[QUOTE=DaHeezy]Maybe the more educated players. I'd assume most of these cats are of the same ilk where they just hate Trump.[/QUOTE]
The higher your level of education, the less likely you are to support Trump.
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[QUOTE=DaHeezy]Maybe the more educated players. I'd assume most of these cats are of the same ilk where they just hate Trump.[/QUOTE]
The higher your level of education, the less likely you are to support Trump.
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]The higher your level of education, the less likely you are to support Trump.[/QUOTE]
Boing!
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]The higher your level of education, the less likely you are to support Trump.[/QUOTE]
Could be true. There are a lot of dimwit college professors who spew anti-Trump BS
We'll just go with the wise people don't let's Trump BS bother them
Why would they go to the White House? They are a Canadian team retards.
They should visit their prime minister.
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]The higher your level of education, the less likely you are to support Trump.[/QUOTE]
Education =/= intelligence
Academia is pretty much full of retards these days who can't accomplish anything in the private sector - hence their need to try and control the culture through public schools.
Also, tons of blacks and hispanics vote democrat. Wonder what the education is like there?
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]Where did those property rights come from? The government. Your property rights are protected by the legal system which upholds contracts and deeds. Without the government, there is no right to property beyond what you can control by force.
Where does government come from? In older times, people said that their rulers were favored by God (or gods), and that was why they ruled legitimately. Theoretically the government in America is legitimate because it represent the people of the nation. Our representatives can basically do anything allowed by the Constitution, including taxes. [B]The same document that gave you property rights gives the government the ability to tax that property. [/B].
Our founding fathers knew that over-concentration of wealth was dangerous to the nation. Thomas Jefferson wrote about this, and said that it was necessary to control inheritance. Adam Smith actually wrote about this in "The Wealth of Nations" (considered the seminal work of capitalist theory). There are many obvious problems that can come from having a bunch of very rich people that didn't earn their money and don't have to work.
I wouldn't want to live in the USSR, but it's silly to criticize their quality of life if you don't have any context of what pre-revolutionary Tsarist Russia was like. For example, 25% of Russia was literate when the communists took over. Within 10 years, that had doubled. By the 1950's they were as literate as any country on Earth.
Famines were common in Russian history. The last famine in their history was under Stalin. By the 60's Soviets were consuming more calories a day than Americans (until the 1990's. Not as much meat though).
Pre-revolutionary Russia literally horrified visitors from other countries due to the level of violence and poverty. Nobles carried around whips as a symbol of nobility and would use them often. Executions were common for things as small as grazing a cow on a noble's pasture (this is barely over 100 years ago).[/QUOTE]
The land wasn't invented by the government either. Yes, the government has a legitimate function of enforcing deeds etc. but they aren't entitled to the benefits the land produces. And the constitution doesn't give rights - it protects them as those rights are natural rights.
I know Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith talked about this but that was in a time where there were no income taxes. Today there are so estate taxes are immoral and unethical. Also, plenty of countries in the world don't have estate taxes and get on fine. To me, you should be able to have the freedom to choose what happens with your money - not the government. This dumb idea that they just hoard their money and swim in it like ducktales is ridiculous.
And by stating that "they didn't earn their money and didn't work" and justifies taking their money is actually legislating morality and the individual which is something you said democrats don't do. And you don't list any of the "obvious problems"? Can you please tell me what they are?
Russia was a shit hole dude - they built a wall to keep people in because people wanted to leave. You can believe what you want.
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]Corporate Dems have deregulated banking many times.
Republicans don't regulate corporations....they regulate individuals. War on drugs. Opposition to gay marriage. Opposition to abortion. These are all instances of the government regulating morality of individuals.
Regulations on businesses are usually good. Ever read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair? Basically the meat-packing industry was just throwing chemicals and rats and human body parts in processed meats, and only stopped when the government regulated them.
Without government regulation, banks could invest your savings in risky start-ups, and then just stiff you if they went out of business. As it stands, banks have to reserve 10% of deposits, and pay for federal deposit insurance to make sure YOU don't get ripped off if the banks fail.
Don't fall for corporate BS on regulations.[/QUOTE]
War on Drugs and opposition to gay marriage has been a bipartisan thing for awhile. Look into Kamala Harris bud and her strong stance in California. Regulation of guns is also an individual regulation. Increase in taxes is also a regulation of individual.
Abortion is what I'll give you but again - you could consider the fetus an individual depending on what position you take.
