# Your perfect government...



## Hackfox (Sep 13, 2009)

What is your Idea of a perfect government? 
If you do not know what some of the choices are please google. :3

*America is a Democratic Republic BTW. *

A perfect democracy would be: A bandit has been chased out of town in the old west, all the people take a vote on to hang him or not. The hang him vote wins and they hang him.

A Democratic Democracy would be: Once we have the bandit the sheriff rides up and says, "we cant just hang him this man has the right to a fair trial." So they take him back to town he goes to court and a jury of his piers decide. 

The Gov' has some say in Dem. Republic.


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## ChrisPanda (Sep 13, 2009)

Right 
PM David Lloyd George
Chanceler Halifax
Deputy Churchill


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## Darkwing (Sep 13, 2009)

Well, since I live in America, and since America is a Democracy, I would say that I am very satisfied with Democracy


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## Hir (Sep 13, 2009)

mai perfect government is no government I HAET TEH GOVERNMENT ANARCHYYYYYYY


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## Darkwing (Sep 13, 2009)

Whoops, I just read Hackfox's edited post.

I feel very dumb right now


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## Hackfox (Sep 13, 2009)

Darkwing said:


> Whoops, I just read Hackfox's edited post.
> 
> I feel very dumb right now



It's cool :3 I don't minds  I think its cyote (cute)


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## Ikrit (Sep 13, 2009)

waiting for none option.


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## Darkwing (Sep 13, 2009)

Hackfox said:


> It's cool :3 I don't minds  I think its cyote (cute)



Oh, well thank you, I am flattered by your compliment.

But in all seriousness, I should know what type of government my government is, I am pretty much fitting the American stereotype right now


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

...is no government.


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## Attaman (Sep 13, 2009)

The one led by this man.


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## Lasair (Sep 13, 2009)

Dem. Republic just as the ROI is now, with the following DÃ¡il

Enda Kenny or whoever the opposition guy is here :/-PM
Alan Sugar-Finance Minister
Chuck Norris- Defense Minister
Stephen Hawking- Education Minister
Kofi Annan- Foriegn Affairs
Jeremy Clarkson - Transport Minister
Andrew Lloyd Webber - Arts and Culture Minister
Sir Alex Ferguson - Sports Minister
Al Gore- Energy Minister (the only guy i can think of)
Bill Gates- Technology Minister

now thats the government to lead ireland out of recession!


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## Hackfox (Sep 13, 2009)

Darkwing said:


> Well, since I live in America, and since America is a Democracy, I would say that I am very satisfied with Democracy



Na, *hands you cookie* eat this... OwO It will liberate you >w>;


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

DarkNoctus said:


> mai perfect government is no government I HAET TEH GOVERNMENT ANARCHYYYYYYY



You didn't vote, brother. ^________________^


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## Rakuen Growlithe (Sep 13, 2009)

I think I'd go for an evidence-based government. Probably run by a council which would take people's opinions into consideration but have a more final decision. Mainly 'cause I think pure democracy is retarded, but a dictatorship needs a good dictator, which is hard to find. I don't think there should then be one person in charge.


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## Zolen (Sep 13, 2009)

A place that I have absolute control! 

____

But really I like the USA system, while there is still curruption in it, its not as bas as what would happen if we had a king or dictator in charge.


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## CinnamonApples (Sep 13, 2009)

Hackfox said:


> *America is a Democratic Republic BTW. *



With a small dish of socialism on the side!


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## Hackfox (Sep 13, 2009)

CinnamonApples said:


> With a small dish of socialism on the side!



Amen, I love you. Please make passionate love to my tight tender pink foxhole. Kthx.


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## Klay (Sep 13, 2009)

Hackfox said:


> Amen, I love you. Please make passionate love to my tight tender pink foxhole. Kthx.



DO WANT


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## Hackfox (Sep 13, 2009)

Klay said:


> DO WANT



Lol ohrly? come get it ;3


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

the body polity
a tail hole
do want

alright that's my death poem
ban me now


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## Hackfox (Sep 13, 2009)

jellyhurwit said:


> the body polity
> a tail hole
> do want
> 
> ...



lol wut? Ok back on topic people XD 

*Vote moar
*


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## Kangamutt (Sep 13, 2009)

Democratic republic.

It's a good working system that doesn't rely on mob rule, has it's checks and balances, etc.


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## lilEmber (Sep 13, 2009)

CinnamonApples said:


> With a small dish of socialism on the side!


And a last amount of Capitalism.

My favorite is socialism. Why? think about it for a moment, think about the national socialist party in German back before world war two. Hitler took a country in total poverty and distress, a country set up to take the entire fall for WWI by the entire world, and he turned the country into a super power able to take over almost all of Europe, most of northern Africa and western Russia. It can be the best, as long as who is in control doesn't go insane, but that can be said about any government.



Kangaroo_Boy said:


> Democratic republic.
> 
> It's a good working system that doesn't rely on mob rule, has it's checks and balances, etc.


I think you're forgetting about prop 8 and just about every other mob rule vote that happens, bub.


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## Aurali (Sep 13, 2009)

2020 I start my conquest of the world.


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## ChrisPanda (Sep 13, 2009)

Eli said:


> 2020 I start my conquest of the world.


 
Can I help :3


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## Aurali (Sep 13, 2009)

chrispenguin said:


> Can I help :3


You can bring the chips


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## Telnac (Sep 13, 2009)

Democratic Republic.  California's state government is still technically a democratic republic, but is much closer to a democracy in that the people can submit & vote on laws directly, and they have more power than the legislature OR the governor!  What the people vote into law, the legislature cannot repeal and the governor can't veto.  It's also very easy to change CA's constitution via a public vote.  That's how any new gay marriages in CA was squashed (if my memory serves me right.)

That gave me a good glimpse into what a pure democracy would be like.  CA's in a HUGE mess, because the public passes bond measure after bond measure b/c the supporters of these measures say "it won't raise taxes."  The legislature & the governor are powerless to repeal them, and payments to bond holders are made before payments to anyone else, including state employees.  CA's already one of the most taxed states in the nation, and raising taxes much more would crush the already struggling economy there (which is more hard hit than most other states by this recession.)

A true democracy would be even LESS stable.  With no one to make the hard decisions to cut popular programs or raise taxes, the state would find itself in ENORMOUS debt.  Without HEAVY regulations built into the constitution that cannot be changed by amendment, such a system wouldn't last long.

The USA's system, for all its flaws, is a damned good one.  Changes I'd make are: 


Break up the two party system into a European-style multiparty system.  This makes it so that fiscal conservatives (such as myself) don't have to be stuck with bigots (aka social conservatives) as bedfellows in the Republican Party to get anything done.  We can have the Fiscal Party and they can have the Bigot Party.
House seats are divvied up by the relative percentage each party gets in a state-wide election.  So if a state had 20 House seats, and the Republicans got 30% of the vote, Democrats 35%, Clowns 30% and Anarchists 5%, the state would send 6 Republicans, 7 Democrats, 6 Clowns and 1 Anarchist to Congress.  This forces parties to form temporary alliances to enact each piece of legislation.
Available Senate seats are divvied up likewise, based on a national vote (Senators would no longer be tied to states; they'd be national representatives.)
House members are limited to 4 terms in office (8 years, like the Prez.)  Senators are limited to 2 terms in office (12 years total.)
Super-majorities of 60% are required to pass any legislation in the House or Senate.  Currently, filibusters in the Senate have much the same effect, but they eat TONS of time that can be better used to make compromises or pass other legislation.
The President has a line-item veto.
All federal judicial positions MUST be filled by the end of each congressional term.  Any judicial positions unfilled at the end of that term are filled by the President, with no congressional vote.  (This would encourage Congress to take up the matter of confirming judges seriously.  Currently, they don't.)
Federal judges are appointed to 20 year terms.  They are limited to 1 term.  (Currently, it's lifetime... which the founders never realized could be a problem b/c humans now live far longer than they did in 1789.)
Head of the Supreme Court is decided by vote of its members, not by the President's appointment.  This vote is made at the start of each congressional term.
Supreme Court decisions can be overturned by vote of 75% from each chamber of Congress AND the approval of the President of the USA.  (Currently, the Supreme Court's power is absolute... and I REALLY don't like the fact that it's the only branch of the government not subject to checks & balances.)


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## Whitenoise (Sep 13, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> And a last amount of Capitalism.
> 
> My favorite is socialism. Why? think about it for a moment, think about the national socialist party in German back before world war two. Hitler took a country in total poverty and distress, a country set up to take the entire fall for WWI by the entire world, and he turned the country into a super power able to take over almost all of Europe, most of northern Africa and western Russia. It can be the best, as long as who is in control doesn't go insane, but that can be said about any government.



Hitler believed in the free market Newf, the Democratic Socialists were only socialist in name. Hitlers opinions on economic policy had far more in common with Ronald Regan than they did with Carl Marx. Also you're making socialism out to be inherently fascist which is absurd. You should have payed closer attention in social studies instead of sitting at the back of the class whacking off to dragon porn :V .


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## Whitenoise (Sep 13, 2009)

Also the only logical government is a robot dictatorship, humans are too stupid to make decisions for themselves or each other :V .


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## Mayfurr (Sep 13, 2009)

Telnac said:


> The USA's system, for all its flaws, is a damned good one.  Changes I'd make are:
> 
> 
> Break up the two party system into a European-style multiparty system.  This makes it so that fiscal conservatives (such as myself) don't have to be stuck with bigots (aka social conservatives) as bedfellows in the Republican Party to get anything done.  We can have the Fiscal Party and they can have the Bigot Party.
> ...



Here in New Zealand we already run a similar system of proportional representation within our Westminster Parliamentary system (electorate MPs that represent an electorate, and "list MPs" allocated on the basis of the national party vote), and while it's not perfect it seems to do the job pretty well and it a heck of a lot more representative. Some parties still have a problem with the "working constructively with others in a coalition" concept, but we're getting there. 

I don't see any reason why proportional representation wouldn't work in the US, but actually getting it in place across a dual-house system past vested interests in the current system in the US would be a nightmare as far as I can see. Heck, if something like healthcare attracts all the "OMG NAZIS!" crowd now, god knows the sort of reaction you'd get for electoral reform...!


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## Takun (Sep 13, 2009)

A real democracy where people actually get informed on the issues and then vote on them.  None of this "vote some guy in, hope he represents me... oh look he's doing the opposite of what he said because lobbyists are paying him and he doesn't want to upset fringe voters for the next election."


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## Endless Humiliation (Sep 13, 2009)

Whitenoise said:


> Also the only logical government is a robot dictatorship, humans are too stupid to make decisions for themselves or each other :V .



I would love to have a robot tell me what to do.

Like R.O.B. ^___^


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## Aurali (Sep 13, 2009)

Whitenoise said:


> Also the only logical government is a robot dictatorship, humans are too stupid to make decisions for themselves or each other :V .



But Whitenoise! I was gonna make you my chairman of defense against alien encounters!


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## Kangamutt (Sep 13, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> I think you're forgetting about prop 8 and just about every other mob rule vote that happens, bub.



Unfortunately, it happens on a state level, and I was talking on the national. But then again, you see more results voting provincially than nationally.

We really need to implement a 2/3 rule in CA goddamnit. 49-51 just doesn't work. >:[


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## Takun (Sep 13, 2009)

Oh, anyone else wish we had some limit on Supreme Court judges?  As it is now, they basically wait to retire until their party is in office so they can just pass the seat on.


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## Whitenoise (Sep 13, 2009)

Eli said:


> But Whitenoise! I was gonna make you my chairman of defense against alien encounters!



Does that mean I get to sit around all day getting shitfaced and sexually harassing interns on the taxpayer's dime :V ?


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## Aurali (Sep 13, 2009)

Whitenoise said:


> Does that mean I get to sit around all day getting shitfaced and sexually harassing interns on the taxpayer's dime :V ?



Yes, but I'll deny it if the media gets involved.


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## Azure (Sep 13, 2009)

Dictatorship. It's pretty futile you think the human race doesn't need somebody to tell them what the fuck to do. They can't even decide what the fuck they want at McDonalds. I'll teach you the glory of the State.


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## Bacu (Sep 13, 2009)

Optimally, no government, but I know I can't trust you guys not to break my stuff. 'merican style works just fine for me. Though, I'd like to see less career politicians and more people who actually do good stuff.


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## Gavrill (Sep 13, 2009)

I prefer a Democracy, but that's just me. 

I don't understand the appeal of no government.


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## Jessica Chen (Sep 13, 2009)

democracy and republic


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## Randy-Darkshade (Sep 13, 2009)

Your perfect government...Does not exist.


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## Jessica Chen (Sep 13, 2009)

hmm good point.


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## Shark_the_raptor (Sep 13, 2009)

Socialism, comrade.  :3


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## Kommodore (Sep 13, 2009)

A republic for sure. Very much like the US system, but with a _much_ stronger emphasis on regional government instead of federal. A state government is more in tune with the "needs" and desires of its people than a federal one, and it avoids the whole "big government" problems that lolbertarians like myself enjoy bitching about ad nausium.


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## Lobar (Sep 13, 2009)

Transplant the First Amendment to the UK (or hell, any European country, or Canada) and I'll gladly live there.


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## Rostam The Grey (Sep 13, 2009)

Depends on the situation. If technology was great enough that anything could be synthesized for the same price, socialism would be king. If the world's population was small enough, anarchy would win. With the current technology, in an educated society, democracy would be king. Unfortunately, our society isn't educated, so democratic republic is king because it semi-prevents majority/mob rule.


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## Nargle (Sep 13, 2009)

I voted other, because I believe there is no such thing as a perfect government. No matter how hard you try to please everyone, someone will dislike it. However, not saying NO government is the best option. There has to be some form of government for the country to be able to function correctly.

BTW, anyone who thinks Anarchy or Communism would work is retarded in my option =P


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## blackfuredfox (Sep 13, 2009)

i want something like the early years of when Hitler ruled Germany, when it got turned into an economic super power, and made many advancements, so like a democratic dictatorship, but instead of dictator, Chancelor, and no genocide or Gov. sponsored hatred.


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## Hackfox (Sep 13, 2009)

Anybody else voting?


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## blackfuredfox (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> BTW, anyone who thinks Anarchy or Communism would work is retarded in my option =P



well, anarchy would be needed to remind the civilization how bad things can get without a Gov. but it is possible to make a better Communism.


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## Torrijos-sama (Sep 13, 2009)

GLORIOUS, VIOLENT, WORLD SOCIALIST REVOLUTION FOR MAKE BENEFIT GREAT WORKER; DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND OVERTHROWN OF BOURGEOISE DESPOT AND COMMODITY FETISHISM.


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> BTW, anyone who thinks Anarchy or Communism would work is retarded in my option =P



I'm pretty sure the first person to eat molded goat's milk out of a leathered stomach was retarded. And now a pretty large amount of the non-retarded population regularly eats yogurt. Co:


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## Nargle (Sep 13, 2009)

jellyhurwit said:


> I'm pretty sure the first person to eat molded goat's milk out of a leathered stomach was retarded. And now a pretty large amount of the non-retarded population regularly eats yogurt. Co:



It's not like Communism and Anarchy has never been tried before, and have potentially wonderful outcomes. It's been tried many times, with absolutely terrible outcomes.


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## Torrijos-sama (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> It's not like Communism and Anarchy has never been tried before, and have potentially wonderful outcomes. It's been tried many times, with absolutely terrible outcomes.


 
Anarchy has never been tried...

At least, individualist anarchism and Anarcho-Capitalism have not yet been employed...

All other Anarchist movements are full of fail. And AIDS. 

Communist and Socialist movements are especially filled with AIDS, since every worker gets a share (in a sexually explicit way).


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## blackfuredfox (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> It's not like Communism and Anarchy has never been tried before, and have potentially wonderful outcomes. It's been tried many times, with absolutely terrible outcomes.



well that is the leaders faults, cept with anarchy, they are retarded, but in the early years of the U.S.S.R. Lenin did a damn good job, then again its like working with a out house, its shitty, and you can only do one of two things, keep shitting in it, or start to bury it. Stalin decided that it might be a good idea to build a new out house right on top of the old one.


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> It's not like Communism and Anarchy has never been tried before, and have potentially wonderful outcomes. It's been tried many times, with absolutely terrible outcomes.



I'm assuming you're referring to Communism being tried, but I can't think of any supremely bloody anarchist societies.


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## Nargle (Sep 13, 2009)

jesusfish2007 said:


> Anarchy has never been tried...
> 
> At least, individualist anarchism and Anarcho-Capitalism have not yet been employed...
> 
> ...



Anarchy certainly has been tried, just maybe not every single form of it. And like you said, all the ones that have been tried are full of fail. What makes you think Anarcho-Capitalism and Individualist Anarchy would be any better?


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## Aurali (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> It's not like Communism and Anarchy has never been tried before, and have potentially wonderful outcomes. It's been tried many times, with absolutely terrible outcomes.



Nargle. When I become world leader. You aren't allowed.


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## Darkwing (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> BTW, anyone who thinks Anarchy or Communism would work is retarded in my option =P



This. If Anarchy happened, there would be a 1/3 chance of you dieing tomorrow, and life would be a fight for survival. Anarchy may sound fun, but in my opinion it's fucking scary.


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> Anarchy certainly has been tried, just maybe not every single form of it. And like you said, all the ones that have been tried are full of fail. What makes you think Anarcho-Capitalism and Individualist Anarchy would be any better?



He's a libertarian.
Still wondering about this anarchist thing here.


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## blackfuredfox (Sep 13, 2009)

Eli said:


> Nargle. When I become world leader. You aren't allowed.



am i allowed, i have no problem "dealing" with a group of "problems" with out any remorse.


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

Darkwing said:


> This. If Anarchy happened, there would be a 1/3 chance of you dieing tomorrow, and life would be a fight for survival. Anarchy may sound fun, but in my opinion it's fucking scary.



I always love how this reflects on the people saying it.


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## blackfuredfox (Sep 13, 2009)

Darkwing said:


> This. If Anarchy happened, there would be a 1/3 chance of you dieing tomorrow, and life would be a fight for survival. Anarchy may sound fun, but in my opinion it's fucking scary.



yep, think of the Fallout series, how often do you die, with out console comands?


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## Nargle (Sep 13, 2009)

Eli said:


> Nargle. When I become world leader. You aren't allowed.



**Frowns** 

Will you at least make sure all of Earth's dogs are taken care of? Also, is the space station dog friendly, or do I have to get a place on the moon?


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## Kommodore (Sep 13, 2009)

How does a society even go about "trying" anarchy? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> How does a society even go about "trying" anarchy? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.



If your idea of society includes government, probably.


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## blackfuredfox (Sep 13, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> How does a society even go about "trying" anarchy? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.



by crumbling into dust.


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## Kommodore (Sep 13, 2009)

That's one way to go about it I guess.


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## Torrijos-sama (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> Anarchy certainly has been tried, just maybe not every single form of it. And like you said, all the ones that have been tried are full of fail. What makes you think Anarcho-Capitalism and Individualist Anarchy would be any better?


 
Because Anarcho-Capitalists would be bound in by the rules of capitalism itself.

And because Individualist Anarchism is a more natural system than is bureaucracy...

But I actually enjoy Anarcho-Capitalism more than the other types, such as anarcho-syndicism...


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

jesusfish2007 said:


> Because Anarcho-Capitalists would be bound in by the rules of capitalism itself.
> 
> And because Individualist Anarchism is a more natural system than is bureaucracy...
> 
> But I actually enjoy Anarcho-Capitalism more than the other types, such as anarcho-syndicism...



Syndicalism almost reaches outside the boundaries of "anarchism" and deeper into socialism and labor. I'll never understand how a coupled Anarcho-_____ ever ends up working out. Attaching a preset bureaucracy (nevermind that it has no means of enforcement or centralized body to rule that this form of economic hegemony is BEST for the PEASANT, CITIZEN, PROLE or WHATEVER) to a system that has yet to exist in your society is creating a totally alternative paradigm that is inaccessible to those that don't agree with you, and just represents a radically different, but altogether similar style of hegemony as any other state system.


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## Aurali (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> **Frowns**
> 
> Will you at least make sure all of Earth's dogs are taken care of? Also, is the space station dog friendly, or do I have to get a place on the moon?



I'm sending you to my concen... err.. fun camps on Venus <3


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## Torrijos-sama (Sep 13, 2009)

jellyhurwit said:


> Syndicalism almost reaches outside the boundaries of "anarchism" and deeper into socialism and labor. I'll never understand how a coupled Anarcho-_____ ever ends up working out. Attaching a preset bureaucracy to a system that has yet to exist in your society is creating a totally alternative paradigm that is inaccessible to those that don't agree with you, and just represents a radically different, but altogether similar style of hegemony as any other state system.


 
The prefix of Anarcho implies that it is a system without a set institution of government. Other than that, societies in themselves enforce many of their own laws without there being an official institution.


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

jesusfish2007 said:


> The prefix of Anarcho implies that it is a system without a set institution of government. Other than that, societies in themselves enforce many of their own laws without there being an official institution.



How do you create a centralized bureaucracy in an ideology, which is required of syndicate labor in a large society? How do the lines of economy and government not blur there?

Its possible to have a bloodless coup in this fashion, but how could it possibly happen in a society that would have to maintain an ideology of interdependence while breaking down the current structures of interdependence, as syndicalism would be forced to do in a socialist or capitalist network?


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## Kommodore (Sep 13, 2009)

And how does a society "enforce" anything without an organized body to do so? "Societies" are groups of people, and whenever large groups of people want to do something, they organize themselves (thereby creating a government) to do it. It is self defeating. You cannot "enforce" anything without an institution to do so.

edit: ninja'd


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## Torrijos-sama (Sep 13, 2009)

jellyhurwit said:


> How do you create a centralized bureaucracy in an ideology, which is required of syndicate labor in a large society? How do the lines of economy and government not blur there?
> 
> Its possible to have a bloodless coup in this fashion, but how could it possibly happen in a society that would have to maintain an ideology of interdependence while breaking down the current structures of interdependence, as syndicalism would be forced to do in a socialist or capitalist network?


 
I never supported Syndicalism in the first post I made...
I said that I enjoyed Anarcho-Capitalism more than other types of anarchism, such as anarcho-syndicalism.


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

jesusfish2007 said:


> I never supported Syndicalism in the first post I made...
> I said that I enjoyed Anarcho-Capitalism more than other types of anarchism, such as anarcho-syndicalism.



Why don't you just use the word Corporatocracy?
Nobody fucking uses anarcho-capitalism anymore. One guy used it, Rothbard, and nobody paid attention to him in the matter of anarchism. Even Ayn Rand hated him.

He was just playing semantics. You don't need to, too, its already been established that you're a libertarian and luvin' it.


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## CinnamonApples (Sep 13, 2009)

Nargle said:


> BTW, anyone who thinks Anarchy or Communism would work is retarded in my option =P



In theory, they're not horrible. But there's absolutely no way it could be executed properly.


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## Nargle (Sep 13, 2009)

Eli said:


> I'm sending you to my concen... err.. fun camps on Venus <3



Aw man, but I don't want to inhale toxic gases and boil =(


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## Torrijos-sama (Sep 13, 2009)

jellyhurwit said:


> Why don't you just use the word Corporatocracy?
> Nobody fucking uses anarcho-capitalism anymore. One guy used it, Rothbard, and nobody paid attention to him in the matter of anarchism. Even Ayn Rand hated him.
> 
> He was just playing semantics. You don't need to, too, its already been established that you're a libertarian and luvin' it.


 
Yeah... Libertarian is an umbrella term... But that gets the gist...

In either situation, in Libertarianism or Anarcho-Capitalism, I would still thrive and love everyday... STRONG LIVE, WEAK DIE. PARTY HARD, DIE YOUNG.


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## Jelly (Sep 13, 2009)

CinnamonApples said:


> In theory, they're not horrible. But there's absolutely no way it could be executed properly.



I'm still not sure if the Paris Commune was valid as an "anarchist" society.
But David Graeber did a study of a culture that had no centralized authority, and had a culture that actually had created a kind of revolutionary counter-power, in which the society had strong norms against the consolidation of power over others in any one person. That person is generally viewed as selfish or untrustworthy in the eyes of that society. As a result, they haven't had any kind of centralized rule in their communities, but instead function as an egalitarian society (within moderation, they still have norms for gender roles and the like).

But I think its also worthwhile to note that anarchism is the ultimate villain in most government societies. So, typically, if you have a group, like say - the Black Army, they're undoubtedly the first to be executed in the case of a post-revolution situation, or the first to be scapegoated (ie: Sacco and Vanzetti).

I MIGHT ALSO ADD
That anarchistic societies do exist, but we don't classically acknowledge a "society" in Western literature unless it has a nation or has a history of causing violent instability in a nation. Anarchism's final goal is...you know, not in the form of a state.


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## Telnac (Sep 13, 2009)

Anarchy is a form of government in the same way that atheism is a religion: they aren't.



Mayfurr said:


> Here in New Zealand we already run a similar system of proportional representation within our Westminster Parliamentary system (electorate MPs that represent an electorate, and "list MPs" allocated on the basis of the national party vote), and while it's not perfect it seems to do the job pretty well and it a heck of a lot more representative. Some parties still have a problem with the "working constructively with others in a coalition" concept, but we're getting there.
> 
> I don't see any reason why proportional representation wouldn't work in the US, but actually getting it in place across a dual-house system past vested interests in the current system in the US would be a nightmare as far as I can see. Heck, if something like healthcare attracts all the "OMG NAZIS!" crowd now, god knows the sort of reaction you'd get for electoral reform...!



Yeah, that's why I listed it as a "European-style" form of deciding who gets sent to Congress.  With the USA's winner-take-all system, any third party is very quickly marginalized.  Assume the USA had three parties: Republican, Democrat and Awesome.  Even if the Awesome Party consistently got 29% in every election contest (and assuming no write-ins), they would win no seats for the House, Senate or the Presidency.  Because of that, the Awesome Party quickly vanishes into obscurity and its members join either the Republican or Democrat party and try to push the former Awesome Party's agenda into the main party's already crowded field of competing interests.

Frankly, I think that sucks balls.  I've been a Republican since the 1980s (although not formally so until I could vote in 1991) because I support a strong military & a policy of fiscal responsibility.  But George Bush Sr decided that sucking the cock of the Religious Right made more sense than governing responsibly.  I was hopeful when Gingrich took the House in 1994 b/c he ran on a policy of fiscal conservatism... but that was quickly tossed aside in favor of trying to get Clinton thrown out of office for getting his candle waxed.  And don't even get me started on George Bush II!  I would happily tell  the Republican Party to go fuck themselves... if there was anywhere else to go.

Most of the world's republics are based on the English Parliament system of proportional representation, and I REALLY WISH the USA did the same.  But you're right: Congress is more likely to pass a law requiring everyone to get fucked in the ass with a golden dildo than starting us down the road toward a constitutional amendment that would allow for a properly done representative republic.


----------



## Lobar (Sep 14, 2009)

Telnac said:


> Anarchy is a form of government in the same way that atheism is a religion: they aren't.



But Anarchists have a BELIEF in having no government and blargfarhglrfrerr


----------



## Jelly (Sep 14, 2009)

Lobar said:


> But Anarchists have a BELIEF in having no government and blargfarhglrfrerr



blarginfladibllenohigib 	

getting so drunk so where as you have to have people watch you poop because theyre scared youll fall down the toilet
I was so blarginfladibblenoigibed that I died 


That's the closest they had on the urbandictionary. Co: honk honk


----------



## Whitenoise (Sep 14, 2009)

Eli said:


> Nargle. When I become world leader. You aren't allowed.



D: , but Nargle's adorable, couldn't you appoint her co-chairman of defense against alien encounters?


----------



## Kitsune Dzelda (Sep 14, 2009)

Communism.  Hell yes.  *dodges all the names I am about to be called*


----------



## Jelly (Sep 14, 2009)

Kitsune Dzelda said:


> Communism.  Hell yes.  *dodges all the names I am about to be called*



COMRADE!
Awwww, man. :[

I don't know, communists can be pretty cool.
But not Bob Avakian. I don't like that guy.
He's no good. :\


----------



## Whitenoise (Sep 14, 2009)

Also this thread is ridiculous. None of you pasty nerds would make it in a Mad Max scenario. Most of you would be a hood ornament on Lord Humongous' dune buggy by day three. Except for the pretty one's, you'd be sporting a leather tube top and riding on the back of your "special friend's" chopper right up until you get nailed in the head by a metal boomerang. Trust me guys I've done the research, anarchy isn't fun unless you're a giant mutant with a metal hockey mask :V .


----------



## Darkwing (Sep 14, 2009)

jellyhurwit said:


> I always love how this reflects on the people saying it.



*Shakes head*

Look, it doesn't matter how strong you are, of how armed you are, Anarchy is still a fight for survival, and there are chances of your dieing every single day. Also should I mention, you would never be able to get any sleep because you would always have to watch your ass, that is unless you have a partner, but there are chances that your partner may turn back on you and kill you as well.

So yeah, I would love to see you in your safe little haven you call an Anarchy.



blackfuredfox said:


> yep, think of the Fallout series, how often do you die, with out console comands?



Well, a lot


----------



## Jelly (Sep 14, 2009)

Darkwing said:


> *Shakes head*
> 
> Look, it doesn't matter how strong you are, of how armed you are, Anarchy is still a fight for survival, and there are chances of your dieing every single day. Also should I mention, you would never be able to get any sleep because you would always have to watch your ass, that is unless you have a partner, but there are chances that your partner may turn back on you and kill you as well.
> 
> So yeah, I would love to see you in your safe little haven you call an Anarchy.



Again.


----------



## Darkwing (Sep 14, 2009)

jellyhurwit said:


> Again.



Look, If you want anarchy, you can have it. Just pack up and move to some third world hell hole with basically no government and see how long you survive, you idiot. You wouldn't survive 15 minutes of anarchy.


----------



## Endless Humiliation (Sep 14, 2009)

Darkwing said:


> You wouldn't survive 15 minutes of anarchy.



Sounds like the pit at a SLAYER show.


----------



## Jelly (Sep 14, 2009)

Darkwing said:


> Look, If you want anarchy, you can have it. Just pack up and move to some third world hell hole with basically no government and see how long you survive, you idiot. You wouldn't survive 15 minutes of anarchy.



People actually come together in a moment of "crisis," and an anarchist society would likely be one established on revolution, not random mishap. So, if by some chance an anarchist society did exist, and since anarchism + guns + revolution ultimately ='s consolidation of power, that would be some kind of statist upheaval. Which would be a state of CHAOS and not ANARCHISM. What you don't seem to fucking understand, though, is that how we conceptualize a world without government ultimately reflects on us as individuals. You seem to believe that if there was no government human beings would be ripping down each other's doors rape and violence crazy. Which implicitly bothers the fuck out of me with what you happen to conceptualize individuals in your culture acting like if there was no law. Instead of believing that individuals are prone to cultural inertia and being overall able to assess and exist within norms, are actually totally bat-shit crazy homicidal maniacs waiting for the walls to crumble around you so they can utterly tear the shit out of your tender ass.

None of this has much to do about anarchism. But it has a lot to do with how you conceptualize humans and human behavior.

And it sucks.

But whatever, that's still your choice. It just doesn't relate much to topic.
But on the side, I'll just say: I don't want to hurt you.


----------



## Kommodore (Sep 14, 2009)

I am going to have to agree on the overall consensus of the views on how an "anarchy" would look on the basis that the stability in any given society rises _directly_ from the use of force by the establishment to keep order. Without the treat of organized violence to _enforce_ a society's collective sense of right or law, things would degenerate into a hellhole. Not because everyone would immediately start killing their neighbors just because they can, but because there would be nothing to stop those who do. 

