(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 57, Issue 31
John Watkins
john.watkins04 at gmail.com
Tue May 19 15:25:07 PDT 2009
brunians, are you a bona fide Southerner, or is your term for the American
Civil War an affectation?
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 6:20 PM, <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:
> Actually, the way you tell that it's getting close to shoot-the-bastards
> time is that *everyone*, including the cops, is talking about it getting
> close to shoot-the-bastards time, on one side of the argument or another,
> depending on the loyalties of the region that you are in. Anyone disagrees
> they keep quiet. That's how it was before the American Revolution and that
> is how it was before the War Between The States.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> .
>
>
> > Into the streets with your Robin Hood hats!
> >
> > Tear down the SUVs! tear down the McDonalds! Unite as Brothers! ;)
> > Burn the neocons at the stake like Giordano Bruno! Instatiate the
> > Group of Seventeen for all time!
> >
> >
> > On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 3:11 PM, <urth-request at lists.urth.net> wrote:
> >> Send Urth mailing list submissions to
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> >> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> >> than "Re: Contents of Urth digest..."
> >>
> >>
> >> Today's Topics:
> >>
> >> 1. Re: Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again) (Adam Thornton)
> >> 2. Re: Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again) (brunians at brunians.org)
> >> 3. Re: Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again) (brunians at brunians.org)
> >> 4. Re: Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again) (James Wynn)
> >> 5. Re: Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again) (David Stockhoff)
> >> 6. Re: Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again) (David Stockhoff)
> >> 7. Re: Urth Digest, Vol 57, Issue 30 (David Stockhoff)
> >> 8. Re: Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again) (David Stockhoff)
> >>
> >>
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 1
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 17:00:17 -0500
> >> From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com>
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
> >> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> >> Message-ID: <7128DCCE-0E7C-4291-A0FA-D5855BC96A02 at io.com>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
> >>
> >>
> >> On May 19, 2009, at 4:56 PM, brunians at brunians.org wrote:
> >>
> >>> I calls them like I sees them. I prefer to look straight at things and
> >>> name them plainly, rather than search for more comforting, euphemistic
> >>> ways to express plain reality.
> >>
> >> Ah, but here is our fundamental disagreement: I don't think
> >> "extortion" is any closer to "plain reality" than "dues."
> >>
> >> I am, in fact, arguing that the reverse is true. But then I believe
> >> we probably, at heart, disagree on "plain reality."
> >>
> >> Adam
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 2
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 18:03:48 -0400 (EDT)
> >> From: brunians at brunians.org
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
> >> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> >> Message-ID: <14123.67.142.130.18.1242770628.squirrel at brunians.org>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
> >>
> >> You're familiar with Thomas Jefferson, right Lane? They taught you about
> >> him in law school or college or something, I am sure, and you are just
> >> pretending to be ignorant for rhetorical effect.
> >>
> >> Go on with you: I am feeling favorably disposed towards you now and have
> >> no real desire to explain Jeffersonianism to you, almost certainly
> >> falling
> >> into one or more of your lawyerly traps along the way. I argue for fun,
> >> not blood and would prefer not to engage with a professional unless you
> >> tie one lobe of your brain behind your back or something.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ...[W]hat country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not
> >> warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
> >> resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
> >> to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
> >> in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
> >> time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
> >> It is its natural manure.
> >>
> >> -- Thomas Jefferson
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> .
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> So your democratically-elected government gets to serve at the
> >>> pleasure of a small but violent minority? I understand frustration
> >>> with graft and waste, but calling for rebellion against a lawfully-
> >>> seated state for carrying out the will of society?
> >>>
> >>> At some point, you realize the value in cooperation, community and
> >>> shared society. All civilization is based on this premise, that
> >>> together a people can accomplish what one alone cannot.
> >>>
> >>> The substitution of civil government/society with a profit driven
> >>> market removes this universally-agreed as beneficial goal of
> >>> cooperation and replaced it with a unilateral goal of profit. As
> >>> wealth cannot be created ex nihilo, profit must arise from a producer
> >>> taking more than a product is worth. This is only possible on a market
> >>> where supply and demand are manipulated against the interest of the
> >>> consumer.
