patrick.net

FDR started WWII? This is why you're the village idiot.

Although he vowed to keep the US out of Europe, but he provoked Germany and he provoked Japan into starting the war. He definitely declared war on Germany and Japan.

14 Reality 2014 Mar 28, 9:29pm

Both unions and government could exist without being incorporated....kinda the way private courts wouldn't have to be incorporated. Gotta problem with the action of the union or the business or the municipality? Just sue the people who compose it. But then courts could sue courts. "Incorporation" just facilitates building a different set of laws than those that apply to humans. It's all about laying off risk and using other people's money, and then trying to give to the corporations the rights of persons without connecting those persons' money to the corporations. I'm sure you think the advent of incorporation is close to godlike in its wonderment. Don't you have a shrine in your house?

Unlike you, I don't build shrines at my own house. "Incorporation" applies the same set of laws that would apply to human to a non-human conceptual entity. That makes "union does this" and "government does that" have legal standing in law. I actually agree that treating such entities as separate legal entity instead of individual actions of the human beings acting in their names is a bit of an identity theft. The difference is that when dealing with privately owned or publicly traded corporations, the counterparties are willingly entering into transaction with what is essentially a shell game. Whereas when it comes to unions and governments, the identity theft is perpetuated by force of violence and threat thereof.

15

FuckTheMainstreamMedia 2014 Mar 29, 12:10am

There's studies showing that Republicans donate much more money to charitable causes than Democrats do. Not sure the axiom is correct...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?_r=0

Dan8267 says

indigenous says

The old saying: "If you are young and not liberal, then you have no heart; but if you are old and not conservative, then you have no brain" Seems apt

But a certain number never graduate to the later at an alarmingly increasing number.

Just because a saying is old, does not make it correct.

The correct saying is

Regardless of age, if you are not liberal than you have no heart; if you are conservative, you have no brain.

I'll take the mountains of evidence showing that liberals are far more intelligent than conservatives over "an old saying".

Switching from liberalism to conservatism is not a "graduation to a better philosophy"; it's hypocrisy motivated by greed and wealth acquisition.

16

indigenous 2014 Mar 29, 12:41am

This why you're the card-carrying village idiot.

Only the village idiot jumps right to ad hominem, as he cannot make any opposing arguments.

17

Y 2014 Mar 29, 1:02am

This is damning evidence...

I would say the Dems are a good example of creating financial enslavement and human misery.

I don't give a fuck about the intentions as that is fodder for the road to hell.

What they have done is plain to see and to think what is done is not what is intended is brainless...

18

Y 2014 Mar 29, 1:05am

This is why you are the card-carrying village grammar idiot.

This why you're the card-carrying village idiot.

19

HydroCabron 2014 Mar 29, 2:38am

Lets see who started the wars over the past 100 years or so:

WWl Wilson Dem

WWll FDR Dem

Korean Truman Dem

Vietnam War Kennedy/LBJ Dem

Afghanistan Bush R (RINO)

Iraq Bush R (RINO)

Yours is a good post. It contains all the standard rhetorical dodges of the modern pseudo-libertarian.

Ignore wars loudly cheered by the entire Republican Party (Korea, Vietnam), or prolonged by them (Vietnam). Ignore one war started by them - Iraq I in 1991 (remember that?), Panama, Grenada, Lebanon - and then define one of the Republicans as a RINO.

No True Scotsman would have started Afghanistan and Iraq II. Why, I remember tons o' sensible conservatives who were stridently opposed to Bush's wars. (Well, I remember exactly zero of them, but who's counting?)

Then your post continues with

This is not to say that the Rs are any example of conservatism especially in the case of Bush

which preserves your street cred - plus ability to say "both left and right are pretty sad and mistaken" - while allowing you to continue to bash liberals because you are a standard issue Republican Party partisan masquerading as an above-it-all forward-thinking Rothbardo-Austrian-Amway-Shaklee-von-Mises new deep economic thinker for the new century.

What is it about the Internet - a government-created entity - that spawns so many of these people?