That and petty crime _would_ explode in an "anarchy." I very truly believe that if there was no threat of imprisonment or punishment, many people would steal shit all the time, if not small things than large things too. And you certainly can't run any kind of economy in that. It may be a reflection of us as individuals but we have always been social animals, and without the threat of violence to keep us in line (which has always existed - the biggest guy made and enforced the rule back in the stone age, now the cops do it. The concept is the same) and without that threat I feel society _would_ look like the hellholes people often visualize them as. 

It doesn't matter what kind of rules or codes of conduct a society has if there is not a central institution, at some level, to enforce those rules.


----------



## Endless Humiliation (Sep 14, 2009)

The cops are there to protect property rights and people probably wouldn't steal if they had what they needed



uh but im not an expert


----------



## Kommodore (Sep 14, 2009)

Well they probably wouldn't if they had what they needed, but...

how many times have you heard someone say that they _need_ that new <insert expensive item here>? People blur the line of what they need and they want all the time. You may not "need" that Ferrari and stop yourself from stealing it, but I doubt everyone else is quite that noble. 

I am convinced that the only thing keeping -most- people from stealing on some level is the threat of punishment. Otherwise, whats to lose? You may not do it because, quite frankly, it is a dick thing to do, but many other people would. (Certainly more than under the thumb of a government, that is for sure) And even if it is just a minority that does it, with no practical way to stop them things would still be pretty bad. 

Need only plays a small part because people imagine they need something when they really don't.

I think, at least.


----------



## Gonebatty (Sep 14, 2009)

What is it when you have a democracy and a monarch?


----------



## Jelly (Sep 14, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> Well they probably wouldn't if they had what they needed, but...
> 
> how many times have you heard someone say that they _need_ that new <insert expensive item here>? People blur the line of what they need and they want all the time. You may not "need" that Ferrari and stop yourself from stealing it, but I doubt everyone else is quite that noble.
> 
> ...



Again, I think what's important here is that you're again considering a kind of trauma-induced situation, not a gradual shift towards a society of independent people. Sure. If a bomb fell on Cleveland today, a minority of people in Cleveland would probably be scrambling to protect themselves by looting businesses and maybe that one dick they hate. But consider the hegemony of our culture. If our culture isn't a meritocracy about preserving numero uno, then what is it? Most of our literature, and hell our fictional portrayals of dystopias (IE MAD FUCKING MAX) is based around the idea that if we don't save ourselves from the dangerous others, than we're going to parish. I think the initial point of films and stories in dystopias was to show what exactly is not good about the prevailing society - in this case, stark individualism giving way to the ideal that no one's going to help you, and they're so radically different that you have to fuck them before they fuck you.

But I mean, your other post is something I think I can get to more constructively, but its going to require me digging up sources, because I don't think anyone deserves the dope version of "listen to me as an authority" because that view that violence is one of the few things holding "civilization" intact is not completely supported by the ethnological record.


----------



## Mayfurr (Sep 14, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> I am going to have to agree on the overall consensus of the views on how an "anarchy" would look on the basis that the stability in any given society rises _directly_ from the use of force by the establishment to keep order. Without the treat of organized violence to _enforce_ a society's collective sense of right or law, things would degenerate into a hellhole. Not because everyone would immediately start killing their neighbors just because they can, but because there would be nothing to stop those who do.
> 
> That and petty crime _would_ explode in an "anarchy." I very truly believe that if there was no threat of imprisonment or punishment, many people would steal shit all the time, if not small things than large things too. And you certainly can't run any kind of economy in that. It may be a reflection of us as individuals but we have always been social animals, and without the threat of violence to keep us in line (which has always existed - the biggest guy made and enforced the rule back in the stone age, now the cops do it. The concept is the same) and without that threat I feel society _would_ look like the hellholes people often visualize them as.
> 
> It doesn't matter what kind of rules or codes of conduct a society has if there is not a central institution, at some level, to enforce those rules.



<nods in agreement> And for a practical example on anarchy in action, there's Somalia.


----------



## Jelly (Sep 14, 2009)

Mayfurr said:


> <nods in agreement> And for a practical example on anarchy in action, there's Somalia.



They have a government.


----------



## Azure (Sep 14, 2009)

Anarchy is based on the same falsities that Communism is.  People disregard the human element, and just stare at their fancy bullshit utopia that they've sketched down on a napkin in the back of the pub after a cocaine binge.  Human nature needs to be controlled, by force if necessary, if there is to be societal cohesion.  Without this concept, we'd all just be a bunch of thugs robbing each other blind. Or, we'd be a pack of victims waiting to be robbed blind by thugs, at which point we would organize ourselves, thus dispelling the anarchic connotations of the present society.  It simply cannot exist in any meaningful manner.


----------



## Jelly (Sep 14, 2009)

AzurePhoenix said:


> Anarchy is based on the same falsities that Communism is.  People disregard the human element, and just stare at their fancy bullshit utopia that they've sketched down on a napkin in the back of the pub after a cocaine binge.  Human nature needs to be controlled, by force if necessary, if there is to be societal cohesion.  Without this concept, we'd all just be a bunch of thugs robbing each other blind. Or, we'd be a pack of victims waiting to be robbed blind by thugs, at which point we would organize ourselves, thus dispelling the anarchic connotations of the present society.  It simply cannot exist in any meaningful manner.



Anarchy doesn't mean a lack of organization, it simply means a lack of centralized government. And, I don't know, most modern anarchists I know tend to be more action oriented and less theory oriented. That's why I assume Murray Bookchin's tremendous colon supercompacted into a black hole and caused him to fucking disappear off the lips of anarchists.

No comment on the thugs thing, going to add more later in response to CK which I think will cover this, but I don't have a definitive answer and I think anyone claiming to should probably just calm down.

As for anarchism as a transitional system - if democracy or whatever government you prefer is transitional, would you suddenly decide you didn't want it? Because all societies are dynamic, and their governments would be, as well, since they're part of the culture.


----------



## Kommodore (Sep 14, 2009)

@Jelly: Naturally, as with any inquiry into society there is going to be a lot of theory-crafting and guessing at past examples, which of course has its own problems (not the least the fact that we have no way of analyzing all the factors that could contribute to the way something turned out, but that is something different altogether I guess...) so my assumption that force is one of the primary pillars supporting the stability of a society is going to see some acceptations. Even so, I do not know of any cases where a _large society_ has existed in any stable state without the Rule of Law being imposed on them. Magnitude is important here, so what may work for a tribe or even a city is most certainly not going to work on something the size of Rome or Russia. Anarchy could work if the "units" of society were small enough for it to work. You could get a working cohesion in groups like that without a formal institution. 

In any event, I don't see the way Anarchy comes about as being important to its end result. So while a disaster that shatters any form of organized government would create chaotic anarchy right away, I feel that a "slow move" to anarchy would, ultimately, be a slow move to chaos. I feel it is a flaw inherent in the system of Anarchy itself. That flaw being that there is no way to make everyone "play by the rules" as it were. 

We could have and Anarchy that starts off stable, but with no ability to stop the same crazies from committing crime in an organized (and so efficient) manner, or discourage more people from committing crime, than an otherwise stable system would rapidly devolve into chaos. 

Again, you would not need to worry about this in what I guess you could call "city state society" but that is hardly a cohesive society at all. Ultimately, any system that lacks an organizing institution would be condemned to the smaller side of small as that is the only way it could "enforce its own laws." Any larger and you start to have the problem of enforcing laws, and so you get chaos.

Still better than communism tho.


----------



## Mayfurr (Sep 14, 2009)

jellyhurwit said:


> They <Somalia> have a government.



Not in any real practical sense like controlling the entire country. The nominal Somali government doesn't control much outside Mogadishu, if anything.


----------



## Mayfurr (Sep 14, 2009)

AzurePhoenix said:


> Anarchy is based on the same falsities that Communism is.  People disregard the human element, and just stare at their fancy bullshit utopia that they've sketched down on a napkin in the back of the pub after a cocaine binge.  Human nature needs to be controlled, by force if necessary, if there is to be societal cohesion.  Without this concept, we'd all just be a bunch of thugs robbing each other blind. Or, we'd be a pack of victims waiting to be robbed blind by thugs, at which point we would organize ourselves, thus dispelling the anarchic connotations of the present society.  It simply cannot exist in any meaningful manner.



True. 

And it's my understanding that any anarchy that doesn't immediately implode will in all likelihood evolve into some kind of system where there are rulers and the ruled. There will always be people who want to do the ruling, and those who would prefer that someone else does the ruling so they can do what they _really_ want - it's just human nature.


----------



## Azure (Sep 14, 2009)

jellyhurwit said:


> Anarchy doesn't mean a lack of organization, it simply means a lack of centralized government. And, I don't know, most modern anarchists I know tend to be more action oriented and less theory oriented. That's why I assume Murray Bookchin's tremendous colon supercompacted into a black hole and caused him to fucking disappear off the lips of anarchists.


That's a big colon.  And what is organization but a form of government? It might not be central in the sense that the US Federal government is central to the 50 states, but in a devolved society, I would imagine that any form of community government would be central, in a sense that it would probably be the only form around.


----------



## Hackfox (Sep 14, 2009)

Eli said:


> You can bring the chips



Can be you bitch maybe kthx? :3

Also, Sidenote - democratic dictatorship kicks ass and chews bubblegum.


----------



## JMAA (Sep 14, 2009)

I like Dictatorship if *I* take the control.

*evil laugh clichÃ©*


----------



## yiffytimesnews (Sep 14, 2009)

Since I live in an area where if you work for the government you have an equal chance of going to jail. I say public executions for crooked politicians.


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## Telnac (Sep 14, 2009)

In high school, I had to write a constitution for a hypothetical nation, giving it any sort of government I wanted.  I chose anarchy.  I don't remember it word for word, but it went something like this:


Preamble:
This constitution acknowledges that people are selfish beings who try to amass power and wealth.  Any attempt to govern such a body of people ultimately fails.  Furthermore, this constitution acknowledges that fear of mutually assured destruction will keep most people in line.  Because of this, the following laws exist.  


 Everyone capable of firing a gun must have at least one of them, preferably concealed & on their person.  Penalty for not having a firearm is becoming a slave to the first person who comes along & who has a gun.  Slaves may be redeemed by friends and/or family by killing the slave owner.
If anyone becomes the leader of a large number of people, or becomes the owner of a large number of slaves, or amasses enough wealth that they could influence the lives of a large number of people, it is the moral authority of everyone in the nation to kill this person, their allies and their entire family.  Spare no one.  Anyone who tries to claim a majority of this person's estate must also be killed along with their allies and entire family.
Clans of people living together for mutual defense may exist only if such clans make no attempt to enforce any sort of rules other than this constitution among its people.  Anyone proposing such rules must be killed.
Repeated blood feuds between clans must be resolved by the entire nation moving in and killing everyone in both clans.  Spare no one.
Police forces of any variety must not exist.  Anyone attempting to establish such a thing must be killed.
Any nation or organization that declares war on us or who performs an act of war against us must be utterly destroyed.  To achieve this, militias may exist but only for the sake of common defense.  Those wealthy enough to buy tanks, aircraft, naval vessels or other such advanced weapon systems are encouraged to do so as a contribution toward their militia.
Aside for training exercises, militias may not be active unless the nation is at war.  Any militia that tries to remain active during a time of peace is considered a police force and must be destroyed by the entire nation.
No taxes of any sort may be enacted on the people.  Anyone attempting to do so must be killed by the entire nation, along with their entire family.  Spare no one.
This constitution will take effect when it is ratified by a plebiscite.  Once ratified, the constitution may not be repealed or amended in any way.


----------



## Liam (Sep 14, 2009)

Hackfox said:


> What is your Idea of a perfect government?



A Meritocracy.


----------



## Thatch (Sep 14, 2009)

Democratic Dictatorship is an elected authoritatian state, if i understand right?


And dictatorship, here at least. With the right person, it not only can, it did work. Too bad people like that are neither common nor too willing to take the responsibility.


----------



## Telnac (Sep 14, 2009)

szopaw said:


> Democratic Dictatorship is an elected authoritatian state, if i understand right?
> 
> 
> And dictatorship, here at least. With the right person, it not only can, it did work. Too bad people like that are neither common nor too willing to take the responsibility.


I can see a Democratic Dictatorship lasting exactly one election.  Once the dictator has absolute power he and/or his party will move to ensure no one else could succeed them.  Oh, there'll be elections, but they'll be a farce.  With control of the state media and use of the army & police to intimidate both voters and the opposition, the election has zero chance of unseating the party in power.  The only reason the election would take place at all would be to give a false sense of legitimacy to the dictator.


----------



## Thatch (Sep 14, 2009)

Telnac said:


> I can see a Democratic Dictatorship lasting exactly one election.  Once the dictator has absolute power he and/or his party will move to ensure no one else could succeed them.  Oh, there'll be elections, but they'll be a farce.  With control of the state media and use of the army & police to intimidate both voters and the opposition, the election has zero chance of unseating the party in power.  The only reason the election would take place at all would be to give a false sense of legitimacy to the dictator.



Actually, that would be the point, imo, only I did not mean "party", just people. Democracy =/= political parties. The elected person would be a dictator, so he would rule till death.

But as i said, dictatorship only works with the right people. Not impossible, as I have a real life example from here of it actually being GOOD, just uncommon.


----------



## Mayfurr (Sep 14, 2009)

JMAA said:


> I like Dictatorship if *I* take the control.
> 
> *evil laugh clichÃ©*



Sod that. Oh sure, the rush of ultimate power and living high on the hog in the Presidential Palace with everyone at your beck and call might be fun for the first few months, but sooner or later you'll be up to your armpits in the minutae of running a country 'cause you don't trust anyone else...

I'll just be the person _behind_ the dictator pulling the strings


----------



## ToeClaws (Sep 14, 2009)

Other: Democratic Monarchy



Monarch elected to power (or retains power) via 2 year mandatory votes
heavy socialist economic system (capitalism just doesn't work very well).
Personal freedoms afforded similar to what we have in the US and/or Canada, based upon the foundation laid down by the UN charter of human rights.
Would this be the perfect government?  Hell no, it'd just be the best way of trying to find a balance between offering personal freedoms to folks while keeping control of bad human nature enough that the country _might_ just stand a chance of not running itself in the ground.  As humans, we doom ourselves to fail because of our inability to act without greed, prejudice, or malice toward each other.  If we could actually manage to evolve past those ape-like traits, then open-communism would be the only logical form of government.


----------



## Tycho (Sep 14, 2009)

Democratic Republic, on one condition:

People are required to take a "stupid" test before every election.  The ones who fail the test are taken out and shot denied voting access.  Candidates must also take this test immediately after announcing their candidacy for whatever race for whichever office.  Failures are booted from the race.

NO STUPID PEOPLE
NO STUPID COUNTRY
ANYONE WHO IS STUPID IS NOT FULFILLING THEIR DUTIES AS A CITIZEN


----------



## Telnac (Sep 15, 2009)

szopaw said:


> Actually, that would be the point, imo, only I did not mean "party", just people. Democracy =/= political parties. The elected person would be a dictator, so he would rule till death.
> 
> But as i said, dictatorship only works with the right people. Not impossible, as I have a real life example from here of it actually being GOOD, just uncommon.


Yeah, but once the dictator's dead, the rule passes on to their kin (and the nation becomes a monarchy), or their allies (which is where the one party rule comes in.)  Since the successor has control of the state media & the military, the election held on the dictator's death would be a farce.


----------



## CAThulu (Sep 15, 2009)

Whitenoise said:


> Also this thread is ridiculous. None of you pasty nerds would make it in a Mad Max scenario. Most of you would be a hood ornament on Lord Humongous' dune buggy by day three. Except for the pretty one's, you'd be sporting a leather tube top and riding on the back of your "special friend's" chopper right up until you get nailed in the head by a metal boomerang. Trust me guys I've done the research, anarchy isn't fun unless you're a giant mutant with a metal hockey mask :V .



amen, and sig'd  

Good gods I love that movie!


----------



## JMAA (Sep 15, 2009)

Can I mention a government which economy is mostly based off on spam?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f9oJikx0-I&feature=PlayList&p=58NKeitRqbE


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## CAThulu (Sep 15, 2009)

Parliamentary Democracy:

"Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.  You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.  If I went 'round sayin' I was Emperor, just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away.   

Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"


----------



## JMAA (Sep 15, 2009)

CAThulu said:


> Parliamentary Democracy:
> 
> "Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.  You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.  If I went 'round sayin' I was Emperor, just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away.
> 
> Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"


Monty Python FTW.


----------



## Get-dancing (Sep 15, 2009)

If you all think anarachism is so cool then you should have visited new-orlands jusy after the hurricanes, because atleast hopefully then you'de run home crying after being shot for the fist time.


----------



## Thatch (Sep 15, 2009)

CAThulu said:


> Parliamentary Democracy:
> 
> "Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.  You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.  If I went 'round sayin' I was Emperor, just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away.
> 
> Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"



You're awesome, anyone told you that before? XD


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## Saharafox (Sep 15, 2009)

Communism god damn it! Communism!


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## CAThulu (Sep 15, 2009)

szopaw said:


> You're awesome, anyone told you that before? XD



Yes :grin:  *hugz and bacon*


----------



## Thatch (Sep 15, 2009)

CAThulu said:


> Yes :grin:  *hugz and bacon*



Ewww, bacon, it's not kosher :V


----------



## CAThulu (Sep 15, 2009)

szopaw said:


> Ewww, bacon, it's not kosher :V



whoops!  *switches bacon for kosher sliced corned beef*


----------



## ToeClaws (Sep 15, 2009)

Hehe... can I get the hugs and bacon then?


----------



## CAThulu (Sep 15, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Hehe... can I get the hugs and bacon then?



*grins* Yes. *huge hugs and maple-smoked bacon for ToeClaws*


----------



## Thatch (Sep 15, 2009)

CAThulu said:


> whoops!  *switches bacon for kosher sliced corned beef*



Can I just have some chicken nuggets?


----------



## ChrisPanda (Sep 15, 2009)

Oww have I missed the big bacon give away?


----------



## CAThulu (Sep 15, 2009)

szopaw said:


> Can I just have some chicken nuggets?



Do I look like a McDonalds??

 Kidding.   Have some chicken nuggets.

*Gives bacon to Chrispenguin*   If I'm elected to the New Democratic Monarchy I promise to legislate a Free Bacon Tuesday for all!  (Kosher Chicken Nugget Tuesday will simultaneously be implimented)


----------



## ChrisPanda (Sep 15, 2009)

CAThulu said:


> Do I look like a McDonalds??
> 
> Kidding. Have some chicken nuggets.
> 
> *Gives bacon to Chrispenguin* If I'm elected to the New Democratic Monarchy I promise to legislate a Free Bacon Tuesday for all! (Kosher Chicken Nugget Tuesday will simultaneously be implimented)


 
I'd replace the royal family with you and bacon anyday.


----------



## Thatch (Sep 15, 2009)

CAThulu said:


> Do I look like a McDonalds??
> 
> Kidding.   Have some chicken nuggets.
> 
> *Gives bacon to Chrispenguin*   If I'm elected to the New Democratic Monarchy I promise to legislate a Free Bacon Tuesday for all!  (Kosher Chicken Nugget Tuesday will simultaneously be implimented)



I actually liked MCNuggets... THough when someone found a chicken talon (or a beak) in one, it kinda turned me off :V


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## ToeClaws (Sep 15, 2009)

CAThulu said:


> *grins* Yes. *huge hugs and maple-smoked bacon for ToeClaws*



**GLEE!**

So I think we're all agreed then - CAThulu represents the ultimate state of government for a nation.


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## CAThulu (Sep 15, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> **GLEE!**
> 
> So I think we're all agreed then - CAThulu represents the ultimate state of government for a nation.



I humbly accept.   Crazier people have run governments before me.


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## Shino (Sep 15, 2009)

None of the above.

As long as greedy, corrupt people continue to get power, no style of government is sasisfactory.

So yeah, I'd like to opt out of the human race, please.

*dons his fursuit and runs into the woods*


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## Armaetus (Sep 15, 2009)

Democratic dictatorship? Those are opposing forms of government so how can you do this?


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## CAThulu (Sep 15, 2009)

Glaice said:


> Democratic dictatorship? Those are opposing forms of government so how can you do this?


  You didn't pay attention to the Bush administration, eh?


I'd like to see a socialist-democratic state myself.   Or a democratic communist state.  How's that for opposites?


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## Thatch (Sep 15, 2009)

CAThulu said:


> I'd like to see a socialist-democratic state myself.   Or a democratic communist state.  How's that for opposites?



You know, socialistic-democratic basically IS a kind of state. There's the socialist vs. free market scale and democratic vs. authoritarian scale, they're separate ones.

As for democratic communist state, it's almost a synonym, as the people are equal and decide as a whole, democratically. Unelss you think of soviets...


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## Gonebatty (Sep 15, 2009)

szopaw said:


> As for democratic communist state, it's almost a synonym, as the people are equal and decide as a whole, democratically. Unelss you think of soviets...



I was afraid to say it, but THAT is my Ideal goverment.


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## Thatch (Sep 15, 2009)

Gonebatty said:


> I was afraid to say it, but THAT is my Ideal goverment.



Where are you form?


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## Gonebatty (Sep 15, 2009)

Virginia, why?


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## Thatch (Sep 15, 2009)

Gonebatty said:


> Virginia, why?



Then stay there, or I'll slap the stupid out of you. :|


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## Gonebatty (Sep 15, 2009)

Actually, I was joking. I like the us as it is.


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## Thatch (Sep 15, 2009)

Gonebatty said:


> Actually, I was joking. I like the us as it is.



Soviets are no joking matter. There are lurking everywhere, waiting to strike.


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## Gonebatty (Sep 15, 2009)

I thought America and the uk abandoned communism when the soviet union collapsed.


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## Thatch (Sep 15, 2009)

Gonebatty said:


> I thought America and the uk abandoned communism when the soviet union collapsed.



The soviets didn't abandon it though. :V

Besides, I live in a an old communist-style flat, I have the right to bitch at that shit if i want to :V


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## Gonebatty (Sep 15, 2009)

Yeah, I should have thought before joking about it with a pole... Btw, Is it a nice country today? I'm part polish.


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## Thatch (Sep 15, 2009)

Gonebatty said:


> Yeah, I should have thought before joking about it with a pole... Btw, Is it a nice country today? I'm part polish.



You know I'm not serious either? :V
Well, not entirely, I do live in a communist era flat.

And dunno, depends on what you count as nice. Has it's positives, has it's drawbacks. Livable but takes getting used to some of the absurds.


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## Digitalpotato (Sep 15, 2009)

A democracy in which you are actually asked for your opinion on things and aren't discredited solely because of your social or financial status. Where you aren't told how much you HAVE to vote only to have cast into the trash when your region says "Oh he lied, LOL. YOU MEAN NOTHING!". Where people vying for office are required to know how the majority of the population lives.

Optional: And giving the RIDD to people. (Registered Independent Defense Device). Anyone who is a registered Independent is given one that fends off political dystenteries who do not understand what "Go away", "I'm not interested" and "LEAVE ME ALONE OR I'LL FIRE!" mean and continue to harass.


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## Torrijos-sama (Sep 15, 2009)

jellyhurwit said:


> They have a government.


 
They have a transitional government, and, if you wished to view it in a situation without the transitional government, then they have Warlordism, along with a theocratic system in half of the country (gahdam radical islam)


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## Ibuuyk (Sep 15, 2009)

The best government?  No government at all, of course!


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## PurpleDragon12366 (Sep 15, 2009)

Anarchy is not my cup of tea. I know wayyyy too many people who would abuse lawlessness ((Including myself)).

I think Capitalism and Democracy is flawed but what isn't? I sometimes think though that too many stupid people have control. Add in a little dash of power for the president who is elected by the people and then MAYBE he can be able to actually do shit and not get blamed for some of the idiots in Congress.


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## Bambi (Sep 15, 2009)

My perfect government?

Give me eight years in power.


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Sep 16, 2009)

Depends who you are. The Jews hated the Nazi government, but the Nazis thought it was perfect.

And trust me, if you're a minority, you're not going to like a complete democracy.


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## CAThulu (Sep 16, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> Depends who you are. The Jews hated the Nazi government, but the Nazis thought it was perfect.
> 
> And trust me, if you're a minority, you're not going to like a complete democracy.



Of course the Nazis liked it.  It was their Party.   The german civvies on the other hand...well...a lot of them were ignorant to what was really going on.  They had to be marched past the death camps for it to sink in what their leader really was up to.


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Sep 18, 2009)

CAThulu said:


> Of course the Nazis liked it. It was their Party. The german civvies on the other hand...well...a lot of them were ignorant to what was really going on. They had to be marched past the death camps for it to sink in what their leader really was up to.


 
That's the point I was making. Everyone likes it when their people are running things, but not so much the other way around.


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## CAThulu (Sep 18, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> That's the point I was making. Everyone likes it when their people are running things, but not so much the other way around.



Ahh...I was thinking more along the lines of a country being on board with the liking of things, not just the people in the party.  I gotcha


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## Ren-Raku (Sep 18, 2009)

All of the above :V


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## Mikael Grizzly (Sep 18, 2009)

Bionic democracy.

Basically, a world where everyone has neural implants and are connected to a single AI hive mind, processing all thoughts instantenously, making the most logical and rational decisions based on input from milions of connected citizens.

Kind of like Helios in DX:IW.


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## walking revolution (Sep 20, 2009)

anarchy or the occurrence of anarchism is not a form of government but the end result of a society that has worked hard to build strong mutual air and community production/trade.


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## walking revolution (Sep 20, 2009)

Ibuuyk said:


> The best government?  No government at all, of course!




now your talkin! i would identify as a syndicalist of sorts..


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## jagdwolf (Sep 20, 2009)

Hackfox said:


> What is your Idea of a perfect government?
> If you do not know what some of the choices are please google. :3
> 
> *America is a Democratic Republic BTW. *
> ...


 

Hate to burst your bubble there sparkie, but America is a Constitutional Republic.  Our founding fathers, in several printed letters despised a Democracy.  Democracy is but a single step away from Socalism.  

So I vote, lets return to the constitution, and stop all this Democracy BS.


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## Benn (Sep 21, 2009)

Technotheocratic -- A democractic group of religious and scientific individuals/representitives who decide upon the best plan of action for any given concern.   The general public does maintain a large sway in the voting power, but the heads of the divisions are determined through votes among their respective communities.

That, or a Democratic Communism, with a Computer as a leader to prevent corruption (pretending computers don't get viruses)


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## Mayfurr (Sep 21, 2009)

jagdwolf said:


> Democracy is but a single step away from Socalism.



ROTFL! And by what convoluted logic did you come to THAT conclusion, may I ask?



jagdwolf said:


> So I vote, lets return to the constitution, and *stop all this Democracy BS.*



Nice to see you regard democracy in the same way as the likes of Kim Jong-Il, Robert Mugabe, and dozens of other tin-pot dictators across the planet...


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## Mikael Grizzly (Sep 21, 2009)

I doubt he's even aware what 'republic' means.


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## Gnome (Sep 21, 2009)

my perfect government?
seeing as in all government, it relys on faulty people to make judgments 
....i would have to say.

just me as supreme dictator BWAHAHAHAHAHAAa
i will judge all!
....
hummmm
no
that sound slike a lot of work.
 i choose *
Oligarchy who is held in check by a true Democracy run tribunal *


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## CannonFodder (Sep 29, 2009)

Hmm, I don't think it's been done.  What I would do as a experiment is instead of have congressmen, have representatives from each county/parish.  Also a triumvir, instead of voting have a random poll of 1800 people that way any political party would not be able to swing the vote in their favour, but keep states but limit their power to strictly the bare of what they need.
Also only national taxes that are then distributed to the states to be used in specific ways.
But keep the judicial system the same, except no private lawyers,  except hired by the government that way the poor actually have a good chance of winning in lawsuits.

Either it would work extremely well, or it would fall apart spectacularly.


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## Microsoftt (Sep 29, 2009)

I'm honestly a bit satisfied with the current government in the US, all I really want is universal health care. Once that's in place, then things are about as close as to perfect as you can get. Another minor annoyance is the blurring line of separation of church and state to the point that many people joke that there is no separation. Other than that, democratic republic is fine.


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## Telnac (Sep 29, 2009)

Mayfurr said:


> ROTFL! And by what convoluted logic did you come to THAT conclusion, may I ask?


I think he's referring to the Tyranny of the Majority, something the founders of the USA wrote about extensively.  Since the upper class will always be a minority, the majority of the peasant class (there wasn't much of a middle class in the 18th century) could just vote that the upper class be stripped of all their possessions and fund a non-stop orgy for the masses.

That's not true socialism, of course, but it is was something the founders were worried about.  Essentially, once the masses realized that they could vote for themselves bread & circuses, they would abdicate all other responsibilities.  Since the rich are paying for the bread & circuses, they'd quickly come to ruin and the whole system would suddenly grind to a halt.


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## Torrijos-sama (Sep 29, 2009)

Mayfurr said:


> ROTFL! And by what convoluted logic did you come to THAT conclusion, may I ask?
> 
> 
> 
> Nice to see you regard democracy in the same way as the likes of Kim Jong-Il, Robert Mugabe, and dozens of other tin-pot dictators across the planet...


 
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or the Democratic German Republic.

And the American Democratic Party.


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## Katura (Sep 30, 2009)

A government that acknowledges the fact that the men and women protecting it and assuring its existence, are human, and not perfect, but all sacrificing just the same. Here in the United States, being in the military, I'm proud to wear my uniform and go out and fight the good fight, but sometimes I feel like the most I can ever hope for is to be acknowledged as a number on that ever growing body count falling before the feet of those that would harm us. This government that I serve is far from perfect, but since this the United States, by protecting the government, I, in my own way, assure the safety of those that I love the most. Just my two cents.


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## virus (Sep 30, 2009)

I voted to aristocracy. It makes changes happen, happen fast.


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## Zareste (Sep 30, 2009)

I have this idea.
Firstly, governments are a form of civil war, and I don't like that. Whether it's monarchy or despotism or democracy, governments happen when half the population wants to make decisions and rules against the other half, and that's hardly a society at all.

I've read many anarchist solutions, but they're not much different - there's always some form of domination and conflict that cannot be avoided.

Socialism, capitalism and communism are based on the philosophy "you will work because I tell you to work" and have no focus on what you're working TOWARD, which means conflicts will spin out of control because people are forced to work for people and causes they hate. Socialism and communism are worse because you're expected to work for a bare-minimum pay-off, which means more conflicts, so countries employing these systems fall back into capitalist habits.

I think the trouble is all these systems expect total unification, but under what agenda? They are far too simple.

I would have a system that focusses on organizations. People can gather into groups driven by agenda where they can work toward their own ideals. This way, people will have have a reason to support each other (you'll definitely care more about someone who is important to your cause) and far less reason to prey on each other. The organizations can setup agreements for resources (a more sophisticated system of bartering) so there will be less need for flat currency. This also means better oversight of production as suppliers are held to agreements instead of getting unconditional payment for whatever they have

I'm probably tossing pearls before swine here, but that's my model


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## Mikael Grizzly (Sep 30, 2009)

We're not going to go back to savage, dark ages style of economy and society, which is what you propose.


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## Dass (Sep 30, 2009)

Constitutional Monarchy. I like Canada's government. When it works, anyway (not since Jean ChrÃ©tien).


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## Mayfurr (Sep 30, 2009)

jesusfish2007 said:


> The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or the Democratic German Republic.
> 
> And the American Democratic Party.



The Irish Republican Army, and the American Republican party.

Your point?


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## Thatch (Sep 30, 2009)

Dass said:


> Cretien



Is that a real name? XD
Sound like a mock.


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## Dass (Sep 30, 2009)

szopaw said:


> Is that a real name? XD
> Sound like a mock.



[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Chretien]Here you go[/URL]
although I misspelled it. Imma edit that.


