[MacG]

This little animation may have nothing or something or everything to do with PO. I dont know. But it is somewhat interesting anyhow:

http://jonathangullible.com/mmedia/Phil ... _music.swf

[jato]

I have seen this before and I highly recommend watching it. Being a Libertarian, I agree with its message.

I am curious to see what our Republican and Democrat (Socialists) friends think.

[Ayoob]

Sounds like a nice idea. If humans ever evolve into something that can learn how to act ethically I'm up for it. Til then... keep your hand on your wallet.

[k_semler]

Damn right. I agree with this every bit. If this is what the Libertarian party stands for, then I support them fully.

[Budmeister]

Great link, thanks. I forwarded this link to several of my Republican and Democrat friends. Being a Libertarian myself this is self evident, the idea of self-ownership. But too many people just don't get it.

Libertarian, Statement of Principles:
"We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose."

[smallpoxgirl]

It definitely has a Randian/Libertarian take. The only piece that I find really troubling is the bit about property. Life and liberty are relatively straightforward. You are born with them. No one should infringe on them. Period.

Property is much less straighforward than they portray it. First of all, everyone is born with varying amounts of property depending on how much property your parents had. Secondly, we live in a capitalist system. Most of the people who have significant amounts of property don't have it because they made it. Most of the people who have significant amounts of property have it because they owned capital that entitled them to property that other people made. If you research most of the people that have significant amounts of property (I'm talking here about people like the Keneddy's, the Rockefellers, the Weyerhausers, etc.) you find that they have it because of fraud and dirty dealings by them and/or by their ancestors. In a more broad sense all of the land in the United States was obtained fraudulently from its indigenous owners. The infrastructure that now exists was heavily dependent on the labor of slaves to build it. Generation after generation, the slave owner passes the house to his son, and the indian and the slave pass nothing to theirs. They are to busy making property for the slave owner so that he will allow them to sleep in "his" shed.

I don't know that there is a reasonable way to account for how much property legitmately belongs to whom. I think that any way you sliced it people would have very legitimate feelings that they were being done wrong. I think it is painfully inadequate to try and reduce property to the terms in that clip. It's a very muddy very murky subject.

Make it "pursuit of happiness" and I am full on with you guys.

[k_semler]

(Sung to the tune of "This Land"}

This land is my land,
This land ain't your land.
From this fence here,
To that fence there.
And if you don't leave,
I'll get my shotgun,
And I'll pump your ass full of lead.
This land belongs to only me.

[MacG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', ' ')The only piece that I find really troubling is the bit about property. Life and liberty are relatively straightforward.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MacG', 'I')nteresting points. I run into problems rather immediately when trying to consider "property" out of context with "life" and "liberty" though. In a slightly longer perspective, "property" is pretty neutral since most of it deteriorate with time if not tended to. OK, gold is pretty persistent, but you cant eat it or make many useful things from it (OK, you CAN eat gold, but it is not very nutritious). All other kinds of "property" will neutralize itself over time. Even stone castles deteriorate.

[MacG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', ' ')

That would work well were it not for capitalism.

[MacG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kochevnik', 'E')xcellent. Well worth watching. Interesting how simple things could really be when there weren't so many politicians and liars (I mean lawyers).

It'll make a nice basis for a new society after the hard crash

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Budmeister', '
')
Libertarian, Statement of Principles:
"We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose."

[Tyler_JC]

Only 20% of millionaires in the US got their wealth from their parents. Most own small businesses, live below their means, save money, work hard, get ahead, and educate their children. I wouldn't exactly call that "sitting on my ass and collecting my dividend. I find your generalization somewhat insulting to the millions of people that work extremely hard and who end up succeeding. They weren’t born with a silver spoon, they earned it.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'O')nly 20% of millionaires in the US got their wealth from their parents. Most own small businesses, live below their means, save money, work hard, get ahead, and educate their children. I wouldn't exactly call that "sitting on my ass and collecting my dividend. I find your generalization somewhat insulting to the millions of people that work extremely hard and who end up succeeding. They weren’t born with a silver spoon, they earned it.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'I') find your generalization somewhat insulting to the millions of people that work extremely hard and who end up succeeding.