20

HydroCabron 2014 Mar 29, 2:57am

The old saying: "If you are young and not liberal, then you have no heart; but if you are old and not conservative, then you have no brain"

The older saying "Holy shit! Idiots have taken over this ship!" seems to apply better.

Plenty of young people who would have been comfortable with the Republican Party of 15 years ago will have nothing to do with what it has become.

21

indigenous 2014 Mar 29, 3:01am

Ignore wars loudly cheered by the entire Republican Party (Korea, Vietnam), or prolonged by them (Vietnam). Ignore one war started by them - Iraq I in 1991 (remember that?), Panama, Grenada, Lebanon - and then define one of the Republicans as a RINO.

The basic premise is to look and ignore the chatter. The fact is the dems started the wars, fuck your conjecture.

No True Scotsman would have started Afghanistan and Iraq II. Why, I remember tons o' sensible conservatives who were stridently opposed to Bush's wars. (Well, I remember exactly zero of them, but who's counting?)

That is conjecture. Have any background data or facts to add to your chatter?

which preserves your street cred - plus ability to say "both left and right are pretty sad and mistaken" - while allowing you to continue to bash liberals because you are a standard issue Republican Party partisan masquerading as an above-it-all forward-thinking Rothbardo-Austrian-Amway-Shaklee-von-Mises new deep economic thinker for the new century.

I have been a registered Libertarian for 38 years. I merely point to the facts regarding the two parties.

What is it about the Internet - a government-created entity - that spawns so many of these people?

Yea right Al Gore invented it, standard progressive rhetorical tropes.

What is interesting is how effective, Edward Bernays-Madison ave is at manufacturing complacent mutts like yourself.

22

Y 2014 Mar 29, 3:31am

Liberals are geneticly hypersensitive to feelings of guilt rooted from declarations of war too numerous to enumerate. You really cant blame them for feeble attempts at blameshifting..

23

Bellingham Bill 2014 Mar 29, 5:14am

SoftShell says

Liberals are geneticly hypersensitive to feelings of guilt rooted from declarations of war

whatever Wilson was, he wasn't a "liberal" -- he was a southern conservative Democrat, the kind of Dems that turned to the GOP when LBJ got the civil rights act passed (thanks to the moderate northern GOP element that existed last century).

The midwest has historically been very isolationist, while the Old South has been pro-military, gung-ho for all our nation's wars, even starting a few. "Now Watergate does not bother me. Does your conscience bother you?"

LBJ was certainly a liberal but he got railroaded into Vietnam from the right. Same thing with Truman and saving South Korea, which arguably was at least worth the investment of US blood (easy for me to say from 60 years out, but a unified Korea under the Pyongyang regime would probably not have moderated like the Hanoi regime, not that Vietnam is all that great a place, liberally speaking, still).

"It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas." -- Reagan, 1965

LBJ had the decency to not run for reelection when our effort in Vietnam went to hell in 1968, even after sending 500,000+ troops there, causing rising popular resistance to the war at home as the body bags really started coming back in '68 -- 1,000+ a month during the peak of the fighting.

It wasn't the conservatives in this country marching in the streets against Bush's war in 2003 -- it was ANSWER and the progressives.

Conservatives want to memory-hole this by bringing up whatever crap they can.

24

Bellingham Bill 2014 Mar 29, 5:22am

Plenty of young people who would have been comfortable with the Republican Party of 15 years ago

I actually voted for Tom Campbell for Senate in 2000. This was before I understood how utterly ridiculous the GOP had become.

(Living in Japan in the 1990s I more or less missed the mid-decade Gingrich shitshow and Cambpell seemed like a much better person than Feinstein)

25

indigenous 2014 Mar 29, 5:30am

whatever Wilson was, he wasn't a "liberal" -- he was a southern conservative Democrat, the kind of Dems that turned to the GOP when LBJ got the civil rights act passed (thanks to the moderate northern GOP element that existed last century).

Do you really want to hang your hat on that?

This guy brought us the 17th amendment, the Fed Reserve, and income tax. He was definitely a PROGRESSIVE, fucking period.

This asshole caused the most damage to the US of any president.