> >>>
> >>> Thus, the market is merely the latest iteration of the master-slave
> >>> relation. It is the battlefield of class conflict. How does calling
> >>> taxes imposed by a lawful sovereign equal theft, but the creation of
> >>> profit not equal extortion by a self-selected, undemocratic oligarchy?
> >>>
> >>> Individuals and individual liberty are only meaningful insofar as a
> >>> civil legal system ensures they are protected. Authoritarian abuses by
> >>> right and left ignore this. Free markets actively surpress it by
> >>> economic manipulation.
> >>>
> >>> Tell me again why I should kill lawfully-seated ministers of the civil
> >>> government to preserve the rights of the people exploiting me?
> >>>
> >>> Sent from my iPhone
> >>>
> >>> On May 19, 2009, at 4:36 PM, brunians at brunians.org wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I said this in a recent post. I will expand upon it.
> >>>>
> >>>> Taxation, the extortion of money from the citizens, is permissible for
> >>>> things that are necessary. My list of necessary things includes the
> >>>> military and things related to the military, infrastructure and
> >>>> certain
> >>>> kinds of research. I insist that the involuntary nature of taxation be
> >>>> explicit and resist the inevitable attempts at expansion of the
> >>>> things-to-be-paid-for-by-taxation.
> >>>>
> >>>> Of course, as a good Jeffersonian, I believe that from time to time
> >>>> it is
> >>>> necessary to shoot the bastards and start over. We're not quite
> >>>> there yet.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> .
> >>>>
> >>>>> On May 19, 2009, at 4:19 PM, brunians at brunians.org wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> But we (the people on the other side of the argument) are none of us
> >>>>>> arguing for a complete lack of functional civil society and a
> >>>>>> Hobbesian
> >>>>>> all-against-all. Were you under the impression that we were?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I don't see how you can get from the position that all taxation is
> >>>>> theft to the position that some governments are legitimate without
> >>>>> giving up on the first one.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Adam
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> Urth Mailing List
> >>>>> To post, write urth at urth.net
> >>>>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Urth Mailing List
> >>>> To post, write urth at urth.net
> >>>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Urth Mailing List
> >>> To post, write urth at urth.net
> >>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 3
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 18:05:56 -0400 (EDT)
> >> From: brunians at brunians.org
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
> >> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> >> Message-ID: <2352.67.142.130.18.1242770756.squirrel at brunians.org>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
> >>
> >> Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it.
> >>
> >> -- PKD (I think).
> >>
> >> .
> >>
> >>> On May 19, 2009, at 4:56 PM, brunians at brunians.org wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I calls them like I sees them. I prefer to look straight at things and
> >>>> name them plainly, rather than search for more comforting, euphemistic
> >>>> ways to express plain reality.
> >>>
> >>> Ah, but here is our fundamental disagreement: I don't think
> >>> "extortion" is any closer to "plain reality" than "dues."
> >>>
> >>> I am, in fact, arguing that the reverse is true. But then I believe
> >>> we probably, at heart, disagree on "plain reality."
> >>>
> >>> Adam
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Urth Mailing List
> >>> To post, write urth at urth.net
> >>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 4
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 17:06:05 -0500
> >> From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
> >> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> >> Message-ID: <BD4FACD5AAA943568DAC238C1E3F3911 at eMachinePC>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> >> reply-type=response
> >>
> >> Adam, in "The Devil in a Forest", Wolfe presents the issue moral terms.
> >> If
> >> I'm benefiting from a service more than my neighbor, and also paying
> >> less
> >> for that service than my neighbor, why is that less shameful than just
> >> going
> >> to his door and demanding the money?
> >> Okay. Here are your three options:
> >>
> >>>Adam sez:
> >>>Of course, "fund it to the same degree," and "robbing from the rich to
> >>>give to the poor," each themselves admit multiple interpretations.
> >>>One way of "funding it to the same degree" would be to demand a flat
> >>>amount from each citizen.
