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I can read my friend, I'm claiming that you can't call someone a statist if you believe in the necessity of a state. This is ribbing on GD (and right-libertarianism in general), who has previously used statist as a negative. https://forums.obsidian.net/search/?q=statist Anyways, "penultimate utopia which is probably indistinguishable from any number of paradise afterlives" is meaningless, the same can be (and usually is) said to dismiss anything that seeks to change the status quo in a meaningful way.

But we do. Anyone running for office at even the local workers' council level is a statist at heart and not really interested in "changing the relationship between the government and the people" in a fundamental way. Anyone running for office while also censuring the state's monopoly on violence is just a statist who thinks his **** don't stink. Minarchism is your jam. Okay. Even the smallest state requires that people are deprived of the right (if not the ability) to exercise their discretion with regards to the use of force in general and especially against it because ultimately any law is useless if there is no way to physically ensure compliance. That and your other bane, the prerogative to raise taxes, are the indispensable foundations of any state—even those which aren't actual states on paper, such as territories ruled by warlords. Sorry my dude, it's either full-on egoist anarchism or statism.

Ain't gonna happen. It's so hip and cool to make twatter posts laughing about LARPers and beauty and the beast reenactors, but the fact remains that cops aren't harassing and beating the **** out of them, while the statist parasites in the capitol buildings they walk into are at least forced to listen to them protest. The rest of us? Heh. I'll bet they are real worried about these angry posts popping up in places like forums.obsidian.net. But hey, at least we didn't die from corona. And that's the only metric that matters, right?

Western civilisations are primarily your Western countries that follow ideologies like democratic elections Hahahahaha! Every season the plebs are forced to choose between Statist A or Statist B. If you're in a parlimentary system, you might occasionally get Statist C. Nothing more satisfying than lending legitimacy to a false choice. Western civilisations are primarily your Western countries that follow ideologies like democratic elections, respect for human rights Hahahahaha! Every State reserves the right to rob you and either throw you in a cage or kill you should you refuse to comply. The US government even reserves itself the authority to murder anyone on the planet at any time for secret reasons based on secret interpretations of unspecified laws. The British routinely throw children in a cage for thought crimes on social media. Many examples of other violations abound. Just because women aren't forced to wear burkhas does not make "The West" respectful of human rights. Western civilisations are primarily your Western countries that follow ideologies like democratic elections, respect for human rights and Capitalism. Bwahahahahahaha! EVERYTHING in The West is regulated and taxed. If it's not, then it's illegal and they will kill you over it should they find the need to. Who can make what, where, how, and sometimes even how many is ruled over. Even the who, what, when where, how, and even why are regulated when it comes to sale. This applies to everything from bubble gum to mammogram machines. Western countries are superior to other countries because they offer their citizens the best quality of life and opportunities to achieve economic succcess We dont want it ever to collapse because of all terrible alternatives that exist like how Russia and some places in the Middle East are governed After a certain point, it's hard to even cynically laugh. Russia & the Middle East are just slight more progressed forms of Neofeudalism. Russia actually has significantly less regulation and taxes, but corruption is open. The Middle East even more so. The main difference is that in The West corruption is codified by law, and shake-downs are done "for the good of the people". Which would not be difficult to do. Why do you think Ghaddafi is dead or Saddam Hussein? Gold. Oil for gold. That would crush the entire petrodollar system. That's why Iran is where all warpaths of the USA lead to. Any triggers of the Credit Default Swap system would cause every bank in the entire world to become insolvent overnight as well. They have hundreds of trillions in derivative liabilities, which is banking code for gambling on insurance policies for worthless collateral that you are not party to. The USA government and many of its lackey states in Europe would see the world bathed in nuclear ashes before allowing that to happen though. That's what this whole business about Syria, Russia, and Iran is about. Mr. Magniloquent, I must apologize for not responding to you earlier as I notice you always go into relatively great detail with your posts I'll be honest and I hope you don't get offended but I avoided debating with you in the past because you are such an extreme conspiracy theorist and we have so little in common, I know many people like you and we cant ever see any middle ground. But its nothing personal You see all these strange reasons for Western intervention in world affairs and political developments, you believe things that just make no sense to me. I could dispute many things you post but I know it wont change your mind, and thats fine as its good we all have our opinions on things