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## Thatch (Sep 30, 2009)

Dass said:


> [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Chretien]Here you go[/URL]
> although I misspelled it. Imma edit that.



Ah, I see. Dissapointing to tell the truth. It would be so convinient XD

Unless it stillsounds like "cretin".


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## Triad Fox (Sep 30, 2009)

Night-watchman state.


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## Microsoftt (Sep 30, 2009)

I vote that we have aliens dictate our planet.


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## Zareste (Sep 30, 2009)

"We're not going to go back to savage, dark ages style of economy and society, which is what you propose."

0/10
There are so many things messed up in your thinking that's it's easier to just rate them


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## morrowindsky (Sep 30, 2009)

I believe that a well-maintained and properly checked social democracy would serve our country better.


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## Arctic_Wolf (Sep 30, 2009)

Theoretically the best government is a Monarchy or if you prefer "Benevolent Dictatorship" but this would assume your leader is nigh flawless, you peasants!

These are proven and successful governments with their greatest flaw being the re-occurring problem of the bad egg/ ill-qualified leader. If these governments could sustain a near perfect leadership and successor at all times then these would be ideal governments.

A series of families that pledge allegiance to an 'over family'.

But let's be honest with ourselves that perfection is unattainable and a thing of fantasy, a good true monarchy is not sustainable for long. The best realistic government (in my opinion) is one that both represents it's people and at the same time is not a tyranny of the majority at the same time which is why I think a Democratic Republic ("Republic") is while not the most ideal government is the best.


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## Qoph (Oct 1, 2009)

Democratic dictatorship, where the people elect a dictator who will then act according to what the people want or lose the position.

It wouldn't work in most cases, but this is the perfect situation, right?


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## Patton89 (Oct 1, 2009)

Wouldnt work. Why ? Because the dictator could easily take total power, there arent enough checks and balances in the system. You vote someone to be dictator, and you assume he WONT manage to take all power or abuse his power ? Politicians already can abuse their power, what would happen if you gave one almost limitless power. It isnt wise to give one man/woman too much power, its simply irresponsible thing to do. Power always corrupts, and will always make some thirst for more of it. 

Just give me Democratic republic. You know,one we have and actually somehow works.


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## Zareste (Oct 1, 2009)

I think the worst part about the pro-government crowd (besides the massive death and corruption they bring) is listening to them bitch about everything they stand for. They hate their leader, they hate their wars, they hate their prisons. They look to their law books for solutions but the best thing they can do for this world is kill themselves


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## Icarus (Oct 1, 2009)

Communism and Socialism look AMAZING on paper.
However normal greed and laziness keeps it from working.
Oh well....


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## Arctic_Wolf (Oct 1, 2009)

Icarus said:


> Communism and Socialism look AMAZING on paper.
> However normal greed and laziness keeps it from working.
> Oh well....



Communism doesn't even work on paper since it states that all individuals are equal and that this equality is decided by a mediator and enforced as well. So by default this already gives certain individuals "more equality" by allowing them power over others and power to determine the value of equality. So you are left with really two classes: The rulers comprising of echelons of power and everyone else. 

Marxism is the one where everyone is purely equal but it is in a practical sense unworkable because it would require such self rulership, for everyone to be of the same mindset and of comparable skill. The only work of fiction that immediately comes to mind about Marxism was THX-1138 in which no one actually rules and you are instead moderated by yourself and peers (EG: how they were arrested by suggestions in a suggestion box and how the Mechcops are actually managed by other citizens that take turns operating them including his wife.)

-----
By the way just to pre-empt anyone the book 1984 was NOT about a Communist society.


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 1, 2009)

Arctic_Wolf said:


> By the way just to pre-empt anyone the book 1984 was NOT about a Communist society.



It actually was, or more precisely, about Orwell's well founded fear that the USSR could actually conquer the world and force humanity into a deplorable and inhuman society such as the one in Oceania, Eastasia or Eurasia.



Zareste said:


> I think the worst part about the pro-government crowd (besides the massive death and corruption they bring) is listening to them bitch about everything they stand for. They hate their leader, they hate their wars, they hate their prisons. They look to their law books for solutions but the best thing they can do for this world is kill themselves



While removing governments totally would _obviously_ result in peace in the Middle East, the Second Coming of Christ and guilt free orgasms for everyone and their mothers-in-law.


----------



## Arctic_Wolf (Oct 1, 2009)

Mikael Grizzly said:


> It actually was, or more precisely, about Orwell's well founded fear that the USSR could actually conquer the world and force humanity into a deplorable and inhuman society such as the one in Oceania, Eastasia or Eurasia.



The Nation of Oceania was not that of a Communist society. Within the 1984 there was the lower class, the middle class and the upper class. 

The lower class were in fact free and largely unsuppressed because they ultimately did not matter, they were human limpets and so long as they never organized they were not worthy of concern. The Upper class while they did possess total control did not actually possess power instead it was only one class that was oppressed in 1984: the middle class.

Since the middle class did possess power it was completely and utterly necessary to control them in their entirety in both body and mind. 

Orwell's 1984 was a book of warning to Western Society of becoming obsessed with their own opinion within themselves. The idea was the one class that had the most to lose and the most to gain (at the same time) would wield the most power and thus be the target of oppression.

Edit:

To put it a little more abstractly in Marxism it paints current society as a dark society in which the lower class are the overworked slave drones of the country. In some Objectivist tale it is the upper class who are portrayed of having their hand controlled in actions of forced altruism to lower classes.

In 1984 it portrays the middle class as the slaves of civic responsibility.


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 1, 2009)

Arctic_Wolf said:


> The Nation of Oceania was not that of a Communist society. Within the 1984 there was the lower class, the middle class and the upper class.
> 
> The lower class were in fact free and largely unsuppressed because they ultimately did not matter, they were human limpets and so long as they never organized they were not worthy of concern. The Upper class while they did possess total control did not actually possess power instead it was only one class that was oppressed in 1984: the middle class.
> 
> ...



What a bunch of bullshit.

It's not about classes, struggles between them or any other communist theory. It's against totalitarianism and other perversions of the free state.
Take it from the man himself:



> The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, _against_ totalitarianism and _for_ democratic socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects. Everyone writes of them in one guise or another. It is simply a question of which side one takes and what approach one follows. And the more one is conscious of one's political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one's aesthetic and intellectual integrity.



Source: http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/whywrite.html


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## Zareste (Oct 1, 2009)

"While removing governments totally would _obviously_ result in peace in the Middle East, the Second Coming of Christ and guilt free orgasms for everyone and their mothers-in-law."

Does it feel good to type that, or something? Maybe I'm being too analytical, but I still don't get how you find any satisfaction in coming up with this stuff

Maybe there's a brief high when you think "haha I totally won that internet fight" and expect a high-five from the pro-government 'community' (loose terminology there), but what about the other 99% of your life?

Can you tell me you feel safe in this system of yours?


----------



## Azure (Oct 1, 2009)

Zareste said:


> "While removing governments totally would _obviously_ result in peace in the Middle East, the Second Coming of Christ and guilt free orgasms for everyone and their mothers-in-law."
> 
> Does it feel good to type that, or something? Maybe I'm being too analytical, but I still don't get how you find any satisfaction in coming up with this stuff
> 
> ...


Can you honestly say that you feel safe without any system at all? What's to stop man from doing unhinged things?  By law, there are consequences if I murder you.  Without such laws, the only thing that prevents me from such an action is if you can respond with enough force to prevent it.  Lack of system and law is how barbarians live, and not applicable to a technologically advanced society as our.  We gain more from government than we lose from it.


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## Dass (Oct 1, 2009)

Zareste said:


> I think the worst part about the pro-government crowd (besides the massive death and corruption they bring) is listening to them bitch about everything they stand for. They hate their leader, they hate their wars, they hate their prisons. They look to their law books for solutions but the best thing they can do for this world is kill themselves



And the worst part about the anarchist crowd is that YOUR ARGUMENTS MAKE NO DAMN SENSE.
Now let me just inform you that I would appreciate it if you all move to your paradise of Somalia.


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## El Furicuazo (Oct 1, 2009)

For me, the *Draconian Democracy* would be the ideal government.  It would be a REAL democratic-representative government, since the government would be the vassal of the people, & not the other way around.  The "draconian" part means "extremely harsh" (you'll understand why).  Here's how it works:

- The government will have the representative government branches, executive, legislative & judicial; but they won't be alone in countering & balancing each other: a civil council will supervise the government to make sure it works for the people & NOT for any elite groups.

- The civil council will NOT be subject to political parties, it does not use a budget for members' wages.  NO member has any wage due to pertaining to this council, & NONE must be a close collaborator of ANY political party of the country.

- The civil council would be in charge of the country's organism for elections.

- Any DIRECT &/OR INDIRECT attempts to perpetuate the elective positions' of the government would be inconstitutional, therefore that requires the implementing government to be dissolved.

- If the elected government does not fullfill the expectations & needs of the people, the Civil Council has the power to do the following, depending on the degree of corruption, negligence &/or defrauding the government provides:
     * MILD: the corrupt/negligent/traitor elected persons will be taken out of office, & the Civil council will choose who to put in office
     * MEDIUM: if the government in general is overall bad, the Civil Council will celebrate new elections (AT LEAST 1 year after the corrupt government entered office), forbid the current government's participation except for the worthwhile officials (also determined by the Civil Council)
     * SEVERE: if the government is truly evil, the Civil Council will have the right to dissolve the government, take control of the Police bodies & the Armed Forces, in order to make a constitutional coupe.  This process should not take more than 5 years to establish the new government.

This system is intended to menace corrupt governments into even NOT entering that position.  A responsible, fair government would not be subject to the "Draconian Government Penalization" part.

In case any law has an unclear aspect, they MUST be ammended upon the Civil Council's request.  The ammendment must be tremendously clear & specific.

The elections would be made with executive & legislative power ones alternated each 4 years (executive chosen, legislative chosen 2 years later, executive chosen again another 2 years later).

The executive & legislative branches will choose the judges for the Supreme Court, but their appointments must be confirmed by the Civil Council.  In the regional & local governments, the executive & legislative powers will choose the judges, subject to the local Civil Council's approval.

Law interpretation ought to be TOTALLY literal, to minimize any possible loopholes.

Political parties will be limited to the budget the Civil Council (through the Elections Bureau) will grant them.  Also, the minimal number of political parties to compete in the elections would be of 3.

I devised this form of government due to my Hispanic American origins.  Even with a representative democratic government structure, corruption has sent down the drain much of the trust & proper functioning of these regions governments.  In order to cripple that menace, I propose the Civil Council to be an external organism to supervise & punish accordingly the government, IF the latter does not fullfill its duty.

Take for instance Argentina.  In the start of this decade, corruption accumulated along its government's existance (mainly in the last 3 presidencies prior to 2001) reached the point for the Argentinan people to start a civil revolution to remove the government & solve the country's crisis.  The country is still recovering from this incident, but if the revolution didn't ocurr, Argentina MAY have been REALLY close to a formal dictatorship by now.

Take for instance Bolivia too.  IIRC, in mid 2008, many Bolivians entered the Parliament's House & LITERALLY threw out the window the legislative assembly, due to being corrupt & oligarchic.  In that same year, Thailand's Supreme Court DISSOLVED the governing parties due to them being corrupt, & called in for new elections.

As for a rather harsher example of something similar to a Draconian Democracy, take for instance the Chinese Dynastic Cycle.  When a new dynasty established, its governors were usually fair & responsible.  As the imperial generations passed, the subsequent emperors became more corrupt & favored the elite over the hard working peasants.  The government deteriorated so much that the peasants revolted & had China in anarchy for a century at worst.  To be honest, I would call the Chinese Dynastic Cycle as the "Draconian Autocratic Monarchy".

The Draconian Democracy is made up to allow the representative/participative government with the plus of having an organism made-up of the people of the country to make sure bad governments get purged out of the country.

(maybe I should change my user title to "President of the Draconian Civil Council")


----------



## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Oct 1, 2009)

AzurePhoenix said:


> Can you honestly say that you feel safe without any system at all? What's to stop man from doing unhinged things? By law, there are consequences if I murder you. Without such laws, the only thing that prevents me from such an action is if you can respond with enough force to prevent it. Lack of system and law is how barbarians live, and not applicable to a technologically advanced society as our. We gain more from government than we lose from it.


 
I never understood people who think anarchy equals freedom. If you think about it nobody is 100% free, even in anarchy. 

I'm going to use an extreme example, but the gistshould be there.

Lets say two people live in a completely "free" town called "Free Town" and everyone is allowed to do what ever they want. Two people live in this town, person A and person B. One day Person A exercised his right to do what ever he wants to do by murdering person B, because person A likes the feel of the knife going through someone's heart, and it gives him a boner, also. Even though person A completely used his freedom to do what ever he wanted, he also took person A's freedom away by oppressing them through murder. This is why true freedom can never be accomplished because oppression comes is all shapes, sizes and degrees, but we can limit it through a government system, like America's.


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## Ragnarok-Cookies (Oct 2, 2009)

The kind were the you duel each other in mortal combat and the alive one becomes the next king with the most support.

But of course, you vote for the candidates.

Technically the best government would be one were everyone is under.


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 2, 2009)

El Furicuazo said:


> - The government will have the representative government branches, executive, legislative & judicial; but they won't be alone in countering & balancing each other: a civil council will supervise the government to make sure it works for the people & NOT for any elite groups.



Which results in them pandering to the council, rather than taking care of the people, giving the council totally unbalanced power, screwing over any checks & balances system that might've existed before.



> - The civil council will NOT be subject to political parties, it does not use a budget for members' wages.  NO member has any wage due to pertaining to this council, & NONE must be a close collaborator of ANY political party of the country.



Totally wrong. Having no wages in the council is a sure fire way to make it easily corruptible, as the councilman will have no stable source of income, thus making bribery a likely element of the political system in your country.

Unless you implement a draconian supervision system, at which point you can stop pretending it's a democracy and name it simply "totalitarianism".



> - The civil council would be in charge of the country's organism for elections.



Oooh, right, let's make the single most powerful body in the country also responsible for overseeing elections. That so obviously won't result in them abusing their power, no sir.



> - Any DIRECT &/OR INDIRECT attempts to perpetuate the elective positions' of the government would be inconstitutional, therefore that requires the implementing government to be dissolved.



Please speak English, I dun speek populeest.



> - If the elected government does not fullfill the expectations & needs of the people, the Civil Council has the power to do the following, depending on the degree of corruption, negligence &/or defrauding the government provides:



Define needs and expectations of the people, how they should be met and why do you disregard the fact that people are stupid and complain, even if objectively their standard of life is steadily rising. 

Also, how does your system allow any kind of reforms to take place? Reforms tend to be costly, taxing on the people's standard of life and end up (typically) in improvement after a period of worsening.

Your system only serves to preserve the status quo, choking the development of the country.



> * MILD: the corrupt/negligent/traitor elected persons will be taken out of office, & the Civil council will choose who to put in office



Substitute "Civil Council" with Communist Part of Russia (bolshevik) and you will see just how terrible your idea is.



> * MEDIUM: if the government in general is overall bad, the Civil Council will celebrate new elections (AT LEAST 1 year after the corrupt government entered office), forbid the current government's participation except for the worthwhile officials (also determined by the Civil Council)



Wonderful. Just call it "Despotism Central Council" and be done with it.



> * SEVERE: if the government is truly evil, the Civil Council will have the right to dissolve the government, take control of the Police bodies & the Armed Forces, in order to make a constitutional coupe.  This process should not take more than 5 years to establish the new government.



What a pipe dream. You expect people working for free to let go of the immense power a military junta gives them?



> This system is intended to menace corrupt governments into even NOT entering that position.  A responsible, fair government would not be subject to the "Draconian Government Penalization" part.



Sure it won't. After all, no one has heard of people fabricating charges, false flag operations or any other activity intended to legitimise a coup.



> In case any law has an unclear aspect, they MUST be ammended upon the Civil Council's request.  The ammendment must be tremendously clear & specific.



Which doesn't make sense, as you don't define "clear" and by whose standards. To the ordinary citizen, laws don't make sense, however, to a trained lawyer they do. So, should the laws be made so that every sheep shagging peasant should be able to understand them, forsaking actual quality of the law?

Also, what's with your praise for a totally undemocratic, despotic body existing in a modern country?



> The elections would be made with executive & legislative power ones alternated each 4 years (executive chosen, legislative chosen 2 years later, executive chosen again another 2 years later).



Which result in the government becoming bogged down in constant personnel changes, lack of coherent internal and foreign policy as well as constant pandering to the electing masses. 



> The executive & legislative branches will choose the judges for the Supreme Court, but their appointments must be confirmed by the Civil Council.  In the regional & local governments, the executive & legislative powers will choose the judges, subject to the local Civil Council's approval.



I wasn't sure, but now I am. Your idea is a thinly veiled Totalitarian Regime, in which everything has to be approved by the Civil Council, which also holds the ultimate power over pretty much any aspect of the government. 

Very undemocratic, especially the "Judge approval" element, which swiftly eliminates court neutrality.



> Law interpretation ought to be TOTALLY literal, to minimize any possible loopholes.



This is, quite possibly, the greatest single idiocy you have written. Law _cannot_ be interpreted literally, as it perverses it's meaning and intent - humans aren't perfect and so are the laws they make.

This is why ignorants shouldn't enter politics or write about subjects they don't know squat about.



> Political parties will be limited to the budget the Civil Council (through the Elections Bureau) will grant them.  Also, the minimal number of political parties to compete in the elections would be of 3.



All pre-approved by the Civil Council, right?



> I devised this form of government due to my Hispanic American origins.  Even with a representative democratic government structure, corruption has sent down the drain much of the trust & proper functioning of these regions governments.  In order to cripple that menace, I propose the Civil Council to be an external organism to supervise & punish accordingly the government, IF the latter does not fullfill its duty.



So instead, you propose to replace them with a totalitarian regime masquerading as a democracy. That's an improvement. :/



> Take for instance Argentina.  In the start of this decade, corruption accumulated along its government's existance (mainly in the last 3 presidencies prior to 2001) reached the point for the Argentinan people to start a civil revolution to remove the government & solve the country's crisis.  The country is still recovering from this incident, but if the revolution didn't ocurr, Argentina MAY have been REALLY close to a formal dictatorship by now.
> 
> Take for instance Bolivia too.  IIRC, in mid 2008, many Bolivians entered the Parliament's House & LITERALLY threw out the window the legislative assembly, due to being corrupt & oligarchic.  In that same year, Thailand's Supreme Court DISSOLVED the governing parties due to them being corrupt, & called in for new elections.



How about you try addressing the causes, not the symptoms? People _elected_ those corrupt officials to power, without seeing the forest for the trees. So instead of implementing Stalin's or Hitler's methods to "fix" democracy, you should try first educating the people and enlightening them, so that they choose wisely, not based on pretty words and pictures shown to them.



> As for a rather harsher example of something similar to a Draconian Democracy, take for instance the Chinese Dynastic Cycle.  When a new dynasty established, its governors were usually fair & responsible.  As the imperial generations passed, the subsequent emperors became more corrupt & favored the elite over the hard working peasants.  The government deteriorated so much that the peasants revolted & had China in anarchy for a century at worst.  To be honest, I would call the Chinese Dynastic Cycle as the "Draconian Autocratic Monarchy".



Uh, you just self contradicted yourself, proving that the Civil Council would become corrupt over the years and start favouring those that benefit them. 

Well, at least you're honest about your perfect government being a Stalinist totalitarian regime.



> The Draconian Democracy is made up to allow the representative/participative government with the plus of having an organism made-up of the people of the country to make sure bad governments get purged out of the country.



A single omnipotent body that can do everything and manipulate every element of governing a country is not democratic by any standards. It has more in common with Stalin's idea of power, Hitler's NSDAP or any of the dictatorships that have emerged in the 20th centuries, especially South American McHitlers.



> (maybe I should change my user title to "President of the Draconian Civil Council")



Maybe you should change your title to "Totally Clueless in Political Science"


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## Shotgunjim (Oct 2, 2009)

Democratic Republic for sure. As far as I'm concerned, it's the system with the least amount of ass kissery on the part of the people.


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## Xaerun (Oct 2, 2009)

One ran by Corto. As long as I'm second in command, OR get to backstab him and take all his power.

Either is good.


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## Patton89 (Oct 2, 2009)

On second thought, i would like a form of goverment where i have  executive, legislative & judicial powers AND where i am supreme commander of armed forces during all times, and where i am officially called HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN IV, THE BRAVE COMMANDER OF THE GLORIOUS ARMED FORCES AND THE RIGHTFUL RULER OF OUR NATION AND PEOPLE. 
Yeah. I would like that. A lot.


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## Microsoftt (Oct 2, 2009)

Mikael Grizzly said:


> What a bunch of bullshit.
> 
> It's not about classes, struggles between them or any other communist theory. It's against totalitarianism and other perversions of the free state.
> Take it from the man himself:
> ...



In a vaguer sense, sure. The moral is "big government: it r bad". I believe Arctic Wolf was talking about the specific storyline and specific setting of 1984, however.

I don't really care, though. I just thought it was funny you had to say it was a bunch of bullshit and bother to "prove him wrong" just to seem Internet Cool.


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## Stawks (Oct 2, 2009)

Night Watchmen State, baby.

The meek shall inherit nothing.


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## Ty Vulpine (Oct 2, 2009)

Nothing such thing as a "perfect" government. Everyone would always find something to whine/bitch/complain about.


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## El Furicuazo (Oct 2, 2009)

@ Mikael Grizzly:

My apologies for my major mistakes in terms of clarity.  In this post, I include the things I should have stated in a clear way, as well as the changes I would add to my original proposal, derived from your observations.

I now notice the part of my government proposal being highly prone to corruption.  The thing is I WANT TO KNOW how the HELL are democratic republican governments supposed to be tremendously resistant to the corruption that has made them undemocratic.  That IS the single biggest problem of Hispanic American governments: in what is supposed to be a representative/democratic government, the economic elites actually seized control of the government system.

Also, about the part of the education to choose the right government, tell me how is education (in a corrupt republic) gonna be provided to the people WITH the de facto government OPPOSING the enlightment of the people.  Also, before the people choose wisely their next government, how will a fair government be provided WITHOUT foreign intervention.  Also, take in consideration that a country under a corrupt government is not gonna be likely to have an economy structured to allow the vast majority (80%+) of the population to acquire private education.

About the part of the literary law interpretation, it is done due to the following reasons:
     - To allow common people to understand most laws (meaning the common citizen civil laws) by themselves & be more able to dennounce unjust treatment.
     - To avoid any loopholes or variations in interpretations that favor people not deserving the advantage.

My civil council concept would be like a community assemmbly, *NOT* a full-time legislative body.  To fund it, any commoner interested in pertaining to it must at least have high school education + general legislation studies, economic studies, psycological &/or sociological studies.  All Civil Council members must have a full-time job of their own.  For major decisions as the medium & severe Draconian penalization, a plebiscite is to be celebrated.  It would only be valid if the amount of voters supporting the action voted for is equal or greater than the total population of the population fit to vote.  For instance, if a plebiscite for the current government dissolution wins by a 100%, but only has 1 million out of a 3 million potential voters population voting, its result is deemed invalid.  The Civil Council's members can't be in power for more than 2 years at a single time.  The reaspiring members will have to wait for a 10 year span in order to participate again.  Also, the Civil Council would be the direct voice of the people, since it'll be in charge of running & allowing the people's government-conflicting demands (only via a thoroughly designed bill that must be endorsed by at least 20% of the voting population to whom the change will affect).

To establish a political party, the aspiring group must have its defined platform (set of ideas) & the endorsement of at least triple of the bare minimum voting population.  For instance, if a political party requires 3% of the total votes to remain as one, the endorsements must total 9% of ALL the registered voting population.  Basically, a party would be admitted if they can warrant their competence to enter office.

About the elections organism, I now agree on your point. Let's make it a TOTALLY independent institution that would get a 100% government funding.  NO member of the election organism would be allowed to vote (now I need to find out a way on how to make sure the staff running the elections to not be corrupt themselves).  Also, the political parties will only get the chance to have a minority representation in the vote counting process (i.e. an elections center with 20 vote counters, 4 political parties, only 2 representatives per party).

My definitions for "needs" & "expectations" of the people would be the following:

-*needs:* warrant all civil, human & constitutional rights.  This includes the personal freedoms, the identity rights, the right to have decent ways to satisfy basic needs (food, healthcare, education, housing, etc...), as well as whatever rights the country's constitution grants to the people.  This also includes not privileging a single social class (if the class becomes powerful enough to openly dominate society, it has been too privileged).

-*expectations:* *NO* political party shall make any major promise or proposal they won't achieve as part of their electoral platform.  If the party wants to present possible but non-guaranteed proposals, they must explain what will make it unachievable & what is needed to achieve it.  If the people voted for people of that party as their government officials, it means they want the officials to fullfill the promises they made to the people.  If the officials know they aren't highly guaranteed (only a 1:10 failure chance allowed, & it MUST be forseeable before the plan becomes too developed to be reverted, if no failure is forseeable in the short run, then NO failure margin will be allowed) to achieve their plans.

Elections of the charges will be with the majority system.  This means that the elections will have 2 rounds.  If a candidate wins the first round with more than half the votes, he/she is officially elected.  If in the first round no one gets the majority, the 2 top candidates will go to the 2nd round, & the one who wins that round will occupy the office.

About the degree of power the Civil Council will have, the major interventions (the mild, medium & severe draconian penalizations) should be rare ocurrences.  If the system works well, only the mild penalization (the one that investigates & only removes from office a few people) should be used in a slightly frequent way (something of about not more than 10% of the elected government officials being taken out of office between the elections that got them to power & the next).  This means the medium & the severe draconian penalizations should be used only in emergency situations.  Also, if the government works well on its own, the traditional checks & balances republican system should be enough to mantain order.  To remove elective officials, the Civil Council will celebrate elections for the office to be purged.  If in the purging plebiscite the vast majority (> 50%) of all voters for that office want the official out, he/she shall be taken out of office.  Afterwards, the political party to which the official pertained must decide who will replace him/her, making sure it's not a person closely related (political terms) to the expelled official.  All the remaining parties will have the right to present their candidates for that office.  At the end, the new official will enter power until the end of the current office cycle, unless less than 6 months remain for the next general elections (in that case, the candidate will stay until the immediately subsequent elections).

To determine who will remain as a valid candidate in the medium level Draconian penalization stage, the Civil Council's lawyer team will discuss the issue with an equal-sized lawyer team from the government & an equal-sized lawyer team of non-government affiliation.  This would change my original idea of the Civil Council doing it directly & on its own.

Any major law ammendments demanded by the people will be requested via the Civil Council (again via a plebiscite).  Also again, the Civil Council's lawyer team will discuss the changes with a government team & a non-govermnent affiliated team.  This would change the original idea of the Civil Council doing it directly & on its own.

To change the way judges would be elected, I would propose the endorsement of the current Executive, Legislative & Judicial branches; as well as that coming from the Civil Council & a lawyer team not affiliated to the government.  They will discuss the endorsements & determine who will occupy the office of a Supreme Court Judge.  This would change the aspect of the traditional government branches endorsements being subject to the Civil Council.

About the "Please speak English, I don't speak populist" part, that means NO government seeking any form to stay in power permanently will be considered constitutional.  To change the part of dissolving it, the government attempting permanent power will have to retract from achieving it.  If they still insist on achieving it, the government will be taken out of office via the 3-lawyer teams system (mentioned several times in this post).

About how to reform economy on this government, take a look again to the "expectations" definition I gave.  It will be doable if the government justifies its proposal in a way common people understand & agree.  The reforms must get their money from the current most able fund source at the reforming moment (i.e. In Puerto Rico, it CANNOT be from the working class, since it already gives MUCH MORE than it should to sustain the country.  It should then be from the excess income of high government officials, cutting the wellfare funds to the leech people that ARE supposed to be working...).  For emplyment creation, people who live of the wellfare system without needing it will be penalized with full-time low-qualification jobs.  The now freed wellfare system funds will then become a long-term wage aid for any full-time worker not earning enough to sustain his/herself & his/her family in a decent way (all needs satisfied, small room for lesser luxuries: basically the original middle-class living standard).  If the working class achieves decent living standards, they will help increase private business to further expand employment opportunities (with funds & opened product/service demands niches).  This will also allow people seek their desired education source.


I hope those modifications & clarifications deem my proposed system to not be mistaken for a totalitarian regime.


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## Dass (Oct 2, 2009)

Aah! WTL;RRRDNR!


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## Zareste (Oct 2, 2009)

"Can you honestly say that you feel safe without any system at all? What's to stop man from doing unhinged things? By law, there are consequences if I murder you. Without such laws, the only thing that prevents me from such an action is if you can respond with enough force to prevent it. Lack of system and law is how barbarians live, and not applicable to a technologically advanced society as our. We gain more from government than we lose from it."

This is almost too absurd to address, but I'm bored right now
Governments are less a system and more a bunch of people killing and degrading each other in a more organized fashion than the cavemen did. Barbarianism, essentially, but with bigger bats. It happens when feuds become gang wars, then gangs breed warlords and factions, and eventually these fights spin so far out of control that nobody knows why they're fighting anymore. They just take the fight for granted and play their part, making rules against each other, exploiting each other, tormenting each other and killing when they can.

People who live this way fall into a sort dementia. That's what drives you to act this way. Like any trauma victim, they pay no attention to the scary things going on around them, and instead focus on things that give them a delusion of order. Laws, for example. I could cite how many people are killed every day in your society but you'll marginalize it or allude to a pleasant little rule saying killing is illegal. You enjoy these rules because they make you feel like there is order in your world, even though the people who wrote them are responsible for more death than your criminals.


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## Dass (Oct 2, 2009)

Again, I urge you to go and inspect the results of wonderul anarchy in Somalia.


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## Zareste (Oct 2, 2009)

Do you feel better when you look at Somalia?


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## Dass (Oct 2, 2009)

Zareste said:


> Do you feel better when you look at Somalia?



No, I'm just using that as an example of why anarchists are stupid.
Actually, yes, it's indirectly making me feel smart.


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## Zareste (Oct 2, 2009)

Then have fun with that, but keep it to yourself. It's not my concern if you want to feel less stupid


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## Dass (Oct 2, 2009)

Zareste said:


> Then have fun with that, but keep it to yourself. It's not my concern if you want to feel less stupid



It is of your concern that your perfection contained within anarchy is so easily disproven by the status of Somalia.

You people are too easy to argue with. It's not worth my time.


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 3, 2009)

El Furicuazo said:


> My apologies for my major mistakes in terms of clarity.  In this post, I include the things I should have stated in a clear way, as well as the changes I would add to my original proposal, derived from your observations.



Oh Christ, a _furry_ that doesn't throw a hissy fit when his idea is criticized.

If I wasn't taken, I'd be on my way to 'Rico to marry you. 



> I now notice the part of my government proposal being highly prone to corruption.  The thing is I WANT TO KNOW how the HELL are democratic republican governments supposed to be tremendously resistant to the corruption that has made them undemocratic.  That IS the single biggest problem of Hispanic American governments: in what is supposed to be a representative/democratic government, the economic elites actually seized control of the government system.



I wager it's due to the people being stupid, believing in pretty words and promises and not thinking rationally. Or the politicians are just that good at conning people into voting for them. Or both.

The biggest problem is the lack of statesmen. Not politicians but statesmen, entirely devoted to the betterment of their country.



> Also, about the part of the education to choose the right government, tell me how is education (in a corrupt republic) gonna be provided to the people WITH the de facto government OPPOSING the enlightment of the people.  Also, before the people choose wisely their next government, how will a fair government be provided WITHOUT foreign intervention.  Also, take in consideration that a country under a corrupt government is not gonna be likely to have an economy structured to allow the vast majority (80%+) of the population to acquire private education.



