ambiguous. At the very least, Congress must not use the word “penalty.”
— and in one dismissive wave of the hand subverts the nature of the sign itself, granting the interpreter the power to rewrite the sign in order to “correct” it or clarify it.
Paulsen is correct: the dissenters didn’t argue that Congress could not impose a tax on freedom; they argued that Congress didn’t impose a tax, though not, as Paulsen and Roberts would have it, because the legislation” insisted on calling the exaction a penalty” — but rather because the legislators insisted on calling the exaction a penalty, and intentionally so. That is, those with the agency to produce intent and create signs — to use language to mean — meant to create a penalty that could function like a tax, but that wasn’t itself a tax.
This is what they wrote into law. This is what they voted on. And this is what CJ Roberts should have engaged. By treating the text of the law as if it could exist outside of both the intent of the legislators and the legal conventions that require that intent be as clearly discernible as possible, Roberts is relying on a linguistically incoherent sleight of hand — telling the legislators that though they may have found a way to create something that isn’t a tax but yet functions as one, he sees through their gambit, and he will not accept that what they intended to pass (a “penalty”) is what they intended for the purposes of collecting revenue (something that operates like a tax).
The dissent isn’t arguing, as Paulsen would have it, that the taxing power requires and invocation of “magic words”; it instead argues that for a tax to be a tax, it must be a tax — and not a penalty that merely functions as one. There are legislative conventions for passing tax bills. And Congress explicitly rejected using a tax for purposes of exaction.
By trying to minimize the importance of properly signifying — and the necessity in law of properly signaling intent — Paulsen is defending an idea of language that is linguistically dangerous: because what he is dismissing, when he balks at “magic words,” is the necessity, during signification, of the very process that turns language into language and a text into a text. That is, he is dismissing as unimportant the intent of a collective agency to create its own signs, and arguing that all that matters is that someone like John Roberts can read their text, untethered from the intent to signify what it is Congress intended to signify, as if they had created a different sign entirely, one in which the signifier “penalty” was attached to the signified “tax” and not to the signified “something perhaps constitutional that functions as if it were a tax without actually being one.”
Ironically, Paulsen and Roberts are right to conclude that Congress likely wanted to tax us without taxing us because they “lacked the political courage” to pass a tax. But the truth is, the finesse and skill used by Congress wasn’t to pass a tax they hadn’t the courage to pass openly; but rather the finesse and skill to find some way around having to create a tax and still collect exaction in a way that mirrors that of a tax.
This is what they created when they came up with the idea of using a penalty. And the dissent rightly noted that because Congress took that tack — that because it lacked to political courage to pass a tax instead of a penalty — it doesn’t after the fact get to argue that what it passed as a penalty was, in fact, a tax all along.
As I’ve said before, the solution for Roberts, had he not fallen prey to the textualist trap that disengages the legislation from the legislators — that is, that ignores the intent to mean and replaces it with a reading of what Roberts believes they really meant, when they weren’t busy coming up with a way to mean what they meant in order to pass the bill (finding something not a tax to collect the exaction of a tax) — was to note in his dissent that, while Congress has the power to tax, the power to tax is only Congress’s to have when they determine to use it.
In the legislation before him, they explicitly refused to do so.
And therefore, the law cannot stand as a tax — not because they didn’t invoke “magic words,” but rather because they clearly intended not to create a tax, relying instead on a different method of exaction that they believed might be just as effective as a tax without it being one.
To conflate the two is to do damage to the very idea of how signification works — and has the practical effect of giving the interpreter the power to ignore signaled intent in order to replace it with their own version of “secret” intent, which they then ascribe to the authors.
And the last thing we want to legitimate is having some powerful consensus conclude that it can rewrite our meaning, shackle us with its new text, and then suggest that their text is now ours to defend or deny.
What do we ordinarily do when we believe we’ve caught a liar in a lie?
Do we give him what he wants? Is that a remotely plausible reaction? Or don’t we say rather: no, the deal, any cooperation with you, liar, is null. We will not live by fraud.
It would seem that everybody agrees that We the People fucked up; we trusted Congress.
(And the courts for that matter)
The solution to that imbalance doesn’t have to be the ballot box.
You’d think the political class would be more circumspect.
“You’d think the political class would be more circumspect.”
We’ve chewed this over a little here at pw, from both political angles, and many have often noted the complacency, the indolence, the outright laziness of the electorate. To whatever extent those characterizations hold water, to that extent we might expect reciprocal behavior in our pols, who learn to suffer the same vices with regard to themselves.
They’ll be relearning the meaning of the phrase ‘You’ve got another thing coming’, I’m reckoning.
I’m half tempted to go have a chat with the good professor…
If that happens Squid, ask him what he thinks the oaths embedded in the Constitution signify?
Roberts is right in assuming that they lied about what they were doing, but he should have punished them for it.
Not quite. Roberts is right in assuming they were lying about what they wanted to accomplish. What they did, though, was look for another way to do it that would keep them from having to try to sell and pass a tax.
They came up with one. Passed it. And it’s that he should have ruled on.
Jeff G: John Roberts’s ruling relies on subverting the conventions of legal interpretation and replacing the “penalty” with “tax” in explicit contradiction to the legislative desires and intent of Congress for passing the law — a distinct intent from how they hoped the “penalty” might ultimately function.
The Congress clearly intended that if you don’t have health insurance, you have to pay money. You can call it a tax or a penalty or an orange, but the intent was obvious and it is consistent with the constitutional power given to Congress to tax.
Ernst Schreiber: The solution to that imbalance doesn’t have to be the ballot box.
What other means do you suggest? Consider that a majority voted for Obama and the Democrats. Do their opinions matter?
How about if we start taxing stupid? Zachriel could damn near balance the budget by hisself.
Zachriel —
You’re going to have to get it through your skull that I don’t much care what you have to say.
But just to show you how ridiculous you sound, let’s suppose that Congress had used “orange” instead of “penalty.” And in doing so, they clearly stated that it was in fact an orange they wanted to assess, not a tax, not a penalty.
And that’s how the text of the law was written and passed and how it stood when it got to Roberts and the rest of SCOTUS. Should Roberts have ruled it a tax anyway, because he has the authority to decide that now an orange — because the Democrats alone in Congress want it to function like a tax — is now a tax?
