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NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#102951: Oct 9th 2015 at 8:00:33 AM

"The heart of democracy is violence, Miss Tagwynn. In order to decide what to do, we take a count of everyone for and against it, and then do whatever the larger side wishes to do. We're having a symbolic battle, its outcome decided by simple numbers. It saves us time and no end of trouble counting actual bodies - but don't mistake it for anything but ritualized violence. And every few years, if the person we elected doesn't do the job we wanted, we vote him out of office - we symbolically behead him and replace him with someone else. Again, without the actual pain and bloodshed, but acting out the ritual of violence nonetheless."
That is an incredibly silly view of democracy.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#102952: Oct 9th 2015 at 8:05:35 AM

Silly, perhaps, but not entirely inaccurate. I've discussed frequently how all legal systems are based on codifying the use of force by ruling bodies. Governments are instituted for the basic purpose of delegating the threat of violence against transgressors of the social contract. Without the ability to compel conformity in some manner, you have anarchy no matter what trappings you give it.

The difference between the hardcore "sovereign citizen" types and the rest of us is that they object to this use of force. Of course, they're only too happy to use force to defend what they imagine to be their personal sovereignty, making them the precise equivalent of the barbarians of yore that legal systems were created to protect people against.

edited 9th Oct '15 8:08:24 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#102953: Oct 9th 2015 at 8:06:44 AM

Doesn't seem like anyone is moved by anything short of the implicit threat of violence upon them.

Hence, fascination with weaponry and guns and nukes and power and bullets and tanks and war and victory and arms and billowy flags proudly waving in the air.

edited 9th Oct '15 8:07:49 AM by Aszur

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#102954: Oct 9th 2015 at 8:16:01 AM

It is important to remember that, as it says in the Declaration of Independence, all governing authority derives ultimately from the consent of the governed. It doesn't matter how many tanks and bombs and guns you have at your beck and call; if nobody obeys your orders, you won't rule for long. Despots know this; it's why they surround themselves with people who are dependent on their largesse to enforce their rule.

The reason why despotic governments so often fail is that they do not represent the will of their people and, as such, become subject to those people withdrawing their implicit consent.

Democracy, representative or otherwise, is an attempt to resolve this problem by bringing the "consent of the governed" directly into play. If 50.000001% of interested people say that a thing should be donenote , then the democratic government does that thing. That doesn't make it right, but it does make it truly reflect the will of those people.

What would-be autocrats, like the Republicans in the United States and the various conservative parties in Europe, do is attempt to compress the democratic principle so that "their kind of people" are the ones who get the most say. This includes various tactics, from disenfranchising classes of voters that they don't like to attempting to give greater political weight to the folks on their side — Citizens United being the premier example of this sort of thing in the United States.

You can identify a despot by their insistence on restricting the franchise to members of their preferred class.

You can identify an anarchist by their insistence that the collective will of the people does not apply to them.

edited 9th Oct '15 8:25:12 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Xopher001 Since: Jul, 2012
#102955: Oct 9th 2015 at 8:20:25 AM

I know I've already asked this several times, but I would appreciate it if someone explained to me how European politicians are leaning towards autocratic

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#102956: Oct 9th 2015 at 8:22:59 AM

[up] European politicians are considered mature for one if they ignore their voters and just follow the guiltiness of the EU and it's technocrats,or so I've heard.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#102957: Oct 9th 2015 at 8:23:52 AM

Europe's governments have handed control of their economic policies to unelected businessmen and technocrats who push deeply unpopular austerity agendas on them despite this defying 100 years of economic research. As noted [up], they are considered "mature" by doing so, rising above the grubby, ill-informed desires of the rabble on the street.

As soon as you hint that the common man and woman cannot be trusted to make wise policy decisions, you are an autocrat. It doesn't matter if what you have in mind is good or not. And, sometimes, autocrats are needed to make unpopular, but beneficial decisions. But let's not pretend to ourselves that they are being made democratically.

edited 9th Oct '15 8:27:56 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Xopher001 Since: Jul, 2012
#102958: Oct 9th 2015 at 8:27:12 AM

Could you PM me more details?

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#102959: Oct 9th 2015 at 8:28:35 AM

We've been over this in the economics topics, and you were a party to those conversations. I'm not going to have side chats via PM about it.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#102960: Oct 9th 2015 at 8:32:04 AM

Fighteer only has side conversations about exotic lingerie and violent upheavals regarding the price of vegemite in Guam

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#102962: Oct 9th 2015 at 9:11:08 AM

Clinton has proposed a series of fees for banks that engage in riskier speculation/investing, and that carry more debt.

Her idea — not exactly optimized for a 15-second television spot — is to "charge a graduated risk fee every year on the liabilities of banks with more than $50 billion in assets and other financial institutions that are designed by regulators for enhanced oversight," with fees scaled to be "higher for firms with greater amounts of debt and riskier, short-term forms of debt."