That's the cursed circle. I think this is one of the few instances in which a foreign intervention is permissible, but on very precise terms. Then again, its hard to depose a government without having to wage full out war. 

It's a situation with no good solution.



> About the part of the literary law interpretation, it is done due to the following reasons:



But it CAN'T be done, because it invariably leads to gross injustices and abuse.



> - To allow common people to understand most laws (meaning the common citizen civil laws) by themselves & be more able to dennounce unjust treatment.



You can't compromise quality of law, the foundation of the social contract, in order to make everyone understand it. A well written constitution will be easily understood, but even it cannot be interpreted literally, as it will end up in your state becoming a perverse caricature of itself.



> - To avoid any loopholes or variations in interpretations that favor people not deserving the advantage.



Which is why people with a degree in law should be the only ones allowed to tamper with law, not any random elected guy. If a pro takes the case, you can bet it will be solved properly. 

It's kind of like the difference between the 1932 Makarewicz Codex in Poland and the latest novel to the Penal Code. The former was cutting edge, the latter is a piece of lawmaking crap.



> My civil council concept would be like a community assemmbly, *NOT* a full-time legislative body.  To fund it, any commoner interested in pertaining to it must at least have high school education + general legislation studies, economic studies, psycological &/or sociological studies.  All Civil Council members must have a full-time job of their own.  For major decisions as the medium & severe Draconian penalization, a plebiscite is to be celebrated.  It would only be valid if the amount of voters supporting the action voted for is equal or greater than the total population of the population fit to vote.  For instance, if a plebiscite for the current government dissolution wins by a 100%, but only has 1 million out of a 3 million potential voters population voting, its result is deemed invalid.  The Civil Council's members can't be in power for more than 2 years at a single time.  The reaspiring members will have to wait for a 10 year span in order to participate again.  Also, the Civil Council would be the direct voice of the people, since it'll be in charge of running & allowing the people's government-conflicting demands (only via a thoroughly designed bill that must be endorsed by at least 20% of the voting population to whom the change will affect).



High School is still not enough education to make proper decisions on a country wide scale. 

I feel that you're working from the work end, trying to create _another_ countrywide body  detached from citizens to prevent the government from becoming detached from citizens. 

In my opinion, emphasis should be put on decentralization instead, giving more rights to small scale, local governments, who know the affairs of the people better than those hundreds of miles away. Furthermore, as the power lies with local governments, you do not run the risk of the corruption infecting the entire system at once, as the central government will be limited only to making decisions on a country-wide and international scale, without the possibility of interfering with local decisions.

Directly answering to your peers motivates. Vide Athens.



> To establish a political party, the aspiring group must have its defined platform (set of ideas) & the endorsement of at least triple of the bare minimum voting population.  For instance, if a political party requires 3% of the total votes to remain as one, the endorsements must total 9% of ALL the registered voting population.  Basically, a party would be admitted if they can warrant their competence to enter office.



This favours populist parties, not parties with a sound plan. Lets say you have an unpopular group of people who have a plan that will benefit the country in the long term, but will hurt in the short term and another group which will cause the exact opposite to happen.

Guess who will get voted in.



> About the elections organism, I now agree on your point. Let's make it a TOTALLY independent institution that would get a 100% government funding.  NO member of the election organism would be allowed to vote (now I need to find out a way on how to make sure the staff running the elections to not be corrupt themselves).  Also, the political parties will only get the chance to have a minority representation in the vote counting process (i.e. an elections center with 20 vote counters, 4 political parties, only 2 representatives per party).



Have the elections overseen by international observers.

Also, you shouldn't create limits. Apart from being horribly undemocratic, you're preventing people from expressing their will through voting. I know it sounds self contradictive in the light of my previous reply about populism, but you should ask yourself if you want the people to actually be represented, or want to encourage people playing games with the voters.

Also, have records on the candidates published, focusing on the amount of convictions, lies etc. they've made.



> My definitions for "needs" & "expectations" of the people would be the following:
> 
> -*needs:* warrant all civil, human & constitutional rights.  This includes the personal freedoms, the identity rights, the right to have decent ways to satisfy basic needs (food, healthcare, education, housing, etc...), as well as whatever rights the country's constitution grants to the people.  This also includes not privileging a single social class (if the class becomes powerful enough to openly dominate society, it has been too privileged).



Now hold on. Forced equality is a sure fire way to collapse the economy. Certain privileges are essential, such as cuts for investors (AKA the wealthy) that plan to expand the country's infrastracture or in other ways give employment to the people. 

Then there's "decent ways". You can't please everyone and there will always be poor in your country, no matter what you do. The best you can do is to mitigate the effects, but you can't literally take from the rich and give to the poor, as the driving force of the economy are the richer classes.



> -*expectations:* *NO* political party shall make any major promise or proposal they won't achieve as part of their electoral platform.  If the party wants to present possible but non-guaranteed proposals, they must explain what will make it unachievable & what is needed to achieve it.  If the people voted for people of that party as their government officials, it means they want the officials to fullfill the promises they made to the people.  If the officials know they aren't highly guaranteed (only a 1:10 failure chance allowed, & it MUST be forseeable before the plan becomes too developed to be reverted, if no failure is forseeable in the short run, then NO failure margin will be allowed) to achieve their plans.



That's the definition of wishful thinking. You're encouraging maintaining status quo, penalizing reforms. Some reforms WILL fail, but you can't penalize them if their intent was good. 



> Elections of the charges will be with the majority system.  This means that the elections will have 2 rounds.  If a candidate wins the first round with more than half the votes, he/she is officially elected.  If in the first round no one gets the majority, the 2 top candidates will go to the 2nd round, & the one who wins that round will occupy the office.



That's regular presidential elections system.



> About the degree of power the Civil Council will have, the major interventions (the mild, medium & severe draconian penalizations) should be rare ocurrences.  If the system works well, only the mild penalization (the one that investigates & only removes from office a few people) should be used in a slightly frequent way (something of about not more than 10% of the elected government officials being taken out of office between the elections that got them to power & the next).  This means the medium & the severe draconian penalizations should be used only in emergency situations.  Also, if the government works well on its own, the traditional checks & balances republican system should be enough to mantain order.  To remove elective officials, the Civil Council will celebrate elections for the office to be purged.  If in the purging plebiscite the vast majority (> 50%) of all voters for that office want the official out, he/she shall be taken out of office.  Afterwards, the political party to which the official pertained must decide who will replace him/her, making sure it's not a person closely related (political terms) to the expelled official.  All the remaining parties will have the right to present their candidates for that office.  At the end, the new official will enter power until the end of the current office cycle, unless less than 6 months remain for the next general elections (in that case, the candidate will stay until the immediately subsequent elections).



Overly complicated. You're trying to ensure some control over the government, yet want to have the most important decisions made by a country-wide referendum, which is the longest possible way of deciding matters. 

Of course, that's very democratic, but it gives the government a lot of time to respond and mobilize its forces against the council, with their loyalty guaranteed by bonuses granted to them by the governors.

Yet, if you remove the need for the referendum, you're giving too much power to people who aren't answerable in any conceiveable way. 

That's why I believe more in the "Power To The People" slogan - more ability to small scale governments.



> To determine who will remain as a valid candidate in the medium level Draconian penalization stage, the Civil Council's lawyer team will discuss the issue with an equal-sized lawyer team from the government & an equal-sized lawyer team of non-government affiliation.  This would change my original idea of the Civil Council doing it directly & on its own.



Again, time issues. You'll be paralyzing the government everytime one of its members goes on a blitz.



> Any major law ammendments demanded by the people will be requested via the Civil Council (again via a plebiscite).  Also again, the Civil Council's lawyer team will discuss the changes with a government team & a non-govermnent affiliated team.  This would change the original idea of the Civil Council doing it directly & on its own.



What's wrong with the usual "people put in a project signed by many people and by law the government needs to process it and present to the national assembly for approval/disapproval"?



> To change the way judges would be elected, I would propose the endorsement of the current Executive, Legislative & Judicial branches; as well as that coming from the Civil Council & a lawyer team not affiliated to the government.  They will discuss the endorsements & determine who will occupy the office of a Supreme Court Judge.  This would change the aspect of the traditional government branches endorsements being subject to the Civil Council.



Judges cannot be subject to anyone, they must be absolutely neutral. An independent assembly of judges should be the ones reviewing the candidates and nominating them. No one else.



> About the "Please speak English, I don't speak populist" part, that means NO government seeking any form to stay in power permanently will be considered constitutional.  To change the part of dissolving it, the government attempting permanent power will have to retract from achieving it.  If they still insist on achieving it, the government will be taken out of office via the 3-lawyer teams system (mentioned several times in this post).



But what if the people agree to that?



> About how to reform economy on this government, take a look again to the "expectations" definition I gave.  It will be doable if the government justifies its proposal in a way common people understand & agree.



But you can't do that. Common people won't understand long term effects major economical changes in national policy will have, simply because the common man doesn't have the education needed to comprehend it.

The common man also doesn't see the big picture. People complain a lot, even if their standard of living is improving. This system smothers major reforms, simply because the common man will always oppose radical change, even if its 100% sure to improve life. 



> The reforms must get their money from the current most able fund source at the reforming moment (i.e. In Puerto Rico, it CANNOT be from the working class, since it already gives MUCH MORE than it should to sustain the country.  It should then be from the excess income of high government officials, cutting the wellfare funds to the leech people that ARE supposed to be working...). For emplyment creation, people who live of the wellfare system without needing it will be penalized with full-time low-qualification jobs.  The now freed wellfare system funds will then become a long-term wage aid for any full-time worker not earning enough to sustain his/herself & his/her family in a decent way (all needs satisfied, small room for lesser luxuries: basically the original middle-class living standard).  If the working class achieves decent living standards, they will help increase private business to further expand employment opportunities (with funds & opened product/service demands niches).  This will also allow people seek their desired education source.



If you try to make social welfare able to sustain lower middle class standard of life, good luck. It's impossible. 

Social welfare is there to allow people to survive - nothing more. Anything over that basic minimum is a grave injustice to people who work.



> I hope those modifications & clarifications deem my proposed system to not be mistaken for a totalitarian regime.



That's more like it.



Zareste said:


> This is almost too absurd to address, but I'm bored right now
> Governments are less a system and more a bunch of people killing and degrading each other in a more organized fashion than the cavemen did. Barbarianism, essentially, but with bigger bats. It happens when feuds become gang wars, then gangs breed warlords and factions, and eventually these fights spin so far out of control that nobody knows why they're fighting anymore. They just take the fight for granted and play their part, making rules against each other, exploiting each other, tormenting each other and killing when they can.



Oh, this is fun. 

See, the reason you're pathetic is that you're a hypocrite and an armchair anarchist. You're moaning how the state is _so_ horrible, but when something happens to you that needs state intervention, you're the first one to scream for help.

See, if you had any kind of actual spine in addition to that loud mouth, you'd make your own food, build your own water pumps, sewage drainage system, power source, treat yourself without foreign assistance, put out all fires, even the major ones, by yourself, not with help from the state-funded firefighters and punish all those who wronged you yourself, rather than get police to do it.

If you don't do that, you're a fucking hypocrite and should stop embarassing yourself.



> People who live this way fall into a sort dementia. That's what drives you to act this way. Like any trauma victim, they pay no attention to the scary things going on around them, and instead focus on things that give them a delusion of order. Laws, for example. I could cite how many people are killed every day in your society but you'll marginalize it or allude to a pleasant little rule saying killing is illegal. You enjoy these rules because they make you feel like there is order in your world, even though the people who wrote them are responsible for more death than your criminals.



I can't actually argue with that, because trying to reason with lunatics is like teaching a frog to play Mozart. Pointless. 

Besides, you're humiliating yourself enough as it is.


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## Zareste (Oct 3, 2009)

"See, the reason you're pathetic"

Oho my, look at you go. It's like a dog barking at me from its cage. Did it occur to you that your politicians also act on animalistic tendancies? Yeah, they're just like you. Every few years, you elect a new alpha male to lead the pack and all he ever does is bark at anyone who comes near his food. It's funny to watch you convince yourself there is any order in your madness


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## Azure (Oct 3, 2009)

Zareste said:


> "See, the reason you're pathetic"
> 
> Oho my, look at you go. It's like a dog barking at me from its cage. Did it occur to you that your politicians also act on animalistic tendancies? Yeah, they're just like you. Every few years, you elect a new alpha male to lead the pack and all he ever does is bark at anyone who comes near his food. It's funny to watch you convince yourself there is any order in your madness


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## Thatch (Oct 3, 2009)

Zareste said:


> "See, the reason you're pathetic"
> 
> Oho my, look at you go. It's like a dog barking at me from its cage.



Well, you seem not to be able to hit the big, yellow "Quote" button, if all, that's pretty pathetic.


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## Patton89 (Oct 3, 2009)

Oh please. Like Anarchy would result in a better world. 
Sure the current system isnt perfect,not even close to it, i has severe issues, but it sure as hell beats having a free for all, which what anarchy would be. You are putting too much faith in mankind if you think that anarchy or no goverments wouldnt cause suffering in a much larger scale than the current system. People are not nice or kind. We are at times savage, and anarchy would merely be giving that savagery a free playing field. 
Even if you somehow magically manage to avoid the violence, how do you go on about producing enough food for people when no almost one knows how to produce it in the western world? You wouldnt even have industrial fertilizers, nor machinery, because no one would be producing them, it would be 18th century farming, AT BEST, and there would be no real medicine. 
You would in essence turning back the clock atleast 200-400 years if not more.    
Goverments do not mean we will fight wars, look at some european nations, Sweden hasnt fought a war in 200 years,and i havent seen Switzerland conquering nations.


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## El Furicuazo (Oct 3, 2009)

@ Mikeael Grizzly:

So based on your response to my modifications, you're saying that a federal republic based on majority direct voting (Puerto Rico uses pluralist vote=whoever gets the most votes, even if below 50%, wins; the USA uses a delegate system to choose the president, not popular vote) system would be the best form of government, considering human nature?


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## Mojotaian (Oct 4, 2009)

THE GALACTIC EMPIRE!!!


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## Amaroq (Oct 4, 2009)

The philosophy I subscribe to, Objectivism, promotes a laissez faire capitalism.

Basically, a separation of government and economy. Leave people completely free to do as they wish economically, but keep a very limited government around to protect the people from foreigners and from each other.

The government would have only three roles. A police force to protect citizens from other citizens, a volunteer military to defend the country from attack, and a justice system to settle disputes and uphold contracts.


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## Zareste (Oct 4, 2009)

I see szopaw is still following me around. I guess everyone needs a hobby

"You are putting too much faith in mankind if you think that anarchy or no goverments wouldnt cause suffering in a much larger scale than the current system."

It's not as simple as revoking one system and replacing it with another, as communism and socialism proved. Only an uneducated dolt would think social systems are interchangeable things. A society will still act (mostly) the same if you replace democracy with dictatorship (Germany) or capitalism with with communism (Russia) or any of the above. It will result in a brief period of change, after which everything returns to the status quo.

And that's why we have governments - not because someone decided one day to start wars and put people in cages - but because people naturally form systems of dominance when they want to kill each other. Obviously, this is not changed in an instant. You can't end a war by telling everyone to play nice and unify under a new system. That's why I proposed the very simple change of focusing on agenda-driven organizations and working out these conflicts in ways other than shooting and criminalizing each other.

And I'm not demanding that anyone adapt these ideas. If people want to keep fighting for the sake of fighting, they'll eventually be killed off and replaced by a functioning society


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## Dass (Oct 4, 2009)

Zareste said:


> I see szopaw is still following me around. I guess everyone needs a hobby
> 
> "You are putting too much faith in mankind if you think that anarchy or no goverments wouldnt cause suffering in a much larger scale than the current system."
> 
> ...



Problem with that Germany example there. They were a monarchy. After WWI it was replaced with democracy, which they all hated. *Then* it was replaced with Fascism. They acted the same because technically the fascism put them back in the status quo.

Also, anarchy would focus on solving their problems through violence, why anarchists don't get this I don't know.

And stop being to lazy to hit the damn quote button.


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## Torrijos-sama (Oct 4, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> The philosophy I subscribe to, Objectivism, promotes a laissez faire capitalism.
> 
> Basically, a separation of government and economy. Leave people completely free to do as they wish economically, but keep a very limited government around to protect the people from foreigners and from each other.
> 
> The government would have only three roles. A police force to protect citizens from other citizens, a volunteer military to defend the country from attack, and a justice system to settle disputes and uphold contracts.


 
Objectivism would work if Ayn Rand's Axioms actually existed.

But they dont. Go figure.


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## Amaroq (Oct 4, 2009)

So existence doesn't exist? Things don't have identities? I don't have consciousness? What philosophy do you subscribe to, I wonder.


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## Zareste (Oct 5, 2009)

" Also, anarchy would focus on solving their problems through violence, why anarchists don't get this I don't know."

If anarchists did that, people would end up in conflict and dominance - authority, which leads to government if the fight continues. So these anarchists are not anarchists, but barbarians such as yourselves

You certainly are slow at catching onto simple concepts


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## 8-bit (Oct 5, 2009)

Obamacracy


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 5, 2009)

Zareste said:


> If anarchists did that, people would end up in conflict and dominance - authority, which leads to government if the fight continues. So these anarchists are not anarchists, but barbarians such as yourselves
> 
> You certainly are slow at catching onto simple concepts



Armchair Anarchist strikes again! I really like your perception of us as untermensch. Very progressive and totally not like a very failed political ideology.

Besides, you didn't answer my question - are you living completely self sufficent in the middle of nowhere, without any utility and service provided by the horrible, _horrible_ government?


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## Amaroq (Oct 5, 2009)

The lawlessness of anarchy would still allow the violence that, in your technicality, leads to a group rule and therefore no longer anarchy. If you want to be technical, then, anarchy can only be a temporary transition into mob rule.

That's why we still need a limited government such as the one I described. Give people their complete and utter freedom, just protect them from each other. Such a government would have a monopoly on force, only to be used against criminals and invaders. Though you can of course use force in self defense if someone else initiated it.

And don't say "Real anarchists wouldn't be violent." Human beings have free will, and therefore there will always be the possibility for violent or evil people.



Mikael Grizzly said:


> Besides, you didn't answer my question - are you living completely self sufficent in the middle of nowhere, without any utility and service provided by the horrible, _horrible_ government?



Who do you think produces the utilities and services? The government doesn't magically run them with chants and incantations. People produce and provide them. Just privatize everything the government currently gives us.


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## Dass (Oct 5, 2009)

Zareste said:


> " Also, anarchy would focus on solving their problems through violence, why anarchists don't get this I don't know."
> 
> If anarchists did that, people would end up in conflict and dominance - authority, which leads to government if the fight continues. So these anarchists are not anarchists, but barbarians such as yourselves
> 
> You certainly are slow at catching onto simple concepts



Uh... lets see. Guy insults me:
Under anarchy: Kill him. Who's gonna stop me?
Under government: Tell him off. Violence's illegal.

And again, I point to Somalia as an example of how well anarchy works. HDI from it's last measurement is dead last worldwide.

Edit: Australia's nicer than I thought it was... Canada's fourth. Yay!


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 6, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> Who do you think produces the utilities and services? The government doesn't magically run them with chants and incantations. People produce and provide them. Just privatize everything the government currently gives us.



And give way to corporate despotism? While it is true that non-governmental entities provide power and water, they still do it on the government's behalf, as its the government's responsibility to provide basic necessities and public services.

Unless you propose we privatize the police, firefighters and other services, which is silly.


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## Amaroq (Oct 6, 2009)

Even the government run entities are run by government-hired workers, who are people. If people can provide those services as federal workers, why can't they provide the same services as normal employees?

If I'm not mistaken, you're under the impression that Big Business is inherently evil. I used to think that as well until I started pursuing knowledge of Objectivism. The dishonest practices are only possible because of the flawed system our government has set up to interfere with business. If we were under a laissez faire capitalism, dishonesty would be weeded out naturally.

Think about it. You're a business owner. You make a good product. People buy it, and you grow into the biggest supplier of [your product here] in the nation. What motivation do you have to be an honest businessman at this point? Why, your own selfish desires of course. That is, if you're rationally selfish.

If you start charging too much for a crappy product, a competitor is gonna come in and wipe the floor with you. If you're dishonest about the quality of your product, people will realize it and stop buying from you. If you want to continue to profit, it's in your best interest to be an honest businessman and sell a good product at a competitive price.

I'd say privatize everything except the police, army, and justice system. The government exists only to perform the responsibilities delegated to it by the group of individuals (a society) who created it. Here's why those three responsibilities need to be delegated to the government.

Police: Human beings have free will. Even in the most peaceful and rational of societies, someone, somewhere, has the capability to reject rationality and behave like a brute. When this happens, there's two ways to stop him. Either a local posse rounds him up and does whatever they wish with him, or someone calls the police. The only fair alternative is to delegate a police force to the government so they can take care of this for us. The government should have a monopoly on force. That way, we citizens only have to use force for immediate self-defense if the police can't help us in time. This removes the need for mob beatings of bad people.

Army: This one should be obvious. Just like citizens can choose to act irrationally and brutally, other countries can try to attack ours, whether to control us or just to extort resources out of us under threat of attack. We should have an army to defend ourselves. However, it should be a volunteer army. Pretty much any general will attest to the superiority of volunteer armies over armies compelled to enlist via a draft. And compulsion is wrong anyway. I think you'll find no shortage of soldiers when the time comes to defend our own country on our own land.

Justice System: Even among rational people, there can be disagreements. Contracts can also be violated by the less honest among them. The government should be delegated this responsibility for simple reasons of fairness. A mob gathering together to randomly pass judgment on someone who breaks a contract isn't much better than a mob getting together to kill a criminal. The government should take care of this one for us.

But what about the firefighters, or the ambulances, or the charities who take in starving children? What about education? Privatize them all.

When I go to a doctor for treatment, I expect to pay him for his services. I need treatment, but my need is no claim on the doctor's abilities. I don't want him to be a slave to my wounds. I want a doctor who is passionate about healing the wounded and who feels he is rewarded justly (monetarily) for his services. A doctor under socialized medicine would be compelled, forced, to treat everyone. Could you imagine going under the knife of someone who hates his job and hates his patients for imposing on him?

We need doctors, firefighters, electricity and roads like we need food and drink. However, it's wrong to expect someone else to pay for those services for us. We should not expect the unearned. And besides, privatization would create competition that would drive the prices of all these services down. The prices are so high because they became public services, thus removing healthy competition.

And before I finish my post, I should make a specific point about private charities, because I know someone's gonna bring it up, saying "But what about the children/old people!?"

If someone supports a cause enough, they can start a charity. If someone else supports the same cause enough, they can donate to the charity. A charity doesn't have to be government run. It can actually be in the selfish interest of an individual to run a charity. They can say, up front, "I'm gonna keep 10% of everything you give me, but this allows me to live comfortably and give the other 90% to those who need it." As opposed to the dishonest practices of most "non-profit" charities today.


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## Mayfurr (Oct 6, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> But what about the firefighters, or the ambulances, or the charities who take in starving children? What about education? Privatize them all.
> 
> When I go to a doctor for treatment, I expect to pay him for his services. I need treatment, but my need is no claim on the doctor's abilities. I don't want him to be a slave to my wounds. I want a doctor who is passionate about healing the wounded and who feels he is rewarded justly (monetarily) for his services. *A doctor under socialized medicine would be compelled, forced, to treat everyone.* Could you imagine going under the knife of someone who hates his job and hates his patients for imposing on him?



WTF? Excuse me, but a doctor who feels compelled against their will to treat people who need his help _has no business being a doctor in the first place!_

And as far as claiming that a doctor being forced to treat people is an exclusive characteristic of socialised medicine, I'm calling bullshit - and besides, how would this differ to a doctor being forced to treat someone because they've paid a shitload of money and the doctor needs to make a living?

I would like to question under what circumstances you believe a doctor should be able to "pick and choose" who they treat, regardless of the condition of the patient. Are you seriously suggesting that a doctor should have the right to look at a car crash victim or a cancer patient and say "Nah, I don't want to treat you because I don't feel like it"?



Amaroq said:


> We need doctors, firefighters, electricity and roads like we need food and drink. However, it's wrong to expect someone else to pay for those services for us. We should not expect the unearned. And besides, *privatization would create competition that would drive the prices of all these services down.* The prices are so high because they became public services, thus removing healthy competition.



Oh, the "privatisation = competition = lower costs and improved services" argument for basic services sounds plausible in theory, but the current US privatised healthcare system - which costs more to its users AND to the country in general than any other developed country - would seem to prove you wrong. The prices became so high because private profit-oriented companies gained a monopoly (or duopoly) over essential services that they could happily milk their customers for, knowing their customers had no alternative but to cough up or go without...

My country changed from a government-run electricity generating corporation to allowing private sector competition (and splitting up / selling off the original government corporation). But electricity competition hasn't resulted in lower power prices or higher quality of service - quite the reverse. The same happened with telecommunications - "private sector competition" has resulted in New Zealand having one of the MOST expensive mobile phone charge regimes in the Western world. AND with the government-owned railways - the private company the railways were sold to ran the whole damn network into the ground in complete contrast to their claims at the time of sale of being committed to investing in that same infrastructure. The government had to buy _back_ the railway to ensure that we kept one at all!

In summary, real-world experience of private companies managing and running public services not only does NOT have the effect of driving down costs and improving services, all too often it has the reverse effect. In other words, it's *bullshit*.


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## Dass (Oct 6, 2009)

Privatized healthcare earned the United States the worst health care system of 16 westernized nations. You got a D. Why can't you get it through your skulls that there's a problem?

Canada got a B, so we're still middle of the pack.


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## Amaroq (Oct 7, 2009)

Privatized health care didn't destroy our health care system. Government regulation did. I'm sure you've heard about alternative treatments. Too bad nobody can sell such treatments, or the FDA will, literally, storm the place with guns blazing. Only a drug can be used to treat a disease. That is a LAW here in the united states which the FDA somehow has the power to enforce on its own at gunpoint, without requiring any permission of law enforcement or the government.



Mayfurr said:


> WTF? Excuse me, but a doctor who feels compelled against their will to treat people who need his help _has no business being a doctor in the first place!_
> 
> ...
> 
> I would like to question under what circumstances you believe a doctor should be able to "pick and choose" who they treat, regardless of the condition of the patient. Are you seriously suggesting that a doctor should have the right to look at a car crash victim or a cancer patient and say "Nah, I don't want to treat you because I don't feel like it"?



There's a reason he's a doctor. He chose to become a doctor in the first place. He doesn't need government compulsion to save all the patients he can. He (hopefully) became a doctor for the right reason: That he has a passion for healing the wounded. His parents compelling him to be a doctor, for example, wouldn't be a good reason for becoming one. He should pursue being a doctor because it's what makes him happy.

However, like any voluntary practice, when people step in telling you that you have no choice in how you do your job or even whether you continue to do your job, you come to resent it. Even if you have a passion for being a doctor, the government telling you that you no longer have a choice in the matter will cause resentment in you, purely because you have a desire to be free and independent to work as you choose. Where you would have once gladly taken in every patient, now every sick or wounded person who arrives would remind you that it is your government-imposed duty to heal them, not your passion to heal them, that now determines what happens to them. You would resent it.



Mayfurr said:


> And as far as claiming that a doctor being forced to treat people is an exclusive characteristic of socialised medicine, I'm calling bullshit - and besides, how would this differ to a doctor being forced to treat someone because they've paid a shitload of money and the doctor needs to make a living?



A doctor being forced to treat people is an exclusive characteristic of any system of regulations imposed on medicine that stems from an altruistic philosophy. Socialism is altruism at the political level.

Well, I must correct myself and add that a doctor would also be forced to treat patients if there are thugs ready to take his life if he does not. But the thugs aren't the altruists. They're just the other side of the coin: the people who expect to be the beneficiaries of the altruists' selflessness.

You attempt to separate money from happiness. You're creating a false dichotomy between spiritual and material goodness. (Spiritual goodness being what is good for you mentally. Not meant to be mystical in any way.) I'd say getting paid a shitload of money would allow this doctor a very comfortable, enjoyable life outside of work. Though I think it is preferable if the doctor enjoy his job as well. If he hates his job, he should cut back on whatever's causing so much debt that he needs it. He should then quit and pursue what his passion truly is. Or perhaps continue healing for money and pursue his passion on the side.



Mayfurr said:


> Oh, the "privatisation = competition = lower costs and improved services" argument for basic services sounds plausible in theory, but the current US privatised healthcare system - which costs more to its users AND to the country in general than any other developed country - would seem to prove you wrong. The prices became so high because private profit-oriented companies gained a monopoly (or duopoly) over essential services that they could happily milk their customers for, knowing their customers had no alternative but to cough up or go without...
> 
> My country changed from a government-run electricity generating corporation to allowing private sector competition (and splitting up / selling off the original government corporation). But electricity competition hasn't resulted in lower power prices or higher quality of service - quite the reverse. The same happened with telecommunications - "private sector competition" has resulted in New Zealand having one of the MOST expensive mobile phone charge regimes in the Western world. AND with the government-owned railways - the private company the railways were sold to ran the whole damn network into the ground in complete contrast to their claims at the time of sale of being committed to investing in that same infrastructure. The government had to buy _back_ the railway to ensure that we kept one at all!
> 
> In summary, real-world experience of private companies managing and running public services not only does NOT have the effect of driving down costs and improving services, all too often it has the reverse effect. In other words, it's *bullshit*.



Government regulation probably contributed to the downfall of those privatized companies. The businessmen who bought them also had an influence I'm sure. If you were truly passionate about the service you were about to buy, and if you were rationally selfish instead of hedonistically selfish, you would've planned for the long term. You would have sought to increase the quality of the business and ensure its longevity rather than running it into the ground for your personal, temporary gain. That these privatized companies were ran into the ground is a statement about the government restrictions and irrational businessmen who ran them, not about privatization itself.

Were someone to start a fledgeling company from the ground up that provided one of these services, and were he passionate about the service he was providing, his service would eventually become superior, given he's not held back by government regulations. If he has no competition, it is in his interest to raise the price. But only to an amount that can be afforded by his customers. If nobody can afford to buy his services, he goes out of business, doesn't he? His own customers keep his price low enough to afford, but competition offering a lower price is what really drives costs down.


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## kjmars63 (Oct 7, 2009)

There's no such thing as a perfect government.


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## Mayfurr (Oct 7, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> Government regulation probably contributed to the downfall of those privatized companies. The businessmen who bought them also had an influence I'm sure. If you were truly passionate about the service you were about to buy, and if you were rationally selfish instead of hedonistically selfish, you would've planned for the long term. You would have sought to increase the quality of the business and ensure its longevity rather than running it into the ground for your personal, temporary gain. That these privatized companies were ran into the ground is a statement about the government restrictions and irrational businessmen who ran them, not about privatization itself.



Where did I say those New Zealand power, phone and rail companies were _failures?_ They are all in business, all making VERY healthy profits - AND in an environment with very _little_ government regulation. In fact, the telecoms market here in NZ is one of the _most_ liberal in the Western world, and all previous regulations favouring rail over road transport were dismantled _before_ privatisation of the rail network.

It wasn't the rail company that was run into the ground - it was the _rail network_. Tranzrail - with primary US shareholders, BTW - basically asset-stripped what it had bought off the New Zealand government, deferring essential maintenance and replacement of rolling stock...  



Amaroq said:


> Were someone to start a fledgeling company from the ground up that provided one of these services, and were he passionate about the service he was providing, his service would eventually become superior, given he's not held back by government regulations.



Yeah, pesky regulations like consumer and environmental protection that stop businesses from ripping people off without recourse and dumping their crap all over the place are just throttling businesses, aren't they? 



