Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 136

On June 26 2019 21:59 Baalim wrote: who do you think is creaming their pants with these debt-striking talks from politicians? the fucking banks

You couldn't be more wrong. Elizabeth Warren is a bankruptcy lawyer who's first foray into politics was developing opposition to the act you quoted. She was literally enemy #1 to the private industry groups trying to push it through.

You could make an argument Sander's debt elimination policies *on their own* would increase lending, but he's also been very vocal about both breaking up the banks and free college. Loans being slightly less risky doesn't matter when your entire revenue stream is threatened, let alone actual existence. FWIW, I'm not supportive of Sander's policies in this area but the idea that he's somehow pro-banking is just completely absurd.

On June 27 2019 15:30 RiKD wrote: We can still talk about the REALITIES of capitalism, oligarchies and approaching monopolies? FREE MARKET CAPITALISM I'm in

Can we talk about the realities of communism then?

Yeah commies shouldn't play this pessimistic game, its self defeating lol.

I love Marx but I wouldn't call myself a communist. I am still learning but this is more my speed:

"Democratic confederalism is a "system of popularly elected administrative councils, allowing local communities to exercise autonomous control over their assets, while linking to other communities via a network of confederal councils."96] Decisions are made by communes in each neighborhood, village, or city. All are welcome to partake in the communal councils, but political participation is not mandated. There is no private property, but rather “ownership by use, which grants individuals usage rights to the buildings, land, and infrastructure, but not the right to sell and buy on the market or convert them private enterprises.”[96] The economy is in the hands of the communal councils, and is thus (in the words of Bookchin) ‘neither collectivised nor privatised, it is common.’[96]

With his 2005 "Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan", Öcalan advocated for a Kurdish implementation of Bookchin's The Ecology of Freedom via municipal assemblies as a democratic confederation of Kurdish communities beyond the state borders of Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. Öcalan promoted a platform of shared values: environmental defense, self-defense, gender equality, and pluralistic tolerance for religion, politics, and culture. While some of his followers questioned Öcalan's conversion from Marxism-Leninism, the PKK adopted Öcalan's proposal and began to form assemblies.[97]"

-Wikipedia

And it's up and functioning and there are countless pictures of people involved. It's a Reality. The Really Real.

On June 27 2019 00:49 Loco wrote: #TheLeftCantMeme

Your arguments are sometimes strangely incoherent: "a political system hasn't existed, therefore It cannot exist", yeah but there is an exeption to that.... every fucking political system in history didn't exist at one point, also the popularity of an idea doesn't have any bearing in its merits, stop wasting my time with this idiotic shit.
-----------------
Loco: "you are so certain of your ideas, only fools are certain, the wise doubt"
Also Loco: "haha you dont even know if Libertarianism would be a better socio/economical model for the entire world over ancap, you are such a confused boy"
-----------------

I'm not flipflopping between them I'm tired of your idiotic arguments against ancap which is the one above of non existing or you make some chld-like arguments about it like:

Loco: "So what would stop companies from employing children and destroying the world"
Baal: "Consumer choice is extremely important, we don't excersize it because we belielve our power is in voting, but in a free society this would be our vote, this is a key component in this type of society, for example, would you buy a chocolate made by an exploited child?"
Loco: "How do you stop Cocacola from creating killing squads that would literally slaughter the competition"
Baal: "W... what? thats not how...."
Loco: "Ancaps are fat fedora-wearing internet losers, your ideology has never existed and is invalid"


Yeah thats why I said assume I'm a libertarian, you are strangely incapable of believing in minor societal self-regulation while at the same time supporting a much more drastic form of societal self-regulation

If the people of LP want to join me in boycotting all talk of free market capitalism, I'm in.

#PunchBaal

On June 27 2019 21:11 RiKD wrote: I love Marx but I wouldn't call myself a communist. I am still learning but this is more my speed:

You are implying capitalism cannot be improved, because its current state its it inevitable form... which is actually an interesting argument but not if you are a marxist, its absurdly hypocritical because then I can obviously point out of how monumentally disastrous every single large attempt of it has gone, and no, a portion of rural syria with one tenth of the population from a very brief moment in time isn't very relevant.