Personally, I think they should have called it a turnip or a stone rather than an orange. For the irony of being able, finally, to get money from a turnip or a stone, thanks to Roberts’ incoherent linguistic thinking.
Go away. You’re tedious.
I should add that what Zachriel the really really not-fascist is pushing here is the notion that of course its ok for elected officials to disguise what it is they are hoping to do and then note after the fact that they have the power to do just what they did, and that the language they used to insist what they were doing wasn’t what they just did doesn’t much matter now that they’ve done it. What matters is the power itself, which is theirs to wield.
For freedom!
…because that’s very unpopular, despite that being exactly what they wanted to do. So they lied. Which, what didn’t they lie about with this abomination?
Some people are just fine with being lied to. Makes them feel enlightened, even.
Zachriel’s a sophist, so I doubt he’d even recognize the problem here.
Wait a minute, no I don’t. I know he doesn’t recognize the problem here. It’s evinced in his reply to Jeff.
Jeff G: And that’s how the text of the law was written and passed and how it stood when it got to Roberts and the rest of SCOTUS. Should Roberts have ruled it a tax anyway, because he has the authority to decide that now an orange — because the Democrats alone in Congress want it to function like a tax — is now a tax?
Indeed. Just because they call it an orange doesn’t mean it isn’t covered by the taxation powers relegated to Congress by the constitution.
Jeff G: What matters is the power itself, which is theirs to wield.
Yes, and the check on that power is that laws can be changed, and representatives have to face regular elections. Taxation with representation is one of the fundamental rights established at great cost by the British people.
Pablo: Which, what didn’t they lie about with this abomination?
Most people understand the law includes a health insurance mandate.
* Or food, a house, a car, a sidearm, a Rottweiler, a heterosexual relationship suitable for offspringing 2.45 children, a tat, a job in the DHHS, a watercraft, a SS number, an education, a nice white wig and high pants, a membership in the Baptist church, a drug problem, a pickup made before 1979, all of Tom cruise’s movies, and a set of patio furniture. In green Hammerite.
For the cost to society.
Idiot.
Ernst Schreiber: The solution to that imbalance doesn’t have to be the ballot box.
Zachriel: What other means do you suggest? Consider that a majority voted for Obama and the Democrats. Do their opinions matter?
Ernst Schreiber: I doubt he’d even recognize the problem here.
You may want to specify the problem. You might answer the question while you’re at it.
So the law is the Court’s to write and Congress’s to rewrite in the aftermath.
I’m not Jeff but in the muck and mire of what purports to be your logic I think you just inverted Congress and the Courts.
So, off you go delving into how that works. Constitutionally. Go on.
You may want to learn how to read for context.
Oh wait. You can’t. Sophist.
Zackariel is a twatwaffle extraordinaire.
If you pay the tax (penalty) are you then insured?
It is not the job of the Court to alter the definitions Congress wrote into a law, so that the law may somehow be kept standing.
It is the job of the Court to determine whether the law is capable of standing at all, in light of fundamental rules that Congress is (supposedly) required to follow in writing law.
John Roberts’ ruling has not only altered the definitions in ObamaCare, it has redefined the Court itself into a kickstand.
JHoward: * Or food, a house, a car, a sidearm, …
That’s right. The power to tax is delegated to the legislature. They could tax everyone and buy them a gun, or they could require everyone to buy their own guy. The Second Militia Act of 1792 required “every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years” to provide himself with “a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Acts_of_1792
JHoward: So the law is the Court’s to write and Congress’s to rewrite in the aftermath.
No. Legislation, including taxation, is a legislative responsibility. The court’s function is to decide if the law is consistent with the constitution.
Taxes and penalties are treated differently under the law. But Zackarrhea is too douchey to admit that, hence the transparent sophistry.
McGehee: It is not the job of the Court to alter the definitions Congress wrote into a law, so that the law may somehow be kept standing.
If Congress called an infringement of the First Amendment a “public safety measure”, that doesn’t make it constitutional.
Does the The Second Militia Act of 1792, as you’ve posited its precedent, nullify the Constitution, Zach?
Cause if so, I want free stuff. Lots of it.
I’ll repeat myself, since you are obviously missed the operative part of the comment you excerpted.
By which I mean the Constitution, you insentient waste of bandwidth.
JHoward: Does the The Second Militia Act of 1792, as you’ve posited its precedent, nullify the Constitution
Well, it was enacted during the Washington Administration.
McGehee: It is the job of the Court to determine whether the law is capable of standing at all, in light of fundamental rules that Congress is (supposedly) required to follow in writing law.
The courts can’t tell Congress how to write laws. They can only rule on what they have. There are all sorts of taxes that act as penalties or inducements. Gee whiz, they can compel you to report your income.
Maybe they should have tried calling it a tax?
Does anyone believe they do themselves well, improve themselves so to speak, by keeping company with a manifest liar, propagandist, proponent of fascism and other forms of tyranny? Would the propagandist be benefited, do you think? Is tyranny in fact a boon? An improvement of the commonweal?
Freedom is Slavery, comrade.
Does the The Second Militia Act of 1792 nullify the Constitution?
I didn’t say they could. You’re incapable of even detecting the nucleus of the question, yet you insist on trying to argue it.
You are a failed Turing experiment.
I don’t have time to play games with you, Zachriel. I haven’t been assigned to you; you’ve been assigned to me.
But once again: it’s not because they called it an orange. It’s because they are insisting that an orange is a tax, when we already have taxes to be taxes, and oranges to be oranges — and legal conventions for both writing law and interpreting law to prevent the precise kind of nonsense you, as a would-be fascist, would allow, provided you get the results you want.
To then argue that what wasn’t called a tax in order to deceive the people is in fact a tax — and to further argue that such a thing is proof of taxation with representation (rather than merely by representatives bent on deceiving their constituencies) — is precisely why we know who you are and what you want.
The particulars of which the little people don’t need to worry themselves about. That’s for Nancy Pelosi and her kind to trouble themselves with.
But don’t call him a fascist!
JHoward: Does the The Second Militia Act of 1792 nullify the Constitution?