> >>
> >> This is actually is the most fair way. But, that's asking way too much
> >> fairness from a society of Fallen human beings. On the other hand, if
> >> the
> >> poor don't like it, I suppose they could move to Mogadishu.
> >>
> >>>One way would be to impose the same percentage fee on each citizen,
> >>>regardless of income. This is usually what Libertarians claim to like.
> >>>However, such a plan ignores the (I think fairly important) observation
> >>>that the marginal value of money decreases the more of it you have.
> >>
> >> Marginal value decreases for whom? Not to the people who work to earn
> >> it.
> >> You're argument divorces the amount of money made from the people who
> >> created it. It assumes that a guy making $25K a year is exactly like the
> >> guy
> >> making $250K a year except that one happens to make less. It ignores the
> >> risks the second guy took in capital, time, and effort in order to
> >> create
> >> that wealth. It also ignores the fact that the first guy gets far more
> >> BENEFIT from non-essential government services that the second guy. Some
> >> would say the differences therefore balance out so that both should pay
> >> the
> >> same rate.
> >>
> >> The real reason has nothing to do with marginal values of money. It has
> >> to
> >> do with practicality. These services are proposed to get a majority of
> >> the
> >> voting public to like them. So you give out benefits to a larger number
> >> and
> >> have a smaller number pay the freight. No majority will not vote for 95%
> >> of
> >> government services if they are seen as fee-for-service. You probably
> >> wouldn't. David Stackhoff implied that he found the idea increased taxes
> >> appealing because he didn't think he'd pay the bulk of them (or any of
> >> them?).
> >>
> >>>Hence a third way would be to impose a tax that causes the same amount
> >>> of
> >>>inconvenience at all levels of income. This is approximately what
> >>>progressive income taxes attempt to do.
> >>
> >> How does a progressive tax provide "the same amount of inconvenience at
> >> all
> >> levels of income"? Or do you mean "we'll tax you more if you have more
> >> and
> >> we'll do the same to other guy who has more too"? What if we taxed every
> >> one
> >> making $35K-$50K at 95% and everyone else at 15%. Is that equally
> >> logical?
> >> But we don't just tax based on income either, do we? Because this is
> >> democracy in action. The law-makers cut breaks for certain voting blocks
> >> (home-owners, parents, college students, and retirees) while busting
> >> others
> >> (cigarette smokers and people who drive for a living).
> >>
> >>> "Robbing from the rich to give to the poor," is simply the same
> >>> argument
> >>> stood on its head, of course. Does taxation go from "legitimate" to
> >>> "robbery" at a value derived from the absolute dollar value of the
> >>> tax,
> >>> from a percentage of income across all income ranges, or to a degree
> >>> of
> >>> inconvenience across all income ranges?
> >>
> >> How can I describe a progressive tax? Say five citizens get together to
> >> fund
> >> a new well. Hmmm...they could all pay the same amount to dig it, or they
> >> could all pay the same percentage of their wealth, OR....they could vote
> >> that Moe here--who also has a lake on his property so he doesn't need
> >> the
> >> well---will pay for half of it because, after all, he can "afford it".
> >> How
> >> is that different from a two foxes and a hen voting on what to have for
> >> supper?
> >>
> >> J.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 5
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 18:06:46 -0400
> >> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
> >> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> >> Message-ID: <4A132D76.3090700 at verizon.net>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >>
> >> Yeah, Mao and Washington would have found much in common.
> >>
> >>
> >> --- On Tue, 5/19/09, brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> > From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
> >>> > Mao was a perceptive guy about some
> >>> > things. Power and how to use it, for
> >>> > instance. Decent poet also, I'm told.
> >>> >
> >>> > Not a very nice man, but pretty smart.
> >>> >
> >>> > If three people as different as Mao, Washington and Geller
> >>> > agree about
> >>> > something, I'd say it's time to sit up and take notice.
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> > .
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>>
> >>>> > > If Mao said it, it must be true.
> >>>> > >
> >>>> > > ------------------------------
> >>
> >>
> >> ---
> >> avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
> >> Virus Database (VPS): 090519-0, 05/19/2009
> >> Tested on: 5/19/2009 6:06:48 PM
> >> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software.
