How polarization has lead to a decline of earmarks and pork

dominosci · 1 day

At least among american redditors there seems to be a lot of opposition to the partisan model of politics. Personally, I don't think it's that bad that political parties are organized into clear factions which push for well-known long-term ideological goals.

yeropinionman · 3 days

What's interesting about this is that many of their licensing rules aren't created at the behest of big business. Instead, a lot of them are the result of small mom-and-pop shops who feel like they're working really hard.

It makes me wonder if economic surplus is always just captured by which ever group has the most political clout to set up barriers to entry.

Fap_Ergo_Sum · 3 days

Automatic downvote for Lew Rockwell.

LifeofaLorax · 3 days

I loved this game. My favorite feature is that if you want to play as a girl character it has a setting to toggle heteronormativity.

dominosci · 4 days

I never voted for the existence of you nor did I ever volunteer to give you ownership rights over "your" wealth (which are made up of atoms which were created by no one and which a priori I have just as much right to as you).

You pretend to want a voluntary society but you also support the institution of private property. So far as social engineering schemes go its a good one. One I support. But it still involves initiating violence against people whose only crime is favoring a different resource allocation scheme than you do.

dominosci · 4 days

I guess you'd be happier if everybody could resort to force?

If paying taxes is really so onerous, vote with your feet. I'm sure somalia would be very happy to have you.

dominosci · 4 days

Bit coin will implode on itself because of its flawed desiegn.

No doubt someone will get online currency right. My guess is that it will probably be a formal government project though. Even then, you'll have the same problem any other unmanaged currency has: wildly fluctuating value. That will probably limit its use as a currency.

pool92 · 4 days

Take the example of the man who snatches the food before you eats it. There are two ways to interpret this.

One is that he is performing some kind of force initiation (even though the food is as much his as it is yours).
The alternative is that it's not force initiation but it's still immoral. Furthermore, because it is immoral that justifies you initiating force against him.

Both of these interpretation lead to the same moral rights and wrongs. The only difference is that your interpretation requires adopting weird definitions for "force initiation" and violence. For example, in your world, eating an apple can be a form of violence. Indeed, sitting perfectly still and not moving can be a kind of "force"! That's crazy talk!

Yes, I admit that your system probably leads to moral conclusions that you personally find intuitive. And you are probably not terribly perturbed by the fact that you are twisting definitions. But both the moral conclusion (tax is theft) and the bizarre redefinition (inaction can be force) are deeply at odds with my moral knowledge.

I doubt there is much more for us to talk about. If we can't agree on the fact that force requires action and that violence means harm to ones body then we aren't even speaking the same language.

greenrd · 4 days

This article mostly talks about the great depression but conservatives are willing to go further back than that. The worst I've seen is theories that deny that the civil war was about slavery. "it was about states rights!" they say. Yes: sates rights to allow slavery.

brainburger · 4 days

I've got an idea: it was made by people with a lot of time on their hands.

I think it's rather condescending to assume that ancient peoples couldn't have done this unaided. The reality is that people are pretty smart.

ProjectStormy · 6 days

'oh here, let me patronizingly explain to you how to do everything.

I believe the term is "mansplaining".

Thankfully I, a man, was here to explain it to you. ;)

BlankVerse · 6 days

Bio of the author:

Troy Senik is an Editor at Ricochet, and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Prior to his tenure at the White House, he served as a writer for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Troy is currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom and a contributor at City Journal California and the Manhattan Institute's Public Sector Inc. He is also the host of Ricochet's "Law Talk" podcast with Richard Epstein and John Yoo, as well as the "Young Guns" podcast with Meghan Clyne, Diane Ellis, and Keith Urbahn. He splits his time between Los Angeles and Nashville.

dominosci · 6 days

Ron Paul says a lot of things.

dominosci · 6 days

How about this?

To see Nothaus committing fraud check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYGDVUb8MjA&t=5m16s

He's leading people to believe that their legitimate tender for dollar denominated debts when in fact they are not. It's fraud plain and simple.

dominosci · 6 days

Nothaus was convicted of fraud because he tried to buy things by leading people to believe his currency was issued by the us government. Not because he made his own currency.

When you whip out a coin and say "this is the new ten dollar coin" people are going to assume it's backed by thus government and thus usable to pay US denominated contracts. If he had called them NothausBucks there would have been no problem. Of course, had he done so he wouldn't have been able to commit fraud which was the whole point.

pool92 · 7 days

According to you, that food doesn't belong to you, and without property, theft isn't even possible. So I can snatch away as much food from your mouth as I want, and you can never justify using force to stop me.

No. I think it's totally justified. I just think the first person to threaten force against another's body is the one initiating force.

What's the difference between effectively claiming something and actually claiming something?

By "effectively claiming" you mean "use". The difference between use and ownership is very clear: when you use something you take away people access to the resource. But at least you are not doing so with threats of force initiation. When you claim ownership you remove their access with threats that you will physically harm them.

The definition of physical harm is trying to use the atoms of someone's body without their permission. Therefore there is no contradiction.

Private property is a quite recent invention. For most of human history things were owned communally or were transferable without the owners consent in many cases. For example, even if a hunter caught something all by himself, he was obligated to share it with the village. This obligation was enforceable with violence if necessary.

Where private property does exist today it is not the "obligation free" kind you have be referring to. Instead property ownership is always tied to obligations to pay taxes or more. Being a social construct, private property is subject to modifications when we think it's for the best.

dominosci · 7 days

Either way I'm pretty sure he's wrong. When you write a contract you can specify that it's payable in any currency you like. Heck, it does even have to involve currency. You can contract to swap cows for bars of silver and the government won't care as long as you pay any applicable taxes.

dominosci · 7 days

It's true that you ussually have to pay your taxes in us dollars but that shouldn't be too odd: most contracts specify what currency is to be paid.

What's interesting is that i you have income in a non convertible currency (like in malaysia where they have currency controls) the US government will accept payment in that currency.

pool92 · 7 days

I agree that nothing belongs to anyone till it is claimed. "belonging", "claiming", "owning" these are all words for the same thing: atoms of matter that you use use violence to prevent others from using. You didn't make those atoms. All you did was rearrange them in a way that you find subjectively pleasing.

You think that failing to give up acces to atoms to people who claim them is a kind of force initiation. That's obviously incorrect. You may be justified in using violence to stop them from using your atoms, but it's still force initiation.

Using atoms is not force or violence. Shooting someone with a gun for trespassing is violence.

reddit4 · 7 days

The solution is to accept partisan parties and modify our laws to channel and harness it. It works fine in a lot of countries. Why not here?

pool92 · 7 days

I think you are confused. I'm not opposed to private property. I support it! I'm just honest about the fact that it requires force initiation and forcing people to do things they didn't agree to do.

One bad alternative to private property is public property. But that's not the only one.

Another alternative involves everyone refraining from using violence and force initiation. In such a world ownership of any kind would be impossible without getting consent from every person in the world. Even then you'd have to deal with new people being born who hadn't agreed to give up access to the resource you want to own.

This property-free world would of course be incredibly unstable and unproductive since the only incentive people would have to improve resource would be for personal esteem. This world would however be free from force initiation and coercion. Indeed, it is the only possible world free of such things.

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