Western civilisations are primarily your Western countries that follow ideologies like democratic elections Hahahahaha! Every season the plebs are forced to choose between Statist A or Statist B. If you're in a parlimentary system, you might occasionally get Statist C. Nothing more satisfying than lending legitimacy to a false choice. Western civilisations are primarily your Western countries that follow ideologies like democratic elections, respect for human rights Hahahahaha! Every State reserves the right to rob you and either throw you in a cage or kill you should you refuse to comply. The US government even reserves itself the authority to murder anyone on the planet at any time for secret reasons based on secret interpretations of unspecified laws. The British routinely throw children in a cage for thought crimes on social media. Many examples of other violations abound. Just because women aren't forced to wear burkhas does not make "The West" respectful of human rights. Western civilisations are primarily your Western countries that follow ideologies like democratic elections, respect for human rights and Capitalism. Bwahahahahahaha! EVERYTHING in The West is regulated and taxed. If it's not, then it's illegal and they will kill you over it should they find the need to. Who can make what, where, how, and sometimes even how many is ruled over. Even the who, what, when where, how, and even why are regulated when it comes to sale. This applies to everything from bubble gum to mammogram machines. Western countries are superior to other countries because they offer their citizens the best quality of life and opportunities to achieve economic succcess We dont want it ever to collapse because of all terrible alternatives that exist like how Russia and some places in the Middle East are governed After a certain point, it's hard to even cynically laugh. Russia & the Middle East are just slight more progressed forms of Neofeudalism. Russia actually has significantly less regulation and taxes, but corruption is open. The Middle East even more so. The main difference is that in The West corruption is codified by law, and shake-downs are done "for the good of the people". Which would not be difficult to do. Why do you think Ghaddafi is dead or Saddam Hussein? Gold. Oil for gold. That would crush the entire petrodollar system. That's why Iran is where all warpaths of the USA lead to. Any triggers of the Credit Default Swap system would cause every bank in the entire world to become insolvent overnight as well. They have hundreds of trillions in derivative liabilities, which is banking code for gambling on insurance policies for worthless collateral that you are not party to. The USA government and many of its lackey states in Europe would see the world bathed in nuclear ashes before allowing that to happen though. That's what this whole business about Syria, Russia, and Iran is about.

Then you don't have any business calling anyone else a statist. How does this not equally apply to capitalist society? Not only does the state enforce property at the barrel of a gun, but for the vast majority of people housing, food, and labor are not exclusively theirs and can be taken at will. By your logic living imperiled is natural and liberty is a pipe dream.

This is a simplistic picture of a phenomenon that is quite complex. In addition, you are working from some assumptions. Chiefly, a) that thieves act rationally, in the sense that that they can accurately judge the optimal risk/reward ratio in the different courses of action available to them, and b) that thieves are pushed to thievery out of choice and not need. We know that (a) is simply not true. Prison inmates are known to have a lower IQ than average (1) (2), which translates into a markedly worse ability to judge the idoneity of a given course of action. This can lead to people making seemingly "dumb" choices that land them in prison. In addition, Dunning-Kruger is a mechanism which may help explain why less intelligent people consistently believe they can get away with crime. Now, the most controversial point is by far b). Please understand that I'm not a crime apologist — I'm simply trying to discuss whether the huge drain on resources that a prison system entails has any effect on crime rates. You might argue that there is always an alternative to stealing. Even if we accept that, that's not the point. Rather, the point is whether people who steal are able to see that alternative. Owing to the intelligence argument, we know that people with lower IQ or developmental disabilities have more trouble negotiating difficult situations. That should be enough to give you an idea of why prisons don't serve to deter the majority of criminals* — they simply don't think they'll end up there! *remember, you are only a criminal if you are caught and convicted. An argument could be made that very few really intelligent criminals are caught. Considering that intelligence is mostly inherited, how fair is that? I'm not a sociologist, but untested suppositions and tradition aren't enough to convince me that crime rates are affected by their legal consequences more than they are by, say, economic causes. So, you are saying that statist oppression is a necessary evil to defend against... foreign statist oppresion. This is the line of thinking that almost plunged the world into nuclear war in the 60's and 80's, and the line of thinking that has enabled tyrannies to take hold since, well, forever. I can turn this argument around and suggest that unified resistance may encourage the enemy to use even more force to achieve its aims than it would otherwise, as exemplified by the US nuking Japan into submission, for instance. The truth is you can resist a foreign oppressor exactly the same way you resist a native one: as passively or actively as circumstances allow. There is functionally no difference because oppression is oppression is oppression, and once made a second-class citizen the causes and means by which this is accomplished matter little. Going to die in a war to resist foreign invasion because that's preferable to dying at home being accused of treason and shot is a proposition I find difficult to defend, but, eh.