Yes, I've heard of the Jungle but fortunately I have more than a 10th grade history education. That story is just some obvious propaganda to try to convince people into thinking "regulations good." Another reason why public schools are failing us.
There are current banking regulations in place that affect americans overseas that have resulted in their banks closing their accounts and nowhere to go. It's abhorrent - unintended consequences are never considered. Further regulations just consolidate banks into massive superpowers and eliminate competition. And the risky investments really come from cheap credit from the federal reserve. Price signals are all screwed up so investments that look like good opportunities are incorrectly labelled as such when they are really bad.
[QUOTE=Hawker]War on Drugs and opposition to gay marriage has been a bipartisan thing for awhile. Look into Kamala Harris bud and her strong stance in California. Regulation of guns is also an individual regulation. Increase in taxes is also a regulation of individual.
Abortion is what I'll give you but again - you could consider the fetus an individual depending on what position you take.
Yes, I've heard of the Jungle but fortunately I have more than a 10th grade history education. That story is just some obvious propaganda to try to convince people into thinking "regulations good." Another reason why public schools are failing us.
There are current banking regulations in place that affect americans overseas that have resulted in their banks closing their accounts and nowhere to go. It's abhorrent - unintended consequences are never considered. Further regulations just consolidate banks into massive superpowers and eliminate competition. And the risky investments really come from cheap credit from the federal reserve. Price signals are all screwed up so investments that look like good opportunities are incorrectly labelled as such when they are really bad.[/QUOTE]
The constitution is based on the ideas of german philosophers.
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]The higher your level of education, the less likely you are to support Trump.[/QUOTE]
People who took out $200,000+ in student loans to study liberal arts are less likely to support Trump too.
They do, however, have higher levels of "education".
[QUOTE=305Baller]Why would they go to the White House? They are a Canadian team retards.
They should visit their prime minister.[/QUOTE]
If you're not trolling, most of the team is born/from the United States, playing in the [I]National [/I]Basketball Association. :D
[QUOTE=Cleverness]If you're not trolling, most of the team is born/from the United States, playing in the [I]National [/I]Basketball Association. :D[/QUOTE]
who cares. the canadian anthem is played at their games. its a canadian team funded by canadian tax dollars and the global economic elite.
maybe they should visit the UN
[QUOTE=Hawker]Education =/= intelligence
A[B]cademia is pretty much full of retards these days[/B] who can't accomplish anything in the private sector - hence their need to try and control the culture through public schools.
Also, tons of blacks and hispanics vote democrat. Wonder what the education is like there?[/QUOTE]
The closest you've been to academia is probably watching Jordan Peterson videos on YouTube.
[QUOTE=Hawker]The land wasn't invented by the government either. Yes, the government has a legitimate function of enforcing deeds etc. but t[B]hey aren't entitled to the benefits the land produces. [/B]And the constitution doesn't give rights - it protects them as those rights are natural rights.
I know Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith talked about this but that was in a time where there were no income taxes. Today there are so estate taxes are immoral and unethical. Also, plenty of countries in the world don't have estate taxes and get on fine. To me, you should be able to have the freedom to choose what happens with your money - not the government. This dumb idea that they just hoard their money and swim in it like ducktales is ridiculous.
And by stating that "they didn't earn their money and didn't work" and justifies taking their money is actually legislating morality and the individual which is something you said democrats don't do. And you don't list any of the "obvious problems"? Can you please tell me what they are?
Russia was a shit hole dude - they built a wall to keep people in because people wanted to leave. You can believe what you want.[/QUOTE]
Who is entitled to the benefits of the land then? What makes it yours and not mine?
"Natural Rights" only exist so far as they are enforced.
Obvious problems with the huge wealth disparities:
1. Concentrated wealth allows a few very wealthy people to control the government through corruption. The US government gives tax breaks and subsidies equal to the total amount of outstanding student debt in the US....EVERY YEAR.
2. Monopolies and massive private equity firms decrease competition in the economy. Competition to provide cheaper and higher quality goods is the only aspect of capitalism that benefits people who don't own capital resources.
3. Goods and services are produced in accordance with supply and demand. The concept of "consumer sovereignty" is defined as "the situation in an economy where the desires and needs of consumers control the output of producers". However, these desires only impact what is produced in relation to the purchasing power of different classes of consumers. Put simply, when a small amount of people control a huge amount of wealth, the economy will produce goods and services aimed at those wealthy people. Less labor is dedicated to producing basketballs, more labor is dedicated to producing Bugattis.