Amaroq said:


> If he has no competition, it is in his interest to raise the price. But only to an amount that can be afforded by his customers. If nobody can afford to buy his services, he goes out of business, doesn't he? His own customers keep his price low enough to afford, but competition offering a lower price is what really drives costs down.



Until such time as the companies buying each other up and amalgamating reduces the market to only two or three players, who invariably turn the idea of competition on its head and collaborate to ensure that they get the _highest_ price they can. And example of this is the oil companies here in NZ - we have four big players in the market (Shell, BP, Mobil and Caltex / Texaco), yet it's amazing how they all raise their fuel prices within hours of each other...

And as far as your previous suggestion of privatised fire and police services are concerned, again: WTF? 
Are you seriously proposing _that basic protections of law should determined by how much money you have, whether you can *afford *protection and justice?_ Is justice only for the wealthy in your world? 
Do you consider a wallet search to see whether you are eligible to have your burning house saved _moral _ - especially if it turns out to be "We don't cover you, sorry, 'bye"? And what if the fire in question is happening on common or unowned areas?

I can only reiterate what others have said in this thread: if you want pure freedom from taxes and regulation, and want to experience the purity of market forces in _every_ facet of life free from government interference - go to Somalia.


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## Zareste (Oct 7, 2009)

"Armchair Anarchist strikes again! I really like your perception of us as untermensch. Very progressive and totally not like a very failed political ideology."

Would you feel safer if I acted insulted?

"Uh... lets see. Guy insults me:
Under anarchy: Kill him. Who's gonna stop me?
Under government: Tell him off. Violence's illegal."

Right, people in your society want to kill each other. See what's happening here?


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## Dass (Oct 7, 2009)

Zareste said:


> "Uh... lets see. Guy insults me:
> Under anarchy: Kill him. Who's gonna stop me?
> Under government: Tell him off. Violence's illegal."
> 
> Right, people in your society want to kill each other. See what's happening here?



You GD spin-doctor. I'm not saying I would, I'm just saying someone has that mentality, and therefore any positives that can come from anarchy are moot, not that there are any in the first place. And for god's sake, what the hell do you think that big yellow quote button under all of my posts is for?


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## Zareste (Oct 7, 2009)

"what the hell do you think that big yellow quote button under all of my posts is for?"

Do you even remember what we were talking about


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 7, 2009)

Zareste said:


> Right, people in your society want to kill each other. See what's happening here?



And in your Magical Kingdom there won't be people wanting to screw each other for money and supplies, right....

Your beautiful vision turns into world's worst nightmare the moment a single person thinks "Hey, why do I have to negotiate anyway? Lets just take the stuff."


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## Zareste (Oct 7, 2009)

"And in your Magical Kingdom there won't be people wanting to screw each other for money and supplies"

oh wow you're quite a contributor to the human race

See, the problem is you're surrounded by people just like yourself


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 7, 2009)

Zareste said:


> oh wow you're quite a contributor to the human race



More of a contributor than you'll ever be, Armchair Anarchist.



> See, the problem is you're surrounded by people just like yourself



Productive members of society? Why yes, I am, thank you, Armchair Anarchist, I sure am glad I'm not as counterproductive as you.


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## Zareste (Oct 7, 2009)

There. Do you feel safe now? Less guilty?


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## Dass (Oct 7, 2009)

Zareste said:


> There. Do you feel safe now? Less guilty?



Try not even remotely guilty, as there is nothing to feel guilt about. I'm more innocent than [insert person who was controversially found guilty here]


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## Zareste (Oct 7, 2009)

You realize, you interjected to say you don't feel guilty when I wasn't talking to you


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## Dass (Oct 7, 2009)

Zareste said:


> You realize, you interjected to say you don't feel guilty when I wasn't talking to you



We're both arguing against you, you call him guilty, you call me guilty by association.


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 8, 2009)

Zareste said:


> There. Do you feel safe now? Less guilty?



The only guilty person is the one arguing that legions of untermensch are wrong and should be dealt with.


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## D Void (Oct 8, 2009)

I like the consept of a republic but I'd love to have a little anarchy just for the lols.


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## Yaps (Oct 8, 2009)

Oh my gosh..... So many choices...


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## Dass (Oct 8, 2009)

Mikael Grizzly said:


> The only guilty person is the one arguing that legions of untermensch are wrong and should be dealt with.



You are doing so much better in this argument than I.


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## Armaetus (Oct 8, 2009)

Ohh perfect? I have a damn list of things for my ideal government I posted elsewhere before..italicized sections are new.

-Scientology should have all their assets seized and its cult members 'reeducated'. _The property should be sold to the highest bidder._

-Churches, mosques and other organized places of worship and gathering will have property tax, _especially those trying to get involved in government and all that nonsense._

-Non-citizens attempting to cross from Mexico into here will be shot on sight and the shooter or shooters will not be prosecuted, no questions asked. Any illegal immigrants will be sent back to their country of origin unless they make last moment changes to work on becoming a US citizen. Illegal immigrants from Mexico will be sent deep into their country.

-Most drugs will be legalized (meth _and heroin_ being exceptions) but with a tax on them the way alcohol and cigarettes are.

-Corporate and special interest group lobbying will be illegal and punishible up to a year in prison and repeat offenders get additional time.

-There will be at least two other major political parties so there isn't this duopoly bullshit between GOP and Dems every election.

-Civil unions and gay marriage will be legal and enforced countrywide.

-Major corruption probe will be done in all levels of government and those with extensive corruption (IE Illinois governer) will be barred from any government level job or major corporation.

-Flat tax of 12.5 to 13%

-Death row inmates that have been conviced with solid evidence against will be put to death immediatly by a single shot to the back of the head _from the executioner._

-Gun laws loosened but will allow people to defend their property with deadly force in the case of home invasion.

-No more favoring the woman over the man in child support cases, both must take parental tests atop other nonsense.

-Less intervention in world affairs, no more will we bother needing so many bases in Europe and Middle East.

-Cut most (75%-80%) aid to Israel and the Middle East. If people want to help, have them pay it out of their own pockets from charity and other orginizations.

-Enforce strict MPG minimum for minivans, trucks and cars. Must be at least 30 MPG highway and city. SUVs and Hummers will cease production immediatly. If the consumer wants one, have them buy that shit from overseas.

-Strict oversight on imports, meaning check everything coming here. Bring overseas factories back into the states so we can become a producing nation again.

-Cease borrowing from China and greatly reduce imports from them, putting a strict product quality standard for the junk we get from them.

-Open further trading with Europe and other parts of Asia.

-Corporations bribing or sending expensive gifts to politicians will not be tolerated and will be punished with a fine double to the amount given or value of the gift.

-Higher level education such as college will be free or very cheap to those eligible with a high school diploma or a GED. Textbook companies will no longer have a death grip on the pricing or production of their material.

-Affirmitive Action will be reduced.

-DHS will be dissolved and staff will be transferred to their choice in organization within the government. Information between CIA, NSA, etc must be shared for maximum efficiency.

-Aggressive R&D for alternative sources of fuel, including the decommissioning of some coal/oil power plants and replaced with CANDU nuclear reactors.

-Improve relations with Russia and former Soviet bloc countries.

-Major oil companies will have a stiff 20% tax on them, not including the 12.5% flat tax atop them.

-Frivilous and other bullshit lawsuits will be dismissed off the bat and copyright/IP laws will be revamped extensively to the point they are no longer 70+ years plus author's life and closer to the original copyright length (14 years).

-_People convicted of _murder, treason or selling hostile countries propitary military hardware are punishible by death. Third parties to such crimes will have less severe punishments.

-Slash spending in ALL areas of government and work on paying off the deficit.

-Cronyism and nepotism will not be tolerated in government unless under very extreme circumstances.


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 8, 2009)

Glaice said:


> -Non-citizens attempting to cross from Mexico into here will be shot on sight and the shooter or shooters will not be prosecuted, no questions asked. Any illegal immigrants will be sent back to their country of origin unless they make last moment changes to work on becoming a US citizen. Illegal immigrants from Mexico will be sent deep into their country.



Fascist xenophobia.



> -Most drugs will be legalized (meth _and heroin_ being exceptions) but with a tax on them the way alcohol and cigarettes are.



Because Americans are _oh so responsible_ with drugs.



> -Civil unions and gay marriage will be legal and enforced countrywide.



So on one hand you want to shoot desperate people and not punish murderers that do so, but want to give citizens more civil rights? How Nietzschean of you.



> -Death row inmates that have been conviced with solid evidence against will be put to death immediatly by a single shot to the back of the head _from the executioner._



Sounds like Stalin to me.



> -Gun laws loosened but will allow people to defend their property with deadly force in the case of home invasion.



So that they can shoot foreign immigrants for shits and giggles, right?



> -Less intervention in world affairs, no more will we bother needing so many bases in Europe and Middle East.



That'd actually be welcome.



> -Cut most (75%-80%) aid to Israel and the Middle East. If people want to help, have them pay it out of their own pockets from charity and other orginizations.



So you're willingly going to sentence 5 milion Jews to a second Holocaust as Egypt, Iran and other muslim countries rejoice and invade. 

How very 1942 Germany of you.



> -Enforce strict MPG minimum for minivans, trucks and cars. Must be at least 30 MPG highway and city. SUVs and Hummers will cease production immediatly. If the consumer wants one, have them buy that shit from overseas.



That's so totally free trade.



> -Strict oversight on imports, meaning check everything coming here. Bring overseas factories back into the states so we can become a producing nation again.



You do realize the wages would need to remain the same as overseas to avoid an economical crash, right?



> -Cease borrowing from China and greatly reduce imports from them, putting a strict product quality standard for the junk we get from them.



Because that's oh so easy to do.



> -Open further trading with Europe and other parts of Asia.[/quote
> 
> Which goods?
> 
> ...


-Slash spending in ALL areas of government and work on paying off the deficit.[/quote]

All it takes is slashing spending in the military.



> -Cronyism and nepotism will not be tolerated in government unless under very extreme circumstances.



Like your family, eh?


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## MacMillan (Oct 8, 2009)

I think, it's not a secret now. The capitalist system is going to broke one day and it's same for the political organisation over the world in all countries. Don't scare, I'm not a communist! 

Anyway, I think, we all need a new organisation system who the base is build in the present and not like all old system who use the past, the capitalist and democratic was worked when our world was a jungle and when the world was 5 milliard or 4milliard, but now, I think we have all we need and the technology for changing. I am for the Zeigest Mouvement. I world who's based about the ressources and not about the money.

"If in France they make a revolution during 1789 for build a new system, why we cannot do it again?"


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 8, 2009)

Uh, the revolution ultimately failed after becoming a totalitarian regime?


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## Mayfurr (Oct 8, 2009)

Mikael Grizzly said:


> Uh, the [French] revolution ultimately failed after becoming a totalitarian regime?



So they had another revolution to remove "The Great Terror". And the French have been revolting ever since


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 8, 2009)

Mayfurr said:


> So they had another revolution to remove "The Great Terror". And the French have been revolting ever since



I agree, the French are continuously revolting.


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## GothDragon666 (Oct 8, 2009)

There is no such thing. Just a folly dream.


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## MacMillan (Oct 8, 2009)

Mikael Grizzly said:


> I agree, the French are continuously revolting.



Hahaha, after that, it's just the influence of the TV. There is no many revolt...just some worker with low formation who are in revolt: they all for communism system and because a lot of factory from France or another countries are going to close (As continental or moulinex) and you know what is the problem. And in France, the real problem is: The war against all different political team. The left against the right. They try to make fail the right political team. 
But like all countries, we never listen or heard the majority of  a population: the middle. People who take their time to cry behing the TV, is always  a minority of people. Same in France, Same in the world. Or if you take it bad, Same in the World, same in France.

When I say "revolution", I was take just the example of France. I can quote the american revolution too. But, I always say "We never know, wait and see", so why we all should stay in a sink societies?


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## Mayfurr (Oct 8, 2009)

MacMillan said:


> When I say "revolution", I was take just the example of France. I can quote the american revolution too. But, I always say "We never know, wait and see", so why we all should stay in a sink societies?



True - but speaking as someone whose country became independent at the stroke of a pen and not at the point of a gun, I'd have to say that _evolution_ of a society is just as effective without the disruption of an actual revolution.


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## MacMillan (Oct 8, 2009)

Mayfurr said:


> True - but speaking as someone whose country became independent at the stroke of a pen and not at the point of a gun, I'd have to say that _evolution_ of a society is just as effective without the disruption of an actual revolution.



+1, I agree!


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## Zareste (Oct 9, 2009)

Mikael Grizzly said:


> The only guilty person is the one arguing that legions of untermensch are wrong and should be dealt with.


That's what I was getting at


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## Mikael Grizzly (Oct 9, 2009)

Zareste said:


> That's what I was getting at



Armchair Anarchist, Genocide Advocate... gee, aren't you a treat.


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## Dass (Oct 9, 2009)

Zareste said:


> That's what I was getting at



You seem to spend a lot more time insulting us than rebutting us...


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## Amaroq (Oct 10, 2009)

Mayfurr said:


> Where did I say those New Zealand power, phone and rail companies were _failures?_ They are all in business, all making VERY healthy profits - AND in an environment with very _little_ government regulation. In fact, the telecoms market here in NZ is one of the _most_ liberal in the Western world, and all previous regulations favouring rail over road transport were dismantled _before_ privatisation of the rail network.
> 
> It wasn't the rail company that was run into the ground - it was the _rail network_. Tranzrail - with primary US shareholders, BTW - basically asset-stripped what it had bought off the New Zealand government, deferring essential maintenance and replacement of rolling stock...



Ah, so the company itself did continue to do well? And it was under very little regulation at the time? I'd say that affirms my belief that it's the regulations that are hurting the businesses.

I'm not quite sure what to say about the whole "They stripped our railroads" thing though, other than that whoever did this was obviously in it for the short term, not the long term, else they would've kept their railroads in good repair. They did own the rail in question, didn't they? It wasn't public property?



Mayfurr said:


> Yeah, pesky regulations like consumer and environmental protection that stop businesses from ripping people off without recourse and dumping their crap all over the place are just throttling businesses, aren't they?



They can dump on their own property all they want I'd say. Just not on other peoples'. That's another thing that needs to change: No more public property, only private property. If a company dumps on your private property, you sue them. However, you could get into things like air pollution and water tables, for which there is also an answer.

It all depends on who got there first. If the company owns land in virgin territory, and someone wants to move in, the company's gotta let them know, "Hey, we were here first. We're dumping some waste on our property, and it may affect the water table. Are you okay with living here under those conditions?" However, if it were the other way around, if a bunch of other people were there first and a big company arrived and bought up a parcel of land, the community has got to tell them, "We're drinking this water. If you poison it, everyone affected will sue you."

If a person moved into a company's neighborhood and started drinking already poisoned water, the person would be in the wrong. If the company moved into an already occupied neighborhood, the company would have to respect the neighborhood's drinking water or they'd be in the wrong.

As far as air pollution goes, it's impossible to stop every particle of pollutants from getting in the air everywhere. You'd have to be able to demonstrate that company X caused damage to your property.



Mayfurr said:


> Until such time as the companies buying each other up and amalgamating reduces the market to only two or three players, who invariably turn the idea of competition on its head and collaborate to ensure that they get the _highest_ price they can. And example of this is the oil companies here in NZ - we have four big players in the market (Shell, BP, Mobil and Caltex / Texaco), yet it's amazing how they all raise their fuel prices within hours of each other...



I don't see how a company can buy another company up against its will. Maybe if you did something like sell stock in your company and gave shareholders votes over what you do and the big company in question acquired a majority of said stocks. Eliminate such a silly system (or refuse to practice it) and there's no way a bigger company can simply remove you from the market. Say "It's My company, not yours."



Mayfurr said:


> And as far as your previous suggestion of privatised fire and police services are concerned, again: WTF?
> Are you seriously proposing _that basic protections of law should determined by how much money you have, whether you can *afford *protection and justice?_ Is justice only for the wealthy in your world?
> Do you consider a wallet search to see whether you are eligible to have your burning house saved _moral _ - especially if it turns out to be "We don't cover you, sorry, 'bye"? And what if the fire in question is happening on common or unowned areas?
> 
> I can only reiterate what others have said in this thread: if you want pure freedom from taxes and regulation, and want to experience the purity of market forces in _every_ facet of life free from government interference - go to Somalia.



No, I don't propose that you be expected to pull out your wallet before the firefighters save your burning house. How such a system is constructed is obviously to be determined when the time comes to build such, but I suggest that firefighters simply do what hospitals and ambulance services already do: bill you for their services.

In regards to Somalia, if Wikipedia serves me right and I've gathered my information correctly, Somalia has been totalitarian until about 1990. They've been suffering an ongoing civil war since 1991, which has been further destabilizing their government ever since. They aren't a good representation of a capitalistic society.

If you want a good representation of a capitalistic society, look at the USA. One of the richest countries in the world, and also one of the most capitalistic. However, we are a mixed economy and have been becoming increasingly socialistic lately, and look, our economy has also been faltering.

Laissez Faire Capitalism has never been seen by the world yet. The US is the closest we've ever gotten to having one around.


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## Mayfurr (Oct 10, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> Ah, so the company itself did continue to do well? And it was under very little regulation at the time? I'd say that affirms my belief that it's the regulations that are hurting the businesses.
> 
> I'm not quite sure what to say about the whole "They stripped our railroads" thing though, other than that whoever did this was obviously in it for the short term, not the long term, else they would've kept their railroads in good repair. They did own the rail in question, didn't they? It wasn't public property?



My *point* is that a private company acquired the responsibility of running a piece of core nation infrastructure - and far from improving services and investing in this infrastructure, basically free-loaded off the investment that the _government_ had previously made, then turned around and went cap-in-hand back to the SAME government demanding subsidies to keep the thing going. 

And as for the telecoms network, the lack of regulation (MUCH less than in the USA) meant that in the mobile phone market Kiwis pay more than damn near anyone else in the western world for mobile calls despite "competition" between two private companies.

In other words, wholesale privatisation ISN'T the automatic panacea you think it is. And regulations aren't necessarily the boogeymen you portray them to be either.



Amaroq said:


> As far as air pollution goes, it's impossible to stop every particle of pollutants from getting in the air everywhere. You'd have to be able to demonstrate that company X caused damage to your property.



And meanwhile, said company under your model can keep spewing out pollutants willy-nilly until such time as someone can prove THEIR sickness is directly attributable to YOUR factory. 'Course, by the time such a case gets anywhere it's in all likelihood too late, given that companies typically have deeper pockets than private individuals.

What is so wrong about government regulations enforcing minimum standards of corporate behaviour?



Amaroq said:


> I don't see how a company can buy another company up against its will. Maybe if you did something like sell stock in your company and gave shareholders votes over what you do and the big company in question acquired a majority of said stocks. Eliminate such a silly system (or refuse to practice it) and there's no way a bigger company can simply remove you from the market. Say "It's My company, not yours."



You've never heard of the term "hostile takeover", I assume...


> A hostile takeover can be conducted in several ways. A tender offer can be made where the acquiring company makes a public offer at a fixed price above the current market price. [...] An acquiring company can also engage in a proxy fight, whereby it tries to persuade enough shareholders, usually a simple majority, to replace the management with a new one which will approve the takeover. Another method involves quietly purchasing enough stock on the open market, known as a creeping tender offer, to effect a change in management. In all of these ways, management resists the acquisition but it is carried out anyway.





Amaroq said:


> No, I don't propose that you be expected to pull out your wallet before the firefighters save your burning house. How such a system is constructed is obviously to be determined when the time comes to build such, but I suggest that firefighters simply do what hospitals and ambulance services already do: bill you for their services.



In MY country, I've never heard of ANYONE getting billed directly for an ambulance ride - in fact, I'd consider such a practice obscene. I would also consider obscene firefighting company billing you for services rendered - RIGHT at the same time you're trying to deal with the loss of your property, possibly earnings, and in a worst case _lives_.

What is so wrong with firefighting and ambulance services being paid for out of taxpayer's money as a public good?



Amaroq said:


> In regards to Somalia, if Wikipedia serves me right and I've gathered my information correctly, Somalia has been totalitarian until about 1990. They've been suffering an ongoing civil war since 1991, which has been further destabilizing their government ever since. They aren't a good representation of a capitalistic society.



They're certainly deregulated in the fact that the "government" barely controls a city and it's literally anything-goes outside in the rest of the country...


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## the grey fox (Oct 10, 2009)

communism. not the crappy communism that has failed so often in the past, but a revised version.


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## Amaroq (Oct 11, 2009)

Mayfurr said:


> My *point* is that a private company acquired the responsibility of running a piece of core nation infrastructure - and far from improving services and investing in this infrastructure, basically free-loaded off the investment that the _government_ had previously made, then turned around and went cap-in-hand back to the SAME government demanding subsidies to keep the thing going.



I think that's another big part of your problem right there. Obviously the business owner didn't have anything to worry about if he failed. He had the safety net of subsidies to count on. Privatize them so competition can force them to do well. Eliminate protectionism so harsh reality can force them to do well.



Mayfurr said:


> And as for the telecoms network, the lack of regulation (MUCH less than in the USA) meant that in the mobile phone market Kiwis pay more than damn near anyone else in the western world for mobile calls despite "competition" between two private companies.
> 
> In other words, wholesale privatisation ISN'T the automatic panacea you think it is. And regulations aren't necessarily the boogeymen you portray them to be either.



http://www.cellular-news.com/story/30437.php
This article, while a year old, suggests that your own country recognizes the benefit of competition and is trying to artificially increase telecoms competition via regulations. I'm not sure how well that's gonna work... xD

I don't know if it's the same in your country, but in my country, the transmission frequencies themselves are regulated by the government. Certain frequencies are reserved for certain uses by the government, and others are reserved for the cell phone companies. I remember recently reading an article about a radio frequency that was owned by the government being auctioned off. I wonder how easy it is for fresh competition to get in on the action with cell frequencies being owned by, and having to be purchased from, the government. (I could be wrong about how that works, however.)



Mayfurr said:


> And meanwhile, said company under your model can keep spewing out pollutants willy-nilly until such time as someone can prove THEIR sickness is directly attributable to YOUR factory. 'Course, by the time such a case gets anywhere it's in all likelihood too late, given that companies typically have deeper pockets than private individuals.
> 
> What is so wrong about government regulations enforcing minimum standards of corporate behaviour?



I think if a company is making everyone around its factory sick, it'll be proven quickly. It would be in the company's best interests to dispose of their byproducts in such a way as to not affect its neighbors and potential customers negatively. I could get into the ethics that a moral businessman should possess if he is rational, but that would be a debate for a philosophy thread. (Though I have been drawing almost every conclusion I've made here from philosophy, so philosophy is indeed important here.)

I don't just advocate getting rid of restrictions because it'll allow competition, etc. I advocate a full-on capitalism because I want there to be *freedom*! Restrictions are exactly that. Restrictions on what you're free to do. Competition, profit, prosperity, etc are simply consequences of a completely free, uninhibited market.



Mayfurr said:


> You've never heard of the term "hostile takeover", I assume...



Even a hostile takeover requires someone purchasing your stocks under your nose. Don't sell stocks! Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, not other peoples' coattails.



Mayfurr said:


> In MY country, I've never heard of ANYONE getting billed directly for an ambulance ride - in fact, I'd consider such a practice obscene. I would also consider obscene firefighting company billing you for services rendered - RIGHT at the same time you're trying to deal with the loss of your property, possibly earnings, and in a worst case _lives_.
> 
> What is so wrong with firefighting and ambulance services being paid for out of taxpayer's money as a public good?



We already pay for those services anyway. The difference is that I want such a payment to be voluntary, not forcefully extracted from us under penalty of fine or imprisonment. It doesn't necessarily have to be a direct billing either. For example, people could establish a voluntary tax if they so wished. Though what to do about people who choose not to pay such a tax is a matter to decide when we create such a system. Perhaps it could go both ways. If you pay your voluntary tax, you get the service for free. If not, you get a bill. Or rather than a tax, a small monthly payment to the privately owned fire department that amounts to a tax anyway.

How much money could it possibly cost in gas to drive the truck over and water to put out the fire anyway? The firefighers should get compensated for risking their lives to save your house and the lives of your family, though hopefully everyone gets out so it doesn't come to that.



Mayfurr said:


> They're certainly deregulated in the fact that the "government" barely controls a city and it's literally anything-goes outside in the rest of the country...



So they're closer to an anarchy than a capitalism. Living under an unending civil war certainly doesn't do good things for one's economy. And how can people freely trade with each other when there's no government to protect them from each other? (Remember I said free will means even the most peaceful, rational society can produce the black sheep every now and then.) A society at war with itself certainly needs the stability of a reliable police force, army, and justice system to keep its citizens safe from the less good-natured among them. With such security, the citizens will be free to flourish and create wealth amongst themselves.


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## EnigmaOfSin (Oct 11, 2009)

*



			govâ‹…ernâ‹…ment-
		
Click to expand...

*


> â€“noun
> 1. the political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members, citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies, and states; direction of the affairs of a state, community, etc.; political administration: Government is necessary to the existence of civilized society.      2. the form or system of rule by which a state, community, etc., is governed: monarchical government; episcopal government.      3. the governing body of persons in a state, community, etc.; administration.     4. a branch or service of the supreme authority of a state or nation, taken as representing the whole: a dam built by the government.      5. (in some parliamentary systems, as that of the United Kingdom)   a. the particular group of persons forming the cabinet at any given time: The Prime Minister has formed a new government.      b. the parliament along with the cabinet: The government has fallen.         6. direction; control; management; rule: the government of one's conduct.      7. a district governed; province.


 Government is control. Control can and never will be perfect. For as long as humans have their imperfections, there will never be a "perfect government". (The absence of government, is only pure insanity.)

My ideal government is simply idealism. Any government to me can be good, as long as the peoples running it are not corruptible.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Nov 19, 2009)

Intellectual caste system. Geniuses rule, fucktards perform menial tasks, keeping their heads down and their mouths shut.


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## Vrakanas (Nov 19, 2009)

I have to say that my perfect govt would have to be a bit of a monarchy.
A good just ruler, removable by unanimous decision only under certain circumstances, but allowed to directly influence any situation.


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## Telnac (Nov 19, 2009)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> Intellectual caste system. Geniuses rule, fucktards perform menial tasks, keeping their heads down and their mouths shut.


I approve!


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## Vrakanas (Nov 19, 2009)

Sounds good here too.


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## Zrcalo (Nov 19, 2009)

HEIL HITLER


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## Wreth (Nov 19, 2009)

Only nice people survive, meaniefaces get locked out of towering citadels.


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## Vrakanas (Nov 19, 2009)

Zoopedia said:


> Only nice people survive, meaniefaces get locked out of towering citadels.



And the people in the citadels drop rocks on em.


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## Roose Hurro (Nov 19, 2009)

I prefer Self-Government...


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## Unsilenced (Nov 19, 2009)

Probably been said here before but: 

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." -Winston Churchill.


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## Torrijos-sama (Nov 20, 2009)

Roose Hurro said:


> I prefer Self-Government...


 
Anarcho-Capitalism.

Business keeps the laws in check... Because killing, raping, and pillaging is generally bad for business.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 20, 2009)

jesusfish2007 said:


> Anarcho-Capitalism.
> 
> Business keeps the laws in check... Because killing, raping, and pillaging is generally bad for business.



Unless your business is to kill rape and pillage.


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## Torrijos-sama (Nov 20, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Unless your business is to kill rape and pillage.


 
All things come to an end at some point. 
And that is where other businesses start. 
To kill those who kill, rape, and pillage, and ruin their customers/business partners.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 20, 2009)

jesusfish2007 said:


> All things come to an end at some point.
> And that is where other businesses start.
> To kill those who kill, rape, and pillage, and ruin their customers/business partners.



You think that when I go out to loot rape and pillage I'm going after other looters rapists and pillagers? Hell no, they are well-armed. 

I'm looking for the people who are fool enough to think that there's going to be order. Any other looters and pillagers I find I will ask to join me for a cut of the loot. We become a bigger force, get more loot, and everyone in my little "business arrangement" makes some dough. 

Anyone who doesn't want to join my little venture and profit from it... well... 

Slaves are always handy.


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## Torrijos-sama (Nov 20, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> You think that when I go out to loot rape and pillage I'm going after other looters rapists and pillagers? Hell no, they are well-armed.
> 
> I'm looking for the people who are fool enough to think that there's going to be order. Any other looters and pillagers I find I will ask to join me for a cut of the loot. We become a bigger force, get more loot, and everyone in my little "business arrangement" makes some dough.
> 
> ...


 
But what is the long term benefit of continuous rape and pillaging?
People get tired of you, and take you out.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 20, 2009)

Take me out? HAH! 

I offer wealth and power to those who join me, public execution for those who stand in my way. 

Also, looting is just my short term goal. If I get enough followers I might set up a little town, maybe have my... less willing comrades do dirty work growing crops and building houses. I could make a nice little throne for myself. If some "hero" comes along and tries to stop me, I give everyone a choice. The little hero offers returning to chaos, I offer stacks of gold to anyone who brings me his head. 

Tough choice!


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## Roose Hurro (Nov 20, 2009)

jesusfish2007 said:


> Anarcho-Capitalism.
> 
> Business keeps the laws in check... Because killing, raping, and pillaging is generally bad for business.



Nnnnno...


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## Amaroq (Nov 21, 2009)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> Intellectual caste system. Geniuses rule, fucktards perform menial tasks, keeping their heads down and their mouths shut.



That would already kind of happen as a side effect of the government I've been preaching here. Not a caste system, but geniuses, ambitious people, etc will generally have better lives than fucktards. xD

The most productive businessmen, the most creative ones, the pioneers, they will move the human race forward. Those who can't keep up can benefit by working for these people, or they can copycat and try to compete with them. The little people have everything to gain from the big businesses who have what it takes to forge ahead.


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## Scribbles_Ayashi (Nov 21, 2009)

My perfect government is where people are angels and no government exists. Nuff said.


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## CynicalCirno (Nov 21, 2009)

Democracy.
Thought it's still israel and no matter what the goverment sucks.
Except one person named Shimon Peres and thats it.


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## Wreth (Nov 21, 2009)

Vrakanas said:


> And the people in the citadels drop rocks on em.




Sounds like fun


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## WatchfulStorm (Nov 21, 2009)

Democracy FTW


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## PenningtontheSkunk (Nov 22, 2009)

I voted Democracy and Anarky but I'm with Anarky more.

I like a government without secrets, thus no government U.F.O. questions and stealth fighter questions too.


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## JarlArild (Nov 22, 2009)

I lean towards socialism because ideally it would be great everyone working together to help advance mankind and everyone has a home, food, job ect. but it would never work because of man's lust for wanting to control others. Personaly I would want a Monarchy which is the same as a dictatorship but with a crow and people bowing to you with me as the ruler.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 22, 2009)

People only like the idea of monarchy because they picture themselves as the kings... 

That or ignorance.


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## JarlArild (Nov 23, 2009)

I would love to be a king. But in reality I believe that we should all work together to advance mankind and stop all the petty wars.


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## uryu788 (Nov 23, 2009)

whichever one that means none


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## Unsilenced (Nov 23, 2009)

uryu788 said:


> whichever one that means none



Anarchist.


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## uryu788 (Nov 23, 2009)

k ty


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## Squeak (Nov 23, 2009)

Democracy - Oppose outright. IMHO there are few if any circumstances in which true democracy has any value.
Repubic - My pick from the given choices for a government that has to work in the real world.
Aristocracy - Meritocratic forms are fine but tend not to exist in reality.
Dictatorship - A dictatorship limited by laws (a consitiutional dictatorship I suppose) would be fine but it doesn't exist in the real world.
Democratic Republic - Fine I suppse, having the laws of a republic prevents the total cluster!@#$ that is true democracy.
Democratic Dictatorship - wait, what?
Anarchy - in an ideal world this would be best.

