Rather than Useless Internet "Debates"...

For amusement, someone can go to various websites and say witty things like, "Hey Obamacare supporters, keep your laws off my body."  And this is somewhat amusing.  Not productive, but amusing.

An alternate idea may be to comment on such websites, and rather than counter others' stupid thoughts, you could just point out what fallacy they are committing.

Some idiot could claim X and you'd reply: "straw man," "ad hominem," fallacy of the anecdote," "projection," "questionable source," and so on.

Actually, you may not need "and so on," most people who argue things on the internet commit any and all of those listed errors.

It would be kinda funny:

Idiot: "blah, blah, blah"

me: "straw man"

Idiot: "Yeah, well you're a racist."

Me: "ad hominem"

Idiot: "You're only repeating rethuglican talking points."

Me: "projection"

and so on...

One Liners...

...to defeat political arguments.

Obamacare

Keep your laws off my body.

Abortion

Do you ask pregnant women: "how's the fetus?"

Death Penalty

The government can't get anything else right, why would they be competent at killing people.

Stimulus spending

Is there any amount that would have been enough to fix the economy?

School choice

But...I thought you were "pro-choice"...

Border fences

What makes you think such a fence wouldn't end up being used to keep you in and paying taxes?

Gun control

I dare you to put a "gun free zone" sign in front of your house.

Atheism

There is more support of atheism now than in past decades; and our society has gotten...as a result?

Buy Local

What makes you think increased shipping costs is worse than increased production costs?  See: growing citrus in cold climates


This post was a better idea before I started writing it.  Perhaps I'm not in the mood.  Put better lines in the comments.

Blog Stuff & Meet Up

I'm through with commenting at HP.  Too much time wasted.

But another reason is because I've had too many comments moderated into oblivion.  I'm not sure why with any of them, and this last one was one too many.

Redistributing Wealth

I've been reading Beyond Democracy.

One point made in the book is that democracy includes the redistribution of wealth to the majority of voters.  Not all voters will agree with this.  (Because they're stupid.)

Some people advocate the outright redistribution of wealth, and healthcare, and so on.  They say that its not fair that the rich have more and better.

This book points out that these people only make this point in the confines of modern western countries, not throughout the world.

The GDP per capita in the United States is around $48,000 (questionable source).  If you make less than $48,000 and live in America, then redistributing wealth (if done honestly and fairly lol) should raise your annual income to $48,000.  You'd be made better off.

If you're honest about improving the lives of the poor by redistributing wealth, then why stop at our country's borders?  You should advocate redistribution, or universal healthcare, throughout the world.

The world GDP per capita (another questionable source) is around $12,000.  If you make more than $12,000, then redistributing wealth (if done honestly and fairly lol) should lower your annual income to $12,000.  You'd be made worse off.

If you advocate redistribution of wealth, or for universal healthcare, or similar,  but do not give away all of your annual income over $12,000 to the poor of the world, then you are a hypocrite.

***

Even more oversimplified: Of course Warren Buffet and I should share our wealth equally.  No, I don't want to share my wealth equally with the residents of Tanzania.

***

You hypocrites want the wealth of others for yourselves.  And you're not even willing to steal it yourself.  You'd rather vote for the government to take from those others by force.  If they get thrown in jail or killed while resisting arrest becasue they don't want to pay, then what's it to you?

Robbers, muggers, and thieves are honorable compared to those of you who advocate redistribution of wealth or universal healthcare.  At least they do the dirty work themselves.

Huffington Post Comments, 6/14/2013

Sorry, Chilis, for the delay.

***

John P Miller

Thanks for your analysis of the "scandals" of the Obama administration pushed by the GOP that seem to have no traction with the American people except possibly the IRS one. I thought it was interesting that last week one official from Ohio who described himself as a conservative Republican said he was the one who decided to target the Republican groups for special scrutiny since these groups were new & he wanted to be sure that they evalulated each carefully since
they were setting a precedent.

Me

If we ignore the opinions of half the country, then everyone agrees with me!

Wait...doesn't that work both ways?

Liberal "logic" sure is funny!

pssdov

We just ignore the ignorant opinions of 47%, the number of people who voted Republican. And they don't really have opinions, just what FOX tells them to think.

Me

Have you any evidence you support your claim that republican voters have no opinions and only repeat what they're told?

How do you reconcile your tagline of "No act of kindness goes unnoticed" with your comment accusing the people who vote republican are ignorant sheep only repeating what they're told?

Is it kindness to imply that people are ignorant sheep just becasue they have a different political opinion than you do?

***
brklynivn

The last thing social conservatives are worried about are the liberties of Americans. 

Me

As opposed to liberals who aren't worried about the phone record keeping, against ownership of guns, against school choice....

(Note, to prevent the standard follow-up comment I revive when I post a comment like this: I am an anarcho-capitalist.) 

[ed note: I correctly predicted that he would call me a name related to my political affiliation.]

 brklynivn

And when did this all come about - hint - Patriot Act?

"Anarcho- capitalist"?  You mean tea-bagger. 

Me

Both parties are awful on civil liberties.

That is one reason I am no longer voting.

If you vote, then you are supporting the scam that is a "choice" between two "different" parties. 

Aren't you a pleasant fellow? I hope you're less rude in person.

By "anarcho-capitalist" I mean that I favor capitalism, becasue of the prosperity that has achieved, and think the government is corrupt and awful at everything that it does.

Should I conclude by calling you an insulting name? 

 brklynivn

Anarchy means one favors disorder above law - that's the definition of anarchy.  Anarcho-capitalism basically means unbridled capitalism outside the bounds of any rules or law - you know - like corporatism. 