> >> http://www.avast.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 6
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 18:08:42 -0400
> >> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
> >> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> >> Message-ID: <4A132DEA.20907 at verizon.net>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >>
> >> Of course you have.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 5
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 17:44:27 -0400 (EDT)
> >> From: brunians at brunians.org
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
> >> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> >> Message-ID: <4290.67.142.130.18.1242769467.squirrel at brunians.org>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
> >>
> >>
> >>> > Somalia's economy is not "based on" piracy. It was based on fishing
> >>> and
> >>> > herding before global shipping killed all the fish.
> >>>
> >>
> >> The fishing went away because Somalia, lacking a government, lacks a
> >> Coast
> >> Gaurd (see my post about necessary things which may be paid for by
> >> taxation) and therefore every industrial fishing boat in the world went
> >> there to glom on their fish.
> >>
> >> I think that bits of herding still go on.
> >>
> >> Somalia has been a pit for centuries. How did the Italians do running
> >> it?
> >> I've been in favor of giving large chunks of Africa back to the colonial
> >> powers for some time now.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---
> >> avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
> >> Virus Database (VPS): 090519-0, 05/19/2009
> >> Tested on: 5/19/2009 6:08:44 PM
> >> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software.
> >> http://www.avast.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 7
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 18:10:38 -0400
> >> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 57, Issue 30
> >> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> >> Message-ID: <4A132E5E.9060401 at verizon.net>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >>
> >> Thank you for this.
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 7
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 16:51:17 -0500
> >> From: Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
> >> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> >> Message-ID: <9C6B0298-D857-46D7-80F4-0E74FA6F4720 at gmail.com>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed;
> >> delsp=yes
> >>
> >> ...
> >> The substitution of civil government/society with a profit driven
> >> market removes this universally-agreed as beneficial goal of
> >> cooperation and replaced it with a unilateral goal of profit. As
> >> wealth cannot be created ex nihilo, profit must arise from a producer
> >> taking more than a product is worth. This is only possible on a market
> >> where supply and demand are manipulated against the interest of the
> >> consumer.
> >>
> >> Thus, the market is merely the latest iteration of the master-slave
> >> relation. It is the battlefield of class conflict. How does calling
> >> taxes imposed by a lawful sovereign equal theft, but the creation of
> >> profit not equal extortion by a self-selected, undemocratic oligarchy?
> >>
> >> Individuals and individual liberty are only meaningful insofar as a
> >> civil legal system ensures they are protected. Authoritarian abuses by
> >> right and left ignore this. Free markets actively surpress it by
> >> economic manipulation.
> >> ...
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---
> >> avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
> >> Virus Database (VPS): 090519-0, 05/19/2009
> >> Tested on: 5/19/2009 6:10:42 PM
> >> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software.
> >> http://www.avast.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 8
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 18:11:51 -0400
> >> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
> >> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> >> Message-ID: <4A132EA7.2030908 at verizon.net>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >>
> >> I always try to keep that in mind when I read your posts.
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 8
> >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 17:51:36 -0400 (EDT)
> >> From: brunians at brunians.org
> >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
> >> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> >> Message-ID: <10065.67.142.130.18.1242769896.squirrel at brunians.org>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
> >>
> >>
> >>> > By the way, who is Josh Geller? (When I ask it that way,
> >>> > the initials are a little disturbing.)
> >>>
> >>
> >> Late twentieth - early twenty-first century aphorist.
> >>
> >> "Never postulate conspiracy when stupidity will explain the known
> >> facts."
> >>
> >> -- Geller's Second Law
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---
> >> avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
> >> Virus Database (VPS): 090519-0, 05/19/2009
> >> Tested on: 5/19/2009 6:11:52 PM
> >> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software.
> >> http://www.avast.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Urth Mailing List
> >> To post, write urth at urth.net
> >> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
> >>
> >> End of Urth Digest, Vol 57, Issue 31
> >> ************************************
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Urth Mailing List
> > To post, write urth at urth.net
> > Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
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