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David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

theguardian.com

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Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#351

Post by scarmig »

dnautics wrote: post #334
mooreds wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re 1860-1920, have you heard of the railroad land grants? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts These were tremendous gifts to private companies to induce investment in what was one of the high tech industries of the time.

true. However, there were fabulously successful railroads (e.g. great northern) which were entirely privately funded, even down to securing property easements (which these days would be done using eminent domain). IIRC the great northern was really one of the few railway that didn't suffer a downturn and shutter itself during that era... It's now a part of BNSF.

It seems remiss to talk about how the Great Northern didn't need any government help when it bought all its land from the federal government after the federal government had acquired control of it by slaughtering most of the land's previous residents.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#352

Post by saraid216 »

anoncowherd wrote: post #335
saraid216 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's good. You're sensing that something is wrong. Please stop coercing him using appeals to emotion and false authority. It's paternalistic and condescending.

>> Please stop coercing him using appeals to emotion and false authority. It's paternalistic and condescending. Tell me, do you think that when say, 330 million people are systematically punished for attempting to keep their property , something just might , in fact, be wrong? What about 7 billion people?

Still with the emotional arguments. Which part of "don't force me" was unclear?

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#353

Post by saraid216 »

anoncowherd wrote: post #340
Nursie wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The NAP is a reasonably well defined moral principle. Therein lies the problem though, even if we accept the NAP, we can never agree on what is force or violence and what is the initiation of force. Particularly where it concerns libertarian dialogue in which anything and everything can be and is construed as violence, with the bizarre exception of property rights. It's not reasonably well defined, it's vague and…

>> Therein lies the problem though, even if we accept the NAP, we can never agree on what is force or violence and what is the initiation of force No it doesn't. You're only making a problem where none really exists. Complaining that the definitions of everyday words are unclear is just a bullshit distraction. If that were the case, we simply could not communicate at all. >> Actually I value pragmatism and social uti…

> Insecure much? Feeling violent?

YES. Absolutely yes. BECAUSE I AM HUMAN, motherfucker. Will hitting you in the face repeatedly persuade you that people are naturally violent? Probably not, but at least it MAKE ME FEEL BETTER. I know this is true, because I've done it. It feels great.

Come on. See if you can explain to me how my natural pacifistic soul is not inclined to slam your skull against a brick wall. If your NAP allows you to hit back? Fuck that. It just means I need to hit you so hard you can't hit back. That's my choice, and the consequences are awesome. I get an adrenaline high; I get to assert my animal dominance; I get to feel the crunch of your bone. It's obvious and natural; you pissed me off, so you made me hit you. I didn't start it; you just shouldn't have pissed me off.

What do I get out of following your stupid NAP? All it means is that I don't get to watch you double over when I kick you in the balls. What good is that to me? If I have a baseball bat, then I really ought to cement my ownership of it by cultivating its usage as a knee breaker. Maybe knock out a few teeth.

You go on. You follow your NAP. Maybe we'll meet someday. And maybe I'll get to watch you cry like a bitch. Maybe I'm insecure. But as the childhood lesson goes, if someone calls you names, you get some sticks and some stones and you go to town. I hope you feel superior. Maybe I'll get lucky and we can see some piss and vomit in addition to blood and tears.

Come on. Wish me away again. If you call on your fairy godmother, maybe you'll see me coming and you can run away in time.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#354

Post by sologoub »

bilbo0s wrote: post #178
sologoub wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not intending to insult your intelligence. I simply disagree with your sentiment. Having the benefit of knowing exactly what life is like in less fortunate society than US, it's a matter of perspective. Compare the state of law and law enforcement in US, say to Russia, and you will see that by this standard things aren't that bad here. No doubt they can be better, but at least I have some recourse under the law h…

But your attitude is just the point. There are many issues with your stories, and many points at which they may go different ways. To give a single example, if I understand correctly, people disrespected you at a movie theater for asking them to quiet down. If I may... did you ask them to quiet down in a respectful fashion? Don't answer. Just think about your own behavior towards them and TRY to evaluate it in an hon…

Actually, for the record, I did ask very politely. Unfortunately, I ended up getting hit for that... So let's evaluate, I asked politely, verbally, then got physically assaulted.