Every time you see a political agenda being augmented by pictures of happy children, you should be very wary.

Also when we talk about that region in Syria we also forget about the long term development of that and forget the region was in raging war. It's basically a natural experiment, which occurs after people got tired of wars. Question is how will it develop once people settle in, have all of their basic needs covered by default and start seeking self-improvement. You can point to the region's success but you cant simply ignore the factors of how it happened, why it happened and how short of a time period has passed since.

On June 27 2019 17:13 NMcNasty wrote: Show nested quote + On June 26 2019 21:59 Baalim wrote: who do you think is creaming their pants with these debt-striking talks from politicians? the fucking banks You couldn't be more wrong. Elizabeth Warren is a bankruptcy lawyer who's first foray into politics was developing opposition to the act you quoted. She was literally enemy #1 to the private industry groups trying to push it through. You could make an argument Sander's debt elimination policies *on their own* would increase lending, but he's also been very vocal about both breaking up the banks and free college. Loans being slightly less risky doesn't matter when your entire revenue stream is threatened, let alone actual existence. FWIW, I'm not supportive of Sander's policies in this area but the idea that he's somehow pro-banking is just completely absurd.

who is talking about Sanders or Warren?

Striking any debt puts public's money into the lender's hands, period. If you announce it previously it creates a moral hazard that worsen this bailout to economy collapsing magnitudes, it also punishes any young people responsible chose another path or was responsible enough to pay up their debts.

A much better fix is to just increase the lending risk to its normal market levels, then tuition price dramatically drops and this debt craze stops, it obviously also means less people going to higher education which sounds bad but it isn't, trades are outperforming college graduates economically theres clearly an oversupply of bullshit degrees, which naturally would be the least lended by financial institutions since obviously an engineer is more likely to pay back its tuition than a womens studies graduate.

I wouldn't mind going to syria to check out what kind of society they have constructed. It is quite an acheivement that they have remained anarchist under warlike conditions, which typically are the easiest conditions under which top down heirachies can be justified.

On June 27 2019 21:35 Spitfiree wrote: Every time you see a political agenda being augmented by pictures of happy children, you should be very wary. Also when we talk about that region in Syria we also forget about the long term development of that and forget the region was in raging war. It's basically a natural experiment, which occurs after people got tired of wars. Question is how will it develop once people settle in, have all of their basic needs covered by default and start seeking self-improvement. You can point to the region's success but you cant simply ignore the factors of how it happened, why it happened and how short of a time period has passed since.

That was straight up PR from me. You think I am hiding atrocities or something? At least there are pictures of happy children whereas no pictures exist of happy ancaps.

Öcalan issued the "Declaration of Democratic confederalism in Kurdistan" in 2005. This shit is Real whether you like it or not. It is relevant and it should be relevant.

On June 27 2019 21:35 Spitfiree wrote: Every time you see a political agenda being augmented by pictures of happy children, you should be very wary. Also when we talk about that region in Syria we also forget about the long term development of that and forget the region was in raging war. It's basically a natural experiment, which occurs after people got tired of wars. Question is how will it develop once people settle in, have all of their basic needs covered by default and start seeking self-improvement. You can point to the region's success but you cant simply ignore the factors of how it happened, why it happened and how short of a time period has passed since.

Oh, fuck off with that first line. RiKD is bipolar and he's having some kind of manic episode as evidenced by his blog, give him a fucking break. You say this as if there was even just a remote possibility that RiKD from LiquidPoker could be part of a propaganda unit for some authoritarian regime... are you serious?

No one has really been talking about Rojava here except me and I'm not ignoring any of those factors. I've mentioned them and I can talk about them at length. There are some things that are unique to them but as a whole this experiment isn't new. There are other stateless societies in existence, and there have been many previously. People who have studied them know what the threats are against them. Internally, there is no doubt that it works long-term. People can self-manage and it scales up.

