251–260 of 261 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lobbing in the US at least I’d typically referring to large institutions , not citizens. The elimination of lobbying in the US is most often reference to the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court.
We want to ban large institutions from communicating with their elected representative?
The elected representatives represent Human citizens not Corporations.
Companies are not people.
Is wealth inequality necessarily bad? Genuine question here.
Until that becomes part of the social contract - wealth inequality for some is a prison or death sentence or the means by which one is enslaved by their wages.
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Well, if you attribute soviet and chinese atrocities to communism you should also attribute colonial empires atrocities to capitalism. And then it's basically arguing about the estimates. > And if capitalist countries do this to each other, it's not capitalism per se to blame, it's other aspects of politics (imperialism, colonialism, Neo-colonialism etc.) that can be separated from capitalism That's just the branding…
> That's just the branding decision I was speaking of. You chose to brand the sane modern version of capitalism - still capitalism, but sane modern version of communism - socialism. That is not just branding. Communism had these tenets whenever it was tried. The only logical conclusion is that it's inevitable to get there. Capitalism had it's bad years, but now it's pretty good, it lifted billions out of poverty. Com…
How would you classify the countries where starvation is common right now on the communism-capitalism spectrum? [1]. I'd say most of them are more on the capitalism side.
> Communism still did intentional famines
Introducing another variable (we only count "intentional" famines now) is just a way to distance the "capitalism" brand from famines in capitalist countries. BTW - there's a humanitarian crisis and possible famine in Afghanistan[2] which was recently destabilized by the tame and humane capitalist countries (including my own). It wasn't a great place to live before, but at this point it's hard to argue we improved things. But you can always say it wasn't intentional so it doesn't count.
That's the issue with ideologically-motivated branding I was trying to convey. You choose examples and adjust definitions to fit your cause.
I'm mostly fine with that, communism really sucked when it was introduced in my country, and I don't want to play the devil's advocate for much longer, but I hate it when people put their biases out there as objective truths.
[1] https://www.scoopwhoop.com/world/countries-starving-to-death [2] https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/11/afghanistan-facing-famin...
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They argue against regulations because: - Regulations are often used as a tool of corruption and cronyism, e.g. regulation of housing construction entrenching landowner power. - Regulations can block legitimate progress, e.g. the private antigen tests that were blocked throughout 2020. - Regulations create complexity which acts as both a barrier to entry which creates monopolies, and as a hidden tax. - Regulations ar…
> I still want regulations (or just "laws") that stop pollution, deceptive marketing, and so on. Not allowing pollution isn't regulation, it's enforcing property rights. Not allowing deceptive marketing (fraudulent contracts) isn't regulation, it's enforcing property rights. If you can't see the difference between regulations and property rights then yeah, opposition to regulations will seem a bit bizarre.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lobbing in the US at least I’d typically referring to large institutions , not citizens. The elimination of lobbying in the US is most often reference to the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court.
We want to ban large institutions from communicating with their elected representative?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except humans, business and politics are far too complex to encapsulate in laws, at least in their current format. Look at a "simple" case in the news today. Several men who were abused in the 1970s have lost their case against Manchester City Football club who they say were responsible for the "scout" who abused them. If it was really simple, there would be no case. However, the Judge rules that at the time of the a…
> It would be much easier in Court if a ruling is made not just on the letter of a law that might not have thought of the specific scenario, not on common law of something that was close enough to this case but on whether it violates the charter. What do you mean by Charter for Society? A Constitution? Doesn't this just devolve to the same problem? If the law doesn't address a specific scenario, what makes you think…
If a constitution/charter had something like "Our society does not accept people who are unecessarily aggressive or quick to get violent", then the perpetrator doesn't get away with it because they didn't actually hurt someone or reach the burden for proving "fear of violence" needed for assault.
Don't know. Probably not realistic but at least then a society could know how infrastructure, government and public services are directed; people who want to immigrate can see clearly that e.g. "We respect the rule of law and property" so that they don't think it is OK to not pay tax, to not insure their car etc; and also for people who are a pain because they are just selfish and do things that rub people up the wrong way, "we are mindful that the community is more important than the individual and the community can decide that they don't like what you are doing even if it isn't illegal"
Why not blame human nature's shortcomings, instead of any *ism... Capitalism, Communism, Socialism and what not.
It's not very constructive, is it? "It's human nature to be exploited" Then again, not a lot seem to happen when pointing at short-comings or issues of prioritizing profit and growth above all else in society either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I still want regulations (or just "laws") that stop pollution, deceptive marketing, and so on. Not allowing pollution isn't regulation, it's enforcing property rights. Not allowing deceptive marketing (fraudulent contracts) isn't regulation, it's enforcing property rights. If you can't see the difference between regulations and property rights then yeah, opposition to regulations will seem a bit bizarre.
Deciding that these are property rights issues and enforcing them as such is itself a form of regulation. Property rights themselves are a basic form of regulation. Expanding property rights to more areas is regulation. Everything that regulate things in a way that protects and enforces people's rights, ensures people aren't being exploited, robbed, misled, etc, is a form of regulation.
In a general sense, perhaps, but not in the sense that people mean when they say that they're opposed to regulation. Context matters. In this conversation, "regulation" means a deviation from natural property rights, whether that involves directly infringing them, e.g. by attaching extra rules or penalties beyond simply respecting the equal rights of others, or granting artificial "property rights" which will necessarily infringe on others' natural ones.
> Expanding property rights to more areas is regulation.
"Expanding" the concept of property rights to areas where they don't naturally apply (like copyrights and patents) is definitely regulation, in the negative sense. But at that point you're not really talking about property rights any more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It would be much easier in Court if a ruling is made not just on the letter of a law that might not have thought of the specific scenario, not on common law of something that was close enough to this case but on whether it violates the charter. What do you mean by Charter for Society? A Constitution? Doesn't this just devolve to the same problem? If the law doesn't address a specific scenario, what makes you think…
I'm just thinking there are times where there is a violent assault, for example, perhaps the person has previous and is basically a horrible person who was winding someone up or just doing stuff that most people would be disgusted with. Only some of that is easy to capture in law. If a constitution/charter had something like "Our society does not accept people who are unecessarily aggressive or quick to get violent",…
I think these kinds of things are captured in law all the time. Giving judges recommended sentencing guidelines but with leeway for discretion in a specific case. Distinguishing between assault and aggravated assault and battery, murder and manslaughter, etc.