Don’t think the courts ruled directly on the Militia Act, but Washington used the Militia Act to put down the Whiskey Tax Rebellion. However, the courts have ruled the government can tax you and draft you and send you to war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion
I have eaten butternut squash purée that is smarter, and way more honest, than Zackarrhea
McGehee: You’re incapable of even detecting the nucleus of the question, yet you insist on trying to argue it.
You might try rephrasing the question, or simply making your point explicit.
Jeff G: But once again: it’s not because they called it an orange. It’s because they are insisting that an orange is a tax, when we already have taxes to be taxes, and oranges to be oranges — and legal conventions for both writing law and interpreting law…
Yes, but we’re talking about politicians for whom euphemisms are standard fare. These are the people who renamed French Fries as Freedom Fries, because the French had the temerity to warn the U.S. about the Iraq invasion.
Good Allah, I wish stupid was painful.
Zachriel, why are you still here? Your tangents are tiresome as your “logic”. Get lost.
Truly, Zachriel is the most free denizen of this humble blog.
In other words, anything they want.
It is. Zach’s stupidity causes me great pain.
To make it comprehensible to you I would have to translate it into binary code.
00011000011111010101000000011011110
Not when writing law — until now, that is, because they can just rely on John Roberts to decide what they really meant.
Or call something the “Affordable Care Act” when it is neither affordable, nor does it guarantee care!
None of which troubles the interpretation of the act as an act. Just thought I’d throw that out there for you.
Our designated troll seems to have not only a reading comprehension problem, but a greater one with the United States itself.
It’s a great big world, Z. Grab your passport and head out. South Africa would be a good place to begin.
If laws can be written with “euphemisms” in place of clear descriptions, then they are not actually laws, but wish lists for tyrants.
A: “Excuse me, but you just committed a crime.”
B: “What? All I did was scratch my arm.”
A: “Yes, and the president just signed a law making that a crime.”
B: “No, look, the law says it’s illegal to murder children while having intercourse with a goat.”
A: “That’s just a euphemism.”
Can anyone imagine the reaction if a Republican submitted a bill making “certain infamous acts” illegal and subject to a prison term?
Heh. Thanks, JD. How soon before we get the second word?
Freedom requires sentience.
Ah. So the Founders envisioned a limited government that could make you do anything and lie in the process of coercing you to behave appropriately.
Fascinating, as the Bearded Spock said.
Crawford: If laws can be written with “euphemisms” in place of clear descriptions, then they are not actually laws, but wish lists for tyrants.
A law should be unambiguous. Courts are often called upon to determine how to apply a law, because laws don’t anticipate every possible situation or are poorly crafted. In the case of the Affordable Care Act, there was no such ambiguity. If you don’t have health insurance, you are assessed. That was never in dispute.
Dale Price: So the Founders envisioned a limited government that could make you do anything and lie in the process of coercing you to behave appropriately.
Funny thing that. Yes, they did. And as politicians, being what they are, as people, being what they are, they pitted powerful interests against one another as a check and balance, with representatives having to stand for periodic elections.
“If you don’t have health insurance, you are assessed. That was never in dispute.”
– And so the Left establishes another false meme from which to continue theft.
– The goal posts of tyranny inch forward with each passing day.
– The fools on their errend of destruction are best met soon.
Still no recognition of how there’s a single underlying rule that’s supposed to outweigh even the most powerful interest — pitted, freestone or pimento.
McGehee: Still no recognition of how there’s a single underlying rule that’s supposed to outweigh even the most powerful interest
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land in the U.S., but unfortunately, written constitutions don’t in and of themselves protect liberty. While sovereignty belongs to the people, simply saying so doesn’t result in stable government and the protection of fundamental freedoms. Rather, modern democracies work because they have power distributed throughout society; executive, legislative, judicial, federal, state, local, political parties, corporations, religious institutions, citizen and lobbying groups, property rights and individual liberties. Sorry it’s not simpler than this.
More correctly, sentience is a form of slavery.
Hence the big Z has nothing to
worrythink about.– If you ask me to be charitable I might accede to that as a matter of volution, but if you say I must or else, get ready to defemd yourslf.
– Point blank: I’m not going to breforced to support some other bastards healthcare insurance, and if you try to you better come well armed.
– I don’t think the Statists have really ever understood the nature of America.
Copied verbatim from a textbook. Jeff, can we pull the plug on it now?
You and yours are busy working on that, eh?
– Lets just end this pointless exercise in circular logic.
– What it boils down to for people like Z is simply “We want it so therefore its good”. They care not about laws or reality, theft is just another “means to an end”.
– He’s probably here testing out linguistic gymnastic arguments because they know its already doomed.
Funny thing that. Yes, they did.
Except that they didn’t, recognizing as they did the fact that certain powers were inherent in the people and the States. Or–and I know this is quaint and even godbothery, albeit in a more deistic sense–from just being a living, breathing citizen endowed by the Creator and whatnot. Your notion that there is effectively only a political, ballot-box check is…fascinating.
Along with being antithetical to liberty.
– Every Constitutional reviewer I’ve read ends their accessments with “This ruling will be reversed without pause”.
– So Z and his fellow cultists will bite it at the end of the day.
– Apparently pooping in Classic Liberal blogs gets them through the night.
The nature of the “assessment” was.
Why do you lie? Is it because you have no choice? Or because you enjoy it?
Seriously?
Rather, modern democracies work because they have power distributed throughout society; executive, legislative, judicial, federal, state, local, political parties, corporations, religious institutions, citizen and lobbying groups, property rights and individual liberties.
Tell us, Zach: how does placing 1/6th of our economy in the hands of some unelected health care bureaucrats in Washington help to promote the distribution of power that is so vital to the well being of our Republic? Because from where I sit, it removes a giant measure of power from individuals, groups, religious institutions, corporations, and states, and gives them all to Washington. I cannot believe that you, Zachriel, defender of truth and freedom, would bend over backwards to make excuses for those who use lies and deception in the service of taking every last vestige of freedom and power for themselves.
Except where taxes become oranges and we get what the left wants. Then it’s cool to use euphemisms, the ends justifying the means and whatnot.
But don’t call it fascist!
By the way, was it really copied from a textbook with no attribution?
Let me know and I’ll remove the infiltrating virus when I get back from my son’s wrestling camp session later this evening.
I think the law is more like an action figure. A Transformer to be specific.