On June 27 2019 21:12 Baalim wrote: Your arguments are sometimes strangely incoherent: "a political system hasn't existed, therefore It cannot exist", That's a false quote and a straw man. I said that you believed in an idealized view of markets that are unconstrained and in some way objective and not political. You speak of them as though they exist right now and you create a dichotomy between the state and them. That dichotomy is provably false. [quote]the popularity of an idea doesn't have any bearing in its merits, stop wasting my time with this idiotic shit.

Yes it does in this context and I've explained why. There are ideas that are ahead of their time, and that is why they cannot be popular, because people's understanding of the world is necessarily lagging behind those who are at the forefront pushing the envelope. This isn't the case with an-cap. It's not new; it's had its chance and it's already a walking corpse of an ideology. It's a fantastic euphemism to call it "unpopular".. it is absolutely detested or laughed at by 99+% of people who have some kind of political identity. The point that I made stands: you cannot change the world on your own. A political project needs people to subscribe to it. The fact that you have exactly zero concern with these ideas becoming more popular, and neither do your brethren, is proof that you don't actually have a political project. It's proof that you are far more interested in abstractions than in the real world.

Loco: "you are so certain of your ideas, only fools are certain, the wise doubt" Also Loco: "haha you dont even know if Libertarianism would be a better socio/economical model for the entire world over ancap, you are such a confused boy"

That's not it either. I'm saying that you don't know how to argue for one or the other and stick to it during the time of the argument. You inevitably move back to the other one and "mix and match" them. It's impossible to argue with someone who is moving back and forth with two different positions and who completely forgets the previous arguments in the process.

@McNasty now that you mentioned democrat candidates, I assume you watched literally all of them in the debate offer free healthcare to all illegal immigrants.

You realize how profoundly stupid that is? Every Mexican and latinamerican person with serious health problems will go to the US to get treatment, mostly being very expensive treatments like heart problems, transplants, cancers and many life-long treatments too, good luck financing helthcare to anonther 800 million people lol.


Im often puzzled with politicians, I'm never sure if they are just absolute morons or just cynics, I honestly don't know.

On June 28 2019 01:54 Loco wrote: Yes it does in this context and I've explained why. There are ideas that are ahead of their time, and that is why they cannot be popular, because people's understanding of the world is necessarily lagging behind those who are at the forefront pushing the envelope. This isn't the case with an-cap. It's not new; it's had its chance and it's already a walking corpse of an ideology. It's a fantastic euphemism to call it "unpopular".. it is absolutely detested or laughed at by 99+% of people who have some kind of political identity. The point that I made stands: you cannot change the world on your own. A political project needs people to subscribe to it. The fact that you have exactly zero concern with these ideas becoming more popular, and neither do your brethren, is proof that you don't actually have a political project. It's proof that you are far more interested in abstractions than in the real world. As I said before, I've made my peace knowing that these changes won't happen in my lifetime if ever, and I favor progressive rather than revolutionary change, that changed in my mid 20s I see you stuck in that messianic phase, passionate and almost desperate for that change, I vividly remember reading Chomsky and hating his pasivity, so I think I know how you feel about my percieved passivity. And I'm not comparing myself to Chomsky and I"m not tryingn to be patronizing calling you stuck, I just one day decided it wasn'nt worth it to burn away [quote] That's not it either. I'm saying that you don't know how to argue for one or the other and stick to it during the time of the argument. You inevitably move back to the other one and "mix and match" them. It's impossible to argue with someone who is moving back and forth with two different positions and who completely forgets the previous arguments in the process.

My conception of anarchism isnt dogmatic, I dont think taxation is inherently theft, my approach is pragmatic, if certain tasks can be handled better with a state and that state can be contained then great.

You envision ancap as absolutely chaotic and rule of the strong and I suppose that seems like quite a leap to a libertarian republic with a constitution, but if you see ancap like I do, you will see that it isn't a great leap to libertarianism at all.

You seem so determined to prove that ancap is wrong and evil that it often derails conversations, thats why I said assume I"m libertarian because to me is almost the same but perhaps you won't go crazy on tangents about anarchocapitalism.