So, anarchy ideally, a republic in the real world and that republican government should be the night-watchman type which only exists to carry out a few basic functions and otherwise leaves everyone alone.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 23, 2009)

I'm going to say that of all of those Anarchy is the stupidest, followed by Aristocracy and Dictatorship. Stalinisim is up there too, but I guess it falls under Dictatorship. 

But seriously. Anarchy? 

Do you really think that laws are there only to protect _other_ people? They protect you too. Whether or not you like your government, you have to acknowledge the fact that they keep guns out of your face... most of the time.  

If you think that when the government is gone everyone will form a circle and sing you have another thing coming. 

"But most people are decent."

 Yeah, when there's a consequence for being bad and nothing on the line. 

But when they're starving and there's no cops around? 

Suddenly everyone's a criminal... 


A criminal or a corpse.


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## Squeak (Nov 23, 2009)

Anarchy != no law
Anarchy = no government

Anarchists of the form I am familiar with believe that no one has the right to involunteerily harm or coerce another person and recognise that there need to be penalties for doing so. They would just have private agencies enforce these 'laws' rather than a government.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 23, 2009)

Squeak said:


> Anarchy != no law
> Anarchy = no government
> 
> Anarchists of the form I am familiar with believe that no one has the right to involunteerily harm or coerce another person and recognise that there need to be penalties for doing so. They would just have private agencies enforce these 'laws' rather than a government.




"Honey, did you pay the police bill?"
"No, some asshole stole our money. I couldn't pay the bill." 
"..."
"Yeah, ain't that a bitch." 


Also, law of economics say that an illegally run business (crime syndicate) will have more money than your little rent-a-cops. Law of war says that the guy with the gold wins the day. 

Who can afford top rate mercenaries? 
Who can afford automatic weaponry?
Who can afford the production of armor? 
Who can secure large oil resources? 

Well... whoever has the money. Now tell me, which of the the following makes more money? 

"Hi. We're rent-a-cops, for minimum wage, we'll try stop people from stealing your stuff" 

or

"Hi. I'm an asshole. Give me all yo shit or I bust a cap in yo ass." 

Actually, ideally you would go between the two. 

"Oh hi there. Nice house ya got here. Ya know, me and my associates here are in the business of "protecting" fine estates such as yours. Mmm Hmm... You never know what might happen if you don't protect your stuff. Some people might want to take advantage of you ya know. Our prices are a _little_ steep, but it'd be shame if anything were to happen to ya..."


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## Squeak (Nov 23, 2009)

"Oh hi there. Nice house ya got here. Ya know, me and my associates here are in the business of "protecting" fine estates such as yours. Mmm Hmm... You never know what might happen if you don't protect your stuff. Some people might want to take advantage of you ya know. Our prices are a little steep, but it'd be shame if anything were to happen to ya..." 

We have already employed someone who didn't threaten us (that's bad for business you know) and who's prices are lower due to competition on the open market. They will be sending someone around in a moment to deal with you, someone perfectly well equiped and trained (if they weren't, we would take our business elsewhere). Good day.

Also remember that I am not an anarchist so I don't quite know all of the details of how anarchism is theoretically supposed to work and I'm not saying there aren't practical problems with anarchism, but they aren't quite as straight-foward as you seem to think.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 23, 2009)

Squeak said:


> "Oh hi there. Nice house ya got here. Ya know, me and my associates here are in the business of "protecting" fine estates such as yours. Mmm Hmm... You never know what might happen if you don't protect your stuff. Some people might want to take advantage of you ya know. Our prices are a little steep, but it'd be shame if anything were to happen to ya..."
> 
> We have already employed someone who didn't threaten us (that's bad for business you know) and who's prices are lower due to competition on the open market. They will be sending someone around in a moment to deal with you, someone perfectly well equiped and trained (if they weren't, we would take our business elsewhere). Good day.
> 
> Also remember that I am not an anarchist so I don't quite know all of the details of how anarchism is theoretically supposed to work and I'm not saying there aren't practical problems with anarchism, but they aren't quite as straight-foward as you seem to think.



You can't have a well-armed and cheap security force. Guns are expensive, especially since they will have to be dealing with looters and the such. Hazard pay is a helluva bitch too. All that and pulling a profit too? You're looking at a big bill. 

It's like insurance, only far worse. If they decide to "cover" you, they must risk their lives. They will have to go up against superior firepower and numbers, and for what? Do you really think that paycheck you give them is enough for their lives? Let's do a rundown of this again. 

Ok, for the sake of argument, let's say we have two merc forces forming in an area. One is good, the other bad. Let's start with the founding of the group. First order of business: recruiting. 

Good group: "10$ an hour. You get a standard issue pistol and flak jacket, and you go where we tell you. Compensation will be paid to your family if you get wounded or killed in the line of duty."

Bad group: "You work for us, you get a cut of the plunder. Cut's not very big, but you got at least another dozen guys backing you up out there so you're less likely to get shot than if you went out on your own. The more we hit, the more money you get. What do ya say?" 


Second order of business: Securing better weapons

Good group: *Does small-time jobs to earn money to buy better guns* 

Bad group: *raids the goddamn armory. Good group was too busy doing bake sales to guard it.* 

Third: Down to business. 

Good group: "Well ma'am, here's your bill." 

Bad group: "Ohhhhh, you can't pay? Well... I think we can work something out... don't you? *scream*" 

Fighting: 

Good group: "O.K men, the bad group has made thier move. They're raiding one of our clients. Saddle up and move out. Remember, they have AK-47s and flak vests that your 9mm pistols can't peice. Aim for the head. Also, make sure your wills are up to date. We want to make sure that 200$ of compensation gets to the right place if you get capped out there." 

Bad group: "Someone attacking _our_ "clients?" SCOFF! Who would do that?"

or... 

"Ok, the "good group" seems to have issues with the way we run our buisness. Little fruitcakes think they can dick with out little enterprise. Johnson, you man _Ma Duece_. Peters, get the fuel-air RPG ready. We gunna roast us some piggy." 


And that's not even taking into account defectors, who realize that the dark side has better dental.


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## Squeak (Nov 23, 2009)

"You can't have a well-armed and cheap security force"

I'm sure someone once said you can't have safe, cheap cars. People are really quite inivative when there is money to be made. There would probably need to be some kind of initial capital investment as they is with any business to get things off the ground but once established, such an organisation would be funded through payments of those they protect and the proceeds of those they bring down for various crimes. This is basically how the police force opperates anyway, just substitute payment for taxes and proceeds of those they bring down with fines.

Also, who on earth owns enough weapons to have it be considered an armory and isn't capible to defending it without police to security intervention if they know they can't rely on it?


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## Squeak (Nov 23, 2009)

and once again, I am NOT an anarchist. In an ideal world I think it would be a perfect form of government, but this is the real world and there are problems here which I do not think anarchism is capable of overcoming.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 23, 2009)

Squeak said:


> Also, who on earth owns enough weapons to have it be considered an armory and isn't capible to defending it without police to security intervention if they know they can't rely on it?



Anarchy, as a rule, takes root after the fall of a government. The government probably had armories, which would essentially become up for grabs once there was no organized force to defend it. 



Your first choice for realistic government seems to be Republic. Those are reasonably effective I suppose, though I don't see what you have against democracy.


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## Squeak (Nov 23, 2009)

Suddenly removing the government is a pretty bad way to institute anarchy (although a great way to institute chaos). Better would be the gradual removal of government. As for democracy, it is simply another name for tyranny only now the majority persecutes the minority rather than the other way around.


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## StarGazingWolf (Nov 23, 2009)

Benevolent dictatorship?


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## Unsilenced (Nov 23, 2009)

StarGazingWolf said:


> Benevolent dictatorship?



Constitutional Monarchy. There is an appointed leader, but he/she is bound to certain codes that cannot be overruled. 



Squeak: gradually remove government? I'm sorry, but at some point you have to disband the military, and when that happens, you get a lot of guns up for the taking. 





"Dictatorship of the Majority" 

There are, of course, limits to democracy. Just as you cannot sign away your soul in a legal contract, you cannot vote to unperson someone (no matter how tempting it may be.) 

You cannot vote to take away another person's vote, you cannot vote to change another person's status in society (I.E slave labor), you cannot vote to take down the democracy. 

If worse comes to worse however, you can vote to secede, though I don't really know what situation would call for it. What type of minority do you think will be oppressed, or for that matter how?


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## Amaroq (Nov 24, 2009)

The smallest minority there is: The individual.

If the collective decides that you are bad for the whole, it will be ethical, in their eyes, to sacrifice you to the whole. Just look at Nazi Germany. Those greedy, individualist, capitalistic Jews were evil and it was to the betterment of the whole of Germany for them to be eliminated.

Socialists take heed. The greater good that you hold so dear was the same greater good that justified what Hitler did in the Holocaust. If you don't believe me, watch this speech given by Hitler himself, and take note of the things he says.
(It starts at two minutes and fifteen seconds in.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuxkq1zIWDY

The sad truth is that the people of Germany at the time knew what they were getting into, and they voted Hitler into power with full knowledge of what he wanted. Even Germany's intellectuals were behind him. The philosophers of the time often preached all sorts of collectivism. The concentration camps were designed and often run by Ph.D's! Everyday people like you and me supported what Hitler was doing at the time, because it was the State, the People, the whole, that mattered most, not individual lives.

Also, I evoke Godwin's Law. 

While anarchy is a step in the right direction, it's a step too far. People will always have the capacity to do evil to each other, so the first thing a group of people must do when they get together is appoint a government to protect them from each other. When they form it, they delegate powers to it. No more and no less than they think it needs.

The kind of government I argue for is one that has only three duties. Police, volunteer army, justice system. How to pay for those can be decided amongst the people. Perhaps, a voluntary tax, perhaps a paid service.

Don't be so quick to discount a voluntarily paid police force. If a city of 2,000 people each voluntarily pays their police force $60 a month for protection, the police make $120,000 a month. Can a "bad cop" organization steal that much money in a month from homeowners who will probably be armed themselves while also dealing with a police force that makes that much money in revenue?

Think about it! If you could get paid 120k per month to protect a bunch of people, the majority of which probably will never be robbed if your force intimidates criminals enough, that's free effin' money right there! Why go through the hard work and risk of robbing someone when you can just place yourself in the center of a city, offer protection, and let the money rain in, without you having to do a damned thing! Unless someone is attacked of course. But as criminals are weeded out and they see how unprofitable crime is in your city, your city will become crime free. Imagine, a job where doing it well results in you sitting on your ass all day for $1,440,000 a year.


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## Mikael Grizzly (Nov 24, 2009)

Because one policeman is enough for 2000 people. It's a pretty thought, but doesn't survive when clashed with reality.


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## Mayfurr (Nov 24, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> Don't be so quick to discount a voluntarily paid police force. If a city of 2,000 people each voluntarily pays their police force $60 a month for protection, the police make $120,000 a month. Can a "bad cop" organization steal that much money in a month from homeowners who will probably be armed themselves while also dealing with a police force that makes that much money in revenue?



You assume, of course, that _all_ 2,000 people "voluntarily" pay that amount of money month after month. But as under your scheme no-one is _obliged_ to pay it, it's highly likely that the police salary (and I assume this is ONE policeman for 2,000 people - it gets worse if you want more than one to cover sickness and holidays) will be getting far LESS. 

And if said police aren't getting enough from the "voluntary" tax to cover their LIVING expenses (much less anything else like police operating expenses), then they WILL be looking for supplementary source of income - and it will be SO tempting to accept backhanders to look the other way when it means you can meet your own expenses. It gets even worse if you wind up with _multiple _police forces that start having turf wars to gain more territory for the "voluntary" police contribution... congratulations, you've just created Somalia-style warlords with law enforcement only supplied to the highest bidder.

No, your idea won't work. The only way to guarantee a law-enforcing and law-abiding professional police force is to fund it from compulsory taxation as a public good.


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## Amaroq (Nov 24, 2009)

Remember, I said this police force would be one of the duties of the government to take care of. I never said privatize police. But they have to be funded, and compulsion is wrong.

Perhaps my figures aren't realistic, because I just made them up. Chances are, however, that there is a high citizen to policeman ratio. If the citizens have half a brain, they'll know that they have to fund their police, or else pay the consequences. The government doesn't have to compel you to do what's logical. Reality is a harsh enough punisher already if you don't respect it and adhere to it.


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## Torrijos-sama (Nov 24, 2009)

A small police force is the best. Or, I would say, the Marshall service would be the best.... A Marshall for every town. The people enforce the laws, and the Marshall oversees the processes so that there is a fair trial and a fair punishment.


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## Kajet (Nov 24, 2009)

My perfect government would be... A religious based monarchy where I'M in charge.

Why religious based? Cause people are dumb enough to believe anything and if someone is smart enough to defy me they're automatically a heretic.

Kind of like how the word "witch" was used in Salem Massachusetts, or "comunist" in the macarthy era, or even "terrorist" today.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 24, 2009)

Kajet said:


> My perfect government would be... A religious based monarchy where I'M in charge.
> 
> Why religious based? Cause people are dumb enough to believe anything and if someone is smart enough to defy me they're automatically a heretic.
> 
> Kind of like how the word "witch" was used in Salem Massachusetts, or "comunist" in the macarthy era, or even "terrorist" today.



Once again, someone who likes monarchy because they assume that _they_ would be the ruler. 

Believe me, you would not want to live _under _such a rule. 




As for people voluntarily paying for police force... 

Are you aware of what's known as "the tragedy of the commons?"


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## Roose Hurro (Nov 24, 2009)

Mayfurr said:


> You assume, of course, that _all_ 2,000 people "voluntarily" pay that amount of money month after month. But as under your scheme no-one is _obliged_ to pay it, it's highly likely that the police salary (and I assume this is ONE policeman for 2,000 people - it gets worse if you want more than one to cover sickness and holidays) will be getting far LESS.
> 
> And if said police aren't getting enough from the "voluntary" tax to cover their LIVING expenses (much less anything else like police operating expenses), then they WILL be looking for supplementary source of income - and it will be SO tempting to accept backhanders to look the other way when it means you can meet your own expenses. It gets even worse if you wind up with _multiple _police forces that start having turf wars to gain more territory for the "voluntary" police contribution... congratulations, you've just created Somalia-style warlords with law enforcement only supplied to the highest bidder.
> 
> No, your idea won't work. *The only way to guarantee a law-enforcing and law-abiding professional police force is to fund it from compulsory taxation as a public good.*



Who says we need a "professional" police force?... armed citizens have proven effective in dealing with crime on a personal level.  This should free the "professionals" to clean up the mess and deal with the surviving scumbags.  Look at it this way:  Every citizen who protects themselves from criminals provides the police force with a "freebie"... so the only expense is clean up/pick up, no locate/pursuit needed.  Though I do understand the crim sometimes escapes both the citizen and the police, but then, that means they ran in fear, and the crime they intended didn't happen.  Either they're scared straight, or they do it again, and don't make it.

But, then again, that is pretty much how things are, now... and not all crimes can be dealt with by armed citizenry, because not all crimes are violent.  So we have police forces, paid for by taxation.  Not a bad thing, really.  In all such things, it's best to mix all the bits that work, and toss out those that don't.


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## Kajet (Nov 24, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Once again, someone who likes monarchy because they assume that _they_ would be the ruler.
> 
> Believe me, you would not want to live _under _such a rule.
> 
> ...



Nope, all I'm saying is that the best form of government for any one person is one where they are in charge.


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## Squeak (Nov 25, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Constitutional Monarchy. There is an appointed leader, but he/she is bound to certain codes that cannot be overruled.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Gun: of the top of my head, melt them down, sell them to private agencies and distribute the proceeds... there are plenty of solutions there.

Minorities that would be oppressed: Ethnic minorities, women, homosexuals, those not of the dominant religion etc. The same people who have been persecuted at various points in history and have typically only agained rights by appealing to the laws because the majority was against them.

The basic problem with democracy: A stupid idea that a hundred million people agree with is still a stupid idea.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 25, 2009)

Kajet said:


> Nope, all I'm saying is that the best form of government for any one person is one where they are in charge.



Eh. There are a lot of inefficiencies, plus risk of assassination/revolt. Remember, the more you tighten your grip, the more slips between the cracks. 






Squeak: Fact: Guns are worth more than scrap metal. ESPECIALLY in the absence of government. Block of steel gets you a buck fifty. Gun gets you whatever the hell you ask for. 

And I already said that there would be provisions to avoid oppression. You can't change someone's status. You can't segregate, you can't discriminate, and above and beyond all, YOU CANNOT REVOKE ANOTHER PERSON'S VOTE. 

Also, you cannot vote on a law that will not effect you. Unless a minority votes to oppress _themselves_, no minority will be oppressed. 

Frankly, I don't see how you make people more equal by revoking the right to vote from some of them.


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## Mayfurr (Nov 25, 2009)

Roose Hurro said:


> Who says we need a "professional" police force?...



Because law enforcement run by _amateurs_ is tantamount to vigilante-style mob rule - and mob rule is a Really Bad Idea.



Roose Hurro said:


> ... and not all crimes can be dealt with by armed citizenry, because not all crimes are violent.  So we have police forces, paid for by taxation.  Not a bad thing, really.  *In all such things, it's best to mix all the bits that work, and toss out those that don't.*



Exactly.


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## Roose Hurro (Nov 25, 2009)

Mayfurr said:


> Because law enforcement run by _amateurs_ is tantamount to vigilante-style mob rule - and mob rule is a Really Bad Idea.



Note I put the word "professional" in quotes... I was thinking of an on-call police force, something that could work, if everyone had not only the right but the obligation to be armed for their own defense.  Of course, the Devil is in the details.  And it was just a thought, given my pref for Self Government.  Look at it this way:  If police officers were on-call, this would mean you could find yourself working next to a trained/certified officer, and any crook wouldn't be sure whether his victim was a Law Officer or an armed citizen.  Does this give you some idea of what I propose...?




Mayfurr said:


> Exactly.



Indeed... it only makes common sense.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 25, 2009)

Roose Hurro said:


> Note I put the word "professional" in quotes... I was thinking of an on-call police force, something that could work, if everyone had not only the right but the obligation to be armed for their own defense.  Of course, the Devil is in the details.  And it was just a thought, given my pref for Self Government.  Look at it this way:  If police officers were on-call, this would mean you could find yourself working next to a trained/certified officer, and any crook wouldn't be sure whether his victim was a Law Officer or an armed citizen.  Does this give you some idea of what I propose...?



I still doubt even an "on-call" police force's ability to do proper forensic investigation. You have to remember that not all law enforcement is showing up and busting the bad guys, a lot of it is finding out who the bad guys are. And then you have issues with enforcing little things, like speed limits. 

Armed citizens are all well and good for muggings and high-profile robberies, but what about the crimes that no-one sees? What about the guy found dead in a back alleyway or the busted vault at the bank? More than firearm proficiency is necessary in situations such as those.


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## Squeak (Nov 25, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> And I already said that there would be provisions to avoid oppression. You can't change someone's status. You can't segregate, you can't discriminate, and above and beyond all, YOU CANNOT REVOKE ANOTHER PERSON'S VOTE.
> 
> Also, you cannot vote on a law that will not effect you. Unless a minority votes to oppress _themselves_, no minority will be oppressed.
> 
> Frankly, I don't see how you make people more equal by revoking the right to vote from some of them.



Add in those restrictions and you have what is essensially a constitutional democratic republic rather than a democracy.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 25, 2009)

Still more democratic than republic, but constitutional all the same.


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## LoinRockerForever (Nov 25, 2009)

Other : none.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 25, 2009)

LoinRockerForever said:


> Other : none.



...

Anarchist.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 25, 2009)

It's useless to argue with anarchists. Instead, kill any you meet, and then tell the court that it's how they would've wanted to go.

The inherent flaw in representative democracy is that it's not the most competent or the most benevolent people who become representatives, it's the most persuasive and the most ambitious. That's how you get corruption.

Select the representatives by a random drawing, then have a retention vote after each two-year term (up to a maximum of four). Same goes for the President.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 25, 2009)

Rigor Sardonicus said:


> It's useless to argue with anarchists. Instead, kill any you meet, and then tell the court that it's how they would've wanted to go.
> 
> The inherent flaw in representative democracy is that it's not the most competent or the most benevolent people who become representatives, it's the most persuasive and the most ambitious. That's how you get corruption.
> 
> *Select the representatives by a random drawing, then have a retention vote after each two-year term (up to a maximum of four). Same goes for the President.*



That's a quick way to get someone who has absolutely NO idea what do do put into office.


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## LoinRockerForever (Nov 25, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> ...
> 
> Anarchist.



Hmmm.....Not really. I believe in other people help out each other out in a communal way, its just that the human race hasn't found a way to do that the non-greed/idiotic/helpful way yet.

In other words no matter what government that is implemented, it will still leave many out in the cold. Why? Idiotic behavior, and the un-necessary attitude of making sure you get yours and eff the other guy. âŒ_âŒ 

SO, it is in that regard I vote other. If we can't help each other out properly and in a way that doesn't damage each other.....Its probably better to have nothing at all. ( True enough that most governments try there best to help, but is the government basically people helping people? Or do we like the idea of being ruled rather than live and try to help each other out? Either case people get screwed, and blah blah its a no win argument. )


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## Unsilenced (Nov 25, 2009)

Anarcho-Syndicalist


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## LoinRockerForever (Nov 25, 2009)

Rigor Sardonicus said:


> It's useless to argue with anarchists. Instead, kill any you meet, and then tell the court that it's how they would've wanted to go.
> 
> _*The inherent flaw in representative democracy is that it's not the most competent or the most benevolent people who become representatives, it's the most persuasive and the most ambitious. That's how you get corruption.*_
> 
> Select the representatives by a random drawing, then have a retention vote after each two-year term (up to a maximum of four). Same goes for the President.



Well my dear I call bullshit. LOL Kill any you meet eh?

_*And its because of that fact we can't run as an efficient nation, or any nation for that matter.

*_You want a government that can do what its suppose to do? Well, lets start with killing the corruption by cleansing the people. Lets see, your words where " _It's useless to argue with anarchists. Instead, kill any you meet, and then tell the court that it's how they would've wanted to go._ " Kill any you meet, instead of asking why they would go to anarchism? And maybe pointing out the flaws of whats happening? And why most governments need to expedite the corrupt politicians that stuff your money in their pockets and basically fuck us and you over? Instead of holding what is most important to us, and should be illustrated through your elected representative? I rather be an anarchist than have an asshole misrepresent what I think is most important and helpful. BUT isn't that the case for most republicans right now? lol ( Not implying anything )

But in the end you want to know the REAL problem? Communication, its a bitch. So, sure kill any you meet, it be saving them from the stupid people on this earth that would rather kill people instead of understanding what the problem is.

* Also note, I am not an anarchist by any means...I just find many/all governments flawed. As to my answer of NONE, Honestly it isn't fixing anytime soon, and/or going away....I believe no government be better at this point if we keep choosing to degrade ourselves by not fixing it.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 25, 2009)

LoinRockerForever said:


> Well my dear I call bullshit. LOL Kill any you meet eh?
> 
> _*And its because of that fact we can't run as an efficient nation, or any nation for that matter.
> 
> ...


Cool story, bro.



Unsilenced said:


> That's a quick way to get someone who has absolutely NO idea what do do put into office.


That happens already. Remember Dubya?

The thing is, under the system I proposed, civics and government would have to be given greater focus in schools, since I don't think anybody of average-or-higher intelligence wants the rule of an uninformed mob.
Oh, look at that, I just bashed anarchists again. Teehee.


----------



## Squeak (Nov 25, 2009)

Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Oh, look at that, I just bashed anarchists again. Teehee.



Not really. Anarchists typically aren't interested in mob rule either.

edit: Or I might be totally missing the point of your post


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 25, 2009)

Squeak said:


> Not really. Anarchists typically aren't interested in mob rule either.
> 
> edit: Or I might be totally missing the point of your post


Or you just don't know what anarchy actually amounts to.

Anarchy in practice doesn't actually work out to "everybody does what he wants and everyone's happy." Nothing like it. It actually works out to a comparatively small group of people being able to bully everyone else into compliance. Which is really no different from a dictatorship, except for the general squalor and dilapidation of buildings and other infrastructure due to a lack of taxation.

In short, anarchy IS mob rule. And that, class, is why anarchists are idiots.


----------



## Torrijos-sama (Nov 25, 2009)

Squeak said:


> Not really. Anarchists typically aren't interested in mob rule either.
> 
> edit: Or I might be totally missing the point of your post



I am going to post an incredibly generic comment of "I think the best government would be a monarchy or benevolent dictatorship with me as the head of state".

But, personally, I have my own democratic system to establish.

Once again: Anarcho-Capitalist. Because everyone needs to shut the fuck up, and learn that shit talking and killing people is bad for business in this modern day and age, when everyone is dependent upon the services of at least 9 other people.

Then, hopefully, the lazy die off, or work in the low, hard labour jobs they deserve, 
and the strong, and smart are able to do what they can with what they have, and live relatively comfortable lives.


----------



## Unsilenced (Nov 25, 2009)

You seem to confuse smart/strong with good... and lazy with evil. 

Couch-dwelling potato-chip munchers are generally not the ones responsible for genocides ya know. 





Rigor Sardonicus said:


> That happens already. Remember Dubya?



Oh, gee. Let's bitch about Bush some more. Looks like we didn't do that enough while he was in office. 

Frankly, I'll take Bush over luck of the pot any day.


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 26, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Oh, gee. Let's bitch about Bush some more. Looks like we didn't do that enough while he was in office.


The damage Bush caused this country has lasted longer than his time in office, so it's perfectly legitimate. Cry some more.



> Frankly, I'll take Bush over luck of the pot any day.


People like you elected Warren G. Harding, do you realize that?
For those of you watching at home who aren't up on your American history, he was the president after Woodrow Wilson--and a third-rate one, at that. Harding ushered in the Great Depression, and it is people who would accept an incompetent president over an unknown one that put him in power.

Learn history, people. The country you save may be your own.


----------



## Kommodore (Nov 26, 2009)

All things equal, though, you gotta admit that an anarchy that actually worked would be pretty fucking sweet. 

Eh? 

Eh?


----------



## Unsilenced (Nov 26, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> All things equal, though, you gotta admit that an anarchy that actually worked would be pretty fucking sweet.
> 
> Eh?
> 
> Eh?



Yeah...

And if riding nuclear bombs to fiery destruction didn't kill/hurt you, it'd be awesome too.







And it's not unknown politicians I'm afraid of becoming president, it's Joe the Plumber... if you get what I mean.


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## Endless Humiliation (Nov 26, 2009)

Why you always gotta be dumpin on anarchy anarchy ain't done nothing to you

"Oh no no cops to beat my stupid ass this is terrible"


----------



## Unsilenced (Nov 26, 2009)

Load_Blown said:


> Why you always gotta be dumpin on anarchy anarchy ain't done nothing to you
> 
> "Oh no no cops to beat my stupid ass this is terrible"



Anarchy has violated me by being a stupid idea in my presence.


----------



## Endless Humiliation (Nov 26, 2009)

Then I'm sure you just get demolished by the electoral college daily


----------



## Unsilenced (Nov 26, 2009)

*shrug*

It doesn't lead to a huge power vacuum followed by decades of meaningless bloodshed and torture.


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 26, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> And it's not unknown politicians I'm afraid of becoming president, it's Joe the Plumber... if you get what I mean.


You mean obnoxious right-wing shills? Darling, what do you think Republicans _are_?


----------



## Smokey_Kitty (Nov 26, 2009)

I be queen and everyone else be my bitch,  and those who disobey moi are sent to the giant.... GRINDER!.... of doom, but everyone else gets free booze :O


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Nov 26, 2009)

Squeak said:


> Not really. Anarchists typically aren't interested in mob rule either.
> 
> edit: Or I might be totally missing the point of your post



No, Mob rule would be dumb. ( Refer to Nixon.... ) Basically you rule yourself, and that's it. You want order from other people? That's up to them to act as such, honestly it just shows how under-developed we are as a collective. By that I mean, not everyone is so noble to act responsible and they will kill, murder, rape and so forth.

But its a no win argument, in our existence as humans, there is always going to be someone telling you what to do. One way or another, doesn't matter if it was voted on or just carried out.


----------



## Amaroq (Nov 27, 2009)

Roose Hurro said:


> Who says we need a "professional" police force?... armed citizens have proven effective in dealing with crime on a personal level.  This should free the "professionals" to clean up the mess and deal with the surviving scumbags.  Look at it this way:  Every citizen who protects themselves from criminals provides the police force with a "freebie"... so the only expense is clean up/pick up, no locate/pursuit needed.  Though I do understand the crim sometimes escapes both the citizen and the police, but then, that means they ran in fear, and the crime they intended didn't happen.  Either they're scared straight, or they do it again, and don't make it.
> 
> But, then again, that is pretty much how things are, now... and not all crimes can be dealt with by armed citizenry, because not all crimes are violent.  So we have police forces, paid for by taxation.  Not a bad thing, really.  In all such things, it's best to mix all the bits that work, and toss out those that don't.



I think it's perfectly fine for citizens to use force in self defense if violence is initiated against them. Only in immediate self defense. We don't need lynch mobs going around and hanging people accused of crimes.

However, the government needs a monopoly on legalized force. If everyone is allowed to use force on each other, you've got people beating and killing each other over disagreements and such. Giving the government a monopoly on legalized force sounds like it could lead to many of the problems we have today, but remember, I advocate a small government.

Defense against external enemies, internal defense of the people against each other, and justice. Those are the only purposes the government should serve. Should it try to wrest more power for itself than the citizens delegated to it, it is their responsibility to keep it under control. Your government represents your people, and it's up to you to make sure it continues to do so. You're responsible for any rash actions you allow it to take.



Unsilenced said:


> As for people voluntarily paying for police force...
> 
> Are you aware of what's known as "the tragedy of the commons?"



Yes, I am aware of the tragedy of the commons.

The tragedy of the commons states that if multiple people have access to a shared resource, they're going to try to use it up as quickly as possible so the others can't take it before they get it.

The tragedy of the commons is easily nullified by property rights. If each person stakes a claim on the resource and makes a portion of it their property, then they are all free to use the resource as efficiently as possible, free to make it last as long as they can without fear of the others taking it.

What does that have to do with voluntarily paying for a police force?

On that subject, I'd like to address Mayfurr's concern that voluntary payments will lead to destabilization and corruption of the police force.

My answer: It very well could. If the citizens don't pay up, they have only themselves to blame. They should have realized that they required their police force to stay safe, and should have come to the conclusion that they have to pay for that to happen. It is selfishly beneficial to each individual to pay for protection. It is irrational hedonism, not rational selfishness, that leads to such problems. If the citizens default on the rational actions that lead to their safety, it's their own damned fault.

I think a clarification should also be made about anarchy. Anarchy itself is not mob rule. However, anarchy naturally leads to mob rule, so it's still a bad idea.


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 27, 2009)

Smokey_Kitty said:


> I be queen and everyone else be my bitch,  and those who disobey moi are sent to the giant.... GRINDER!.... of doom, but everyone else gets free booze :O


How original.


----------



## Unsilenced (Nov 27, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> Yes, I am aware of the tragedy of the commons.
> 
> The tragedy of the commons states that if multiple people have access to a shared resource, they're going to try to use it up as quickly as possible so the others can't take it before they get it.
> 
> ...



The police force. It's a commons. 

Everybody pays out of their own free will, right? No-one will force them.

So why pay? Surely the police will survive with 60 less dollars, and they'll still protect me all the same.


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## VÃ¶lf (Nov 27, 2009)

equality would be "perfect", with no one taking power over anyone else via any means at all. Of course, in a utopian world there wouldn't be any murder crime, or otherwise. they're probably wouldn't even be any need for a government. I think that's pretty much what Karl Marx's theory of communism was like (He never says anything about a dictator). It can't work tho, since human nature pretty much cancels it out. 