We have the lowest tax rates in a hundred years of US history right now. The top tax rate was double this in the 70's. About 1.5x this in the 80's. It was 90% in the 40's and 50's. Back then about 60% of wealth went to workers, and 40% went to owners of capital. Now in America, 60% of income goes to owners and 40% goes to workers. An estimated 40% of all wealth is inherited, not earned. Workers haven't had a sustained increase in real wages since the early 80's. This is all bad.
I think you guys have me mistaken for some big government lib, and I'm not.
Governments are institutions who we allow to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. That's their purpose.
Violence is at the heart of ownership. What stops your land from being my land is the threat of violence. Without a government to enforce a set of laws, backed up by violence, ownership beyond personal property is impossible.
As long as governments exist, they will be enforcing laws with violence. If there must be ownership of resources, then there must be government. The question is, who the government represents.
Right now in America our government represents the interests of the rich, and wants to make it easier for them to gain control over more resources. I'd rather a government that shifted the balance back to the masses. Full-time workers in a lot of other countries earn more money than American workers.
What would that look like? Vastly increasing taxes on annual income over a few million dollars. Increasing the minimum wage. Enforcing anti-trust laws (already on the books) to break up big banks, big telecom companies, Disney etc etc...
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]I think you guys have me mistaken for some big government lib, and I'm not.
Governments are institutions who we allow to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. That's their purpose.
Violence is at the heart of ownership. What stops your land from being my land is the threat of violence. Without a government to enforce a set of laws, backed up by violence, ownership beyond personal property is impossible.
As long as governments exist, they will be enforcing laws with violence. If there must be ownership of resources, then there must be government. The question is, who the government represents.
Right now in America our government represents the interests of the rich, and wants to make it easier for them to gain control over more resources. I'd rather a government that shifted the balance back to the masses. Full-time workers in a lot of other countries earn more money than American workers.
What would that look like? Vastly increasing taxes on annual income over a few million dollars. Increasing the minimum wage. Enforcing anti-trust laws (already on the books) to break up big banks, big telecom companies, Disney etc etc...[/QUOTE]
So, you recognize that the rich have been systematically more successful at co-opting government for their own ends, and you want to fix this by doing a bunch of things that expand the power of that same government.
Not sure this is a good approach.
[QUOTE=Detroit]Now imagine a white player saying no if Obama was in office :oldlol:
They would've labelled him a racist bigot and threw the book at him.[/QUOTE]
You mean like Tom Brady? Or the many other white champions who did not go?
[QUOTE=MaxPlayer]So, you recognize that the rich have been systematically more successful at co-opting government for their own ends, and you want to fix this by doing a bunch of things that expand the power of that same government.
Not sure this is a good approach.[/QUOTE]
I see it as using the power of government to decrease the power of the rich.
I'd like to decrease the power of that government by decreasing military operations and decriminalizing drugs.
The most disruptive and "big government" thing we do is lock up 2.3 million people at a time. We have the highest prison population by sheer numbers and by percentage of citizens. Almost half a million of those people haven't had trials, but can't afford bail. The number one reason (by a huge margin) people are in jail is for drug possession.
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]The closest you've been to academia is probably watching Jordan Peterson videos on YouTube.[/QUOTE]
Jordan Peterson the goat
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkW1mzURnqU[/url]
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]The closest you've been to academia is probably watching Jordan Peterson videos on YouTube.[/QUOTE]
Peterson is the man. Teaches babies like on this site how to be personally responsible for their lives. Unfortunately, kids here would rather take advice and action from lebron 😑
As for this trump snubbing, I don
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]I see it as using the power of government to decrease the power of the rich.
I'd like to decrease the power of that government by decreasing military operations and decriminalizing drugs.
The most disruptive and "big government" thing we do is lock up 2.3 million people at a time. We have the highest prison population by sheer numbers and by percentage of citizens. Almost half a million of those people haven't had trials, but can't afford bail. The number one reason (by a huge margin) people are in jail is for drug possession.[/QUOTE]
Prison is big business. Good luck stopping that.
