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Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

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Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

#231

Post by flyinRyan »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #183
Myrmornis wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this can be in question, if the employees chose their employer freely. How can one seriously oppose a corporate entity if one may not oppose the people who comprise the corporate entity. "Corporations are people, my friend".

If employees choose their employers freely, what are interviews for?

There is truth to the fact that we can't completely choose who we work for. But none the less, you are responsible for the choices you make. If a man is repeatedly raped and abused as a child we still hold him accountable as a man who rapes someone.

Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

#232

Post by flyinRyan »

Shivetya wrote: post #133
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland.

considering how they rolled over with the banking issue I would not trust my data there anymore than some place else. What is to stop them from doing the same with any data should the US come knocking? Even your President seems to believe criminal investigation of Snowden may be warranted. Now if your government finally does take a stand on the banking issue and tells US authorities to take a hike I would be more inc…

One advantage of Switzerland is that the people have a much stronger voice in telling their politicians to do exactly that (and in some cases, voting on the issues themselves).

Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

#233

Post by flyinRyan »

etherael wrote: post #170
uxp wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is not binary. Imagine you're in a room you can't get out of. By the nature of aerobic respiration, you're slowly transforming all the oxygen into carbon dioxide. Now imagine there is a running car in the room with you. Do you first shut off the car to prevent it from filling up the room with exhaust and carbon monoxide, or do you give up because there's no point in life? You can either give up by selling all yo…

>You can either give up by selling all your belongings and begin to live on the street as a non-tax paying citizen, or you can do something to stop the things that are taking away your freedoms and liberties, or at the very least, do something to make it harder for those that want to take away your freedoms to do so. False dichotomy, there are other options that both don't lend any legitimacy to the state and allow y…

Unless that particular farm is the US or North Korea. Both of which expect you to keep filing taxes on money you earn no matter where you earn it [1].

[1] Obviously there are exemptions for foreign earned income, but if you're in country with lower tax than the US (of which there are a fair amount) you could end up paying the US taxes on money that has literally nothing to do with them. Worse, if you're married to a native of that country and must file jointly in the new country then the US expects you to file jointly with them too and pay taxes on your spouses earning.

Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

#234

Post by foobarbazqux »

RyanZAG wrote: post #223
foobarbazqux wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot to put the word legal before employers like I did upthread. I'm sorry if that changes your answer and you feel like you wasted your time, because basically what you wrote about illegal employment makes sense to me. Thanks for the thoughtful response.

Ah, if you put the word 'legal' there, then there is no discussion and nothing to talk about: legal is whatever it says in the law of your country. I'm not in USA, so I have no idea what is or isn't legal, and don't actually care. Legal has nothing to do with ethics and whether something is right or wrong, and doing something that is ethical but illegal is always preferred over something that is legal but unethical.…

I am surprised to hear that laws and ethics have nothing to do with each other. Is it a random chance that murder is illegal and unethical just about everywhere?

Really I was just wondering if you have any examples of legal but unethical employers that you believe it's okay for a university to cite to discriminate against an applicant, in your home country. Perhaps the military?

Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

#235

Post by msandford »

dragonwriter wrote: post #229
msandford wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A world where Ron Paul gets elected president and/or gets any of his legislation passed is a substantially different world than the one we live in today. Hugely different. If it were possible for the general population to somehow wake up and realize that Social Security is a ponzi scheme and that it's not sustainable long term (not good odds that will happen, mind you) then it's ENTIRELY conceivable that said people…

> A world where Ron Paul gets elected president and/or gets any of his legislation passed is a substantially different world than the one we live in today. Hugely different. Sure, but the ability to build a minimum winning coalition on eliminating social security is pretty much irrelevant to finding a minimum winning coalition on eliminating income tax. > If it were possible for the general population to somehow wake…

>> The political landscape would have to be so incredibly different for social security to go away I can't even really comprehend it. >I have no problem with that description, but that's an argument against any assertion you might make about what would be likely in that case, not an argument for it.

You're basically arguing that the status quo is, and always will be, the predominant way of the world working unless a person can provide direct evidence to the contrary in a big way. I get that, and it makes a lot of sense. I generally feel the same way.

What I'm trying to suggest is that the world where social security gets eliminated is so different that your assertion that the status quo is, doesn't hold. You'll probably disagree with me on that issue but ultimately there's no way for us to know either way. It's all speculation. The evidence that I would give to support such a notion is that when serious political change happens, it often happens in a big way.

I think it's highly likely that the only way social security could get eliminated is some kind of a revolution, peaceful or not. Since there are so many people who currently benefit from social security right now having paid very little in (they like the program) and plenty of people who paid in their entire working lives (they desperately want to get their money out of it) that they constitute a large entrenched interest.

You're saying that the minimum amount of energy to get this 1000 ton rock moved from point A to point B doesn't imply that the other 1000 ton rock right next to it would go anywhere at all. I'm suggesting that for a rock that friggin huge to get moved there's some kind of bigger thing happening like a landslide, an earthquake, a big explosion, etc and thus, perhaps it might.

Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

#236

Post by foobarbazqux »

Myrmornis wrote: post #224
foobarbazqux wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If employees choose their employers freely, what are interviews for?

Any chance you could stop asking silly questions? The employees choose freely to apply for work there was (very obviously) what I meant.

It may be what you meant, but it wasn't what I read. Anyway, fine.

If I apply to companies A and B, where A is ethical and B is unethical, but only B offers me a job, which I accept, have I freely chosen my employer? Let's assume these are the only companies available.

Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

#237

Post by foobarbazqux »

tripzilch wrote: post #228
foobarbazqux wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, so I mean ethical / moral (is there a distinction?) and the 1980 case involving the Unruh act is a legal embodiment of my own ethics / morals. Thanks for the details, that was enlightening.

I encourage you to look it up for yourself (because you seem to have a lot to learn on the subject of ethics). Here's some starters: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ethical http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moral#Adjective "In general usage ethical is used to describe standards of behavior between individuals, while moral or immoral can describe any behavior. You can call lying unethical or immoral, for example, because it…

Thank you for clarifying the distinction. I prefer this definition:

> Although the words can be considered synonyms, morals are beliefs based on practices or teachings regarding how people conduct themselves in personal relationships and in society, while ethics refers to a set or system of principles, or a philosophy or theory behind them. (Principles, however, is itself is a synonym for morals.) One lives according to one’s morals but adheres to one’s ethics while doing so. Morals are the tools by which one lives, and ethics constitute the manual that codifies them.

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/ethics-vs-morals/

which oddly conflicts with yours. This confusion is perhaps why I generally fail to make the distinction.

Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

#238

Post by dragonwriter »

msandford wrote: post #235
dragonwriter wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A world where Ron Paul gets elected president and/or gets any of his legislation passed is a substantially different world than the one we live in today. Hugely different. Sure, but the ability to build a minimum winning coalition on eliminating social security is pretty much irrelevant to finding a minimum winning coalition on eliminating income tax. > If it were possible for the general population to somehow wake…

>> The political landscape would have to be so incredibly different for social security to go away I can't even really comprehend it. >I have no problem with that description, but that's an argument against any assertion you might make about what would be likely in that case, not an argument for it. You're basically arguing that the status quo is, and always will be, the predominant way of the world working unless a…

> You're basically arguing that the status quo is, and always will be, the predominant way of the world working unless a person can provide direct evidence to the contrary in a big way.

No, I am arguing that arguments of the form "if X occurs, its likely that Y will also occur" need to be justified by more than "X would take a radically different world, and Y occuring would be conceivably plausible in such a radically different world, therefore, it is likely that Y will occur if X occurs."

> What I'm trying to suggest is that the world where social security gets eliminated is so different that your assertion that the status quo is, doesn't hold.

I haven't made any such assertion. I have simply argued that you have failed to provide anything that remotely approaches support for you claim that it is likely that income tax would be eliminated if social security was eliminated.

> The evidence that I would give to support such a notion is that when serious political change happens, it often happens in a big way.

Even granting, arguendo, that point and your belief that social security takes a "revolution", that's not evidence in support of the likelihood of any particular currently-unlikely change being made possible by the situation that enables the elimination of social security.

> Since there are so many people who currently benefit from social security right now having paid very little in

The only people who have substantial SS benefits while paying very little in are the lower-earning surviving spouses of people who paid in and then died, so I think your premise here is a bit dubious.

> You're saying that the minimum amount of energy to get this 1000 ton rock moved from point A to point B doesn't imply that the other 1000 ton rock right next to it would go anywhere at all.

No, I'm not. A better analogy would be saying that I am rejecting the claim that the mere fact that it would take a quite substantial minimum energy to move the 1000 ton rock from point A to point be justifies a claim of the specific path a neighboring rock would be likely to take in the event the first rock was moved from point A to point B.

Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

#239

Post by foobarbazqux »

flyinRyan wrote: post #230
foobarbazqux wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When is discrimination against an individual based on his or her employer detrimental to the good of humanity?

Lots of reasons. If someone were employed by, say, the Gestapo then it's pretty clear you would want to discriminate against them.

You're the 3rd person to try and Godwin the thread.

Can we stick to discrimination against the employees of legal employers in one's own state that one recognizes as legitimate and one is not in active rebellion against?

Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart

#240

Post by foobarbazqux »

tripzilch wrote: post #227
foobarbazqux wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So ethical things can be illegal, unethical things can be legal. Would discrimination against the employees of a legal employer in one's own state (country) ever be unethical?

> So ethical things can be illegal, unethical things can be legal. Ding ding ding. Please keep this in mind at all times. They not only can be, but unfortunately both often are .

It's interesting to me that you thought this was the first time I'd encountered this idea. I guess I need to work on my communication skills.

Also, this is a bit off-topic, but "ding ding ding" is rather condescending. I believe you think I'm somebody that I'm not.

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