[jato]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t was not unintentional. You maintain they performed some sort of useful function for society. I maintain they are lazy greedy parasites.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'Y')ou maintain they performed some sort of useful function for soceity. I maintain they are lazy greedy parasites.

[I_Like_Plants]

Tyler_JC is probably quoting the book "The Millionaire Next Door" which I hereby require you all to read (your library is sure to have it, or at least read the many reviews on the net, OK?)

And it's true, most millionaires did a combination of things, got a good education whether officially degreed or not, made a good income, a large portion are self-employed, and they LIVE BELOW THEIR MEANS. They drive older cars, live next door, typically, to people making much less, and they don't really even think of themselves as "rich", they just do something, like run the machine shop they started just out of high school, or run their little chemical engineering consulting company, or build garage doors, or whatever, mostly boring, business they do and they don't really think about it. Just your ordinary Joe Blow who runs one of the larger plumbing businesses in town, or something boring like that. Very plain, meat-and-potatoes, humdrum people. It takes that kind of person to become a millionaire this way.

That being said, a million isn't that much money any more. 30 years ago, that book would be about "The 1/4-Millionaire Next Door". Millionaires are not the problem when we talk about parasites, the ones sitting on their asses and still getting richer are multi-millionaires, bilionaires, etc. These types didn't become millionaires by buckling down and working at something and saving a lot. They inherited, or wheeled and dealed, or connived, or flimflammed. Sure, some, like Steve Wozniak, earned much more than a million by working hard at something they were born to do and keeping their head down, but those types tend to keep on working, or retire to do good works, or even give some or most, even all, of their wealth away.

But there's a whole class of people who just get given stuff, and a whole class who got ahead by screwing the little guy, what's his name who runs Nike is a good example. Nike actually creates poverty, actually intentionally destroys societies, in 3rd world countries, so they'll get starving, desperate workers who will work cheap. Woz, or the stodgy workhorses in The Millionaire Next Door, could never imagine doing that, because they'd imagine themselves in the starving kids' shoes and put a stop to it. In fact as computer manufacturing moved to the 3rd world, some of these same conditions have become common, and this may be why Woz is really rather sour on anyone needing a computer more high-powered than the Commodore 64, a computer that like the Apple ][e, was made by well paid workers in the USA.

These rapacious, Nike-style plutocrats are what Marx was railing against, the Industrial Revolution was full of those types, some of them being Marx's family.

As an anthropology teacher told my class once, it's pretty hard to force another person to do something, to fight a war or gather only for them, etc because the other person can just walk the other way over the next hill. Chuck you, farley! And small hunter-gatherer groups are how we've evolved over the last few millions of years. Modern nation-states and the kind of conditions that lead to sweatshops and Nike are very recent.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jato', 'S')mallpox, I think your observations apply to most modern humans regardless of class. As a member of the soon to be extinct middle class, I see positive and negative attributes in all classes, races, sexes, etc. etc. Generally speaking, people disappoint me on a daily basis.

[Tyler_JC]

I was refering to that book. It was written in 1999 when a million dollars was worth 1.3 million in today's dollars.

But at some point, someone had to work for that billion. You can't steal that which wasn't created. The Kennedy's are rich today because some guy 70 years ago ran a very successful business that allowed his children and grandchildren to live in luxury. Now they devote their time to the public good. Joe Kennedy runs a heating-oil-for-the-poor company that helps thousands of people buy heating oil who would have frozen in the winter without his help. I wouldn't call that a "lazy parasitic lifestyle".

But we will never agree on anything like this based on our individual philosophies. Oh well. Maybe if we changed the subject we could agree on something. Do you like cookies? My personal favorite are the Toll House chocolate chips ones.