LBJ was certainly a liberal but he got railroaded into Vietnam from the right.

Any evidence?

26

Automan Empire 2014 Mar 29, 5:47am

SoftShell says

Liberals are geneticly hypersensitive to feelings of guilt

Keep thinking what you're thinking, Mr. Lysenko. Belief that acquired characteristics COULD be genetically transmitted (and an outright ban on mendelian theory research) kept Soviet research hopelessly backward well into the 70s.

27

HydroCabron 2014 Mar 29, 6:10am

Automan Empire says

SoftShell says

Liberals are geneticly hypersensitive to feelings of guilt

Keep thinking what you're thinking, Mr. Lysenko. Belief that acquired characteristics COULD be genetically transmitted (and an outright ban on mendelian theory research) kept Soviet research hopelessly backward well into the 70s.

Modern conservatives have embraced Soviet ideologies, because when it comes to choosing between a non-GOP president and a foreign leader, they ally with the foreign power.

Also, this helps them forget 50 years of savage red-baiting of anyone insufficiently anti-Communist, so they can pretend they would have opposed Korea and Vietnam.

TL;DR: They're ignorant.

28

John Bailo 2014 Mar 29, 6:27am

As a member, I have come to the conclusion that the Republican Party, as currently designed, has only one purpose...and that is to be a bogeyman on all the social issues that drive people over the Democrat Party and its vision of a Centralized State managing all aspects of people's lives. Even when one or two top GOP leaders start to make sense (and when they do, confusion among pundits sets in as they try to attack plainspoken logic) the guy I call Old Uncle Republican gets wheeled out to make some absurd derogatory statement on a Non-White, Non-Male group.

I go so far as to wonder if the DNC has bought and paid for these guys to permeate the GOP so that there is no chance of us returning to a society of landowners and independent businessmen.

As far as hope for the future, Rand Paul comes closest to what I think a contemporary Republican should be. Focus on economics. Non-judgmental on mores. Libertarian in lawmaking. However, I also have this sense that the only candidate who could contend with Hillary in 2016 has to also be a woman, because it seems like America has already decided it must elect a woman because it's their turn. And I agree with that sentiment, women deserve to win the Presidency in 2016. The only question is can the GOP find a credible, intelligent, non-judgmental candidate to run.

29 thomaswong.1986 2014 Mar 29, 7:51am

Conservatives want to memory-hole this by bringing up whatever crap they can.

The arrogance of liberals !!

30

Bellingham Bill 2014 Mar 29, 8:50am

This asshole caused the most damage to the US of any president.

Having the private sector run the 4th branch of the government (aka the Fed) with only notional Congressional and Executive oversight would not have been a Progressive idea. The Fed was a shitty compromise, taking the Republican position and having it be the compromise between center-left (William Jennings Bryan) and center-right Democrats, just like ACA in our day, LOL.

A Progressive Republican Congress ratified the 16th Amendment before Wilson took office. As for making the Senate directly elected, that's more democratic but not really "Progressive", LOL.

Wilson did have a decent record supporting further trust-busting, anti child-labor laws, the FTC, etc. So he wasn't a neanderthal conservative like what we have today.

Back then the GOP was a pretty reasonable party, mostly, though they had their Roosevelt/Taft split that in it had the seeds of the modern conservative clownshow.

31

Y 2014 Mar 29, 8:55am

Yes, the best posting fuckups are from people posting about someone's intelligence, while bashing the english language in the process...ROTFLOL...

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=v5S

SoftShell says

This is why you are the card-carrying village grammar idiot.

sbh says

This why you're the card-carrying village idiot.

Oh my. How powerful.

32

Bellingham Bill 2014 Mar 29, 9:03am

It's not "arrogant" to assert that the mistakes of the previous decade were entirely conservative misadventures in deregulation, deficit spending, offshoring, and militarism.

33

Y 2014 Mar 29, 9:10am

Care to rephrase?