Well right now there is only one. Alito. When he makes a pick then I'll comment. The conservative and liberal labels don't really apply to judges they way they do politicians. A justice should look at an issue and ask "Ii this legal?" And that is it. Far too often people want their justices to ask "Is this moral?" One is subjective. The other isn't. But a lot of people think subjective standards are OK as long as they like the standard. I don't. Sotomayor has become a consistent champion of the 4th Amendment. In the American definition of the word liberal (meaning deferring to the State over the citizen) that is an illiberal position. Alito in the same cases tends to favor the state position on the 4th Amendment. In the American political definition of Conservative that is an un-conservative position. They all tend to speckle the spray chart on different issues. Alito, Kagan, and Breyer are the most consistent in one orthodoxy or the other. Heck just last week in Pereira v. Sessions they went 8-1 against a government position on immigration. Most notably refusing to apply the "Chevron Deference" (short definition is when the law, in application of a regulatory agency, is ambiguous the court defers to the agency's interpretation of that law). Now, I don't know what was in the minds of the 8 who decided against the government but deferring to the power of regulatory agencies is a decidedly statist and liberal position but all four "liberals" went to other way and the one "conservative" Alito dissented. The point being, the political labels just don't apply real well to judges. You really have to look at their background and history ans even then you don't know.

Non-statist thinking is always stoner-thinking for a statist. Pity.

You're not touching my recreational nukes statist.

"​The fact that a liberty-hating statist like Trump is so adamant to releasing it reinforces that it MUST not be released." ?

The fact that a liberty-hating statist like Pelosi is so opposed to the release reinforces that it MUST be released.

Dear Val, at least state sponsored classrooms have me a good enough education to understand the levels of bull**** BlackPigeonSpeaks emits. Yours, An indoctrinated statist

Responding to WoD OK, let's wave a magic wand and make Bernie Sanders President for the rest of this term. Will we be more like Sweden in 2020 or more like the US in 2016? The reason why you shouldn't worry too much is even if it happened he would not be all powerful. He would still have only a third of the political power of the federal government. If 218 Bernie Sanders get elected the house and 51 Bernie's in the Senate it still would not be the end because the States have their own political powers. And even if all of that fails the final redoubt of the United States is and has always been insurrection. And if you don't win at the very least you won't have to be subjected to what comes next. I really would not worry about this. Yes it's fun to talk about and I am not at all ashamed to engage in a little harmless hyperbole myself. One of the big things I hear from people is "I like some of the things the Libertarians stand for but..." nobody likes everything. But here is the thing, electing a libertarian President in 2020 and even a few LP candidates to congress will not make the US a libertarian paradise. At best it will more the needle away from the current statist trend a little bit. If the magical Sanders administration happened at best they would move the needle a little. You are not going to go from the USA you know to gulags, secret police, and nationalization of everything you own with a few mass murders for good measure. Right now you can drive from Key West to Pocatello Idaho and not pass through a single state or even county where the Democrats have any power at all. In 2008 it looked like the GOP was on the verge of extinctions. These things are cyclical. Four years from now it will be all different again. The only difference between now and ever in our history is the cycles are coming faster and faster. Maybe people are beginning to realize there is little difference between the two after all. I can always hope.