Me

Anarchy means no government, not necessarily disorder.

What do you dislike about "corporatism"? Are the worst aspects of it any different from the evils our government does against us now?

 ***

News: Arms to Syria

Me

How do those of you who opposed intervention Iraq and Afghanistan and then voted for Obama feel now?  

Florin Milea

Poorly.

Me

Voting is for suckers.

Thanks for the honest answer. 

***

Me

How do those of you who opposed intervention Iraq and Afghanistan and then voted for Obama feel now?  

Rafael Tarnawiecki

Pissed 

Me

Thanks for the honest answer.

I apologize for voting for republicans in the past and promise not do do so again.

Will you promise to stop voting for the democrats? 

Politics is Becoming Uninteresting

I'm not sure that politics isn't a waste of time.  Its not like your vote would accomplish much anyway.

But I have found the issues to be interesting.  How, for example, have we had only 8 balanced budgets since 1950?

In any case, I will now attempt the total refutation for any political argument whose answer is supposed to be government.

I realize that this is the following are the sort of arguments that are only convincing to people who think like me (more or less).  If we introduce those things called "feelings," then my following arguments won't convince anyone.

Then again, I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything.  I'm laying out I'm laying out my political thoughts to explain why I shall be focusing more of my attention elsewhere, because I am cool with my positions as they stand now.

Logical, historical, and anecdotal evidence are the three types of evidence that I can think of right now.  (Statistics should be included in "historical.")

Logical Evidence Against Government

• Taxing means that someone thinks that he knows how to spend your money better than you do.
• Regulating means that someone thinks that he knows how to protect you and live your life better than you do.
• Why would you work if you're paid not to?
• There is no way that a centralized organization can know what is best for all of millions, or thousands, or hundreds, or tens, of people better than they themselves.
• What percentage of government employees truly do their jobs with the good of the public in mind for every decision that they make?
• Basic economics (the book too) says that artificial rules and regulations distort and prevent individuals from interacting in their best interests.

Historical Evidence Against Government

• The periods of economic decline, in American history, coincide with massive government growth.  (The [un]civil war was about arguing the laws of government. The Great Depression was worsened by the New Deal.  Seventies shortages were worsened by government inflation.  Our current situation has been worsened by bailouts and "stimulus." etc.)
• Less government West Germany was better than more government East Germany
• USSR was socialist and millions died of politics and/or starvation.
• China was communist and tens of millions died of politics and/ or starvation.
• North Korea is communist and millions have died of politics and/ or starvation.
• Same with Vietnam, Cuba, Ethiopia, etc..
• Sweden went from richer per capita than the U.S. to poorer per capita since becoming socialist.  Are they still rioting in Stockholm?
• Various socialist countries in Europe are going bankrupt.

Anecdotal Evidence Against Government

All the above (and more) is all well and good but I haven't personally seen any of the historical evidence.  What have I seen personally?

I've been to less government and more prosperous Hong Kong and to more government and less prosperous China.

I've read P.J. O'Rourke's various accounts of what eastern Europe and Russia were like before 1989.  I haven't witnessed it but I've asked my dad who was there before 1989:

me: "P.J. O'Rourke says that Eastern Europe was bleak, dreary, depressing, and awful before 1989.  Was that true?

dad: "Oh yeah."

So I'm saying that I'm convinced with these arguments and more of similar ones, that the places with more government are worse than the places with less government.

I shall be endeavoring to avoid much politics on this blog and avoiding it in real life...to the extent that I am able considering that every aspect of my life has lots, and lots, and lots of rules and regulations directing what I can do, can't do, and how much I can do.

Millions have died thanks to government.  How can anyone support such an abomination?

Quote of the Day, 5/27/2013

"Repeal" is a word confined to the Dictionary of Racist Rhetoric. It's not acceptable in the modern, progressive world of the God-Emperor Hussein I.

-Res Publica Americana

Debating a Leftist

found thanks to the Free Northerner

Thanks to my experience debating the left, I think Fearsome Pirate is correct in this assessment: 

In an argument, we use logic. We test principles against each other. We marshal facts. We criticize and respond. Leftists do little or none of that because they are instinctual Marxists, and Marxism is an assault on everything we take for granted.

Let's pull apart one example that tends to befuddle the right: single motherhood.

There are three incontrovertible, incompatible truths:

1. Leftists adore single motherhood when conservatives attack polyamory.
2. Leftists do not practice single motherhood (poor Democrats aren't leftists; they're just a bought constituency).
3. Leftists abhor single motherhood when conservatives attack homogamy. 

You can find similar incompatibilities on any issue---guns, welfare, the working class, you name it. Conservatives tend to attack liberals along the vector of "hypocrisy." (Libertarians don't care; whatever ends up in more sexual license and less obligation on the part of parents is fine by them.) But this doesn't actually work, because it is based on the assumption that the leftist is arguing, and will attempt to bring his thoughts and beliefs at least into line with themselves if not with actual facts. However, this isn't what the liberal is doing. He's simply trying to promote the "oppressed class" du jour and simultaneously trying to shred the established civilization, and will grab whatever argument is most handy at the time to accomplish that. If we switch topics, he will switch arguments as fluidly and easily as a Pentecostal changes doctrines.

 The rest of his post is very interesting.

"Hold them to their own standards."

I suspect that the best way to debate a leftist is to understand their thinking and hold them to their own standards. 

When I debated them in the past I often tried analogies, and pointing out how hypocritical they are.  This didn't work becasue analogies distract their small minds, and they don't care about being hypocrites.