It's a mouthful. Banks will hate it. It doesn't feature a crowd-pleasing, populist applause line. And it's a pretty great idea.

The problem Clinton is trying to address here is that when a big bank goes bankrupt, it creates huge problems for the broader economy. Because of that, governments have a tendency to prevent big banks from going bankrupt.

And because of that, big banks have a tendency to engage in a riskier pattern of business than you see from other kinds of companies. All companies spend money to make money, but banks finance a much larger share of their spending with borrowed money (as opposed to retained profits) than you see from non-banks. And many banks rely very heavily on short-term borrowing, and fund ongoing operations by counting on their ability to get new short-term loans tomorrow. Financing investments with debt magnifies profits when your bets pay off, but it also magnifies losses when they don't. Using short-term debt rather than long-term debt lets you pay lower interest rates, but also exposes you to the possibility of unexpectedly finding yourself unable to get the money you need in an emergency situation. Both tendencies magnify risk.

Clinton is proposing to clamp down on those risks by imposing a tax on bank debt.

That compensates the public for the financial cost of bailouts and the social cost of bank failures, while also creating new incentives for banks to manage their affairs in a less risky manner.

How would this work, exactly?

Inconveniently from the standpoint of the content production industry, Clinton doesn't spell out precise numbers for her fee, perhaps recognizing that in the real world this would all be subject to negotiation in Congress anyway.

But the key pillars are:

The fee would be assessed on banks with more than $50 billion in assets (34 banks fit the bill as of today, though two of them are very close to the line) as well as on a handful of other institutions that the government has already flagged for extra regulatory scrutiny.

The fee rate would be higher on short-term debt than on long-term debt.

The fee rate would be higher on banks with more debt in their financing structure.

FDIC-insured bank deposits would be exempt from the fee.

Also, regarding the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan, I heard an interview on NPR with Glen Greenwald the other day that sounds pretty damning if true. The key takeaway points are:

  • American authorities first tried to imply that it was Afghans calling for air support, before admitting that a US special forces group on the ground did so.

  • The Afghans and Americans are changing their stories and telling different stories about it: Americans are claiming it was a mistake, Afghans are justifying it by talking about high level Taliban killed and claiming that Taliban were active in the hospital rather than passive patient. (Which Doctors Without Borders vehemently objects to and points out that they have immediate evacuation policies in place if anyone they treat does make a move to take over a hospital or use it as a base, as that would be the biggest possible threat to their safety.)

  • DWB provides the military with exact GPS coordinates of all their facilities, and had only recently reaffirmed those coordinates of this particular hospital. So how did the US innocently target the hospital?

  • The bombing wasn't just a single bomb being dropped from high up or anything, this was a solid half hour of the plane making repeated, low level runs to bomb and machine gun only one particular part of a sprawling building complex, and continued doing so despite DWB immediately calling the US military to call them off.

  • This hospital has had trouble in the past with Afghan security forces coming in to drag Taliban patients out of the hospital.

To listen to the whole thing, click on the blue listen button, another tab or window should pop up begin playing. The proper interview starts at about 2:20.

edited 9th Oct '15 9:12:29 AM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#102963: Oct 9th 2015 at 9:15:31 AM

[up] Clinton's idea sounds good; we'll find out exactly how good by the volume of financial types criticizing it. It's pretty much a given that the better an idea is for controlling markets, the more Fox Business and CNBC hate it.

The DWB thing is looking worse and worse for the U.S. military. What in the hell, folks?

edited 9th Oct '15 9:21:56 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#102964: Oct 9th 2015 at 9:53:04 AM

As soon as you hint that the common man and woman cannot be trusted to make wise policy decisions, you are an autocrat. It doesn't matter if what you have in mind is good or not. And, sometimes, autocrats are needed to make unpopular, but beneficial decisions. But let's not pretend to ourselves that they are being made democratically.

I think some of that attitude boils down to the 1930s — I think the thinking goes that "we can't let the people have power if they vote in people like Hitler and Mussolini".

Keep Rolling On
tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#102965: Oct 9th 2015 at 10:05:26 AM

Some people are thinking Romney would be the best bet for Republicans to be the Speaker.

And yes, I looked. The Constitution does not say anything about having to be a member of the House to become a Speaker.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#102966: Oct 9th 2015 at 10:06:56 AM

That Butcher quote seems like a pretentious way to pretend or claim we're not any better than the people who preceded us. It's not violence, it's people making decisions. Blegh on that whole concept.

Anyway, with most people accepting that the government has the right to use force, and the government having access to what they need to have that force, sovereign citizen types and anyone who wants to go backwards in any way have become a violent, disruptive force. (Thankfully a relatively small one at this time, hopefully to remain so.)