How I Discovered My Hypersensitivity or Highly Sensitive Personality (HSP)
I first learned about the genetic nature of hypersensitivity by reading Scattered, by Gabor MatÃ©, M.D., a physician and psychotherapist. â€œPeople with ADD are hypersensitive,â€ says MatÃ©. â€œThat is not a fault, it is how they were born. It is their inborn temperament.â€

http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/8945.html

Automan Empire says

SoftShell says

Liberals are geneticly hypersensitive to feelings of guilt

Keep thinking what you're thinking, Mr. Lysenko. Belief that acquired characteristics COULD be genetically transmitted (and an outright ban on mendelian theory research) kept Soviet research hopelessly backward well into the 70s.

34

Y 2014 Mar 29, 9:13am

Maybe modern "Republicans", definitely not "Conservatives"...

Modern conservatives have embraced Soviet ideologies, because when it comes to choosing between a non-GOP president and a foreign leader, they ally with the foreign power.

35

indigenous 2014 Mar 29, 9:54am

Having the private sector run the 4th branch of the government (aka the Fed) with only notional Congressional and Executive oversight would not have been a Progressive idea.

Sure it was. As usual you mutts refuse to admit that crony capitalism IS government. It was written by a Dem congressman. And it was signed by a Dem Prez. Nope it was Dem all the way.

A Progressive Republican Congress ratified the 16th Amendment before Wilson took office.

Wilson signed it. And thus began the centralizing of the government.

As for making the Senate directly elected, that's more democratic but not really "Progressive"

What is the diff?

Either way very damaging, it turned the tyranny of the democracy loose and was antipathetic to the very intent of the framers. Completely oppressive.

Wilson did have a decent record supporting further trust-busting, anti child-labor laws, the FTC,

Yea what a joke, antitrust is a complete myth. Monopolies DO NOT exist without government.

Child labor laws put more control of the family into the governments hands, meaning that the family could not choose to put the child to work. The little cameo that you mutts like to portray is taken out of context and is an anachronism, when the country was agrarian based kids worked on the farm other wise the family did not eat, in much more dangerous environments.

36 carrieon 2014 Mar 29, 10:39am

jazz music says

Yea what a joke, antitrust is a complete myth. Monopolies DO NOT exist without government.

So true. The only thing the Anti-trust law did was exempt the Federal Reserve, American Bar Assoc and American Medical Assoc from anti-trust.

37

Bellingham Bill 2014 Mar 29, 11:11am

mutts

mutts?

38

indigenous 2014 Mar 29, 12:48pm

Mutts = ignorance of one's own ignorance (not to be confused with ignorance)

And the inevitble hubris that accompanies this disposition.

39

indigenous 2014 Mar 29, 1:56pm

Sbh

You're fucked up, maybe see a Dr?

40

indigenous 2014 Mar 29, 2:09pm

Dbh

Seriously you are projecting, i.e. you can't get a hard on, you are an idiot, and are indigent...

41 bob2356 2014 Mar 29, 2:45pm

Yea what a joke, antitrust is a complete myth. Monopolies DO NOT exist without government.

Idiotic statement. Corporations don't exist without government, laws don't exist without government, courts don't exist without government so of course monopolies don't exist without government. That's like saying life doesn't exist without air. True but totally meaningless.

Standard Oil used every trick in the book to get around government restrictions, which is how they invented the trust structure, and fought the governments attempts to restrict them tooth and nail. You are saying Standard Oil existed because Rockfeller was colluding with the government? Explain how that works.

Child labor laws put more control of the family into the governments hands, meaning that the family could not choose to put the child to work. The little cameo that you mutts like to portray is taken out of context and is an anachronism, when the country was agrarian based kids worked on the farm other wise the family did not eat, in much more dangerous environments.

Idiotic statement part duex. Child labor laws have never applied to working on the family farm. Are you seriously suggesting that prior to 1938 working in factories or coal mines 70 hours a week was less dangerous than working on a family farm? That brings the concept of ridiculous to an entirely new level. Very few farms were mechanized at all prior to WWII. The danger level was very low, especially compared to most factories where people were working with open exposed machinery 12 hours a day.

A libertarian is someone who hates all laws except the ones that benefit him directly.