[QUOTE=poido123]Peterson is the man. Teaches babies like on this site how to be personally responsible for their lives. Unfortunately, kids here would rather take advice and action from lebron 😑
As for this trump snubbing, I don
[QUOTE=poido123]Peterson is the man. Teaches babies like on this site how to be personally responsible for their lives. Unfortunately, kids here would rather take advice and action from lebron 😑
As for this trump snubbing, I don
[QUOTE=MaxPlayer]This post seems a little odd in light of the fact that Trump's rhetoric is extremely "tribalist" and repeatedly stresses "us vs them." He frames nearly every issue, even things as benign as trade, as some sort of struggle between "us" (the United States) and some nefarious foreigner.[/QUOTE]
Trump simply shined a light on society
[QUOTE=red1]holy shit its poido aka pedo long-time no see
been an eventful year dude we da champs you can still sukk my dikk fam[/QUOTE]
Pedo 😂
I bring love, not hate. That election period got out of hand 👀
[QUOTE=poido123]Pedo 😂
I bring love, not hate. That election period got out of hand 👀[/QUOTE]
sorry man that was just the ol' nickname. I haven't really been paying attention to elections but I watched a lot of playoff games saw my team win 16 games this postseason in fact.
All of these games are taking a toll I'm glad that there's an offseason it's good to have a break from all this winning.
[QUOTE=red1]sorry man that was just the ol' nickname. I haven't really been paying attention to elections but I watched a lot of playoff games saw my team win 16 games this postseason in fact.
All of these games are taking a toll I'm glad that there's an offseason it's good to have a break from all this winning.[/QUOTE]
Can
[QUOTE=poido123]Can’t hate a Toronto championship ��
The parties in that city would of been insane. Unfortunately for my bulls, we are too busy enjoying mediocrity and celebrating drafts ��[/QUOTE]
absolutely. definitely insane.
bulls already have 6 rings it's good to share. just not with the knicks. dolan can sit in the corner alone.
[QUOTE=red1]absolutely. definitely insane.
bulls already have 6 rings it's good to share. just not with the knicks. dolan can sit in the corner alone.[/QUOTE]
If we didn
[QUOTE=poido123]If we didn’t luck into Jordan, our ownership would rival that of Dolan.[/QUOTE]
damn. magic got the hiv but dolan is the real aids/cancer.
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]Who is entitled to the benefits of the land then? What makes it yours and not mine?
"Natural Rights" only exist so far as they are enforced.
Obvious problems with the huge wealth disparities:
1. Concentrated wealth allows a few very wealthy people to control the government through corruption. The US government gives tax breaks and subsidies equal to the total amount of outstanding student debt in the US....EVERY YEAR.
2. Monopolies and massive private equity firms decrease competition in the economy. Competition to provide cheaper and higher quality goods is the only aspect of capitalism that benefits people who don't own capital resources.
3. Goods and services are produced in accordance with supply and demand. The concept of "consumer sovereignty" is defined as "the situation in an economy where the desires and needs of consumers control the output of producers". However, these desires only impact what is produced in relation to the purchasing power of different classes of consumers. Put simply, when a small amount of people control a huge amount of wealth, the economy will produce goods and services aimed at those wealthy people. Less labor is dedicated to producing basketballs, more labor is dedicated to producing Bugattis.
We have the lowest tax rates in a hundred years of US history right now. The top tax rate was double this in the 70's. About 1.5x this in the 80's. It was 90% in the 40's and 50's. Back then about 60% of wealth went to workers, and 40% went to owners of capital. Now in America, 60% of income goes to owners and 40% goes to workers. An estimated 40% of all wealth is inherited, not earned. Workers haven't had a sustained increase in real wages since the early 80's. This is all bad.[/QUOTE]
Everyone benefits from the resources of the land. Consumers and owners. Owners of the private property benefit by offering something to consumers. This is basic capitalism.
Income has increased for all workers adjusted for inflation since the 80s. That is just wrong.
As far as your three points, the rich want more regulations so they can keep the wealth and put up barriers in place for competition. You can see the same thing with Amazon, google, facebook right now - they are all asking for regulations so they can own the competition. Pressure was put on Amazon to go to $15/hr min wage, and now they are lobbying the government to do the same. Not because they really believe it but to stifle competition.
BTW - we aint short on producing basketballs dude. There is always a market for little stuff like that.
And as a % of GDP, federal tax receipts has been flat since the 50s.
[IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/U.S._Federal_Tax_Receipts_as_a_Percentage_of_GDP_1945%E2%80%932015.jpg[/IMG]
While those tax rates were extremely high, there were tons of tax cuts built into them (by the rich in cooperation with big government) and they were cut significantly by Reagan who at the same time got rid of those breaks.