I shall try to read more stuff from progressives and less from conservatives and libertarians.  Once I've done this I may try to debate them again.

Protests

I was thinking about protests recently.  If protesters mean what they say, then why don't they put their money where their mouths are?

Wisconsin saw large protests a while ago because our governor wanted to limit the collective bargaining for public school teachers.  Rather than complain, and call me names, why didn't all the protesters each put some money, and maybe volunteer work, towards starting their own schools?  They could teach nothing but global warming and sensitivity training all day.  They could pay their teachers as much as they want.  And those of us who voted for our governor would have nothing to complain about.  The protesters would get what they want and they would not be demanding to take taxes from others by force.

Why don't environmental protestors get together and buy large chunks of land and tell loggers to get bent?

This idea may not work for every form of protest, but why don't the protesters spend more time trying their own ideas without demanding that people who disagree pay for the things that the protestors want?

(fyi: protesters are hypocrites who feel good when they try to "save the world.")

Political Experiments

I have written some, on this blog, about having political experiments to see what works and what doesn't.

Deng Xioping is the Chinese leader responsible for moving China towards the more market friendly economy that it now is.  He apparently started doing so by going to the poor places where the people were starving and told them to do whatever they need to in order to survive; they no longer needed to strictly follow the communist laws.  Even the conservative* communist Chinese government officials would agree to allow starving people to do what they need to in order to live.

Surprise, surprise, the private family farms produced more food than the communist run farms and so then more of the country was allowed to privately farm.

When Hong Kong was turned over to China Deng allowed some of the neighboring areas to follow Hong Kong's non-communist lead.  And things improved for the surrounding areas.

Apparently he could not have said, "we need more free markets," because the conservative communist Chinese officials would have opposed him.  But because he allowed "experiments" instead progress was made.

I think that a fine case can be made for giving each state more freedom from the federal government.  Things that work can be copied and things that don't can be avoided.  This federal laws thing is a bad deal for everyone.

We don't have a near dictatorial government here, so having our strong leader suggest that some places be exempt from the federal laws for a while may not be a possibility; but it is something to think about.

Watch the book talk about Deng Xioping at Book TV: Deng Xioping and the Transformation of China

*Apparently, the Chinese government officials who want to stick to their communism are called "conservatives".  This should be a notice to those of you who only think of political labels as they pertain to American politics.

It would make some sense to use terms like "conservative" and "progressive" as their definitions are outside of politics.  The conservative Chinese officials are "conservative" because they wish to maintain the standard operating policies of their recent history (post-1949).

If "conservative" were to mean: "maintain things as they are," then shouldn't "conservative" mean the American democrats, greens, "liberals," etc?

Who is more conservative: a person who wants to maintain the income tax, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid as it is or someone who wants to radically change all of those?

The federal income tax is 101 years old.  The past 101 years is more than 1/3 of American history.  In China a conservative is someone who wants to maintain the politics of the last 60 years.  So shouldn't Americans who want to maintain the politics of the last 100 years be called "conservatives"?

Were Nazis from the Left or Right?

(Note to readers: there are some issues with the formatting in this post.  The font changes size and weather or not it is superscript.  I have removed some of the many problems by looking through the html code.  I don't want to continue to look to fix the rest of the problems; if I wanted to be a computer programmer, then I would be.  My apologies if the poor formatting makes the text harder to read than it should be.  My suggestion for prospective bloggers here.)

Many people who talk to people on the left get compared to Nazis and to Hitler.  They are told repeatedly that Nazis and fascists are far-right ideologies.

In an attempt to read about Nazis I read much of the Wikipedia page on Nazism.  I wanted to see if the actual policies of the Nazis would compare more to the left or right.  One point I found was that Nazism is called "far-right" repeatedly throughout the page.

A majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as a form of far-right politics.^[22]

There isn't really a listing of specific policies, the page more describes the sorts of things favored, and opposed, by Nazis.

An interesting paragraph that describes the ideology's politics:

The German Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler had objected to the party's previous leader's decision to use the word "Socialist" in its name, as Hitler at the time preferred to use "Social Revolutionary".^[15] Upon taking over the leadership, Hitler kept the term but defined socialism as being based upon a commitment of an individual to a community.^[15] Hitler did not want the ideology's socialism to be conflated with Marxian socialism. He claimed that true socialism does not repudiate private property unlike the claims of Marxism, and stated that the "Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning" and "Communism is not socialism. Marxism is not socialism."^[16] Nazism denounced both capitalism and communism for being associated with Jewish materialism.^[17] Nazism favoured private property, freedom of contract, and promoted the creation of a national solidarity that would transcend class differences.^[18][19] Like other fascist movements, Nazism supported the outlawing of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers, because these were regarded as a threat to national unity.^[20] Instead, the state controlled and approved wage and salary levels.^[20]

There are sections of the page describing the Nazis' dislike of communists and sections on their dislike of capitalists.

Part of the "anti-communist" section:

In 1930, Hitler said: "Our adopted term ‘Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not."^[146] In 1942, Hitler privately said: "I absolutely insist on protecting private property ... we must encourage private initiative".^[147]

^{Part of the "anti-capitalist" section:} 

Adolf Hitler, both in public and in private, expressed disdain for capitalism, arguing that it holds nations ransom in the interests of a parasitic cosmopolitan rentier class.^[150] He opposed free market capitalism's profit-seeking impulses and desired an economy in which community interests would be upheld.^[136]

Hitler distrusted capitalism for being unreliable due to its egotism, and he preferred a state-directed economy that is subordinated to the interests of the Volk.^[150] Hitler said in 1927, "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions."^[151]

One interesting thing I discovered was calling Heinrich Himmler "conservative" and later saying that he opposed too much conservatism and capitalism.