42

indigenous 2014 Mar 29, 4:01pm

Standard Oil used every trick in the book to get around government restrictions, which is how they invented the trust structure, and fought the governments attempts to restrict them tooth and nail. You are saying Standard Oil existed because Rockfeller was colluding with the government? Explain how that works.

This has been covered extensively by Spyduh and Reality, I'm not going to go through the back and forth thing again on something you are not going to hear anyway.

In a nutshell the market levels out any business/industry quickly as the competition is always keen to supply what is in demand. Standard Oil had an initial advantage because of a lighting oil replacement it invented, kerosene, but by the time legislation had passed, it no longer had an advantage in kerosene.

Any collusion came decades later when Standard Oil was force to " play the game".

The TBTFs do have a monopoly on banking, as they enjoy lower interest rates,
and other perks the other banks do not. And would not have reached the size they are if not for this monopoly. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley would be gone if not for the taxpayer largess.

"The four biggest U.S. banks -- JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo -- today have about $7.8 trillion in assets, or about 47 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, up from $6.4 trillion, or 43 percent of GDP, at the time of the crisis in 2008. The six biggest banks, a group that now includes Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, now have $9.6 trillion in assets, or nearly 58 percent of GDP."

Child labor laws have never applied to working on the family farm.

Not what I said. I'm saying they are comparable in hours and danger, but most of all if they did not work the hours it was a hardship on the family. This is why the farmers had big families back then.

The danger level was very low

Bullshit they have been automating farms since the mid 1800s.

A libertarian is someone who hates all laws except the ones that benefit him directly.

Nope just the ones that coerce people to do things that they would not do other wise, which are the ones that take away personal freedom.

43 bob2356 2014 Mar 29, 5:40pm

This has been covered extensively by Spyduh and Reality, I'm not going to go through the back and forth thing again on something you are not going to hear anyway.

In a nutshell the market levels out any business/industry quickly as the competition is always keen to supply what is in demand. Standard Oil had an initial advantage because of a lighting oil replacement it invented, kerosene, but by the time legislation had passed, it no longer had an advantage in kerosene.

Any collusion came decades later when Standard Oil was force to " play the game".

Nice dodgem. Do you ever bother to look up anything before you type it or does purity of ideology an acceptable substitute for facts in your world? Kerosene was invented sometime before the civil war, around 1840 something if memory serves me correctly. Standard Oil was incorporated in 1870. Standard Oil became a monopoly in spite of the government because they invented an efficient method of manufacturing, transporting, and selling kerosene as well as an efficient corporate structure. What "legislation" are you referring to? The one that broke it up. How exactly did they "play the game" after the breakup? Standard Oil dominated the market for 40 years, that's hardly leveling out the market quickly,

If you don't like Standard Oil, how about discussing some others. IBM was very much a monopoly in the 1950's and 1960's. They had almost as much market share as Standard Oil. Microsoft? US Steel? De Beers? Maybe even Coke since Pepsi went bankrupt a few times in the early days. Any examples of how the government colluded with these?

bob2356 says

Child labor laws have never applied to working on the family farm.

Not what I said. I'm saying they are comparable in hours and danger, but most of all if they did not work the hours it was a hardship on the family. This is why the farmers had big families back then.

bob2356 says

The danger level was very low

Bullshit they have been automating farms since the mid 1800s.

You are delusional. Pre depression and even up till WWII very little equipment was used on farms, especially family farms. Some farms hired in threshing equipment for harvest, really big farms might have had a steam tractor but most of the work on family farms was done with horses. I grew up working summers on a dairy farm and my grandparents just bought a tractor in the mid 50's, but were still using horses till that point. If you really believe that fencing, plowing with horses, threshing with a scythe, shooking, putting up hay with pitchforks, milking cows, sheering sheep etc. etc. is compatible to the danger of working in a typical factory (never mind coal mines) of the era 12 hours a day 5 1/2 days a week you are just plain batshit crazy.

44

indigenous 2014 Mar 30, 1:30am

http://mises.org/daily/5274/100-Years-of-Myths-about-Standard-Oil

Nice dodgem.