If they turned on me just with their Glocks, how long do you think I'd last? Also local police is usually pretty reasonable as far as political activity is concerned, it's the feds you've got to worry about. And they got all the fire power they want already. Actually I'm counting on Texas to protect me from the fed deep state and their ANTIFA ilk allies. That probably explains this: https://www.facebook.com/TurnTexasBlueCampaign/ It's because once Texas goes blue it's the end of America as we know it. I think you will find it far less different than you're willing to credit. There will still be a big, expensive, and wasteful government that intrudes on our liberty and disregards the constitution. The only difference will be which liberties they intrude on more than others. So once you realize Democrats and Republicans are two sour apples hanging on the same statist tree you see it really doesn't matter which one you are forced to eat.

A fool? No, he's dedicated statist. If Obama is a statist then he is terrible at being one. Not only has he failed to gain control over all means of production, but he relinquished his hold on those he did possess.

Easily. Publicly Listed Cimpanies are collectively owned and are not owned by the government, they're also at least theoretically little d democratic. Otherwise, Co-Ops, syndicates, Apoism etc etc, they're even properly democratic. Personally, I'd get rid of 'democratic' though, and go for the straight 2-axes political compass style set up of having left (socialist) and right (capitalist) with both of those being independent of the authoritarian (statist, undemocratic)/ anarchism (libertarianism, democratic) axis. OK, so corporations are actually socialist, I got it. Collective ownership generally means owned by society, not by a group of people. Nope, you're just using an 'alternative definition' of what collective ownership means. Collective ownership = "ownership by many individuals, for the benefit of said individuals". That is, at least theoretically, a company just as much as it is socialism. Collective ownership describes PLCs, it also describes full on communism, co-ops, trusts, governmental ownership, 'commons', syndicates and a whole bunch of other stuff that may or may not also be socialist. There's a specific term for when something is owned by society/ humanity as a whole- common ownership- or government owned when the government owns it. Collective just means owned by a collection of people, it's an umbrella term. OK, but you have to look at the context of what we were discussing, i.e. collective ownership in the socialist sense. Is a collective farm just a corporate-owned farm? I don't think so. Language is always ambiguous, you have to consider the context.

Easily. Publicly Listed Cimpanies are collectively owned and are not owned by the government, they're also at least theoretically little d democratic. Otherwise, Co-Ops, syndicates, Apoism etc etc, they're even properly democratic. Personally, I'd get rid of 'democratic' though, and go for the straight 2-axes political compass style set up of having left (socialist) and right (capitalist) with both of those being independent of the authoritarian (statist, undemocratic)/ anarchism (libertarianism, democratic) axis. OK, so corporations are actually socialist, I got it. Collective ownership generally means owned by society, not by a group of people. Nope, you're just using an 'alternative definition' of what collective ownership means. Collective ownership = "ownership by many individuals, for the benefit of said individuals". That is, at least theoretically, a company just as much as it is socialism. Collective ownership describes PLCs, it also describes full on communism, co-ops, trusts, governmental ownership, 'commons', syndicates and a whole bunch of other stuff that may or may not also be socialist. There's a specific term for when something is owned by society/ humanity as a whole- common ownership- or government owned when the government owns it. Collective just means owned by a collection of people, it's an umbrella term.

Easily. Publicly Listed Cimpanies are collectively owned and are not owned by the government, they're also at least theoretically little d democratic. Otherwise, Co-Ops, syndicates, Apoism etc etc, they're even properly democratic. Personally, I'd get rid of 'democratic' though, and go for the straight 2-axes political compass style set up of having left (socialist) and right (capitalist) with both of those being independent of the authoritarian (statist, undemocratic)/ anarchism (libertarianism, democratic) axis. OK, so corporations are actually socialist, I got it. Collective ownership generally means owned by society, not by a group of people. For example share ownership. Yes, this and agreements like trusts, partnerships and hedge fund investment or just normal investments that buy assets for the the financial return So there are numerous ways to share ownership and the dividends and profitability I don't think this was what "collective own" means. We have that now, it just means there is more than a single person as owner. Almost all big companies have shareholders, but does that mean they belong "to the people"? No, the people who own shares dont technically own the company but rather benefit from profit in the form of dividends Wow, mister finance guy, that's Hurlshot level of ignorance. sorry WOD but educate me. What am I missing about being a shareholder. I always like learning new things