Quote one:

Other prominent conservative Nazis included Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich.^[34]

Quote two:

Other Nazis — especially more radical ones such as Gregor Strasser, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler — rejected Italian Fascism, accusing it of being too conservative or capitalist.^[93]

So, were Nazis far -right or far-left?

The authors ^{of this Wikepedia page} want to claim that the Nazis drew their ideology from both sides.  Hitler claimed that he got his ideology from both sides and that both sides are wrong.

Adolf Hitler and other proponents officially portrayed Nazism as being neither left- nor right-wing, but syncretic.^[23][24] Hitler in Mein Kampf directly attacked both left-wing and right-wing politics in Germany, saying:

Today our left-wing politicians in particular are constantly insisting that their craven-hearted and obsequious foreign policy necessarily results from the disarmament of Germany, whereas the truth is that this is the policy of traitors [...] But the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms.^[25]

Note that Hitler did not like the right because they were too nice to the Jews.

Hitler thought that Nazism was from the left and the right, moderate?  Maybe we should conclude that it is the moderates in America that have ideologies most similar to the Nazis.

My conclusion is that despite repeated claims of Nazis being far right, that wasn't really the case.  Here's a quote that is a fine example for showing that while Hitler favored private ownership of things, he wanted to control what the people did with the things that they privately owned.

Hitler believed that private ownership was useful in that it encouraged creative competition and technical innovation, but insisted that it had to conform to national interests and be "productive" rather than "parasitical".^[136] Private property rights were conditional upon the economic mode of use; if it did not advance Nazi economic goals then the state could nationalize it.^[137] Although the Nazis privatised public properties and public services, they also increased economic state control.^[138] Under Nazi economics, free competition and self-regulating markets diminished; nevertheless, Hitler's social Darwinist beliefs made him reluctant to entirely disregard business competition and private property as economic engines.^[139][140]

To tie farmers to their land, selling agricultural land was prohibited.^[141] Farm ownership was nominally private, but discretion over operations and residual income were proscribed.^{[citation needed]} That was achieved by granting business monopoly rights to marketing boards, to control production and prices with a quota system.^[142]

If Nazis were "far-right" because they supported private ownership and then controlled what was done with the privately owned things, then who needs socialism?

Been there, done that.

And in person too.

from here

As much as I'd like to be skeptical of this claim...

... and while it sounds high, I'd bet that the actual data is not terribly far from this.

If you don't believe it, then search for the party affiliation of all of the recent mass shooters.



from here

"Liberals" Are An Enemy

A few days ago Tuthmosis posted "Liberals" Are Not The Enemy at Return of Kings.

Before I explain why he is wrong I'd like to say that it is good to hear from the other side.  It is good to see that someone is willing to write things that many of his readers are likely to disagree with.  Its good that ROK is not an echo chamber.  And I support his writing something that I disagree with.  Any insults in the comments to that post show that he made his point well enough that those who insulted him had nothing productive to say.

That being said, Tuthmosis is totally wrong in his argument.

(Note that two videos were included in his post and not copied here.)
((Because I use other quotes, Tuthmosis' remarks are indented and italicized.))

It’s difficult to deny that there’s a strong conservative leaning to the manosphere. This ranges from anti-state, laissez-faire, libertarian types on the one hand, to a much uglier streak of ahistorical, quasi-scientific white-nationalist sentiment on the other. For our purposes today, we’ll concern ourselves with the former category—and its immediate ideological neighbors. Whatever the case, I can’t count the number of times I’ve read “liberal,” “left,” or “progressive” as a pejorative in a manosphere article, tweet, or forum post.

Firstly I think that " the right" as it exists currently in America consists of social conservatives, economic conservatives, and some libertarians.  If someone on the right is called one of those three names, or conservative, or a righty, then he will likely not complain.

The same is not true for those on the "left."  And do note that he put the lefty names in quotes, but not "libertarian."  People on the political left have wanted to have themselves called all sorts of names: liberals, progressives, lefties, socialists, communists, labor, etc.

I'm told that "liberal" was once the favored term for the American left.  But now many prefer "progressive."  What, exactly, is the difference?

Apparently some progressives don't want to be called liberals, or lefties, or socialists, or communists.  And communists don't want to be called liberals...

Would someone on the left (is that a pejorative too?) explain the difference between them?

If those of us on the right only called the lot of you "progressives" would that be okay?  Do you prefer another term?  Once you pick your preferred term, would you mind not changing it every so often?

He has divided the right into "anti-state, laissez-faire, libertarian types" and "ahistorical, quasi-scientific white-nationalist".

If this article was meant to promote understanding, reasonableness and avoiding pejoratives, then why the name calling?

Are there "ahistorical, quasi-scientific white-nationalists"?  There could be.  I'm not aware of having ever met one, but let's assume that they are there.  Is that meant to describe people who go to church and oppose gay marriage and abortion?

Not all people who go to church are ignorant of history and science, you know.

As for white nationalists... I don't think that I'm allowed to have an opinion on race; I'm a white male.

The two issues that seem to make up the social debate are abortion and gay marriage.  I've tried to rationalise abortion.  I've thought about it and tried to consider it from all angles.  But I cannot find a way to argue that abortion is something other than murdering the most innocent people (or future people).  Does that make me an ""ahistorical, quasi-scientific white-nationalist"?