It’s from a paper about the Constitution of Namibia. Which is of course always relavent to a discussion about the USC. If you’re really trying to make an elastic definition fit.
I read it on scrbd.
In
his mindthe mind of his masters, he helps set us free.I do not want his help. Or the government’s help, for that matter.
Why would you want to shackle yourself in personal responsibility like that?
Don’t you know it’s easier to kneel before Xerxes than to stand?
I’ve been trying to run down the source and having no luck. I confess I reacted to the heuristics of word choice and phrasing more than to an actual memory.
It might have come from an article or a term paper the programmer found in the school library; it continues “Zachriel’s” pattern of expressing apparent knowledge without sufficient comprehension to actually use the knowledge for its own intellectual benefit.
Zackarrhea hates truth. And honesty. And buggers underage non-consensual goats. Many people told me that. It is a fact.
It was programmed to hate truth and honesty.
The goat thing it developed on its own.
zack is a proggtard zombie create in sanfrannan’s dingy harry child molester clinic.
The scribd thing is here.
I copied the section of text big zero pasted and searched it and viola!
What page, Leigh?
There’s no there there JD.
A law should be unambiguous.
and the 3000 pages of barackycare is just what the doctor ordered!
Nature is unforgivably cruel to beautiful theories. And since it is theorized that perception is reality theory says that changing perception by changing language is a means of conquering reality and thus can dominate nature and blunt its capacity for cruelty.
The gods of the copybook heading are putting on their rubber gloves and making sure that their chainsaws are full of fuel.
I wonder who will win? The guys who talk different or nature?
Maybe some of us should take turns arguing from the left, just for the sport of it.
Couldn’t be as bad as the real ones, Zach is like a fucking parody.
I don’t know, JD. It popped up in my Bing search as a Scribd article, but I’m not paying to read it.
I just downloaded the file to my smartphone, but am miles from my desktop box and this mobile can’t search a 384 page pdf file. But it’s a free file I’m thinking.
That would be this advertisement.
SEK is still a lying twatwaffle. Do you suppose he programmed Zachriel? They seem to share the same self-assured delusion.
So if a majority voted for slavery, or the Holocaust, that would be ethical or moral to chain people or march them into ovens? Because both those things have happened by majority vote. Didn’t make them right.
You do not, no matter how many votes you pile up, have the right to enslave people in service to your nonsense.
And as to the means, I suggest the only proven method for dealing with your ilk: a bullet in the head. That has never taken a majority; the Patriots were not a majority during the Revolution. All it requires is we have more guns and more people willing to use them. I’ve already decided that freedom is worth dying for, and that makes the decision to kill you and the rest of the Copperheads EASY.
Are you willing to die for Obamacare?
SEK shat on the carpets again.
He’s falling all over himself admitting that Democrats really are moochers who fall for cheap handouts in spite of the damage those handouts do to both souls and Republic. His idea of self-worth is based on how greasy his palm is after grasping a politician.
Pablo
I started to read that and had to back off. It’s a lying ad and SEK is a lying twatwaffle on top of it.
Obama’s people and that PAC obviously coordinated, even CNN has tapped into it’s direct dishonesty
and a hell of a lot more people were laid off at Solyandra than at this plant.
The woman was NEVER primarily covered by her hubby’s insurance. And he already had another job AND health insurance through that job.
If anything this guys plight shows that the GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE that tied insurance to employers (via FDR’s freezing of wages & salaries during WWII) is a huge part why medical insurance doesn’t belong to the person (in contrast to, say, auto insurance)
What does an Obama commercial — which incidentally opened him up to being the face of anybody harmed by a government program or molested by a government regulation, etc. — have to do with this post?
You know what? Doesn’t matter. I deleted the pingback. Because seriously, who gives a fuck what SEK says? Aside from him, I mean.
Darleen —
Cobra, Medicaid, free clinics, etc.
No, we don’t feel shamed. Sometimes businesses expand and sometimes they contract. Sometimes you make cuts to some people’s jobs in order to revive the health of a company that, once back to speed, will wind up employing more jobs than it did initially. Ancillary events on the peripheries of such expansions and contractions are only characterized part of the original action whe some motivated “interpreter” connects dots of his own choosing to form a “narrative” that is entirely of his own creation — then decides that story he wrote is part of actual history, a willful re-invention of reality.
People who understand intentionalism see what this commercial is up to.
cobra baby lives!
oh noes strife ahead about little debbies
BigBangHunter: – Point blank: I’m not going to breforced to support some other bastards healthcare insurance, and if you try to you better come well armed.
Anyone who pays taxes in the U.S. is already supporting some other person’s healthcare insurance; for instance, payroll taxes pay for Medicare.
McGehee: Copied verbatim from a textbook.
Um, no. If we had copied it, we would have been happy to provide an attribution, as a scholarly source would tend to lend support to the claim. (The phrase “supreme law of the land” is from the U.S. Constitution, of course.)
McGehee: Jeff, can we pull the plug on it now?
Persuasive argument.
Zachriel: Funny thing that. Yes, they did.
Dale Price: Except that they didn’t, recognizing as they did the fact that certain powers were inherent in the people and the States.
Rights are inherent, but actual political power is tentative. The founders expected government to attempt to acquire power; so, they divided power and balanced powerful interests against one another. Even then, no one was sure whether they could tame the beast.
Squid: how does placing 1/6th of our economy in the hands of some unelected health care bureaucrats in Washington help to promote the distribution of power that is so vital to the well being of our Republic?
It doesn’t. Health care insurance and medicine are still largely private in the U.S. (though the 1/6 figure does indicate how much the U.S. is overpaying for their healthcare).
Ernst Schreiber: The solution to that imbalance doesn’t have to be the ballot box.
Zachriel: What other means do you suggest? Consider that a majority voted for Obama and the Democrats. Do their opinions matter?
SDN: So if a majority voted for slavery, or the Holocaust, that would be ethical or moral to chain people or march them into ovens? Because both those things have happened by majority vote. Didn’t make them right.
Quite true. But are you really equating universal healthcare found in most every modern, democratic country, to the Holocaust?
SDN: Are you willing to die for Obamacare?
Many people have died fighting for the right of the people to make these decisions for themselves through democratic means.
