Extracted from Thread

"Kurgan Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

1) From 1992-2003, the policy re: Saddam was containment. I will post
links stating this if you wish, by the people in power who were in
charge of the containment.

Well, we certainly have proof that there was NO OTHER MISSION because of
course Henry wasn't informed of it.

Quoted message said:

2) The UN is a tool for attempting to handle the political end of
containment.

Another interesting example of how Henry believes that corruption in the UN
is really something else.

"Bret" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Every one of us could name something that is funded by tax dollars
that we disapprove of.

You still don't understand do you? "Something" isn't enough. What is enough
is when the MAJORITY of money spend by your government is incorrect. You
want to stop funding the military which is a basic requirement of any
nation. And you want to increase leftist programs because you think that you
can get something personally out of it.

"Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo. com> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
| "Bret" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
| news:[email hidden]...
| >
| > Every one of us could name something that is funded by tax dollars
| > that we disapprove of.
|
| You still don't understand do you? "Something" isn't enough. What is
enough
| is when the MAJORITY of money spend by your government is incorrect.

Kind of hard to parse that but you seem to be agreeing with me now. It's not
what so much as how much.

|You
| want to stop funding the military which is a basic requirement of any
| nation.

Never said that. I mentioned the cost of the war. The war isn't free.

|And you want to increase leftist programs because you think that you
| can get something personally out of it.

I mentioned safety nets. Barring a catastrophy, I'm well enough off that I
won't "get something". Unless you meant the satisfaction of seeing other
people do better than they might otherwise.

Bret

Bill C said:

Kurgan Gringioni said:

thanks,

Quoted message said:

K. Gringioni.

Do you see the blockade of their economy, the UN inspections, etc...as
part of military containment?

<snip>

Dumbass -

Yes, those are all tools of containment and containment is not just
military. It's also political and economic.

It's arguable that the majority of a good strategist's actions will be
political and economic. As von Clausewitz said, "war is nothing but
the continuation of policy with other means." I'm not a von Clausewitz
fan, but that quote is a concise way to see how strategists link
politics, economics and military action.

Another good one is by Sun Tzu: "For to win one hundred victories in
one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy
without fighting is the acme of skill."

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Tom Kunich' cyclintom@yahoo. com said:

"Kurgan Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

1) From 1992-2003, the policy re: Saddam was containment. I will post
links stating this if you wish, by the people in power who were in
charge of the containment.

Well, we certainly have proof that there was NO OTHER MISSION because of
course Henry wasn't informed of it.

Quoted message said:

2) The UN is a tool for attempting to handle the political end of
containment.

Another interesting example of how Henry believes that corruption in the UN
is really something else.

Dumbass -

What I wrote is true. The UN is a political tool (it's a talk shop)
and it has no real power.

I don't disagree that it's corrupt like most political institutions,
but everytime you do the kneejerk strawman, you demonstrate your near
complete lack of intellect.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Tom Kunich said:

Quoted message said:

Another interesting example of how Henry believes that corruption in the
UN is really something else.

Kurgan Gringioni said:

everytime you do the kneejerk strawman, you demonstrate your near complete
lack of intellect.

Please send all feature improvement requests to schwartzsoft.com.

Bret said:

"SLAVE of THE STATE" <[email hidden]> wrote in messagenews:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

But that isn't what you mean.  What you really mean is that you want
to force others, at the end of a gun barrel, to pay for your "good
idea," and even to "participate."

It's not my idea. It's the system I was born into. I have no particular
notions about enforcement of the system.

Quoted message said:

That is where the problem lies, not
with whether or not insurance is a "good idea."  There isn't a kind
and gentle way to coerce, although I know you want to believe there
is.

We're not talking about insurance but public charity. How much charity is
appropriate is certainly debatable but using loaded words like "stealing",
"evil" and "at the end of a gun barrel" is demagoguery.

Quoted message said:

So if you could cut the double-speak, it would make you appear more
honest, if you care about that sort of thing.

You're trying to argue that the America we've both lived in all our lives is
un-american. Now that's double-speak.

On the other hand, the equation of taxation = socialism =
being a liar, thief and killer, might not be such a bad thing
after all. Liars, thieves and killers have been unfairly
tarred; many of them played crucial roles in the founding
of our nation, and in general in the overthrow of monarchies.
In fact, this paper I was recently reading:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/526403

"An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization"
by Peter Leeson (George Mason Univ.), if that link doesn't
work, use: http://www.peterleeson.com/An-arrgh-chy.pdf

makes a pretty good case that pirates in the early 1700s
more or less invented their own self-organized,
self-governing quasi-democratic mode of organization,
for perfectly good economic reasons. They were libertarian
capitalists before libertarian capitalism was cool. Yet with
a safety net: if a pirate lost an arm or a leg, there were
specified payouts. As the blogger I got the link from said,
it "bears some disturbing similarities to an hours-long
anarcho-capitalist bull session." Only it worked in real
life. The founders of the U.S.A., of course, while in their
own P.R. a bunch of overtaxed merchants, were often
regarded as renegades, raiders and privateers.