Gays are able to live together and do what they want, and almost no one is going to bother them.  I'm not sure I understand what it is that the gays want in this matter.  From what I understand they want to get married and flaunt it in the faces of those who think that it is sinful.

The rightward lean is thoroughly unsurprising, since much of society’s ills have successfully been pinned on the specter of the so-called liberal (monolithic) left. The capital-L “Left,” the myth goes, is responsible for feminism, for an activist state that unfairly levels the playing field between men and women by force, and who enables and apologizes for a panoply of negative behaviors from women (and indeed men), from obesity to single motherhood to sexual promiscuity. The left shelters the characters we all hold in contempt: weak, white-knighting manginas and bitchy, short-haired feminists.

"The rightward lean is thoroughly unsurprising, since much of society’s ills have successfully been pinned on the specter of the so-called liberal (monolithic) left."

Should we pity your side for this?  Many on the right would claim the opposite is true as well.

For example: every time that there is some bad market news it is blamed on the free market.  And America has no free market.  For starters, the U.S. Code is more than 300,000 pages of laws affecting every issue in our lives.  And we have a Federal Reserve Bank.  The Fed controls the money supply and interest rates.  The government is setting the rules and the scoring system (money) and yet the free market gets blamed for bad economic news.

"The capital-L “Left,”"

I do hope someone on the left takes up my request ant tells me what it is that those of you on the left want to be called.  Please don't change it too often once you decide.

"The capital-L “Left,” the myth goes, is responsible for feminism,"

It is difficult to prove that the left is responsible for feminism because I don't know what it is "the left" was when feminism is founded.  Because the left has not nailed down a specific term for themselves and a definition is is difficult to understand what it is that someone on the left would accept as being on the left. (This is why, I suspect, the left does not use one term for itself and why we won't see one term used to describe them all being acceptable to them.  For the record, those of us "on the right" are cool with being called "on the right.")

In an attempt to show that feminism does indeed come from the left, I would ask: who do modern American feminists generally vote for: democrats (the left party) or republicans (the right party)?

From the National Organization for Women's Economic Justice page:

NOW advocates for wide range of economic justice issues affecting women, from the glass ceiling to the sticky floor of poverty. These include welfare reform, livable wages, job discrimination, pay equity, housing, social security and pension reform, and much more.

Does anyone on the left want to claim that the economic position for noted feminist organization NOW is anything other than lefty?

"for an activist state"

I cannot conceive of how the left could be described as anything other than advocating an activist state.  Must I define each word?

from the 2013 State of the Union:

Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour.  (Applause.) We should be able to get that done.  (Applause.)

Would someone on the left explain how advocating that the government actively interfere with employment wages is something other than activism?

" that unfairly levels the playing field between men and women by force,"

Is it the left or right that supports Title IX?

I am really trying to be reasonable with this rebuttal.   But I cannot express in words how inconceivable I find it that someone could claim that it is not the left that is responsible for feminism and leveling the gender playing field by force.

Not only do those on the left not want a single term and definition to define them, they are not willing to admit to the things that their side does.

After Tuthmosis' opening paragraph I attempted to rationalize some beliefs from some of those on the right.  I accept that some on the right want to forcefully oppose gay marriage.  Tuthmosis is unwilling to even admit to what the left has supported and is supporting.  I attempted to rationalize my sides' faults away.  He is unwilling to accept the ownership of his sides faults.

It could be because one side is creative and one side is logical.  We may not think the same ways about things.  It seems that the left and right are speaking different languages.

As clearly as I can: the left and feminists support each other.  See: feminist orgainsations' political support for lefty candidates.

The left is responsible for leveling the gender playing field by force.  See: the lefts' support for Title IX.

"and who enables and apologizes for a panoply of negative behaviors from women (and indeed men), from obesity to single motherhood to sexual promiscuity. The left shelters the characters we all hold in contempt: weak, white-knighting manginas and bitchy, short-haired feminists."

Who gets the votes from short haired feminists: the righty presidential candidates (such as: W and ?) or lefty presidential candidates (such as Clinton and Obama)?

Truth be told, this isn’t entirely inaccurate. Many of the supporters of those very things describe themselves as liberals or progressives. Historically speaking, feminism originated—and was advanced—by members of the political left. Today’s self-branded progressives and liberals support candidates of the ostensibly liberal faction, the Democratic Party. Despite all that, problems arise when you start to unpack that over-simplified characterization.

Note that what I have written previously is an oversimplification.

Note also that he continues to avoid being willing to accept that feminism comes from the left.

Note that perhaps the most progressive U.S. president ever was a vocal supporter of woman's suffrage as it became law.

Wikipedia:

"President Wilson made a strong and widely published appeal to the House to pass the bill."

There are entire segments of the left that don’t support any of those movements or fit those descriptions. The left is a diverse lot—one that’s become as ideologically fragmented as the right has in recent decades. Subscribing to a feminist, permissive, or castrated brand of politics isn’t an admission requirement to the left any more than subscribing to Evangelical Christianity is one to the right. One problem is that the distinctions between socially left-leaning, fiscally left-leaning, and other three-dimensional configurations have been blurred and flattened into a dismissive cocktail of talking points.

"There are entire segments of the left that don’t support any of those movements or fit those descriptions."

Fair enough.  Some on the right oppose being legally forced to fill abortion prescriptions despite their moral opposition.  But they are just "ahistorical, quasi-scientific white-nationalists", and they totally belong to the right.  Whereas the unfortunate parts of the left are not really a part of the left.