Aprilla Since: Aug, 2010
#102967: Oct 9th 2015 at 11:06:55 AM

I'm a little late, but a few things:

@Politicians shooting stuff:

Using firearms to shoot the ACA or to cook bacon, while silly, says nothing about poor gun safety practices. They were operating in a controlled environment with proper trigger discipline, though the cartoonish intentions of the shootings actually hurt the reputation of gun owners because it paints us as a children who use killing instruments to vent our frustrations on a whim.

@Ammo collection:

There's nothing idiotic or insane about having tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. It varies based on one's intentions for doing so. Plenty of people keep boxes of ammo so they can spend an entire afternoon shooting with friends and family. 10k rounds isn't that much. On a related note, having a buttload of firearms doesn't make you a nutcase, either.

@Armed citizens and revolts:

Carson et al don't seen to understand that oppressive regimes have historically gathered and maintained control of the people primarily by denying access to goods, services, education and information (because, you know, stuff like the ACA is the opposite of that). The presence or absence of weapons among a population has often had little long-term effect on the disenfranchisement, subjugation or liberation of said population. Censoring newspapers, burning schools and churches, restricting food rations, curfews - these have all been more effective tools in controlling people than simply taking away weapons.

I actually wish more people who educate themselves on defensive tactics such as grappling, punching and point shooting, but as it's already been noted, being a productive member of society is far more important to the survival and health of a nation than having a jiujitsu lessons and a Glock 21. Disrupting that production is what leads to oppression. Suggesting that subjugated groups such as Polish Jews should have had weapons strikes me as blaming the victim in addition to erring on the side of anti-intellectualism.

On a related noted, anyone who tosses around that Benjamin Franklin quote...

“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

...should probably hear what Thomas Jefferson said to Colonel Charles Yancey on the matter:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information."

There are multiple ways to interpret this quote, but the gist is that armed populations mean very little in the face of democracy and freedom if they are willfully ignorant. Somewhat incidentally, public figures who champion the importance of limited government and freedom tend to not be well-read.

edited 9th Oct '15 11:16:36 AM by Aprilla

BonsaiForest Since: Jan, 2001
#102968: Oct 9th 2015 at 11:09:13 AM

The douchebag who bought out a drug that was sold for $13.50 a pill and jacked it up to $750 a pill (when the drug only cost $1 a pill to make), had previously promised to drop the price to something more reasonable. He even said he'd do it in "two weeks".

Two weeks have passed, and he hasn't done it.

It's like he's expecting the news media to just leave him alone and the public to drop the issue. Which I bet they probably will.

Editorial 1 Editorial 2

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#102969: Oct 9th 2015 at 11:09:44 AM

But. But. But. But Trump has loads of money! He is clearly intelligent!

Drug lords though? They have loads of money but they are clearly stupid criminals.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#102970: Oct 9th 2015 at 11:11:01 AM

I saw a study, which I will link when I have the chance, showing that Trump garners less literate Facebook comments from his supporters than any other current candidate.

edited 9th Oct '15 11:39:40 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#102971: Oct 9th 2015 at 11:36:35 AM

So, the GOP tried to draft Paul Ryan for the speakership, since he's the one man who could get the caucus behind him.

Ryan's response (paraphrased): "No. I am not a complete moron."

Currently, it looks like Boehner is staying in because the House GOP cannot come to an agreement, the Freedom Caucus will veto any reasonable candidate, the moderates won't support any FC-approved Speaker or give the FC any of their demands, and the Democrats are Passing the Popcorn.

edited 9th Oct '15 11:40:22 AM by Ramidel

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#102972: Oct 9th 2015 at 11:38:51 AM

Never change America

"A Facebook event page for a protest dubbed "Defend Roseburg - Deny barack 0bama" [sic], had garnered more than 8,000 RVS Ps by Friday. In its lengthy event description, organizers suggested attendees carry a handgun as opposed to a rifle, but reiterated "you have the right to carry what you wish."

edited 9th Oct '15 11:39:06 AM by Hodor2

Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#102973: Oct 9th 2015 at 11:40:04 AM

Is it possible for there to be no Speaker?

Keep Rolling On
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#102974: Oct 9th 2015 at 11:44:44 AM

No. The official traditional rule (never dragged out these days because the decision is nearly always made in-party) is that if nobody gets an absolute majority, they keep voting until they get somebody.

That said, I suppose it's possible that the election could drag on for some time because the Republican Party is melting down again. (No Republican can afford to make a deal with Pelosi and expect his reputation to survive - even the moderates would abandon him as toxic.)

edited 9th Oct '15 11:50:55 AM by Ramidel

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#102975: Oct 9th 2015 at 11:53:36 AM

[up][up][up]What am I missing? Who's Roseburg and why does he need defending from Obama?

edited 9th Oct '15 11:58:37 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

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