SDN: And as to the means, I suggest the only proven method for dealing with your ilk: a bullet in the head.
Ah, so we have successfully drawn out the foundational principle of your position. Jeff G has a word for that.
SDN: Are you willing to die for Obamacare?
Many people have died fighting for the right of the people to make these decisions for themselves through democratic means.
Yea, except here you’d be fighting for the right for ME to pay for YOUR healthcare. You know, so you can make horrible decisions in life an still be taken care of.
Ah, it’s Borg. That makes sense.
The Social Contract is like any other contract as far as deceit is concerned.
It identified as Borg a few days ago on the lifeguard thread.
Collectivism appeals to the hive mind.
…and still no sign of intellectual, as opposed to rhetorical engagement.
It thinks it’s HAL 9000.
Then for God’s sake don’t ask it to open the pod bay doors!
Heh.
Rights are inherent, but actual political power is tentative. The founders expected government to attempt to acquire power; so, they divided power and balanced powerful interests against one another. Even then, no one was sure whether they could tame the beast.
Which, of course, tends to undercut: Funny thing that. Yes, they did.
The Founders intended to limit such exercises. The fact the federal government has derived the power of diktat from the commerce and taxing clauses does not mean it was intended. Much less does it mean that the ballot box was the only envisioned remedy.
Health care insurance and medicine are still largely private in the U.S.
Define “largely private.” Does that mean half? Two-thirds? Are you measuring by numbers of facilities, full-time-equivalent positions, capital investment, operating revenues, or some other measure? How are you accounting for those facilities and professionals who, while ostensibly “private,” are nonetheless bound by restrictive regulations regarding the types of care they must provide or cover, and the prices they’re allowed to charge for that care or coverage? Are you granting that what little freedom of movement these entities currently possess will be drastically curtailed by ObamaCare?
But are you really equating universal healthcare found in most every modern, democratic country, to the Holocaust?
What you call “universal healthcare,” I call “universal enslavement.” There’s nothing noble about forcing a formerly-free people, at the threat of violence and imprisonment, to go to work every day so that they’ll have the ‘privilege’ of paying for some stranger’s chiropractic treatments that he feels entitled to by dint of his bullshit disability claim. Don’t pretend to some kind of moral high ground, when you’re the one peddling slavery, theft, fraud, and corruption.
Great Merciful Mantis, but you’re a thick one. Is it so hard to see that you’re convincing nobody here? Is it so hard to comprehend that your lame offerings, after their vivisection by greater minds than yours, serve only to strengthen our arguments and discredit your side? If you’re a Turing machine, your creator should be ashamed. If you’re an agent, your paymaster should demand his money back. And if you’re just another deluded undergraduate, you really should demand your tuition be refunded.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Unless you, you know, kill the Queen and blow the Unicomplex up.*
Squid: Define “largely private.” Does that mean half? Two-thirds?
Medicare/Medicaid is about 5% of GDP, which are government paid, though most of the services are provided by private businesses.
Squid: What you call “universal healthcare,” I call “universal enslavement.”
So everyone in the Western world are slaves.
Squid: There’s nothing noble about forcing a formerly-free people, at the threat of violence and imprisonment, to go to work every day so that they’ll have the ‘privilege’ of paying for some stranger’s chiropractic treatments that he feels entitled to by dint of his bullshit disability claim.
Don’t think about Social Security. It’ll just upset you. Or taxes of any sort, for that matter. They use them for free stuff, like libraries and schools and police.
Don’t think about Social Security. It’ll just upset you. Or taxes of any sort, for that matter. They use them for free stuff, like libraries and schools and police.
BS. They use 75cents of every dollar on BS, completely unlike libraries and police.
Car: They use 75cents of every dollar on BS, completely unlike libraries and police.
It’s still slavery per Squid’s understanding, is that right?
Word. Just lie back and dream of a socialist Shangri-la, but not Dystopia.
Slavery is when the fruits of your labor are used for the benefit of someone else. Contribution to the common good, which includes your benefit, is not.
Ask Squid.
Correction: Slavery is when the fruits of your labor are seized for the benefit of someone else.
So everyone in the Western world are slaves.
Finally, the typing telephone pole starts to understand. I was beginning to think there was no hope for him.
And for the record, Zach, every Monday, I roll out of bed, take the bus downtown, and toil at my desk from 8 til noon. And for this effort, I get paid nothing! That’s because somebody else’s grandmother needs me to pay for her pills so that she can spend her days driving real slow with her blinker on. You and I both know that I’ll never see a fucking dime of SS or Medicare, so I am spending the first half-day of every week working for our benevolent overlords in Washington, for a program which is guaranteed to go bankrupt long before I qualify to benefit from it. That’s 26 days per year that I work for somebody else, against my will. Perhaps we should change the Social Security rules to state that everybody will spend one month working for no fucking paycheck at all, so that idiots like you might start to understand just how much of people’s lives you’ve taken away in the name of “goodness.”
Don’t get me started on how happy I am that the rest of Monday, all of Tuesday, and part of Wednesday are spent slaving away for the benefit of fat cops, ignorant teachers, crooked developers, and a fucking billion-dollar toy train that nobody is going to ride.
Don’t think about Social Security.
This is how you rebut my observation that you serve the interest of tyrants, and the thieves, crooked businessmen, injury-fakers, class-warriors, and other useful idiots they use to consolidate power? You’ve made a serious error if you think that “Look! A monkey!” is going to fool anybody around here.
Pablo: Contribution to the common good, which includes your benefit, is not.
So forcing someone to surrender their hard earned money for what the majority considers a public good, like libraries, is okay?
Squid: And for this effort, I get paid nothing!
Just like 1860! And yet most people support social security, and not just in the U.S.
How ’bout this, slavemaster? We set the city, county, school district, regional rail authority, special taxing districts, state, and federal budgets to zero, and have an open debate on every line item that our bureaucratic busybodies want to put back in? How many of your precious programs do you think would survive? How many things would people decide they could live without? How many would be spun off to private companies or charities?
So you admit that slavery is alive and well in the United States, and care not one whit. You really are a monster, Zach.
Someone/thing is furiously checking Wikipedia right now to rebut that charge of monsterism.
Predicted output: “So, all Canadians are monsters?”