"Subscribing to a feminist, permissive, or castrated brand of politics isn’t an admission requirement to the left any more than subscribing to Evangelical Christianity is one to the right."

Even if everyone on the left does not support feminism, it is a part of the left.  Even though not everyone on the right supports a Christianity, church goers are a part of the right.

Even though I personally disagree with a lot of what Rick Santorum thinks, I accept that he is part of the right.

In the same manner, those of you on the left should accept feminists as being part of the left, even if you are a lefty who disagrees with feminism.

"One problem is that the distinctions between socially left-leaning, fiscally left-leaning, and other three-dimensional configurations have been blurred and flattened into a dismissive cocktail of talking points."

This is true for both sides.  Accept that flawed persons on your side are on your side.

Feminists are progressives.

What’s more, many of the people conventionally lumped into the left aren’t very “left” at all. Take Barack Obama—the favorite scape goat of the conservative right. His politics, like those of the Democratic Party writ-large, are anywhere from center to center-right, by almost any historical or global measure. The notions of “right” and “left” have, quite simply, steadily drifted right in the United States over the past decades. Dwight Eisenhower, the famous example goes, couldn’t even get nominated in the Democratic Party today, never mind his own party.

I don't care about what the global measure is.

Barack Obama has overseen the partial nationalization of our healthcare system and the nationalization of GM.

We really do seem to be talking different languages.

George W Bush is a member of the right.  Despite his overspending and over-enthusiasm in federal interference in our education system he is is of the right.

Barack Obama is a member of the left.  Despite Guantanamo Bay still being open, despite U.S. troops still being abroad, he is of the left.

I truly cannot conceive of how someone can claim that Obama is not a lefty.  I begin to wonder if the whole post was a joke and if I am being too serious.  Lots of writers sem to try this kind of joke, and I never catch it.

It is true that past republicans had political positions that are not the same as the republican party's positions today.

Short U.S. history lesson:

In the late 1800's both main political parties supported a limited federal government.  My second favorite U.S. president was a democrat: Grover Cleveland.

Currently both political parties are steadfastly in support of keeping the income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, at least in some form.  None of these things are right, by any measure.  And yet their continuance is supported by both parties.

The history lesson conclusion: both parties have often been similar and their average point has raged all across the political spectrum.  But more government in the economy is always the left, and less government economically is always the right.

Wikipedia on Cleveland:

His battles for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the era.^[1] Cleveland won praise for his honesty, independence, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism.^[2] Cleveland relentlessly fought political corruption, patronage, and bossism. Indeed, as a reformer his prestige was so strong that the reform wing of the Republican Party, called "Mugwumps", largely bolted the GOP ticket and swung to his support in 1884.

^{I once heard that Grover Cleveland is Ron Paul's favorite president.}

Another Cleveland quote:

I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.^[96]

^{Would the democrats nominate him today?  (Off topic: if you want to start a blog, use wordpress.  Changing the size of the font in this line is not worth the 10 minutes it would take for me to do so. I can make it smaller, or much too big, but not the same size as the other text, without re-copy and pasting the quote repeatedly and typing and retyping that line repeatedly.)}

A quote from Grover Cleveland that says that both democrats and republicans opposed a national income tax, at that time:

Both of the great political parties now represented in the Government have by repeated and authoritative declarations condemned the condition of our laws which permit the collection from the people of unnecessary revenue, and have in the most solemn manner promised its correction; and neither as citizens nor partisans are our countrymen in a mood to condone the deliberate violation of these pledges.

He veto'd bills because they weren't, then, the job of the government.

Yet, the average man (and member of manosphere) has, would, and will benefit from wide array of the progressive politics of an activist state. I, for one, like having my seat belts, meat, and drinking water regulated by more than the “invisible hand of the market.” Regulation, of banks and oil companies, for instance—which were steadily relaxed throughout the conservative ascendancy starting in the 1980s—would have prevented, or at least mitigated, a lot of the economic woes that have set America irretrievably back in recent years. The cynical tactic of dismantling federal apparatuses (by de-funding them), allowing them to fail, then pointing the finger at those failures to show how “government is the problem, not the solution,” has successfully convinced a lot of people of the ineptitude of the state. This ignores the idea that the state is only as good as whoever is currently running it.

Lots of problems with this paragraph.  But it is good to see that he admits that, at least,  many regulations that interfere with our lives come from the left.  We are getting closer to a definition of the left.

"I, for one, like having my seat belts, meat, and drinking water regulated by more than the “invisible hand of the market.”"

Economist Walter Williams would refer to someone who says this as a "bad economist" because only the seen has been observed not the unseen.

What was the unseen cost of making seatbelts mandatory?  We don't know because the answer is unseen.  What advancements in car safety have we missed out on because seatbelt laws have prevented advancements in car safety?  We'll never know.  Car companies were forced to install them and we are forced to wear them.

Note that that is more government interference in our lives and Tuthmosis admits that, at least, this part of more government is of the left.

More government = more left

He puts the invisible hand of the free market in quotes and writes it in such a way as to be dismissive of the idea.

Let's expand on his seatbelt thought.  What he is saying is that without government laws (which come from the left) no car company would bother with car safety.  He is saying that when if cars were all very dangerous, then people would not choose to buy the cars that are safer.

He's saying that the government knows what the best car safety technology is.  And they will require car companies to implement those technologies because those lefty politicians care about safety and the big bad car companies don't care about making its customers happy by making cars that are safe.  (Note: barring government interference, private companies make money by providing customers with things that the customers want to buy.  Customers are not fans of buying things that they don't like.)