Easily. Publicly Listed Cimpanies are collectively owned and are not owned by the government, they're also at least theoretically little d democratic. Otherwise, Co-Ops, syndicates, Apoism etc etc, they're even properly democratic. Personally, I'd get rid of 'democratic' though, and go for the straight 2-axes political compass style set up of having left (socialist) and right (capitalist) with both of those being independent of the authoritarian (statist, undemocratic)/ anarchism (libertarianism, democratic) axis. OK, so corporations are actually socialist, I got it. Collective ownership generally means owned by society, not by a group of people. For example share ownership. Yes, this and agreements like trusts, partnerships and hedge fund investment or just normal investments that buy assets for the the financial return So there are numerous ways to share ownership and the dividends and profitability I don't think this was what "collective own" means. We have that now, it just means there is more than a single person as owner. Almost all big companies have shareholders, but does that mean they belong "to the people"? No, the people who own shares dont technically own the company but rather benefit from profit in the form of dividends Wow, mister finance guy, that's Hurlshot level of ignorance. Cool, we don't have to follow laws any more, let's go loot an 84 Lumber store.

Blame it on the internet, now you can have people blame nazi = right wing on google and others will actually believe it because it fits their preconceived notions. Easily. Publicly Listed Cimpanies are collectively owned and are not owned by the government, they're also at least theoretically little d democratic. Otherwise, Co-Ops, syndicates, Apoism etc etc, they're even properly democratic. Personally, I'd get rid of 'democratic' though, and go for the straight 2-axes political compass style set up of having left (socialist) and right (capitalist) with both of those being independent of the authoritarian (statist, undemocratic)/ anarchism (libertarianism, democratic) axis.

It's a good idea actually. We'll cut out gubbermint jobs and use the newly unemployed gubbermint workers to do the same thing but much cheaper, and hire out newly unemployed people to work for private firms to replace workers who may be asking for a raise, thus creating a steady supply of low-wage labor to circumvent the tyranny of minimum wage and worker's rights. If you disagree with me you're an evil statist who hates freedom.

Where did you get that idea? Fascism doesn't advocate for the breakdown of the traditional family as the indivisible unit of society -- more like the opposite. Mussolini actually encouraged strong traditional family values (women chiefly as procreators and housekeepers, no contraception) to appeal to conservatives and, most importantly, the Catholic Church. Same thing with Franco's regime in Spain, even though he was more an ultraconservative autocrat than an actual card carrying fascist. It's hard to understand the influence that the Catholic Church still has on the cultural and social fabric of Mediterranean countries even today, not to mention in the 1920's. The incomplete and late mobilization of women by Germany is one of the reasons that contributed to their war production never being able to keep up with the Soviet Union's, too. Socialism doesn't specifically advocate for the phasing out of traditional families either, unless by traditional you specifically mean keeping women out of the workforce. Beyond the idea that capitalism doesn't serve the majority of the community and that the fruit of labor should benefit everyone, the different variants of "socialism" have little in common with one another. Which is why you have the so-called "socialist countries" which are for all intents and purposes military dictatorships with a centrally planned economy on one end of the spectrum, and on the other some weaksauce Social Democracy movements whose apparent goal is to beat around the bush perpetually and make sure not to step on anyone's toes while they're at it, with everything ranging from post-recession Iceland to 1970's Libyan Jamahiriya in between. The ultimate goal of anarcho-communists is the abolition of the state and money, go figure. Which one is truly "socialist"? Of course, if you live in a single-party police state, differences are going to seem academic, but that's more a thing with totalitarian regimes than whatever philosophies they use to justify themselves. So, socialism is statist, except when it's not. Fascism is revolutionary except when it's not, and neither really seeks to abolish families and replace them with subservience to the state, because its not either/or.

Having sex with young girls is an essential liberty only statist scum would deny.

I choked on my drink of water reading that. That was ****ing hilarious. Thank you! "Foreign Policy" is a tax-feeding, statist, Neoconservative rag. They never met a region they didn't want to bathe in war--hence, their affection for Killery. Their comments are damning in exactly the opposite manner they intend.