"The mechanism of predatory exploitation of consumers requires substantial monopoly power that is used to increase prices, thereby reducing the outputs sold. But Standard Oil had no initial market power, with only about 4 percent of the market in 1870. Its output and market share grew as its superior efficiency dramatically lowered its refining costs (by 1897, they were less than one-tenth of their level in 1869), and it passed on the efficiency savings in sharply reduced prices for refined oil (which fell from over 30 cents per gallon in 1869, to 10 cents in 1874, to 8 cents in 1885, and to 5.9 cents in 1897). It never achieved a monopoly (in 1911, the year of the Supreme Court decision, Standard Oil had roughly 150 competitors, including Texaco and Gulf) that would enable it to monopolistically boost consumer prices. So it can hardly be argued seriously that Rockefeller pursued a predatory strategy involving massive losses for decades without achieving the alleged monopoly payoff, which was the source of supposed consumer harm."

"Standard Oil is not the only example of alleged predation to be rejected upon investigation. And that has long been known. Thirty years ago, in an investigation of over 100 federal predation cases, Ronald Koller found no evidence of monopoly created via predatory pricing in the eight decades following the Sherman Act's passage in 1890. Or, as summarized by Thomas DiLorenzo,"

All "monopolies" are alleged by competitors who cannot compete. They cost a great deal of money to defend and only exist to give jobs to self righteous government mutts. And they deny the benefits of lower pricing to the customer.

I grew up working summers on a dairy farm and my grandparents just bought a tractor in the mid 50's

I had a similar experience in the 60s and the farms in the area had equipment for harvesting etc with NO horses. Also run by children for very long hours at least at harvest time from sunrise to sundown. This equipment would rival anything in any factory. I leave it up to you to fetch real information to back up your anecdotal stories.

In any case the government should not be making these decisions for families. Which in the case of farming is literally taking food out of the mouths of the farm family.

A further benefit of keeping children from working is that the economy produces workers like Jojo who are "entitled".

45

indigenous 2014 Mar 30, 1:33am

Yep.

Said the mutt

46 rdm 2014 Mar 30, 3:23am

I had a similar experience in the 60s and the farms in the area had equipment for harvesting etc with NO horses. Also run by children for very long hours at least at harvest time from sunrise to sundown. This equipment would rival anything in any factory. I leave it up to you to fetch real information to back up your anecdotal stories.

In any case the government should not be making these decisions for families. Which in the case of farming is literally taking food out of the mouths of the farm family.

A further benefit of keeping children from working is that the economy produces workers like Jojo who are "entitled".

Not sure how you jumped from WW11 to the 60's to make your point.

The fact is that different parts of the country mechanized their farming practices at different times and speeds. My father began farming 1946 and they had 3 tractors and IH M an H and an old clunker from the late 30's they also had a pair of workhorses but didnâ€™t use them much. He had what was at the time a big mixed grain and livestock operation. on 350 acres. To use those tractors in production today would be hoot.

As Bob said farm mechanization really took off after the war. The country was geared up for industrial production and technology really advanced. The first herbicides which allowed the individual farmer to farm more and more land began to be used as well as the wide spread use of nitrogen fertilizers. So yes of course there was mechanization of farming prior to the War but there was a sea change after the War.

Children have always been used on the farm and still are. Dangerous yes, abuses yes but not even a close call to what pre labor law work was like in factories and mines. Just use logic who would you prefer to entrust a child to; his parents on the farm or some mine or factory owner for whom the child is just another way to make a buck and if hurt was not his problem. We have decided as a society that children should go to school and until they are a certain age need work permits if they are under a certain age, I am good with that.

47

indigenous 2014 Mar 30, 3:42am

rdm says

Just use logic who would you prefer to entrust a child to; his parents

Exactly, what parent would send his child to work in a dangerous place, unless they had to to survive? I guarantee you it is a far more horrific for a parent to see his child starve to death.

The government passed minimum wage laws for similar reasons, these just result in unemployment.

Where does the boundary get drawn, for what government should decide and the citizen should decide?

48

Dan8267 2014 Mar 30, 8:16am