What Tuthmosis is saying is that politicians, particularly lefty politicians, know more about car safety, food processing, and water than do the people who make cars, butcher meat, and drill water wells.

What Tuthmosis is saying, in this paragraph, is that lefty politicians know more about the aspects of your life than you do.

What Tuthmosis is saying, in this paragraph, is that lefty politicians, like the one in the following video, should be encouraged to interfere more in the way that you, and everyone else, conducts our lives and does our jobs.

(Do note that Hank Johnson is a democrat, and a lefty, progressive, liberal politician.)

Tuthmosis says that that politician knows more about car safety than does car manufacturers and car buyers.

Tuthmosis says that Rep. Hank knows more about preparing the food you eat than the people who grow it and the people who eat it do.

Tuthmosis says that Rep. Johnson knows more about water clarity than the scientists who test it and the people who drink it.

Tuthmosis says that this liberal, progressive should interfere more with your life, because he knows more about how to run your life than you do.

Watch it again and understand that this is the sort of person who Tuthmosis would like to see make more safety laws that affect your life:

"Regulation, of banks and oil companies, for instance—which were steadily relaxed throughout the conservative ascendancy starting in the 1980s—would have prevented, or at least mitigated, a lot of the economic woes that have set America irretrievably back in recent years."

He is blaming our current crisis on deregulation and the free market.

I shall try to explain this slowly:

We, in America, do not have a free market.

We do have a Federal Reserve.

The U.S. Federal Reserve determines how much our money is worth.

The value of money affects every business decision made in our so called "free market."

The Federal Reserve determines the interest rate.

The Fed's interest rate is a number that is the measurement by which all companies compare their own rates of interest. 

Businesses' financial data is written in words whose value were determined by the Fed (money).

Note also that there is not an aspect of your life that does not have a matching federal law.  With "free markets" like this, who needs communism?

"The cynical tactic of dismantling federal apparatuses (by de-funding them), allowing them to fail, then pointing the finger at those failures to show how “government is the problem, not the solution,” has successfully convinced a lot of people of the ineptitude of the state."

Pick anything that the government does that you think that it does well and I will prove otherwise.

The last time someone challenged me on the subject of government competance, she suggested that the government runs our roads.

She seems to think that the 40,000 deaths that occur on U.S. roads each year is an acceptable good number, and an example of how well the government does things.

"This ignores the idea that the state is only as good as whoever is currently running it."

Name something specific that you think that the government does well. 

I don’t like the idea that General Electric pays no income tax and that when I call my credit card a guy in India picks up. I find it increasingly difficult to buy things not made in China. These are, quite plainly, the products of libertarian- and conservative-minded policies in recent decades. Some of these, as we all know, were passed by members of the Democratic Party—like Bill Clinton—who few in the intellectual left would regard as true progressives.

Funny that he should pick General Electric as his example of a bad company.  Guess who is best buds with GE's CEO and appointed him to the position of "President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness"?  You'll never guess. :)

What's wrong with stuff made in China, or Indian customer service reps?  You wouldn't be a racist like those mean righties would you?

People in India and China make stuff and Americans are free to design that stuff.  Who would you rather be: a low skilled laborer, or a product designer?  Guess which country has more of the latter?

I don't like how much W spent and I don't like Romney's political policies but they are, mostly, from the right.

Obama and Clinton are the two most recent lefty presidents; they just are.

Anyway that you look at it, nationalizing GM and our healthcare is lefty politics.  It is now, and is has always been so.

Whether you agree with my politics, or I yours, is immaterial. But, to the degree that, as members of the manosphere, we’re all participating in a form of “politics,” we do need to agree on one thing: a shift away from a wholesale dismissal of the left. If Red Pill Philosophy is the latest version of manospheric thought, and that branch is to mature into a legitimate and intelligent movement—carrying the mantle of a forceful and articulate response to feminism into mainstream credibility—it will only do so by virtue of operating a big tent.

 All should be invited to take the "red pill," and lefty politics should be understood.  But lefty politics is bad, it is wrong, and we should stop supporting it.

Otherwise, we’ll be easily and quickly dismissed ourselves, as little more than another tin-foil-hat, reactionary movement from the extreme right. We’re doomed to a collapse under the weight of our own intellectual incoherence, exclusiveness, or oversimplified talking points. Earlier ideologies from the manosphere already carry the burden of being branded as inactive complainers or deluded bigots, by none other than men predisposed to sympathize with their general world-view.

 "Otherwise, we’ll be easily and quickly dismissed ourselves, as little more than another tin-foil-hat,"

Translation: We should move our politics to the left because those stupid righties belive in UFOs.

In an unrelated note Dennis Kucinich (D) (another person who Tuthmisis thinks should do more to interfere with your life) has seen a UFO.

At a debate of Democratic presidential candidates in Philadelphia on October 30, 2007, NBC's Tim Russert cited a passage from a book by Shirley MacLaine in which the author writes that Kucinich had seen a UFO from her home in Washington State. Russert asked if MacLaine's assertion was true. Kucinich confirmed and emphasized that he merely meant he had seen an unidentified flying object, just as former US president Jimmy Carter has.^[75] Russert then cited a statistic that 14% of Americans say they have witnessed a UFO.

Who is calling who "bigots"?

Who is dismissing who with terms like tin-foil-hat and "ahistorical, quasi-scientific white-nationalist"?