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]The closest you've been to academia is probably watching Jordan Peterson videos on YouTube.[/QUOTE]
My brother just got his PhD.
[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVk9a5Jcd1k"]Do you recall the hoax academic studies?[/URL]
[URL="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1475346"]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1475346[/URL]
An article of rape culture and queer performativity in urban dog parks got approved as a legitimate academic article. :lol
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]I think you guys have me mistaken for some big government lib, and I'm not.
Governments are institutions who we allow to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. That's their purpose.
Violence is at the heart of ownership. What stops your land from being my land is the threat of violence. Without a government to enforce a set of laws, backed up by violence, ownership beyond personal property is impossible.
As long as governments exist, they will be enforcing laws with violence. If there must be ownership of resources, then there must be government. The question is, who the government represents.
Right now in America our government represents the interests of the rich, and wants to make it easier for them to gain control over more resources. I'd rather a government that shifted the balance back to the masses. Full-time workers in a lot of other countries earn more money than American workers.
What would that look like? Vastly increasing taxes on annual income over a few million dollars. Increasing the minimum wage. Enforcing anti-trust laws (already on the books) to break up big banks, big telecom companies, Disney etc etc...[/QUOTE]
I see you have read some Karl Marx, right?
[QUOTE=DoctorP]I see you have read some Karl Marx, right?[/QUOTE]
Back in school. I try to read a lot of different perspectives though. I'm currently finishing up Fukyama's "The Origins of Political Order", which I definitely recommend. He's definitely not a Marxist, but he's the one neo-con who has actually realized their failures (he was a major player in the Bush administration).
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]Back in school. I try to read a lot of different perspectives though. I'm currently finishing up Fukyama's "The Origins of Political Order", which I definitely recommend. He's definitely not a Marxist, but he's the one neo-con who has actually realized their failures (he was a major player in the Bush administration).[/QUOTE]
Vaguely heard of him. I am an existentialist thinker and I dove into some Sartre who persuaded me to read Marx. Just finished Marx preamble to the Communist Manifesto.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Damn. Hawker getting straight shit on....Hey... at least his brother has a PHD though.
Btw, impressive stuff Ralph :applause:
[QUOTE=DoctorP]Vaguely heard of him. I am an existentialist thinker and I dove into some Sartre who persuaded me to read Marx. Just finished Marx preamble to the Communist Manifesto.
Thanks for the recommendation.[/QUOTE]
Marx just really loses me with the way that he just unquestioningly assumes that workers and owners of capital necessarily cannot co-exist peacefully and/or for mutual benefit. Much like Malthus, it just seems like such an unjustifiably pessimistic view, even more so today in light of the continuing incredible gains in global wealth and standards of living.
[QUOTE=MaxPlayer]Marx just really loses me with the way that he just unquestioningly assumes that workers and owners of capital necessarily cannot co-exist peacefully and/or for mutual benefit. Much like Malthus, it just seems like such an unjustifiably pessimistic view, even more so today in light of the continuing incredible gains in global wealth and standards of living.[/QUOTE]
Marx also bothers me because his views are not only pessimistic, but so machine-like and systematic that he basically rejects the history of individuals outside of the system. To him savages and sub-proletariats are outside of the realm of history. That bothers me.
Things have progressed technologically from Marx time, especially in Archaeology. We know there is more to history than industrial civilization.
Marx work is outdated. That's where Sartre comes in, and perhaps now Chomsky.
But I could be wrong.
[QUOTE=DoctorP]Things have progressed technologically from Marx time, especially in Archaeology. We know there is more to history than industrial civilization.
Marx work is outdated. That's where Sartre comes in, and perhaps now Chomsky.
But I could be wrong.[/QUOTE]
No, you are exactly right. Marx is not the be-all-end-all. He inspired a lot of very insightful people though with his materialist framework.
My wife is an archaeologist!
[QUOTE=Hawker]My brother just got his PhD.
[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVk9a5Jcd1k"]Do you recall the hoax academic studies?[/URL]
[URL="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1475346"]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1475346[/URL]
An article of rape culture and queer performativity in urban dog parks got approved as a legitimate academic article. :lol[/QUOTE]
Someone made a hoax paper, and to you this discredits hundreds of years of academics?
I would love for you to apply this same standard of skepticism to institutions like the US military and State Department.