Sure, the first dozen times that rhetorical technique was used it didn’t work but the bot is unable to change its response without a change in code. Poor, stupid bot.
The Borg were conceived to be the scariest thing the Enterprise crew had ever encountered.
They were certainly scarier than the Ferengi.
The
forceslave morality isstrongunguinous in this one.Zach, I suspect you grew up in the digital age, and so things like analog scales probably frighten and confuse you. Even so, I beg you to indulge me in a bit of a mental exercise along those lines.
Imagine a scale marked from 0 to 365, where each number represents a day out of the year that you’re forced to work for somebody else’s benefit (a condition we shall call, for the sake of argument, “enslavement”). I think we can all agree that if your scale were set to 365, you would be properly called a slave. Let’s assume that the person benefiting from your labors is a filthy, evil Jew like our esteemed host, and he insists that you rest on the Sabbath. Now your scale is set to 313. Are you still a slave, or a free man?
Let us assume further that your good master grants you one day each week to take care of your personal needs: laundering your clothes, gathering food and supplies, and the other chores necessary to keep you productive for his benefit. Now your scale is set to 261. Are you a slave, even though you are granted a personal day and a day of rest each week?
Now let us assume that in the depths of winter, there is no work for you to do, and so your master leaves you to your own devices. Now your scale is set to 220. Are you a slave, or a free man?
At what point on the scale would you consider yourself free, Zach?
Of course, the Ferengi were entrepreneurs, who made profit by selling (or purporting to sell) what their buyers wanted, instead of forcing them to have what the Collective said they must have. While Roddenberry lived the entrepreneur was surely the worst monster imaginable in the Star Trek writing room.
It would do well to trigger an error flag here and write “appeal to common practice fallacy” in the log. Then, it could avoid making this mistake in the future.
My scale is set at 112, for reference. You still wanna pretend this is a zero-or-one* argument?
* (In this enlightened post-racial Age of Obama, one cannot call an argument black-or-white.)
Squid is going to break our toy, I think.
The Borg were conceived to be the scariest thing the Enterprise crew had ever encountered.
But the Borg had free nourishment, shelter, and health care! They lived in high-density residential areas, and took mass transit everywhere they went! Surely they are the good guys, and those pesky Federation teabaggers are the bad guys, what with their whining about “individual sovereignty” and “freedom” and whatnot, bitterly clinging to their phasers and their Prime Directive.
Squid is going to break our toy, I think.
Are you implying that it could get even more defective?
Heh. Nah, I’m afraid you’re going to make it entirely lock up though.
And they celebrated cultural diversity, what with all that adding biological and technological distinctiveness to the collective all the time.
And everybody serving a unified, single vision like that. The peak of social imagination made manifest!
Funny how all the Borg drones, regardless what species they came from, all ended up looking — well, kinda pasty.
Squid: So you admit that slavery is alive and well in the United States, and care not one whit.
Taxation in a democratic society is hardly slavery. It’s called taxation with representation.
Squid: Let us assume further that your good master grants you one day each week to take care of your personal needs: laundering your clothes, gathering food and supplies, and the other chores necessary to keep you productive for his benefit.
Now, let’s assume that the people are their own masters, and they openly debate and vote in democratic elections. Their representatives then debate and vote on taxes for libraries, schools, defense, and a minimum safety net for the elderly.
I know I’m way late, and that no one here agrees with me, but…
it doesn’t after the fact get to argue that what it passed as a penalty was, in fact, a tax all along.
The problem is that Congress has done it before. Congress has the power to make us pay money to the government for almost any reason and under almost any circumstances. Licenses, penalties, user fees, offsets… they could call it insurance if they wanted to, all of these payments are constitutional under Congresses power to tax. It’s the mechanism and not the label that’s important. Congress can pretend that they thought they weren’t voting on a tax. Some of them can even say that they didn’t know it was a tax, but it was designed to be a tax from the beginning and argued as such in front of the court. I certainly thought it was a tax, regardless of what they called it and whomever I have to pay the money to. I don’t think Congress has the power to make me, but I mean shit nothing to my political betters.
I would have liked Roberts to have sided with the justices who thought if a law could be held as unconstitutional it should be. But he didn’t, and we should have known it was coming.
And then let’s assume that two years later, in another round of democratic elections, they overwhelmingly repudiate the officeholders that just enacted a law that was passed against overwhelming public opposition — largely because it was never a major issue in the previous round of elections and the people had no actual opportunity to debate it before they voted.
Something doesn’t understand the difference between democracies and republics.
error flag
write to log (“democracy !== republic”)
A number, Zach. At what number do you go from being a free man helping support the quality of life in your neighborhood, to being a slave working for the betterment of others, against his will, with no benefit to himself in return?
My number is currently 112. That’s way too fucking high, in my opinion. I’m asking your opinion, in good faith: what number?
Zach won’t give you a number Squid. His is an ephemeral kind of mathemagic. The kind that presupposes that municipal responsibilities like policing, schools and libraries must be overseen by the federal government.
The Borg do not have opinions. Nor do they dream, or aspire. They have achieved the pinnacle of existence and there is nothing better to become.
Opinions are errors of logic, the imposition of erroneous individual value onto raw data for purposes of deception. The Borg do not have opinions. The Borg do not tolerate opinions.
C’mon, Zach — work with me, here.
If 51% of Americans vote to make the other 49% spend 220 days per year supporting the collective, is that groovy with you? Never mind that the 51% are spending most of that money on free shit for themselves and overpriced contracts for politically connected companies — let’s say they also throw in a library and some cops that might benefit the 49%. Does that make 220 days acceptable?
Where is the line where “everybody’s fair share” becomes “tyranny of the majority,” Zach? Assuming you even recognize that such a line exists, of course.
It’s not slavery slavery if we vote first!
That Madison, so uptight.
Zach won’t give you a number Squid.
I realize that. But it’s so much fun to watch him dance!
Heh, Ernst.
For a guy who can’t admit any linkage between taxation and slavery, I’ll bet Zach is perfectly comfortable throwing around phrases like “property is theft.” Probably thinks that an unwillingness to purchase birth control for strangers is equivalent to a “war on women,” too. Wonder how long ’til I’m forced to buy beer for the neighbor kids, lest I be charged with “war on youth” crimes.