The left, in other words, isn’t an enemy of the manosphere. Segments of it are, just like segments of the right are. Like attractive girls who push back against fat acceptance, refuse to wear pajamas in public, scorn effeminate men, and take pride in their own femininity, members of the manospheric left are invaluable allies in a war of complicated allegiances. What’s more, the left offers us a set of intellectual tools to build out our beliefs—on matters such as gender and masculinity—into a coherent ideology. Just like the libertarian impulse offers a powerful set of ideas—self-determination, accountability, and suspicion of institutional might—the left offers us protection from the worst abuses of capital, the perils of an impoverished rabble with nothing to lose, and threats to our fair shot in the marketplace. It’s time to drop the dubious catch-all that liberals-are-to-blame.

The left has long—and to a certain degree fairly—been stereotyped for the worst of its members: concave-chested, bearded, skinny-jeans wearing, bike-riding, vegan-food eating weaksters and their skrillex-cut, tatted-up, female-bodied girlfriends. But the left is much more than that. It’s filled with tough, old-school, manly cats with the balls to stand up to corporate abuse, foreign threats, and, nowadays, the corrosive delusions of feminism.

The more people learn about the "red pill" the better.

But where politics is concerned, liberals are a problem.  The things that are advocated by the left have caused the deaths of more people than any other man-caused calamity ever.

Who are the righty, or "ahistorical, quasi-scientific white-nationalist" com parables to the lefty Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Castro, Kim Jong-Un, etc.?

We still exist. And there are more of us than you realize.

I'm glad that someone from the left was willing to write about politics in a way that is different from much of his audience.

Where politics is concerned, we've tried liberalism (as its known in America today) and it has led to death.

Advice on My Book Please

I'm up to 20,000 words in my forthcoming deer hunting book and I have just begun the equipment descriptions and recommendations.

I have a question that I would like my readers' advice on.

My introduction ends, currently, as follows:

Some people criticize hunters for being bloodthirsty, or whatever.  I am not writing this book to explain why I hunt or the morals for doing so.  Thing are born, they live, and they die.  This happens regardless of whether or not we hunt.  If things did not die, then there would be no room for new things.  Killing a deer with a quick shot is much more humane that the many other ways that deer die.  Wolves may start to eat a deer before it is totally dead, and they’ll kill it by biting it.  I’d rather get shot than killed by wolves.  Some animals kill by biting their victim and then waiting until its wound becomes so infected that it dies.  Deer also get hit by cars, and some limp off or die a slow death by having all of their organs crushed.

Someone that criticizes hunting and eats meat is a hypocrite.  Someone who criticizes hunting and wears leather is a hypocrite.  Someone who criticizes hunting and uses bug spray or mouse traps is a hypocrite.  Someone who criticizes hunting and eats dead plants is a hypocrite.

I have no time for those who criticize hunting.  There is almost no other point in human history that they would have survived without hunting and killing or having someone else do their hunting and killing for them.

That’s enough of that.  On to how to shoot as many of the biggest bucks that you can.

I think that this subject needs to be mentioned, at least.  But it is a bit of a downer.  And I don't like the idea of containing sad, annoying, or otherwise unhappy crap in my book.

My question is: should I include the above passage in my introduction, or elsewhere, should I leave it out, or should I improve it or change it?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Let me know if you have any deer hunting related questions that you want to have for sure answered in my book.

Also check out my hunting blog Shoot Deer.

Happy hunting,

Tim

Balance the Budget Please

Vox Day posted an email that he received from a liberal.

I'd like to point out a paragraph in particular.

For example, I am a bleeding heart liberal.  If an unfortunate looking soul solicits me, I will do almost anything they ask.  My wife often remarks that I must have a glow that only grifters can see.  At the gas station, when I have parked my electric-only golf-cart sized car to run in and get some chai or tofu, I am often approached by someone with a hard luck story asking if they can have a dollar or two for gas so they can get home to their babies, or back to work, or whatever.  More often than not I fill their tank.  When the local church - not mine, I am not religious - had storm damage and needed donations for a new roof I split my emergency fund and donated timbers I had obtained for a DIY project.  

I can see where the average liberal is a good person, even if he is only a fraction as giving as the author above.   I can appreciate their stated goals of helping the poor and disadvantaged.

We should be able to civilly debate how to go about achieving the goals of improving the lives of everyone. We don't civilly debate.  For example: I've been called things like "arrogant" and "a racist" by liberals in person and never by non-liberals.  And anyone who has read my comment debates from the Huffigton Post knows that most of the liberals there seem to be incapable of disagreeing without using name calling and insults.  We can find evidence of union violence everywhere. Etc.

All that aside, one thing that we should not be debating is having a balanced budget.  It is inconceivable to me how we have gone only 8 years since 1950 with a balanced budget (table 1.1).  That is outright incompetence from both parties.  Why has this been acceptable to anyone?

I understand that it is difficult for a politician to try and make any changes to entitlements.  But in order to balance the budget, entitlements must be changed.

The author of the excerpted email shows us that even though we disagree on what our public policies should be, we can see that our political opponents can be good people.

But we should all agree that the federal budget must be balanced.  This should not be a subject for debate.  Even if we do things that I don't like (and are contrary to freedom and liberty) we need to balance the budget.  Balancing the budget should be the primary focus of our politicians.  Why are they wasting everyones' time on other stuff?


Its fine with me if you want to argue for a more progressive country.  We can have that debate.  But if you want your plan to work, and the country to survive, then propose laws that include balanced budgets.

The debate should be: a progressive vision with a balanced budget or a libertarian or conservative vision with a balanced budget.

Why is the news not full, everyday, with stories pointing out how incompetent our politicians are for being unable to even propose a balanced budget?