Realistically, almost any form of government is highly prone to corruption, some more so than others (fascism, absolutism, other dictatorships) Even the American gov't, which is all based off of money to begin with, can't agree on anything b/c of the political parties; and what's more everyone goes around pointing fingers and claiming that memebers of the other party are being unconstitutional.


----------



## Kit H. Ruppell (Nov 27, 2009)

A perfectly coordinated society where race, gender, religion, and sexuality are no longer an issue, because everybody is born knowing exactly what they are supposed to do, like cells in the body.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 27, 2009)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> A perfectly coordinated society where race, gender, religion, and sexuality are no longer an issue, because everybody is born knowing exactly what they are supposed to do, like cells in the body.



Communist Utopia


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Nov 27, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Communist Utopia


More like a hive mind.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 27, 2009)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> More like a hive mind.



Well then you run into the problems of basic human anatomy and psychology.


----------



## Mayfurr (Nov 27, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> The police force. It's a commons.
> 
> Everybody pays out of their own free will, right? No-one will force them.
> 
> So why pay? Surely the police will survive with 60 less dollars, and they'll still protect me all the same.



The problem is, if a significant number thought like that the police _wouldn't_ be able to survive because of a shortage of funds. And let's not forget: the funding for police covers a hell of a lot more than just PC Plod's salary - you've got equipment, communications, training, facilities like police stations, holding cells... a "voluntary" levy is likely to cost a HELL of a lot more per person if it's spread out over less people. Especially if it has to cover non-earners like children, the elderly, the infirm, foreign visitors etc.

And the flip-side of paying someone to protect you is that if you _refuse_ to pay, why should you get protection? At the very least, you're going to get resented by the people who DO pay up, and they will question why you should get "something for nothing". By essentially trying to "privatise" the police force, you'll in all probability wind up with a law enforcement version of the current US healthcare system where the justice you get is dependant upon the size of your wallet...


----------



## Kit H. Ruppell (Nov 27, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Well then you run into the problems of basic human anatomy and psychology.


Nanites will take care of that.


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## Curagnaste (Nov 27, 2009)

Hunter-gatherer society


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Nov 27, 2009)

No government. That would be nice. No one telling me what the I can do. No Man telling me his my leader or boss. No rules. No laws. No nothing. But that would only work if people could leave each other alone, but no one can. Everyone has to fuck with everyone else. Everyone wants to be a leader. Everyone has a vision for the world. If Man wasn't so ambitious there would be no problem.


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## VÃ¶lf (Nov 28, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> No government. That would be nice. No one telling me what the I can do. No Man telling me his my leader or boss. No rules. No laws. No nothing. But that would only work if people could leave each other alone, but no one can. Everyone has to fuck with everyone else. Everyone wants to be a leader. Everyone has a vision for the world. If Man wasn't so ambitious there would be no problem.



Amen I say to you.


----------



## Amaroq (Nov 28, 2009)

Mayfurr said:


> The problem is, if a significant number thought like that the police _wouldn't_ be able to survive because of a shortage of funds. And let's not forget: the funding for police covers a hell of a lot more than just PC Plod's salary - you've got equipment, communications, training, facilities like police stations, holding cells... a "voluntary" levy is likely to cost a HELL of a lot more per person if it's spread out over less people. Especially if it has to cover non-earners like children, the elderly, the infirm, foreign visitors etc.
> 
> And the flip-side of paying someone to protect you is that if you _refuse_ to pay, why should you get protection? At the very least, you're going to get resented by the people who DO pay up, and they will question why you should get "something for nothing". By essentially trying to "privatise" the police force, you'll in all probability wind up with a law enforcement version of the current US healthcare system where the justice you get is dependant upon the size of your wallet...



Something we agree on. That's why I think police should still be government run. But I don't believe in compulsion, hence the voluntary payments. A person should also understand that the police having $60 less *will* hurt them. It might not be noticeable, but the effect is still there. Maybe they'll have one less gun in the armoury. Perhaps one less clip of ammunition. Maybe one less life vest. Every contribution, or lack thereof, does affect the outcome. If you want your protection to be the best that you're able to make it be, you'd be wise to do your part.

How they decide to make a voluntary system work would be something to think about. Perhaps one potential method would be to allow payees to voluntarily place themselves on a public list of people who pay the police. If someone is known to not have their name on that list, it could cause unpopularity with the people they're sharing the city with. If the police becomes strapped enough, if crime gets bad enough, businesses may decide not to deal with 'non-payers'. It would certainly be within a business owner's right not to sell to someone for whatever reason they wish. It is their business after all. If you found out that one of the people who want to trade with you is doing something that makes the police less able to protect your loved ones, you are perfectly justified to tell them to go away until they start paying the police.

Just one potential idea for how to fund a voluntarily paid police force. You don't need laws to compel rational adults into doing what they need to do. A free, independent person's interactions with other free, independent people will do just fine.


----------



## Unsilenced (Nov 28, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> Something we agree on. That's why I think police should still be government run. But I don't believe in compulsion, hence the voluntary payments. A person should also understand that the police having $60 less *will* hurt them. It might not be noticeable, but the effect is still there. Maybe they'll have one less gun in the armoury. Perhaps one less clip of ammunition. Maybe one less life vest. Every contribution, or lack thereof, does affect the outcome. If you want your protection to be the best that you're able to make it be, you'd be wise to do your part.
> 
> How they decide to make a voluntary system work would be something to think about. Perhaps one potential method would be to allow payees to voluntarily place themselves on a public list of people who pay the police. If someone is known to not have their name on that list, it could cause unpopularity with the people they're sharing the city with. If the police becomes strapped enough, if crime gets bad enough, businesses may decide not to deal with 'non-payers'. It would certainly be within a business owner's right not to sell to someone for whatever reason they wish. It is their business after all. If you found out that one of the people who want to trade with you is doing something that makes the police less able to protect your loved ones, you are perfectly justified to tell them to go away until they start paying the police.
> 
> Just one potential idea for how to fund a voluntarily paid police force. You don't need laws to compel rational adults into doing what they need to do. A free, independent person's interactions with other free, independent people will do just fine.




Then you have rationalized discrimination against the poor. Yay. 

"I can pay the police 60$... or my family can not die... hmmmmm..." 

(Later that week, at the police station.)

"Shoot-out in the poor district!"
"Fuck'em"


----------



## kazroo (Nov 28, 2009)

in theory, anarchy, communism, or dictatorship would work. however, the world is not perfect. with anarchy, everyone would just shit on everyone else while they murder and rape people. with dictatorship, you get corrupted leaders.

don't listen to me actually, i only know fer sure about the anarchy thing. i'm kind of a political retard, but i'm still not old enough to vote yet so it's ok. :U

oh.. and i voted "anarchy" cuz theoretically, it's the best. i don't like having people tell me what to do/what i can do. -cough- parents and government -cough-


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 28, 2009)

kazroo said:


> in theory, anarchy, communism, or dictatorship would work. however, the world is not perfect. with anarchy, everyone would just shit on everyone else while they murder and rape people. with dictatorship, you get corrupted leaders.
> 
> don't listen to me actually, i only know fer sure about the anarchy thing. i'm kind of a political retard, but i'm still not old enough to vote yet so it's ok. :U
> 
> oh.. and i voted "anarchy" cuz theoretically, it's the best. i don't like having people tell me what to do/what i can do. -cough- parents and government -cough-


Go back to the playpen, kid.


----------



## Randy-Darkshade (Nov 28, 2009)

kazroo said:


> in theory, anarchy, communism, or dictatorship would work. however, the world is not perfect. with anarchy, everyone would just shit on everyone else while they murder and rape people. with dictatorship, you get corrupted leaders.
> 
> don't listen to me actually, i only know fer sure about the anarchy thing. i'm kind of a political retard, but i'm still not old enough to vote yet so it's ok. :U
> 
> oh.. and i voted "anarchy" cuz theoretically, it's the best. i don't like having people tell me what to do/what i can do. -cough- parents and government -cough-



Well with that attitude you will last 2 seconds in a job. 

I am in full agreement with Rigor, go back to your playpen and play with your rattle and your numbered blocks.


----------



## Ratte (Nov 28, 2009)

RandyDarkshade said:


> Well with that attitude you will last 2 seconds in a job.
> 
> I am in full agreement with Rigor, go back to your playpen and play with your rattle and your numbered blocks.



hey man numbered blocks are the shit


----------



## Randy-Darkshade (Nov 28, 2009)

Ratte said:


> hey man numbered blocks are the shit



Really?....Perhaps I should number all my lego bricks.


----------



## Ratte (Nov 28, 2009)

RandyDarkshade said:


> Really?....Perhaps I should number all my lego bricks.



I had ones with letters.

I would spell swearwords and shit when I got older, or when my relatives had some.

It was fun.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 28, 2009)

Ratte said:


> I had ones with letters.
> 
> I would spell swearwords and shit when I got older, or when my relatives had some.
> 
> It was fun.


Sidewalk Chalk was better, though.


----------



## kazroo (Nov 28, 2009)

RandyDarkshade said:


> Well with that attitude you will last 2 seconds in a job.
> 
> I am in full agreement with Rigor, go back to your playpen and play with your rattle and your numbered blocks.


 
-stamps foot and screams- I DONT WANNA!


----------



## Ratte (Nov 28, 2009)

Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Sidewalk Chalk was better, though.



Oh yes, that was the best.


----------



## Roose Hurro (Nov 28, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> How they decide to make a voluntary system work would be something to think about. *Perhaps one potential method would be to allow payees to voluntarily place themselves on a public list of people who pay the police.* If someone is known to not have their name on that list, it could cause unpopularity with the people they're sharing the city with. If the police becomes strapped enough, if crime gets bad enough, businesses may decide not to deal with 'non-payers'. It would certainly be within a business owner's right not to sell to someone for whatever reason they wish. It is their business after all. If you found out that one of the people who want to trade with you is doing something that makes the police less able to protect your loved ones, you are perfectly justified to tell them to go away until they start paying the police.



Another potential method would be to require everyone to serve "volunteer" duty on the police force, so they can see and experience firsthand just how well (or unwell) their police force is funded.  This would also be a good learning experience in other ways, I think.


----------



## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Nov 28, 2009)

Oh, by the way, I don't need cops to protect me. I'm fine on my own.


----------



## CrispSkittlez (Nov 29, 2009)

If done correctly, I believe communism could work well to benefit everybody.


----------



## Unsilenced (Nov 29, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> Oh, by the way, I don't need cops to protect me. I'm fine on my own.



Do you sleep?

Do you ever leave your house? 

Do you ever take off your flak vest or put down your gun? 



Either you're fucking robocop, or you need the police.


----------



## CrispSkittlez (Nov 29, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Do you sleep?
> 
> Do you ever leave your house?
> 
> ...




At one point, we're all fucking robocop.


----------



## Unsilenced (Nov 29, 2009)

CrispSkittlez said:


> At one point, we're all fucking robocop.



Yes, but then we turn 5 and get over it.


----------



## whiteskunk (Nov 29, 2009)

1) Do away with all forms of government. 
2) Do away with organized religions. 
3) Do away with large corporations.
4) Do away with law enforcement and the justice system.
5) Do away with all branches of the military.


----------



## Unsilenced (Nov 29, 2009)

whiteskunk said:


> 1) Do away with all forms of government.
> 2) Do away with organized religions.
> 3) Do away with large corporations.
> 4) Do away with law enforcement and the justice system.
> 5) Do away with all branches of the military.



Oh god...

MORE OF THEM! 

It's like a fucking anarchist hydra! 

Sigh... *pulls out claymore* 

One head at a time... one head at a time...


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 29, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Oh god...
> 
> MORE OF THEM!
> 
> ...


That only works if you burn the neck shut after you cut the head. Otherwise, it just grows two more


----------



## Amaroq (Nov 29, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Then you have rationalized discrimination against the poor. Yay.



No, the police is still run by the government. They'll probably protect everyone, even if they don't pay. But the non-payees ought to know, and ought to be reminded, that their lack of paying is only hurting their safety and the safety of every other individual in the city. Not that the good of the people should be your primary concern. But the other individuals won't like knowing they're supporting the defense of a freeloader.

If you're poor, start working and make some money.  Making an extra $60 a month isn't that hard. And that's just a hypothetical amount anyway. We wouldn't know an exact amount unless someone knowledgeable in law enforcement spending and city populations were to do the math for us.



Roose Hurro said:


> Another potential method would be to require everyone to serve "volunteer" duty on the police force, so they can see and experience firsthand just how well (or unwell) their police force is funded.  This would also be a good learning experience in other ways, I think.



I think a neat variation on your idea might be to offer a choice. Either support through monetary means, or work part-time for the force to make up what you can't pay. This doesn't need to be compulsory. Just give work-supporters the same benefit(s) as monetary supporters. If every supporter's name goes on a list, for example, the ones who worked for it would go up on the list too.



whiteskunk said:


> 3) Do away with large corporations.



I used to think large corporations were evil too. Before I picked up philosophy and realized that business owners have rights too. Just because we're the "little people" doesn't mean we can step all over the big people. We have no right to take their money any more than they have a right to take ours.

You can't just cap the size of a corporation. That's a form of control. A regulation. An infringement upon freedom. If a business owner works hard, earns a profit, and reinvests it in his company, nobody can tell him that he can't grow his business.


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 29, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> If you're poor, start working and make some money.


Do you really think it's that easy?



> Making an extra $60 a month isn't that hard.


You do. Let me guess, you're in college on a scholarship of some sort, or have a nice trust fund to fall back on.



> I used to think large corporations were evil too. Before I picked up philosophy and realized that business owners have rights too. Just because we're the "little people" doesn't mean we can step all over the big people. We have no right to take their money any more than they have a right to take ours.


Idiot. That's what corporations _do_.



> You can't just cap the size of a corporation. That's a form of control. A regulation. An infringement upon freedom. If a business owner works hard, earns a profit, and reinvests it in his company, nobody can tell him that he can't grow his business.


What a stupid little boy you are.

Ethically and economically speaking, he can't grow his business large enough to stifle competition. _That's_ anti-capitalist and bad for the economy. Regulation isn't, because true capitalism can only exist under the rule of law.

Are you a big fan of Adam Smith? Let me answer that for you: No, you aren't, because the "Invisible Hand" man was actually a big believer in regulating corporations.

I bet I just blew your mind with that statement, and the next thing you post is going to be some form of "nuh-uh!". Let's hear it.


----------



## Amaroq (Nov 29, 2009)

Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Do you really think it's that easy?


Yes. Or just save up. You may also note an idea I had where the police will offer to let you work for them for your payment if you can't afford it. Depending on the pay rate they count it at, you could spread an eight hour workday over the entire month and have contributed your share.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> You do. Let me guess, you're in college on a scholarship of some sort, or have a nice trust fund to fall back on.


No. I live on my own with a roommate, working at wal-mart and splitting costs with him. But I'm an aspiring web-programmer, and someday I'm going to use my skills to make myself filthy rich, so I can live the American Dream.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Idiot. That's what corporations _do_.


No, they don't steal our money. We give it to them in exchange for products and services. It's called trading.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> What a stupid little boy you are.


You're bordering on an ad-hominem attack there. (That means attacking the person instead of their argument.) Though you did try to provide an argument below, which I'll now address.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Ethically and economically speaking, he can't grow his business large enough to stifle competition. _That's_ anti-capitalist and bad for the economy. Regulation isn't, because true capitalism can only exist under the rule of law.


Ethically speaking: Who has the right to right to stop him from growing his business? It's his property. Either rights apply to everyone or they apply to no-one. (The right to property is one of the few rights I advocate, along with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to property means you get to keep what you earn/produce and do whatever you wish with it.)

Economically speaking: Stifling business is pro-capitalist? If there were no businesses, you would literally have nothing.

I think that the best man should win. If this one business owner is better at what he does than everyone else, he has the right to grow his business. If competition can't keep up with him, too bad for them.

He also has the right to charge as much as he can get away with. But if he's wise, he'll take supply and demand into account and charge an optimal price. If he starts charging too much, competition will move in and take advantage of it. Even if he "stifles" competition, he still has to worry about competition. It'll be in his selfish interest to make sure he keeps his customers from buying from somewhere cheaper than his business.

One more thing about capitalism. The world has never seen one yet. The USA is arguably the most capitalistic country in the world. But we're still a mixed economy. There are socialistic elements in the mix that are holding us back. There are safety nets that allow bigwigs to become corrupt, since they have nothing to worry about if they fail.

I'm not arguing for what you obviously think a capitalism is. I'm arguing for laissez-faire capitalism. A complete separation between government and economy. Since the government will still handle the justice system, it'll handle disagreements and breaches of contract. But otherwise, everything goes as far as the economy is concerned.

Why? Because freedom is a good thing. History shows that freedom results in prosperity. When we emerged from the dark ages into the age of reason and the enlightenment, and onward into the industrial revolution, the human race had an explosion of prosperity caused by their newfound freedom. Right now, the industrial revolution has ended, and we're gradually slipping into an anti-industrial revolution as regulations, etc squeeze out what little life is left in our economy.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Are you a big fan of Adam Smith? Let me answer that for you: No, you aren't, because the "Invisible Hand" man was actually a big believer in regulating corporations.


Never heard of him.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> I bet I just blew your mind with that statement, and the next thing you post is going to be some form of "nuh-uh!". Let's hear it.


My mind has not been blown. Though I am curious about the vehemence of your response. Ayn Rand once said that we live in an age of envy, where people generally hate the good for being good. I think that you think it's unfair that the rich people have more money than poor people like you and me. It seems unfair because you don't believe you have the power to make yourself rich too, when in reality you have had that power all along. Most of the wealthy business owners pulled themselves up by their boostraps. More often than not, it takes blood, sweat, and tears to get to the top. So instead of hating them for being at the top, you should focus that intensity towards pulling yourself to the top instead.


----------



## Mayfurr (Nov 29, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> No, the police is still run by the government. They'll probably protect everyone, even if they don't pay. But the non-payees ought to know, and ought to be reminded, that their lack of paying is only hurting their safety and the safety of every other individual in the city. Not that the good of the people should be your primary concern. But the other individuals won't like knowing they're supporting the defense of a freeloader.
> 
> If you're poor, start working and make some money.  Making an extra $60 a month isn't that hard. And that's just a hypothetical amount anyway. We wouldn't know an exact amount unless someone knowledgeable in law enforcement spending and city populations were to do the math for us.



And are you including children, invalids, the elderly and infirm in all this "pay for police protection"? You know, people who CAN'T earn money because they are too young, too old or just not physically capable? Either your "voluntary levy" is increased still more to cover these people - which, if calculated as a flat rate, actually hits poor people proportionately worse than the well-off - or it's back to Dickensian workhouses for these people to "earn their keep"...

What about short-term visitors to the area? Do you want to put a toll on the area's border to pay for _their_ police protection, increase the "voluntary" levy still further, or abandon them to the wolves?



Amaroq said:


> You can't just cap the size of a corporation. That's a form of control. A regulation. An infringement upon freedom. If a business owner works hard, earns a profit, and reinvests it in his company, nobody can tell him that he can't grow his business.



And if said corporation grows so big that they stifle competition through fair means or foul, using their dominant position to squash competing businesses before charging monopoly rates for their product and generally ripping off their customers? What then? The general public is just supposed to suck this up?

We've recently seen what happens when big corporations become "too big to fail" through under-regulation...


----------



## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 29, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> Yes. Or just save up. You may also note an idea I had where the police will offer to let you work for them for your payment if you can't afford it. Depending on the pay rate they count it at, you could spread an eight hour workday over the entire month and have contributed your share.






> No. I live on my own with a roommate, working at wal-mart and splitting costs with him. But I'm an aspiring web-programmer,


You and everyone else, kid.
Protip: You're about twelve years too late. The Internet boom is _over._



> and someday I'm going to use my skills to make myself filthy rich,


Good luck with that, Wonderboy--you'll need it.



> so I can live the American Dream.


The American Dream is a load of materialist bullshit created to keep the naive working. You know--people like you, who think hard work is the only thing needed to get ahead, and the only way to.



> No, they don't steal our money. We give it to them in exchange for products and services. It's called trading.


By your logic, the USA should have the best education, healthcare, broadband Internet, and cellular telephony, since we spend a lot more on those than most other countries. Guess what? We don't, and that's not merely a coincidence.

If you give me money for a service, and later find out that somebody else would provide the same service at an equal or better quality for less money than I charged, would you just shrug it off and say "Damn, she's good at business?" I should certainly hope not. I would hope you'd feel ripped off--because you would have been. The same would go for a situation in which I sold you something for the same price as another vendor, but at much lower quality because I cut corners. But, you know, that's how it works under our current system--cut corners wherever you can, increase prices where you can't, and pocket any profits left over.

You see, corporations make more money by ripping people off than by dealing honestly. Simple fact of life.



> You're bordering on an ad-hominem attack there. (That means attacking the person instead of their argument.)


I know what it means, but it's not _just_ an attack if I'm right...



> Ethically speaking: Who has the right to right to stop him from growing his business?


People who would be harmed by it, for one thing. And the government that's supposed to represent them. Nice try, but maybe you should read up on how government and society actually work.



> It's his property.


By your logic, I would have the right to run you over with my car. It's my property, after all. Or I'd have the right to stab you with a knife from my collection, or shoot you with a gun I bought. Common law, common practice, and common _decency_, however, would dictate that merely owning something does not give a person the right to harm another with it. Though I suppose that's a "socialist" idea.



> Either rights apply to everyone or they apply to no-one. (The right to property is one of the few rights I advocate, along with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to property means you get to keep what you earn/produce and do whatever you wish with it.)


I like how you think _you_ know more about civics, government, and society than _I_ do. It's quite amusing.



> Economically speaking: Stifling business is pro-capitalist? If there were no businesses, you would literally have nothing.


Hahaha. Not all rules are stifling, you crayfish.

Businesses are like children. The only way they learn how to behave properly is if you have clear rules in place and enforce them consistently. The difference, of course, being that children eventually internalize those things somewhat, whereas a business will run back in and touch the stove anyway the moment you let it.



> I think that the best man should win.


Good for you.



> If this one business owner is better at what he does than everyone else, he has the right to grow his business.


Business owners don't really _do_ anything. The peons make and sell the products, and the business owner just gets rich without having to lift a finger. Nice try, though.



> If competition can't keep up with him, too bad for them.


Did you know _competition_ is what results in innovation, which results in product improvement, which promotes prosperity? Oh, no, you didn't, because you think _freedom_ is the only thing you need for prosperity.



> He also has the right to charge as much as he can get away with. But if he's wise, he'll take supply and demand into account and charge an optimal price.


Business owners aren't wise. They only think short-term, and they don't need to worry about price when the goods in question are inelastic (constant demand regardless of price) and/or they have a monopoly.



> If he starts charging too much, competition will move in and take advantage of it. Even if he "stifles" competition, he still has to worry about competition.


You don't know what you're talking about.



> It'll be in his selfish interest to make sure he keeps his customers from buying from somewhere cheaper than his business.


Do you even know what monopoly is?



> One more thing about capitalism. The world has never seen one yet.


This is true. Too many people are pro-corporatist like you.



> The USA is arguably the most capitalistic country in the world. But we're still a mixed economy. There are socialistic elements in the mix that are holding us back. There are safety nets that allow bigwigs to become corrupt, since they have nothing to worry about if they fail.


Ah, but those are the same bigwigs you want to allow complete freedom.



> I'm not arguing for what you obviously think a capitalism is.


Obviously not. You don't even _know_ what capitalism is.



> I'm arguing for laissez-faire capitalism. A complete separation between government and economy.


History has shown that not to work time and again. Do you know what we had in 1929? Laissez-faire capitalism. Do you know what we had in 1930? The Great Depression.

The same goes for pretty much every other economic depression in the USA's history. And, I'm quite certain, in other countries' history as well.



> Since the government will still handle the justice system, it'll handle disagreements and breaches of contract. But otherwise, everything goes as far as the economy is concerned.


You know, laissez-faire economics is older than Shakespeare. If it's really so great for everyone, why isn't it the norm to this day?

And are you really advocating a _complete_ separation of economy and government, or are you just advocating a system in which the government has no way of telling companies what to do, but companies can still influence government? Because there's a very big different.



> Why? Because freedom is a good thing. History shows that freedom results in prosperity.


Freedom alone does not guarantee prosperity. People have to work, but they have to work _honestly._



> When we emerged from the dark ages into the age of reason and the enlightenment, and onward into the industrial revolution, the human race had an explosion of prosperity caused by their newfound freedom.


Actually, they had an explosion of prosperity because _making things became vastly easier._ Technology is not the same thing as freedom, nor does one necessarily require the other. I think we can both agree that the Soviet Union was hardly what you'd call a "free" society, and yet they gave us, the United States, a major run for our money during the Cold War.



> Right now, the industrial revolution has ended, and we're gradually slipping into an anti-industrial revolution as regulations, etc squeeze out what little life is left in our economy.


DURHURHUR RULEZ R BAD
^ You.
The move from a manufacturing economy to a service-based economy is largely an unfortunate consequence of deregulation and the resultant corporate outsourcing, and in lesser part due to increasing difficulties and costs involved in starting small businesses.
^ Reasonable people.



> Never heard of him.


Oh god, so you're not even one of _those_ pseudoeconomists? I have a bad feeling about this...



> My mind has not been blown. Though I am curious about the vehemence of your response.


Simply put, I know more about capitalism than you do. You work at Wal-Mart like every other belligerent sheep. I worked as a whore, making about ten times as much per hour for work that's (usually) much less unpleasant. 



> Ayn Rand


UGH, why does it not surprise me that you're a Randist? That's even worse.



> once said that we live in an age of envy, where people generally hate the good for being good.


Ayn Rand also said that health warnings about tobacco were part of a Socialist conspiracy. She died of lung cancer. I can think of no better commentary on how correct Ayn Rand's ideas are, except maybe for her implicit endorsements of rape and longwindedness.



> I think that you think it's unfair that the rich people have more money than poor people like you and me. It seems unfair because you don't believe you have the power to make yourself rich too, when in reality you have had that power all along. Most of the wealthy business owners pulled themselves up by their boostraps.


AHAHAHAHA no.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are two of the richest men in the world, and they both had rich parents to fall back on if their companies failed.
Warren Buffet got rich by playing the stock market--_gambling_, in other words.

You wouldn't know any of this, though, since you're a Randian, and being in touch with unfavorable parts of reality is a no-no in your sect.



> More often than not, it takes blood, sweat, and tears to get to the top. So instead of hating them for being at the top, you should focus that intensity towards pulling yourself to the top instead.


Oh, child, you're going to _love_ the real world. Or, rather, _I'm_ going to love watching it crush you like the maggot you are.


----------



## Unsilenced (Nov 29, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> No, the police is still run by the government. They'll probably protect everyone, even if they don't pay. But the non-payees ought to know, and ought to be reminded, that their lack of paying is only hurting their safety and the safety of every other individual in the city. Not that the good of the people should be your primary concern. But the other individuals won't like knowing they're supporting the defense of a freeloader.
> 
> If you're poor, start working and make some money.  Making an extra $60 a month isn't that hard. And that's just a hypothetical amount anyway. We wouldn't know an exact amount unless someone knowledgeable in law enforcement spending and city populations were to do the math for us.
> 
> ...




You still have macho douchebags like "Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs" who think that all they need for safety is their trusty 12-Gauge. There will be people who think that protection is for the weak, and will refuse to pay to protect other people (even if they actually _can't_ fully protect themselves)


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Nov 29, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Do you sleep?
> 
> Do you ever leave your house?
> 
> ...


 
Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 29, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither.


You have the quote wrong. It's "Those who would trade essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither, and will quickly lose both." Last I checked, paying taxes did not, in any significant way, prohibit you from doing whatever you wanted so long as it did not interfere with others' ability to do the same. What does prevent that is unjust laws, but if you don't have a government, there aren't even any laws--you just have to bend over for the gangs that will inevitably form.

What many of you "rugged individualists" fail to understand is that most, if not all, of humanity has what's called a herd instinct. People instinctively form groups; groups need a collective means of decision-making, and some sort of hierarchy generally forms as well; that eventually becomes a form of government.


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## Kommodore (Nov 29, 2009)

Rigor Sardonicus said:


> . The American Dream is a load of materialist bullshit created to keep the naive working. You know--people like you, who think hard work is the only thing needed to get ahead, and the only way to.



I don't see how having the mindset that "working hard" to get what you want in life could possibly be a bad thing. Whether it is achievable or not is debatable, but the mindset itself is nothing but constructive - working people expand society in one way or another. 

Naturally this mindset taken to the extreme can be a bad thing, working in lieu of anything else and all that, but such logic can be applied to anything. Taken for what it should be, there is nothing wrong with the "American dream."


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 29, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> I don't see how having the mindset that "working hard" to get what you want in life could possibly be a bad thing. Whether it is achievable or not is debatable, but the mindset itself is nothing but constructive - working people expand society in one way or another.
> 
> Naturally this mindset taken to the extreme can be a bad thing, working in lieu of anything else and all that, but such logic can be applied to anything. Taken for what it should be, there is nothing wrong with the "American dream."


Except that it's no longer attainable, and hasn't been attainable for longer than I've been alive. The first time people started talking about the "American Dream", I'm fairly certain, was in the latter half of the 20th century, when it was on its way to becoming nothing more than that--a dream.

And do you even know what the American Dream is? We're all alluding to it, but will you say what it's actually supposed to be? Or is it as nebulous and variable an idea as "God's will"? I know what I've concluded it to be, but I'm not yet willing to say for certain that I'm right as to its exact definition.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 29, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither.



Two types of people believe that. 

Fools and thieves. Which are you?


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## whiteskunk (Nov 29, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Oh god...
> 
> MORE OF THEM!
> 
> ...



Do away with all branches of the military-Let me rephrase that-eliminate the separate branches by consolidating them into one.

Do away with law enforcement and judicial system-Okay I meant that one. Basically because I heard of far to many people being harassed and or beaten by police. Namely people with disabilities. I myself was once pulled from my truck at gun point and thrown to the ground by a cop insisting I had stolen it.
Even after being proven wrong, he still cuffed me and took me to lock up for GTA.

Do away with large corporations-Such as the cable and satellite tv providers that frequently jack up the costs. ("cough cough Comcast cough Directv cough Dish Network cough cough").

Do away with government-Let's face it, politicians are mearly figureheads/puppets. The real power people belong to orgs such as the Masons.

Do away with organized religion-Organized religion was created to instill fear into the masses and take money with the promise of a condo in heaven.


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Nov 29, 2009)

Rigor Sardonicus said:


> You have the quote wrong. It's "Those who would trade essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither, and will quickly lose both." Last I checked, paying taxes did not, in any significant way, prohibit you from doing whatever you wanted so long as it did not interfere with others' ability to do the same. What does prevent that is unjust laws, but if you don't have a government, there aren't even any laws--you just have to bend over for the gangs that will inevitably form.
> 
> What many of you "rugged individualists" fail to understand is that most, if not all, of humanity has what's called a herd instinct. People instinctively form groups; groups need a collective means of decision-making, and some sort of hierarchy generally forms as well; that eventually becomes a form of government.


 
So what, I paraphrased.  And yes I'm fully aware the human nature to group. That's why true anarchy can never be achieved.



Unsilenced said:


> Two types of people believe that.
> 
> Fools and thieves. Which are you?


 
Neither. I don't victimize my fellow man, nor advocate victimization of him either.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 29, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> Neither. I don't victimize my fellow man, nor advocate victimization of him either.



You don't advocate it, but you'd turn a blind eye. 

"By remaining neutral, you choose to side with the oppressor."