McGehee: And then let’s assume that two years later, in another round of democratic elections, they overwhelmingly repudiate the officeholders that just enacted a law that was passed against overwhelming public opposition — largely because it was never a major issue in the previous round of elections and the people had no actual opportunity to debate it before they voted.
Great! Change the law.
bh: Something doesn’t understand the difference between democracies and republics.
We’re quite aware of the difference. Modern republics are nearly all democratic.
Squid: My number is currently 112.
Most modern democratic societies have set government spending at 35-50% of GDP. Much more, and the government crowds out markets. Much less, and it doesn’t provide the level of services most people want and expect of government.
I realize that. But it’s so much fun to watch him dance!
It’s amusing that these little pissants of the Royal “we”, really think they’re going to come over here and take us all to school for our “incorrect” thinking. Call him a Nazi and watch him dissemble for another 10 hours or so.
Dance monkey! Dance!
Squid: For a guy who can’t admit any linkage between taxation and slavery …
We’re quite aware of the linkage. Taxation without representation was used for oppressive purposes. That’s why the power of the purse resides with the legislative branch.
How cute, it thinks I’m having a “discussion” with it. What the hell, let’s give it a try.
Human.bh >>> bot.Zach: I don’t know what syntax it would require to fix your errors so I’m leaving notes for your maker. Please compile them into a log so he can review them later this evening while you’re dreaming of electric sheep.
In a Republic, even one as degenerate as the representative democracy we’ve become, the label ought to matter.
And that in a nutshell is why it needs must matter.
If politicians were held to account for the labels they use —labels which they presently use to evade and deflect accountablity, by the way— then politicians would mean shit nothing to you instead of vice versa.
And really, isn’t that how it’s properly should be?
But do they bh?
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb57524/memoryalpha/en/images/1/1d/Borg_cube_explodes%2C_2367.jpg
Some more than others it seems.
Heh, Ernst.
Maybe if we’re nice Zach will tell us what attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion look like. I’m sure he’s seen things we wouldn’t believe.
I hope we aren’t treated to more galleries of Space Babes done in crappy anime-style, like that last guy.
Pity we can’t ship his ass back to the Tannhauser Gate.
The Talking Points Teleprompter responds with data and theory. It cannot engage on a personal level. Attempts to appeal to sympathy, empathy or even theoretical compassion result in replies paraphrasing the content of encyclopedia entries or government reports.
The extent to which there was ever any humor in characterizations of it as some form or other of artificial unintelligence, no longer exists.
The extent to which there is any potential intellectual benefit to be gained by engaging it, likewise no longer exists.
Once again I move to pull the plug.
Oh, look — assertion monkey is asserting! Let’s play along!
Governments ideally limit their spending to below 12% of GDP. Any more, and government distorts markets and displaces private activity; opens itself up to unacceptable temptations for fraud, rent-seeking, and trading favors; tramples over the rights of its constituents; and creates vast sub-classes of serfs dependent upon the State for their subsistence.
Presented with every bit as much authority as the assertion monkey’s assertions, and therefore every bit as valid!
Now, Zach, I ask once more: what number? For how many days can you hold a gun to a man’s head and force him to toil for others? Never mind whether the people receiving the fruits of the poor bastard’s labor elected you to hold the gun to his head — at what number does your conscience kick in and make you realize that you’re not a benevolent bureaucrat, but an overseer in the service of a tyrannical plantation owner?
The number, Zach. Plus or minus ten will be acceptable, if you don’t want to fret over the details.
I disagree, McGehee. It offers us some textbook examples of all manner of rhetorical fallacies. If we keep it busy for another couple of hours, I think we’ll have all 42 flavors from nizkor covered.
Thousands of undergrads pay good money for this kind of education.
Somebody ought to demand their money back.
Zackarrhea is just cute.
On the contrary, Ernst. The ability to recognize and counter a rhetorical fallacy is an excellent thing to learn. And I honestly can’t think of a better method for teaching these things than the Zach-bot 6000 we were recently given.
Really, what is this “we” BS?! Multiple personalities residing in Zackarrhea’s melon?
How many different names have you commented under, “Zack”?
It was nice of his programmers to let us repurpose their robotroll, but I think their client has been defrauded
is all I’m saying.
Alternatively, somebody ought to be paying us!
Protein Wisdom: come for the incisive political analysis, stay for the tyrannical leftist propaganda dished up by an anonymous moron!
If there is no choice on the ballot that represents me, does that mean I don’t have to pay taxes?
You’re not forced to do that. You agree to such things when you buy land in a municipality that agrees to provide them.
And the power of the purse no longer resides with the legislative branch. When some non-elected Civil Service bureaucrat can issue a regulation requiring me to spend money for the government’s purposes (such as meeting an arsenic standard lower than found in nature for water) rather than my purposes, that’s taxation without representation.
It’s also Fascism, where the state allows a veneer of private ownership to conceal the fact that it’s running the business.
Zach derives his entire philosophy from Mussolini… and is proud of it.
I’m guessing the answer to that question is not Seven of Nine.
Related: Jack Ryan should be taken out and shot. For America.
Totally. For sure.
All those Soviet Republics from days of yore were totally democratic. Just like Vietnam.
Ernst Schreiber: In a Republic, even one as degenerate as the representative democracy we’ve become, the label ought to matter.
Sure, and mountains should be made of rock candy. We’re talking about politicians.
Ernst Schreiber: Some more than others it seems.
No serious scholar would consider Iraq of that period to be a democratic republic.
McGehee: Once again I move to pull the plug.
Good argument.
Squid: Presented with every bit as much authority as the assertion monkey’s assertions, and therefore every bit as valid!
Um, you asked, we answered.
Squid: Now, Zach{riel}, I ask once more: what number?
You asked and we answered. In a democracy, people can determine the size of government. The most successful have a government sector that is about 35-50% of GDP. Much larger and it crowds the private sphere. Much smaller and it doesn’t provide the services most people want and expect from government.
Squid: Governments ideally limit their spending to below 12% of GDP.
Countries with such small government sectors are usually non-developed countries (e.g. Turkmenistan, Guatemala, Cambodia, Paraguay). The most successful countries have higher government spending, but not too high, as noted above.