You're not passive at all my dude. You have plenty of energy to expend on discussing political ideas. It's obvious that it matters to you, it's just that there is nowhere to go with your ideology, so there is no option for you but to spend it poorly. In order to justify this lack of efficacy, you rationalize that it's normal for things to take time, and that other people are being silly by thinking they can change things "too fast".

It's totally meaningless to call yourself non-dogmatic. No one thinks they're dogmatic. But the best sign of someone who isn't dogmatic is someone who has a history of changing their mind in the face of evidence and who is constantly involved in expanding and sometimes updating their knowledge-base. Make of that what you will.

It's also false to call yourself a "pragmatic anarchist". Pragmatism is about putting things into practice, which means you need to be more interested in the real world than abstract economic concepts. You're not involved in any pragmatic compromising. Anarchists in Rojava are; they have to accept some foreign aid. Moronic communists give them hell for it, claiming they are tools of imperialism, but they don't care, they are doing what has to be done to survive and have the best society they can.

Maybe what you call pragmatism is actually genuine progress in that you have started to think a little bit outside of the very narrow realm you were previously confined in. That might be a good thing if it expands further and you start actually questioning the fundamental assumptions you have been making throughout all these years.

You envision ancap as absolutely chaotic and rule of the strong and I suppose that seems like quite a leap to a libertarian republic with a constitution, but if you see ancap like I do, you will see that it isn't a great leap to libertarianism at all.

Before I even think about what ancap would be like in general I think about the fact that I would 100% commit suicide if such a world could exist and I was thrown in it. It's not a place for people who want freedom in the full sense of the word. Freedom to build meaningful relationships, to explore the full range of what life has to offer and develop their natural abilities. It's merely the freedom to have the ability to climb 'natural hierarchies' so you can be more powerful than other people. I feel such a deep disgust for that. A society built on the profit motive, no matter the size of its government is fundamentally anti-human and anti-life in general and I cannot accept it and would never accept it.

Chaos really isn't the issue. You think anarchists just want order, but they don't. Chaos is a fundamental part of living systems. We all know it. It's the fire of creation, of novelty. The scariest thing is if there were no chaos. That would mean that the forces of oppression are so strong that people never fall out of line because they have been robbed of that ability early on. Think "Brave New World", or "This Perfect Day". It is happening in our world every day too with the early "obedience training" and the pacification of people throughout their lives by mass media. There is no strongest drug than that.

I discuss anything ad-naseum, eveyrbody knows this lol, but I didn't say I don't care, I mean that I don't care passionately about it to the point it frustrates me and makes me unhappy and I don't believe being passionate about it is neccesarely silly, it is often a sign of immaturity but not always, probably historical changes like these were driven by people who decided to "burn" in their passion for that change.

Well yes nobody consider themselves dogmatic, and another even better sign of someone who isn't dogmatic is when their belief systems do not adhere to dogmas, I think yours are, as I've said before, your ideas align perfectly with most leftists, its not like you are pro-life or carnist or something.

I used the wrong word with pragmatist then, what I meant is that I can adap to whatever seem to work best, I'm not married to concepts like taxation is theft, I know you think I do, for example you think my position of freedom of speech/non political violence is based on some prime moral belielf but it isn't, its based simply that I fear much more the censors than any heinours idea, and I fear political violence because it spreads like wildfire and it can't be contained as you think.


I know that is how you believe society would arrange itself without a state, but I dont think it would, I think it would be a much more efficient version of today's society, and that means by just sheer efficiency virtually erradicating hunger, poverty and big scale wars and a society where philantrophy is a common value, but yes with hierarchies but not the massive, unearned and parasitical ones, where hierarchies go just as far as the owner of a succesful company, yes more powerful and influential than your avg joe but he cannot order the annihilation of a country with the strike of a pen like in the world we live today.

And again, I know you don't think that's going to happen and that I'm an idiot for believing so in the same way I think of your vision of the world, but don't think that what I want is what you described.