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## Kommodore (Nov 29, 2009)

Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Except that it's no longer attainable, and hasn't been attainable for longer than I've been alive. The first time people started talking about the "American Dream", I'm fairly certain, was in the latter half of the 20th century, when it was on its way to becoming nothing more than that--a dream.
> 
> And do you even know what the American Dream is? We're all alluding to it, but will you say what it's actually supposed to be? Or is it as nebulous and variable an idea as "God's will"? I know what I've concluded it to be, but I'm not yet willing to say for certain that I'm right as to its exact definition.



Like I said, whether or not the American dream is even attainable anymore is debatable, but that isn't the point. Any variation of "The American Dream" involves applying yourself and working hard. This is _not a bad thing_ to hold up as a virtue. All most people have is hope, and I don't see what is so wrong with _hoping_ that if they work hard they can make it up to the top. Is it true? Arguably not for most people. Does that invalidate it as an idea? No way. 

What is the alternative? Being lazy and hoping Someone Else will take care of you? 

As far as what "The" American Dream is, there is no set definition, it is a mindset. You may find specific definitions or explanations in dictionaries and so forth, but at the end of the day it is whatever most people think it is. 

And I think it says, in essence, that if you "work hard and apply yourself, you too could make it in this world." 

Basically, work hard and you can live comfortably. By the very nature of a bell curve only a small fraction will exist on "the top" but most people can "live well" under the right conditions. It does not depend only on your work ethic, and in the regard the Dream is deceptive, but the fact remains that you can live a middle to upper-middle class life if you work diligently and educate yourself. And if you are industious and skillful enough, there is nothing stopping you from reaching the top. No "glass barrier" if you have the skills. That is all it is; a statement of what "could" happen under the right conditions. 

Another way of looking at it, I think, is that "you will _never_ achieve your dreams if you are lazy." Which says the same thing under certain interpretations and may be more applicable to real life. 

Either way I don't think it is a cynical as you are making it out to be.


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## Roose Hurro (Nov 29, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> I think a neat variation on your idea might be to offer a choice. Either support through monetary means, or work part-time for the force to make up what you can't pay. This doesn't need to be compulsory. Just give work-supporters the same benefit(s) as monetary supporters. If every supporter's name goes on a list, for example, the ones who worked for it would go up on the list too.



I thought of that variation, too, I just didn't write it down... wanted to keep the original thought simple.  Thanks for picking up the alternatives...




Rigor Sardonicus said:


> And do you even know what the American Dream is?



Yes... a home to live in, a car in your garage, food on your table, a stable career, and the freedom to enjoy it all.  With your family...


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Nov 29, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> You don't advocate it, but you'd turn a blind eye.
> 
> "By remaining neutral, you choose to side with the oppressor."


 
If their being victimized then I'll jump in and try to help.

I also want to say that the "American Dream" is not real. Just like that stupid competition to "find the image of America" the USA Channel's did. It's not real. It's something someone came up with to sound patriotic.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 29, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> If their being victimized then I'll jump in and try to help.



So that's how you intend to run a system of law? By being a lone caped crusader? 

"Fear not, citizen! Some dude in spandex has showed up!" 



Even if you were from Krypton, you couldn't stop every crime. The weak would still be oppressed by the strong, there would still be blood in the streets.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 29, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> Like I said, whether or not the American dream is even attainable anymore is debatable, but that isn't the point. Any variation of "The American Dream" involves applying yourself and working hard. This is _not a bad thing_ to hold up as a virtue. All most people have is hope, and I don't see what is so wrong with _hoping_ that if they work hard they can make it up to the top. Is it true? Arguably not for most people. Does that invalidate it as an idea? No way.
> 
> What is the alternative? Being lazy and hoping Someone Else will take care of you?


That's pretty much the New American Dream, sadly. Especially around here :V



> As far as what "The" American Dream is, there is no set definition, it is a mindset. You may find specific definitions or explanations in dictionaries and so forth, but at the end of the day it is whatever most people think it is.
> 
> And I think it says, in essence, that if you "work hard and apply yourself, you too could make it in this world."


Okay, then my conclusion was right.

It's a nice belief, but people who believe it are easily manipulated by it into working excessively.



> Basically, work hard and you can live comfortably. By the very nature of a bell curve only a small fraction will exist on "the top" but most people can "live well" under the right conditions. It does not depend only on your work ethic, and in the regard the Dream is deceptive, but the fact remains that you can live a middle to upper-middle class life if you work diligently and educate yourself. And if you are industious and skillful enough, there is nothing stopping you from reaching the top. No "glass barrier" if you have the skills. That is all it is; a statement of what "could" happen under the right conditions.


The problem is, a lot of the required skills and other things are not available to ordinary people who stick to using accepted, conventional, "legitimate" means. And moving from a lower class to a higher one in the same generation is a myth in almost every single case. Social mobility from one generation to the next, of course, happens pretty often.



> Another way of looking at it, I think, is that "you will _never_ achieve your dreams if you are lazy." Which says the same thing under certain interpretations and may be more applicable to real life.
> 
> Either way I don't think it is a cynical as you are making it out to be.


Did you mean "a cycle", or "as cynical"? I was going to reply to that either way, but I suddenly have a headache. Dammit >_<


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Nov 29, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> So that's how you intend to run a system of law? By being a lone caped crusader?
> 
> "Fear not, citizen! Some dude in spandex has showed up!"
> 
> ...


 
If a someone is victimizing some else, then that's not anarchy, is it?


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## Unsilenced (Nov 29, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> If a someone is victimizing some else, then that's not anarchy, is it?



Indeed it is not true anarchy, but true anarchy is impossible. Instead of true anarchy we have a dictatorship of steel, and any attempts at true anarchy can yield only such a dictatorship. 

Get why I don't like the idea of anarchy very much?


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Nov 29, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Indeed it is not true anarchy, but true anarchy is impossible. Instead of true anarchy we have a dictatorship of steel, and any attempts at true anarchy can yield only such a dictatorship.
> 
> Get why I don't like the idea of anarchy very much?


 
Like I said before, if Man wasn't so ambitious there would be no problem, and that is that's why true anarchy can never be achieved


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## Unsilenced (Nov 29, 2009)

Frankly, I'd prefer that man be ambitious and require regulation than moronic and lazy but have no regulation. 

Seriously, if not for ambition we would still be sitting around in caves... 

... 

Actually, check that, not even. We'd all be dead because no-one felt like going out and fighting for food.


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Nov 29, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> Frankly, I'd prefer that man be ambitious and require regulation than moronic and lazy but have no regulation.
> 
> Seriously, if not for ambition we would still be sitting around in caves...
> 
> ...


 
Whan I said "Man's ambitions" I talking about power and control ambitions.


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## Unsilenced (Nov 29, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> Whan I said "Man's ambitions" I talking about power and control ambitions.



We would not speak English if not for conquest, we would not live where where we do if not for slaughter. We would not fly if we had not bombed, we would not drive had we not fought through the trenches of WWI. We would not even be talking on the internet if not for war and military ambition. 

Most major advancements in technology were either military in origin, or had military applications that got them funding for development. 

You can bitch all you want about how horribly people treated other people in the past, but here's the thing: you wouldn't be here without it. At some point your ancestors stepped on someone else's toes to advance their own cause. Wars and genocides have turned out in your favor. 

Humanity is different from all other species _because_ it ambitious. In killing we find out how better to survive. We find out what works and what doesn't. Language enabled us to organize better against enemies, communication advancements gave us a strategic edge. Time proved that societies run by the sword were inferior to those run by the people. 

And it's not just about war either. Business and trade runs on ambition too. There is always a drive to build a better product, have a better sales pitch or make the whole thing cheaper. Why do we do it? So that we can be the best. So we can dominate. We do it so that WE are the ones that reproduce, who's name shows up in the history books. We want to be on top, and that's what makes us great. 

For better or for worse, ambition makes the world go 'round.


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## Delta (Nov 30, 2009)

My idea of a perfect government is one that works.

'Nuff said.


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Nov 30, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> We would not speak English if not for conquest, we would not live where where we do if not for slaughter. We would not fly if we had not bombed, we would not drive had we not fought through the trenches of WWI. We would not even be talking on the internet if not for war and military ambition.
> 
> Most major advancements in technology were either military in origin, or had military applications that got them funding for development.
> 
> ...


 
That's cool. Just don't step on my toes. 
I assume you're a fan of Ayn Rand?


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## Mikael Grizzly (Nov 30, 2009)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> That's cool. Just don't step on my toes.
> I assume you're a fan of Ayn Rand?



Trolling much?


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## Amaroq (Nov 30, 2009)

Unsilenced said:


> You still have macho douchebags like "Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs" who think that all they need for safety is their trusty 12-Gauge. There will be people who think that protection is for the weak, and will refuse to pay to protect other people (even if they actually _can't_ fully protect themselves)


It's a shame the police force, if run by a government, would still protect him anyway. He'd find out real fast how well he can protect himself when he's surrounded by trained thieves or assassins or whatever.


Wow, I've earned myself a complete point-by-point rebuttal. I must've struck a nerve.


Rigor Sardonicus said:


> You and everyone else, kid.
> Protip: You're about twelve years too late. The Internet boom is _over._


Have you looked at the source code for almost every website in existence? It's horribly ugly and inefficient. Supposed "professional" web designers copy and paste javascript snippets from free javascript sites and bash together ugly php scripts that have no security whatsoever. I think there's still a niche left for me to fill.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> The American Dream is a load of materialist bullshit created to keep the naive working. You know--people like you, who think hard work is the only thing needed to get ahead, and the only way to.


Of course hard work alone isn't going to get you far. You need to innovate. You need to be ambitious. You can't just play, you have to play to win.

You act like material desires are evil. Is there something wrong with being willing to work for a good life, and then enjoying it when I earn it? I bet if/when I do legitimately make myself wealthy, you'll be one of the first people to rant and rave about how you deserve my hard-earned money simply because I have it and you don't.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> By your logic, the USA should have the best education, healthcare, broadband Internet, and cellular telephony, since we spend a lot more on those than most other countries. Guess what? We don't, and that's not merely a coincidence.


We would have the best of all that stuff if every single category you listed wasn't already heavily stifled by regulations.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> If you give me money for a service, and later find out that somebody else would provide the same service at an equal or better quality for less money than I charged, would you just shrug it off and say "Damn, she's good at business?" I should certainly hope not. I would hope you'd feel ripped off--because you would have been. The same would go for a situation in which I sold you something for the same price as another vendor, but at much lower quality because I cut corners. But, you know, that's how it works under our current system--cut corners wherever you can, increase prices where you can't, and pocket any profits left over.


I'd simply stop buying from you and buy from the person who makes a better quality/lower price item. I'd also tell the people I care about that they'd be better off doing the same. Word would spread. Your dishonesty will be your downfall in a laissez-faire capitalism.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> You see, corporations make more money by ripping people off than by dealing honestly. Simple fact of life.


In our current system, of course. If the economy was free of government intervention, and if people started educating themselves about what they're buying, reality would force corporations to deal honestly with people.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> I know what it means, but it's not _just_ an attack if I'm right...


Alright then, resort to petty insults if you must. I was under the impression we were debating as mature adults.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> People who would be harmed by it, for one thing. And the government that's supposed to represent them. Nice try, but maybe you should read up on how government and society actually work.


How is him growing his business harming anyone? If his business is bigger/more efficient, he can offer more of his product for cheaper.

This thread isn't about how society and government _currently_ work. It's about what an ideal government would be.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> By your logic, I would have the right to run you over with my car. It's my property, after all. Or I'd have the right to stab you with a knife from my collection, or shoot you with a gun I bought. Common law, common practice, and common _decency_, however, would dictate that merely owning something does not give a person the right to harm another with it. Though I suppose that's a "socialist" idea.


No, no, no. You're not allowed to violate another person's rights. That should've been implicit, but I also should have expected you to attack me from that angle, so I should have prepared more context to that statement. You can keep and use your property however you wish, so long as it doesn't violate another person's rights to life, liberty, property, or the pursuit of happiness.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> I like how you think _you_ know more about civics, government, and society than _I_ do. It's quite amusing.


That's a logical fallacy known as appeal to ignorance, closely related to the appeal to authority. Maybe you have studied that stuff. That doesn't mean you can just discredit me to avoid having to tackle the argument I made.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Hahaha. Not all rules are stifling, you crayfish.
> 
> Businesses are like children. The only way they learn how to behave properly is if you have clear rules in place and enforce them consistently. The difference, of course, being that children eventually internalize those things somewhat, whereas a business will run back in and touch the stove anyway the moment you let it.


Business owners are grown adults, just like employees, consumers, etc. They can make their own decisions and are better off given the freedom to do so.

You're like the parent who reverses a child's pokemon card trade because your kid gave up three cards for one in return, only to later find out that your kid knew what he was doing all along and was getting a 1st edition holographic charizard as the one card in return. Both sides wanted that trade, and they would've been better off if you hadn't meddled in their affairs.

Rules are stifling, because they prevent a person from fully exercising their better judgment when it conflicts with them. Who's to say some almighty rule-definer has better judgment than you?

The way to learn how to behave properly is to have a decent education and upbringing. Including knowledge of a decent philosophy, or at minimum, a decent ethics. Raised right, a person would actually 'want' to deal honestly with people, even if he's a business owner.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Business owners don't really _do_ anything. The peons make and sell the products, and the business owner just gets rich without having to lift a finger. Nice try, though.


Do you honestly think a bunch of random-ass people just got together one day and started making skilled, quality products, marketing them, and selling them?? Someone has to run the show. Someone has to manage the money, decide how much to allocate to pay for what, set up the structure of the company, decide what to make/sell and how to make/sell it. Without the people at the top, how long do you think a company would keep going before it fell apart? Who the hell do you think gave these "peons" a job and taught them how to do it?



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Did you know _competition_ is what results in innovation, which results in product improvement, which promotes prosperity? Oh, no, you didn't, because you think _freedom_ is the only thing you need for prosperity.


A business growing big may be able to easily overcome competition, but that doesn't stop innovation. Up-and-coming businesses will look for a weak spot in the big boys that they can attack. A new angle they can use to win. If you're going to be doing the same stuff as someone else, you're going to have to compete with them on their terms, and they're already more than big enough to handle you. But if you come up with something new that people want, you can easily make it to the top alongside the other big boys. Maybe it's a new product that you can use to corner a market, maybe it's a more efficient production method that lets you produce for far cheaper than everyone else is capable of.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Business owners aren't wise. They only think short-term, and they don't need to worry about price when the goods in question are inelastic (constant demand regardless of price) and/or they have a monopoly.


No, of course not. Why should they have to be wise with so many safety nets waiting to catch them when they fall? Abolish regulations, and suddenly they'll either have to wise up or go out of business when competitors eat them for breakfast.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Do you even know what monopoly is?


I made my statement with full knowledge of what a monopoly is. If a business owner earned that monopoly (wasn't granted a monopoly by an interfering government), he deserves to keep it as long as he uses it wisely. If poor business practices start plaguing the quality of the product or the price of the product, someone will start competing with him for his market. He'll either have to go straight again or lose.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> This is true. Too many people are pro-corporatist like you.


No, too many people are socialists like you.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Ah, but those are the same bigwigs you want to allow complete freedom.


Yes. Lift regulations and abolish safety nets, and they'll have to change their ways.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Obviously not. You don't even _know_ what capitalism is.
> 
> History has shown that not to work time and again. Do you know what we had in 1929? Laissez-faire capitalism. Do you know what we had in 1930? The Great Depression.
> 
> The same goes for pretty much every other economic depression in the USA's history. And, I'm quite certain, in other countries' history as well.


Did you miss what I said before about the world never having ever had a laissez-faire capitalism? It means a true, uninhibited capitalism with absolutely no government intervention. I'm pretty sure that, throughout the entire history of America, there has been at least some government control over the market.

According to Wikipedia, the Wall Street Crash (followed by the Great Depression) ended an era called the "Roaring 20's". A whole decade in which everyone was casting aside old traditions and trying new things. There were all sorts of inventions, discoveries, etc. Prosperity was exploding, things were changing for the better, Jazz and dancing became popular, and there was unprecedented industrial growth.

The Wall Street Crash happened because, apparently, people were buying into the stock market so readily that it created the illusion of a permanent bull-market. People started borrowing more and more money to invest into the stock market.



			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> By August 1929, brokers were routinely lending small investors more than â…” of the face value of the stocks they were buying. Over $8.5 billion was out on loan,[20] more than the entire amount of currency circulating in the U.S. at the time.[21]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929#Economic_fundamentals



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> You know, laissez-faire economics is older than Shakespeare. If it's really so great for everyone, why isn't it the norm to this day?


The kind of government I promote is strictly limited to three duties. Police, army, and justice. Name one country that had a government like that. A country that was not a monarchy, dictatorship, socialism, communism, etc, but a truly free country.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> And are you really advocating a _complete_ separation of economy and government, or are you just advocating a system in which the government has no way of telling companies what to do, but companies can still influence government? Because there's a very big different.


Complete separation. The government would have very limited duties, so there isn't much a business can influence.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Freedom alone does not guarantee prosperity. People have to work, but they have to work _honestly._


I agree.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Actually, they had an explosion of prosperity because _making things became vastly easier._ Technology is not the same thing as freedom, nor does one necessarily require the other. I think we can both agree that the Soviet Union was hardly what you'd call a "free" society, and yet they gave us, the United States, a major run for our money during the Cold War.


Innovation is a consequence of freedom. Sure, the soviets kept up with us on building missiles. But their quality of life was in the shitter. They had very little innovation outside of weapon-building.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> DURHURHUR RULEZ R BAD
> ^ You.
> The move from a manufacturing economy to a service-based economy is largely an unfortunate consequence of deregulation and the resultant corporate outsourcing, and in lesser part due to increasing difficulties and costs involved in starting small businesses.
> ^ Reasonable people.


The reason we're outsourcing so much, by the way, is because there's a tax loophole that makes it beneficial to businesses to outsource. So much for regulations being a good thing, eh?



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Simply put, I know more about capitalism than you do. You work at Wal-Mart like every other belligerent sheep. I worked as a whore, making about ten times as much per hour for work that's (usually) much less unpleasant.


That makes you more qualified than me to discuss economics? I'd say that Wal-Mart and "Whore" are both terrible credentials if you want to consider yourself an authority in economics.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> UGH, why does it not surprise me that you're a Randist? That's even worse.
> 
> Ayn Rand also said that health warnings about tobacco were part of a Socialist conspiracy. She died of lung cancer. I can think of no better commentary on how correct Ayn Rand's ideas are, except maybe for her implicit endorsements of rape and longwindedness.


From what I heard, Rand quit cold turkey when she found out smoking was bad for her. And she actually died of heart failure at 77 years old.

There was also no rape in her books. The character(s) on the "receiving" end of this "rape" wanted it that way. But this is a debate about government, not about Rand's writing.

Oh, and I'm not a Randist. I'm an Objectivist.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> AHAHAHAHA no.
> Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are two of the richest men in the world, and they both had rich parents to fall back on if their companies failed.
> Warren Buffet got rich by playing the stock market--_gambling_, in other words.


I said most, not all. 99% of all business owners are small business owners. And pretty much all of them earn their way up legitimately.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> You wouldn't know any of this, though, since you're a Randian, and being in touch with unfavorable parts of reality is a no-no in your sect.


You obviously don't know the first thing about Objectivism. A philosophy that explicitly advocates adhering to reality.



Rigor Sardonicus said:


> Oh, child, you're going to _love_ the real world. Or, rather, _I'm_ going to love watching it crush you like the maggot you are.


When I've become prosperous, I'm going to post in this topic about it if it's still here. I'm going to love the look of zealous jealousy on your face that the pro-capitalist made it farther than the... whatever the heck you are. Socialist probably. Or at least egalitarian.


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## Foxy_Boy (Nov 30, 2009)

I want a government where each individual part of society is run by an enternal group which as no say any other group's doing, as like healthcare would be one, money, trading, manufacturing  ex cetera.....

Personally I just think a whole nations power and responsiblities are too much for one man, That one man will eventually go mad with power.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Nov 30, 2009)

Amaroq said:


> Wow, I've earned myself a complete point-by-point rebuttal. I must've struck a nerve.


Not really. Arguing with you is actually quite enjoyable. It lets me show off many of the things nobody would expect me to know, and, in short, helps feed my ego.



> Have you looked at the source code for almost every website in existence? It's horribly ugly and inefficient. Supposed "professional" web designers copy and paste javascript snippets from free javascript sites and bash together ugly php scripts that have no security whatsoever. I think there's still a niche left for me to fill.


Not when crappy code is cheaper.



> Of course hard work alone isn't going to get you far. You need to innovate. You need to be ambitious. You can't just play, you have to play to win.


Ambition is only a virtue when you have a sense of moderation to temper it with. Otherwise, the proper name is "greed".



> You act like material desires are evil. Is there something wrong with being willing to work for a good life, and then enjoying it when I earn it? I bet if/when I do legitimately make myself wealthy, you'll be one of the first people to rant and rave about how you deserve my hard-earned money simply because I have it and you don't.


Oh, that's rich.
Material desires aren't evil, but material things aren't the only things that matter. Do you know how many middle-class families are weakened because both parents are working full-time to provide



> We would have the best of all that stuff if every single category you listed wasn't already heavily stifled by regulations.


Actually, no.



> I'd simply stop buying from you and buy from the person who makes a better quality/lower price item.


Ah, but that wouldn't matter. There are plenty of other suckers to fleece. All that matters is the short term. You see?



> I'd also tell the people I care about that they'd be better off doing the same. Word would spread. Your dishonesty will be your downfall in a laissez-faire capitalism.


Not really



> In our current system, of course. If the economy was free of government intervention, and if people started educating themselves about what they're buying,


Those are two very unrelated statements. If anything, without government intervention, people would believe the dishonest companies even more.



> Alright then, resort to petty insults if you must. I was under the impression we were debating as mature adults.


We are. You just happen to lack intelligence. That can be changed quite easily, but you would have to abandon your "philosophy" and eat a heaping helping of crow first.



> How is him growing his business harming anyone? If his business is bigger/more efficient, he can offer more of his product for cheaper.


Or he can charge more money without having to improve it at all, meanwhile consuming more and more resources.



> This thread isn't about how society and government _currently_ work. It's about what an ideal government would be.


And I'm taking apart your ideal because it fails completely.



> No, no, no. You're not allowed to violate another person's rights. That should've been implicit, but I also should have expected you to attack me from that angle, so I should have prepared more context to that statement. You can keep and use your property however you wish, so long as it doesn't violate another person's rights to life, liberty, property, or the pursuit of happiness.


Let's see now.



> That's a logical fallacy known as appeal to ignorance, closely related to the appeal to authority. Maybe you have studied that stuff. That doesn't mean you can just discredit me to avoid having to tackle the argument I made.


I could easily point out every logical fallacy you've used, but that wouldn't make for very interesting reading, and you'd just play the following card:

Just because an argument contains a fallacy does not necessarily mean the entire argument is fallacious.

See what I just did? Now you can't play that one.



> Business owners are grown adults, just like employees, consumers, etc. They can make their own decisions and are better off given the freedom to do so.






> You're like the parent who reverses a child's pokemon card trade because your kid gave up three cards for one in return, only to later find out that your kid knew what he was doing all along and was getting a 1st edition holographic charizard as the one card in return. Both sides wanted that trade, and they would've been better off if you hadn't meddled in their affairs.


Nice try, but no. If both parties agree to a trade with full information on both sides, that's perfectly fine by me. The problem is, children trading cards is very fundamentally different from businesses screwing consumers.



> Rules are stifling, because they prevent a person from fully exercising their better judgment when it conflicts with them.


People don't exercise their better judgement even when there aren't any rules to conflict with. *People act based on on what will bring them the most satisfaction in the short term.* I'm sure you never knew that, since Ayn and Friends have clouded your mind with delusions of honest corporations and dishonest family men, but that's a simple fact of human nature.



> Who's to say some almighty rule-definer has better judgment than you?


If you have such a problem with rules, you should just go live in a cave. All aspects of society have rules, norms, procedures, and taboos. 



> The way to learn how to behave properly is to have a decent education and upbringing. Including knowledge of a decent philosophy, or at minimum, a decent ethics. Raised right, a person would actually 'want' to deal honestly with people, even if he's a business owner.


Dare to dream.
Let's say that actually happened, and everybody was taught morality (or at least your version of it). Do you honestly think the entire thing would hold together forever? Because it wouldn't. That house of cards would fall apart the moment somebody else realized he could make money faster by stealing than by using legitimate means.

This sort of phenomenon is what Merton's strain theory refers to as "Innovation", and it's about as old as society itself.



> Do you honestly think a bunch of random-ass people just got together one day and started making skilled, quality products, marketing them, and selling them?? Someone has to run the show. Someone has to manage the money, decide how much to allocate to pay for what, set up the structure of the company, decide what to make/sell and how to make/sell it.


That would be the CFO, who is not necessarily the owner. Nice try, though. 



> Without the people at the top, how long do you think a company would keep going before it fell apart? Who the hell do you think gave these "peons" a job and taught them how to do it?





> A business growing big may be able to easily overcome competition, but that doesn't stop innovation. Up-and-coming businesses will look for a weak spot in the big boys that they can attack. A new angle they can use to win. If you're going to be doing the same stuff as someone else, you're going to have to compete with them on their terms, and they're already more than big enough to handle you. But if you come up with something new that people want, you can easily make it to the top alongside the other big boys. Maybe it's a new product that you can use to corner a market, maybe it's a more efficient production method that lets you produce for far cheaper than everyone else is capable of.


And you honestly believe these hypothetical underdogs could take down the big guy overnight?



> No, of course not. Why should they have to be wise with so many safety nets waiting to catch them when they fall? Abolish regulations, and suddenly they'll either have to wise up or go out of business when competitors eat them for breakfast.


There's a big difference between corporate welfare and corporate regulation. Maybe you should learn what it is.



> I made my statement with full knowledge of what a monopoly is. If a business owner earned that monopoly (wasn't granted a monopoly by an interfering government), he deserves to keep it as long as he uses it wisely. If poor business practices start plaguing the quality of the product or the price of the product, someone will start competing with him for his market. He'll either have to go straight again or lose.


You don't know anything about American history, do you?



> No, too many people are socialists like you.


Aw, is hims mad at me? Does hims need a bweak fwom his Intewnet? I think hims does.



> Yes. Lift regulations and abolish safety nets, and they'll have to change their ways.


Lifting the regulations would let them create their own safety nets.



> Did you miss what I said before about the world never having ever had a laissez-faire capitalism? It means a true, uninhibited capitalism with absolutely no government intervention. I'm pretty sure that, throughout the entire history of America, there has been at least some government control over the market.


Given that you've already displayed total ignorance of American history, your confidence is as useless to your arguments as your verbosity.



> According to Wikipedia,


Wikipedia's a good source of information on diseases and psychological disorders, but I wouldn't recommend trusting it on politically-charged subjects like economics. Just a suggestion.



> the Wall Street Crash (followed by the Great Depression) ended an era called the "Roaring 20's". A whole decade in which everyone was casting aside old traditions and trying new things. There were all sorts of inventions, discoveries, etc. Prosperity was exploding, things were changing for the better, Jazz and dancing became popular, and there was unprecedented industrial growth.
> 
> The Wall Street Crash happened because, apparently, people were buying into the stock market so readily that it created the illusion of a permanent bull-market. People started borrowing more and more money to invest into the stock market.


And where were the rules that prevented them from doing this? Or that prevented banks from taking money from people's accounts and investing it? Oh, that's right, there _weren't_ any.

I find it laughable that I, a college dropout, know more about the '20s and the Great Depression than a self-proclaimed capitalist like yourself does. Then again, I find everything you say laughable.



> The kind of government I promote is strictly limited to three duties. Police, army, and justice. Name one country that had a government like that. A country that was not a monarchy, dictatorship, socialism, communism, etc, but a truly free country.


The United States of America under the Articles of Confederation. You lose.



> Innovation is a consequence of freedom. Sure, the soviets kept up with us on building missiles. But their quality of life was in the shitter. They had very little innovation outside of weapon-building.


That's because the only competition they had was with us, in the field of weapon-building (and, to a lesser extent, space exploration). You see? It's all about competition.



> The reason we're outsourcing so much, by the way, is because there's a tax loophole that makes it beneficial to businesses to outsource. So much for regulations being a good thing, eh?


You evidently don't know what a loophole is. Allow me:

A "loophole", as the name implies to all _thinking_ people, is what comes about when regulations fail to cover a specific detail, and this crack in the rules is easily and frequently exploited.

Outsourcing comes from there not being enough regulation to stop it.



> That makes you more qualified than me to discuss economics? I'd say that Wal-Mart and "Whore" are both terrible credentials if you want to consider yourself an authority in economics.


Whore is a much better one, I'd say. After all, in addition to making good money for little effort and providing a service people didn't really have to be _convinced_ to want, _I_ was self-employed.



> From what I heard, Rand quit cold turkey when she found out smoking was bad for her. And she actually died of heart failure at 77 years old.


I think you ought to do some more research.



> There was also no rape in her books. The character(s) on the "receiving" end of this "rape" wanted it that way.


Hahaha, what.



> But this is a debate about government, not about Rand's writing.


You brought up Ayn Rand as a source. I'm dismantling her credibility as such. It's relevant, because all her writings were author filibusters.



> Oh, and I'm not a Randist. I'm an Objectivist.


Splitting hairs doesn't make you look smarter.



> I said most, not all. 99% of all business owners are small business owners. And pretty much all of them earn their way up legitimately.


Really? Where'd you get that statistic? 99% of them are made up on the spot, you know.



> You obviously don't know the first thing about Objectivism. A philosophy that explicitly advocates adhering to reality.


Then it does a bloody awful job of it, considering what a bunch of idealistic and uninformed prats all the Objectivists I've ever encountered are.



> When I've become prosperous, I'm going to post in this topic about it if it's still here.


Good idea. If any of us are still alive a thousand years from now, I'm sure we'll be very happy for you.



> I'm going to love the look of zealous jealousy on your face that the pro-capitalist made it farther than the... whatever the heck you are.


Thinking, rational human being. And good luck with that.



> Socialist probably.


If "Socialist" means my beliefs are summed up as "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work", you might have a case. I certainly don't believe the current system's any good, since it promotes dishonesty and people who do very little to no work (heiresses, for example) still have more money than people who work 40-hour weeks.

But I'm more of a capitalist than you are, child. I want the kind of capitalism that's known to work, not the kind that's known to fail. You are a _corporatist_, not a capitalist, and there's a very big difference.

By the way: That guy you never heard of, Adam Smith, was one of the major voices in modern economics. Maybe you should go read something by _him_ instead of masturbating to _The Fountainhead_ every night.


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## Roose Hurro (Dec 8, 2009)

Rigor Sardonicus said:


> You evidently don't know what a loophole is. Allow me:
> 
> A "loophole", as the name implies to all _thinking_ people, is what comes about when regulations fail to cover a specific detail, and this crack in the rules is easily and frequently exploited.
> 
> *Outsourcing comes from there not being enough regulation to stop it.*



I take it you haven't heard of CAFTA or NAFTA...?


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Dec 9, 2009)

Mikael Grizzly said:


> Trolling much?


 
That's what I do. Maybe I really didn't mean what I said. Why? Cause I enjoy debating. I'm not here to proselytize.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Dec 9, 2009)

Roose Hurro said:


> I take it you haven't heard of CAFTA or NAFTA...?


You know what the "FT" part stands for, don't you?
_"Free Trade"_--one of the corporatists' favorite terms to throw around.

Were it not for CAFTA/NAFTA, the trade wouldn't be "free", correct? In other words, it'd be protected by tariffs and other such methods of assuring that American-made goods have the advantage when sold in America--thereby making it a bit less advantageous to outsource production of goods to Mexico.

A treaty doesn't necessarily _add_ regulation.


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