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The town is no longer friendly for business

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Re: The town is no longer friendly for business

#81

Post by jbjohns »

J3L2404 wrote: post #25
wavephorm wrote: post #4

The United States is very quickly becoming an ever more scary looking country. From the outside, it appears to be converting itself into a full-on fascist regime, hostile to insiders and outsiders alike. The walls are going up, the spy-cams and wiretapping are springing up. The SOPA/PIPA powered nation-wide firewall is being constructed. Local authorities are increasingly becoming subservient to a centralized federal…

> full-on fascist regime. This why you can't judge the world by watching TV. It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense. Europeans should know better than to throw around the word fascist. I am so sick of whining Europeans that I would almost support stalling the U.S. economy just to drive the E.U. into a ditch.

>It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense.

And nothing seems to make that happen faster than nationalism/patriotism.

Re: The town is no longer friendly for business

#82

Post by neilk »

davidw wrote: post #22
wavephorm wrote: post #4

The United States is very quickly becoming an ever more scary looking country. From the outside, it appears to be converting itself into a full-on fascist regime, hostile to insiders and outsiders alike. The walls are going up, the spy-cams and wiretapping are springing up. The SOPA/PIPA powered nation-wide firewall is being constructed. Local authorities are increasingly becoming subservient to a centralized federal…

Can we discuss the deteriorating situation in the US like adults and not sputter out epithets like "fascist regime"? Have a look at what's happening in Syria to see what a real dictatorship is like.

The Hobson's Choice blog argues that America is heading towards what he calls a "Falangist" state. This is the kind of government often seen in Latin America or Africa in the 20th Century. Falangism does not regiment society like fascism. It's a loose coalition of business, religious, and government elites, all of them corrupt and often working at cross-purposes.

Falangist regimes usually have grandiose rhetoric, but unlike fascist states their main enemy is their own breathtaking mediocrity.

--http://www.jamesrmaclean.com/archives/archive_fascism_falang...

Simon Johnson, formerly of the IMF, argues the USA has problems similar to an emerging market in crisis, because the government is unable or unwilling to get tough on its elites, particularly finance.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quie...

However, we've never seen a state like this that has the wealth, power, and technology of the USA. Americans are inventive people and I have no doubt we will be adding another -ist word to our vocabulary after all of this is done.

Re: The town is no longer friendly for business

#83

Post by J3L2404 »

jbjohns wrote: post #81
J3L2404 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> full-on fascist regime. This why you can't judge the world by watching TV. It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense. Europeans should know better than to throw around the word fascist. I am so sick of whining Europeans that I would almost support stalling the U.S. economy just to drive the E.U. into a ditch.

>It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense. And nothing seems to make that happen faster than nationalism/patriotism.

Except hatred of the US.

Re: The town is no longer friendly for business

#84

Post by JumpCrisscross »

wavephorm wrote: post #67
rfrey wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When euphemism detracts from the meaning or content of a message, its use is harmful. Your use of the phrase "fascist", regardless of its accuracy (which I debate, but this isn't about semantics), did not add to the content of your message. In fact it detracted significantly, substituting a tired "U.S.->Nazi" cliché in place of whatever message you intended.

I didn't say Nazi. I said fascist. If I mean the "United States is converting toward a right-wing authoritarian regime", then fascism is the correct word for this. Arguing the semantics of this word, or saying I shouldn't use that word because of its associations, really does not make my opinion less valid, and doesn't make any argument to the contrary.

Fascism is characterised by promoting the state over individual interests, the forcible suppression of the opposition, all generally accompanied by a suspension of the rule of law. Some of this is happening here, but it's a long way down the slippery slope.

Calling the US fascist as hyperbole for emotional impact is fine. But it sounds like a lot of people believe the US is actually fascist. My grandparents fled across the Austro-Swiss border from a fascist regime. The US isn't fascist.

Re: The town is no longer friendly for business

#85

Post by jbjohns »

J3L2404 wrote: post #83
jbjohns wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense. And nothing seems to make that happen faster than nationalism/patriotism.

Except hatred of the US.

I'm american myself. Please go read what pg has to say about ID.

Re: The town is no longer friendly for business

#86

Post by JumpCrisscross »

An analogy for the subprime mess may be valid here - if you have 10 000 pies and I tell you there is a finger (or arsenic) in 3 of them, even though 99.9% if the pies are clean, you are liable to refuse to eat a random one.

Similarly, stating that JotForm is a one in many occurrence fails to account for how that type of regulatory uncertainty poisons the well at the margin (when one is deciding whether to avoid US jurisdiction when setting up web infrastructure).

Re: The town is no longer friendly for business

#87

Post by eli_gottlieb »

J3L2404 wrote: post #74
nirvana wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This why you can't judge the world by reading pamphlets. It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense. White Rose should know better than to throw around the word "evil." I am so sick of whining White Rose that I would almost support stalling the German economy just to drive the White Rose into a ditch."

Do you really believe the US is fascist?

As it gets more managed, managed democracy grows increasingly indistinguishable from fascism.

Re: The town is no longer friendly for business

#89

Post by davidw »

mindcrime wrote: post #80
davidw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we discuss the deteriorating situation in the US like adults and not sputter out epithets like "fascist regime"? Have a look at what's happening in Syria to see what a real dictatorship is like.

Can we discuss the deteriorating situation in the US like adults and not sputter out epithets like "fascist regime"? Discussing US politics "as adults" means being willing to accept and confront difficult truths... such as the fact that our system is drifting precariously close to what can be best described as "fascist." Placing our hands over our eyes, sticking our fingers in our ears, and pretending that we don't s…

> can be best described as "fascist."

Only by those ignorant of what fascism was actually like, and lacking the knowledge and/or imagination to label "bad government" with more appropriate labels.

No one ever talked about denying that there are problems in the US, but coming up with nonsensical, hyperbolic, historically inappropriate labels for them is not a means to direct the debate in a useful direction, either.

Re: The town is no longer friendly for business

#90

Post by arohner »

Ok. Assume for a second the author is right. Now what? Where would we go?

I recently moved from Austin, TX, to SF. Austin is a better place to live and work, in terms of business friendliness and cost, but is a significantly worse place to start a startup, due to worse investment climate, and lower critical mass of developers, customers and support group familiar with the startup culture.

Even though SF is at the leading edge of the the trends the author describes, it's still a better place to do a startup. I expect that will remain true for a while, even as things get worse.

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