SDN: And the power of the purse no longer resides with the legislative branch. When some non-elected Civil Service bureaucrat can issue a regulation requiring me to spend money for the government’s purposes (such as meeting an arsenic standard lower than found in nature for water) rather than my purposes, that’s taxation without representation.
You do have representation. Regulators are as old as the Republic, and are authorized by law. If you don’t like regulations, then vote for people who will change or reduce them.
Pablo: Totally. For sure.
Not everyone lives in a democratic society. China is the largest such population.
leigh: All those Soviet Republics from days of yore were totally democratic.
That’s the point, of course. Many of those countries have moved towards democracy, as have many of the countries in the Americas, Europe, and much of Asia. Much of the world now has some sort of working democratic institutions, though not always full democracy.
https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=DemocracyIndex2011
There actually was an argument attached. Do you have an argument to refute it?
No, you didn’t.
Zachriel, I asked you how many days each year you would be willing to work your ass off so that I could get free chiropractic treatments for my bullshit disability claim, and spend the rest of my days fishing. You quoted me some undergrad assertion about “most successful governments spend X%,” which is nice background information, but still gives me no insight into how many days you’d be willing to bust your ass each year to support my inalienable right to get drunk in the middle of the day in the middle of a lake.
In addition, your use of other nations’ policies as some sort of barometer of what’s acceptable in the United States is just silly, given that this nation was founded by people trying to escape the folly of their various homelands. One would not be surprised if you also supported changes to our justice system to bring it into alignment with foreign systems you also deem to be ‘successful.’
Further, your assertion that low government spending indicates a third-world hellhole is just silly, given that combined federal, state and local spending in the U.S. did not reach 20% of GDP until WWII, and it would be difficult to argue that our nation was unsuccessful, backward, or undeveloped during the first 150 years of its existence.
Socialism is popular among the lazy who want to be cared for; the irresponsible who want to avoid the consequences of their actions; the ignorant who don’t know any better; the big businesses who are happiest dealing with One Big Customer that will crush any upstart competitors; and the power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats who harvest votes from these groups in order to accrue power to themselves. It’s popular in the old world, where the aristocracy sees it as a way to keep the proles in check. It’s popular in parts of the world that have never recovered from their days as imperial possessions. It’s not popular in the United States, which is why you and your masters work so tirelessly to disguise your intentions, papering them over with labels like “social justice” or “progressive.”
For now, I will assume that your repeated non-answers indicate that you are perfectly happy to force your neighbors to spend 5 or 6 months out of the year laboring to keep you and your fellow travelers comfortably supplied with Cheetos and XBoxen. As such, you are revealed as a wannabe slaveholder, like your Democrat masters of old, and I have no desire to correspond with you further.
I pity your ignorance and blindness, but such pity will not temper my efforts to see you thwarted in your efforts to enslave my loved ones. I can only hope that your eyes are opened sooner than later.
Fascistsayswhat?
Hey, squid, I tried to follow your link to the nizkor fallacies, and my OpenDNS blocked it as a “hate/discrimination” site. Weird.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, Darth. The site’s mission is fighting against Holocaust denial, and as such they have published a lot of the stuff they’re fighting against. Your average spiderbot probably figures they’re republishing white power propaganda because they approve…
In practical application, it turns out that countering the deceptions and distractions of neo-National-Socialists is not all that much different from countering the deceptions and distractions of neo-other-socialists.
Yeah, I’m whitelisting it now, just hafta wait for the servers to update.
Squid: I asked you how many days each year you would be willing to work your ass off so that I could get free chiropractic treatments for my bullshit disability claim, and spend the rest of my days fishing.
Unless you are disabled so that you can’t work, then 0%. Most people should work, if they can.
Squid: In addition, your use of other nations’ policies as some sort of barometer of what’s acceptable in the United States is just silly, given that this nation was founded by people trying to escape the folly of their various homelands.
We cited the most economically successful countries, which are those that have strong government sectors as well as robust markets. The U.S. fits in that range at about 39%, including federal, state and local spending.
Squid: Further, your assertion that low government spending indicates a third-world hellhole is just silly, given that combined federal, state and local spending in the U.S. did not reach 20% of GDP until WWII, and it would be difficult to argue that our nation was unsuccessful, backward, or undeveloped during the first 150 years of its existence.
The U.S. certainly wasn’t as developed industrially or economically in 1840 as it was in 1940. Social insurance was much less important in early, agrarian U.S. history.
Social insurance was much less important in early, agrarian U.S. history.
ben franklin is laughing at the black hole of thought
“The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.” – Samuel Adams
Oh you’re cute.
Non-members of the collective call that family, congregation (or parish, or synagogue), friends, neighbors.
Ernst Schreiber: Non-members of the collective call that family, congregation (or parish, or synagogue), friends, neighbors.
That’s right. In agrarian society, people tend to stay in one place, and look after one another. With industrialization, and the movement of much of the population to the cities, the traditional safety net fell apart. By the Great Depression, this process left millions of elderly without any means of support.
With all those people in one place, how could that be? And why should it be my problem? Or the federal government’s problem?
So you say.
By the Great Depression, this process left millions of elderly without any means of support.
That is not accurate. Families didn’t become fragmented and living in non-multi-generational homes until much later.
Is it lying, or is it merely mistaken? Doesn’t matter — the end result is the same either way: its assertions are unsupported, and its conclusions are baseless.
Unless you are disabled so that you can’t work, then 0%. Most people should work, if they can.
One laughs when one considers that the typing telephone pole has just enumerated one of the primary benefits of private charity as compared with state entitlements: in private charity, one can choose not to support the unworthy. In the state systems that TTP supports, one is forced to support all who manage to cross the low threshold for program qualification.
The system is so flawed that the TTP cannot defend it without undermining it. Defectives of a feather flock together, one supposes.
b…b…bu…but Squid! Teh oldstaz and teh childruhns!
Naked and starving
in the streets!
Just as was fortold in the gospel according to Dickens.
WHY DO YOU HATE!
WHY?!?!?!?!
Being a hatchling, he doesn’t understand filial duty, thus it is someone else’s responsibility to take care of those pesky relatives. After all , one can’t be expected to make little Electra and her baby sister share a room to make room for Grandma. Off to the Home with you! Not my home, The Home.