Ben
To live outside the law you must be honest.

On Feb 17, 7:56 pm, "[email hidden]" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

"An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization"
by Peter Leeson (George Mason Univ.), if that link doesn't
work, use:http://www.peterleeson.com/An-arrgh-chy.pdf

makes a pretty good case that pirates in the early 1700s
more or less invented their own self-organized,
self-governing quasi-democratic mode of organization,
for perfectly good economic reasons.  They were libertarian
capitalists before libertarian capitalism was cool.

In what manner of speaking is a pirate defined as capitalist or
libertarian? Is it only in the strange nether-world of Olber-speak?

I ask because a capitalist is someone who builds capital, or at least
believes doing so is important in some way. (Invests in tools,
machines, buildings, infrastructure, and in general, the means of
production for end use (consumer) products.)

I ask because a libertarian is someone who believes in in a social
construct of liberty, which says "live and let live," or better "I
won't do to you what I wouldn't want you to do to me."

Both capitalism and libertarianism, as ideologies, have touchstones in
the notion of private property via the lockean homesteading principle
and voluntary (free) trade. So the question is how pirating -- the
stealing of property -- can be regarded as either capitalist or
libertarian.

-----------
Thanks for the link -- Leeson writes a good paper here and there.

Here is another interesting paper:
_An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild
West_, Terry L. Anderson and P. J. Hill Department of Economics,
Montana State University
http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf

I look into this sort of thing because as I checked off my list the
governing methods/systems that had too many problems, the list became
empty, so then I began to ask "how does a system of law and governance
develop in the first place?"

Bret said:

"SLAVE of THE STATE" <[email hidden]> wrote in messagenews:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Bret,
There is nothing wrong with a belief that a safety net is a "good
idea." In a free society/population, if you want to form a safety net
with people on a voluntary basis, no one will stop you. I might even
buy in myself.

I should have been clearer. I meant a universal safety net
in the context of the nation.

I knew what you meant -- I explained in the only sense it can be taken
as a moral act. The federal government must break its own law of
enumerated powers to do such a thing, since it has no power to do any
such thing. That is the first barrier, which has not been crossed.
The next barrier is the question whether coercion of that manner can
be justified in a 'large population' paradigm. The assertion and
burden of proof are born upon those who say it is justified.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

But that isn't what you mean. What you really mean is that you want
to force others, at the end of a gun barrel, to pay for your "good
idea," and even to "participate."

It's not my idea. It's the system I was born into. I have no particular
notions about enforcement of the system.

How vague. So you don't know if it is a good idea, or bad idea, or
why. "It just is." Worse, the means to the end aren't even
considered important enough to "have a particular notion about."

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

That is where the problem lies, not
with whether or not insurance is a "good idea." There isn't a kind
and gentle way to coerce, although I know you want to believe there
is.

We're not talking about insurance but public charity.

"Public" charity is not charity. Quit with the modifiers that
obliterate the meaning.

Quoted message said:

How much charity is appropriate is certainly debatable
...

If it is charity, then it is a debate one has with oneself.

Quoted message said:

... but using loaded words like "stealing",...
and "at the end of a gun barrel" is demagoguery.

Unfortunately, it is not demagoguery. It is actually what happens.
Don't believe me? Do your own experiment. Try refusing payment to the
guvmint the "taxes" they assess upon you. Try defending your property
against the seizure. Get back to us with the results, if you survive.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So if you could cut the double-speak, it would make you appear more
honest, if you care about that sort of thing.

You're trying to argue that the America we've both
lived in all our lives is un-american. Now that's
double-speak.

You are the dude that above effectively says "whatever,... it just is
as it is -- we was just born into it." You have no foundational
notion of what "american" is. This means you are not qualified to
begin arguing "american" principles of governance, nor critisize
anyone, including me.

Bret said:

It's ironic that Bush made most of his money through corporate
socialism i.e the public funding of the Texas Rangers stadium in
Arlington. Anyone paying sales taxes there that didn't also attend
ball games was paying to make Bush richer with no benefit to
themselves.

Why ironic? It is totally predictable behavior. It happens all the
time.

Maybe one of these days you might wake up a bit more skeptical about
what people can and cannot accomplish with governance. I am not
sanguine on the prospects.