On June 28 2019 01:28 Loco wrote: Oh, fuck off with that first line. RiKD is bipolar and he's having some kind of manic episode as evidenced by his blog, give him a fucking break. You say this as if there was even just a remote possibility that RiKD from LiquidPoker could be part of a propaganda unit for some authoritarian regime... are you serious?

Ehhh I'm not saying anything like that, I'm simply saying what I said, be aware of possible propaganda

Today's society is dreadful enough and you want to create reforms that would exacerbate its worst elements.

Your whole "generic leftie" thing is basically a thinly-veiled golden mean fallacy and the premise is ridiculous to begin with... leftists disagree on so fucking much. That's why we're not getting anywhere, there is too much in-fighting to focus on common enemies. The right-wing's advantage over the left has always been this, it is easier for you (well, not ancaps) to organize and propagandize.

And again, I know you don't think that's going to happen and that I'm an idiot for believing so in the same way I think of your vision of the world, but don't think that what I want is what you described.

I said the opposite actually, I wrote that you wanted to change the world for the better based on these ideas but you were placing all of your eggs into this one basket that even on a surface level analysis has no evidence for it, making it a bad bet. There is no evidence that in a highly unequal competitive society philanthropy can emerge in any meaningful way to remedy the bulk of the suffering, or that it could solve the ecological crisis. Logic and evidence tells us the exact opposite: that such mythological and dogmatic beliefs are what got us here.

On June 28 2019 02:01 Baalim wrote: @McNasty now that you mentioned democrat candidates, I assume you watched literally all of them in the debate offer free healthcare to all illegal immigrants. You realize how profoundly stupid that is? Every Mexican and latinamerican person with serious health problems will go to the US to get treatment, mostly being very expensive treatments like heart problems, transplants, cancers and many life-long treatments too, good luck financing healthcare to another 800 million people lol.

The question was whether your plan "would provide coverage" which can be interpreted in a variety of ways, of course right wing youtubes will dupe people into believing that its 100% support pure handout for expensive cancer treatments. Pete Buttigieg even immediately clarifies that that isn't the case if you actually watch the debate. I don't get expensive cancer treatment as an American (in terms of direct public funding), and only 4 of the 20 candidates (Warren, Sanders, DeBlasio, Harris) support a medicare for all plan that would change that. Do you honestly believe the other 16 candidates actually support direct funding for expensive treatment for illegal immigrants when they're very explicitly against it for Americans?

There were plenty of organic societies that were more or less anarcho-communist, green-anarchist, etc., etc. but I am pretty sure Loco already linked a bunch of those a while ago and since they are not modern they are not "relevant." Of course, we can't learn anything from these many organic societies so we should just ignore them and throw them in the trash and kill them all if we can. Or, better yet exploit them if they are still surviving...

On June 27 2019 21:11 RiKD wrote: + Show Spoiler + I love Marx but I wouldn't call myself a communist. I am still learning but this is more my speed: "Democratic confederalism is a "system of popularly elected administrative councils, allowing local communities to exercise autonomous control over their assets, while linking to other communities via a network of confederal councils."96] Decisions are made by communes in each neighborhood, village, or city. All are welcome to partake in the communal councils, but political participation is not mandated. There is no private property, but rather “ownership by use, which grants individuals usage rights to the buildings, land, and infrastructure, but not the right to sell and buy on the market or convert them private enterprises.”[96] The economy is in the hands of the communal councils, and is thus (in the words of Bookchin) ‘neither collectivised nor privatised, it is common.’[96] With his 2005 "Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan", Öcalan advocated for a Kurdish implementation of Bookchin's The Ecology of Freedom via municipal assemblies as a democratic confederation of Kurdish communities beyond the state borders of Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. Öcalan promoted a platform of shared values: environmental defense, self-defense, gender equality, and pluralistic tolerance for religion, politics, and culture. While some of his followers questioned Öcalan's conversion from Marxism-Leninism, the PKK adopted Öcalan's proposal and began to form assemblies.[97]" -Wikipedia And it's up and functioning and there are countless pictures of people involved. It's a Reality. The Really Real.

you're referencing kurdistan which is a proposed ethnostate you know?