Also, did I ever mentioned race or ethnicity? No! All I referenced was that this was a poorer part of Los Angeles than I live in, close in reference to the "20 blocks down" that the speech referenced.

This has absolutely nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It has everything to do with upbringing and economic situation, and, ultimately, personal choices we make.

Did the person who hit me have to hit me? No, I was not assaulting him. This was a personal choice.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#355

Post by onebaddude »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #181
beachstartup wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd love to meet the "sensible people" uh, okay. it would be better if you simply just stated your case and/or evidence because that is what HN is for.

> it would be better if you simply just stated your case and/or evidence because that is what HN is for. I think you have it backwards. The OP suggested that "sensible people" (all of them, apparently!) don't believe that debt ("in and of itself", whatever that means) is "a serious problem." That is an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But I'll indulge you: 1. Navy Admiral…

>("in and of itself", whatever that means)

It means that "debt is bad" is a ridiculous proposition. Again, debt cannot exist without an equal and off-setting asset, by definition. So, saying "there's too much debt!" is functionally equivalent to saying "there's too many assets!"

>Are Mullen, Walker and Obama not "serious people"?

Politicians, all of them. Don't really care what Mullen or Obama's opinions about debt are.

As far as Mr. Walker, it appears he's appealing to populism and Republican talking points. Because I'm sure he understands that talking about "unfunded liabilities" only looks at one side of the ledger, as a scare tactic. I mean, those liabilities aren't going into the fire, they're being received by real people, spent into the economy. Where is that counted?

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#356

Post by malyk »

bluedino wrote: post #52
xradionut wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the US population as a whole has slid backwards in power and monetary means over the last thirty years. The shenanigans that allowed the elite to walk over the working class had their roots in the late 70's and 80's with the shift to the right and the "Greed is Good" era.

Of course - the rest of the world has 'caught up' to the USA. We aren't the powerhouse we once were. Even if you distributed CEO pay to minimum wage workers they'd only be getting a thousand bucks or so each.

"Only" a thousand bucks for people making $14,500 a year is A LOT OF MONEY...they could, you know, buy groceries for 3 or 4o months with that.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#357

Post by hacknat »

saraid216 wrote: post #328
hacknat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I accept your beef about zoning codes, but the government should have some say on safety standards, don't you think?

Nah, if people die due to "accidents", there's no initiation of force so it's okay. And of course, everyone will hear about it since there's absolutely no incentive for the property owner to cover it up when his reputation, and thus livelihood, is at stake.

People can and do make a lot of money in this world, long before their reputation gets destroyed, making really shitty stuff.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#358

Post by Nursie »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #349
Nursie wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Generally, improvements and occupation make it your home. Somebody coming in to take land containing a house you built, a barn you raised, cattle you bred on a crop you are growing, are taking what's yours. So nobody should be able to own land they aren't using for anything and I should be able to just go and occupy it? Cool. >> Take this away and nobody would use land at all. Been done in history again and again;…

You are actually right. Unused land you occupy can eventually be yours, to some degree. Its called 'squatting' and while it has issues it can correct some imbalances. I agree moral absolutism is tricky. But think of it as first principles. You have to argue from something or its all situational ethics, which depend entirely upon your point of view.

Deriving from a first principle that's so broken and so subjective seems to me basically pointless. Moral absolutism is only useful if you have an absolute. We don't have one, not one we share anyway (him and me, no idea on your views really), so berating me for not joining in when you start deriving from it seems a bit off. It's one of the things about objectivism that really gets me -

"we're the only philosophy based on objective reality!" "But these things are highly subjective?!" "Shut up you sociopath/leech/parasite!"

The squatting thing is interesting, most people hate it instinctively but I'm unsure where I stand.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#359

Post by dreamfactory »

dnautics wrote: post #338
jjoonathan wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One, market transactions are voluntary, so they are generally speaking "positive-sum games". Nope. Suppose a robber puts a gun to your head and demands your wallet. You give it to him because you value your life more than your wallet. According to naive market theory, this is a positive sum transaction with consent from both parties! Obviously you didn't consent to getting held up, but it wasn't a market transactio…

Nobody here is claiming that markets are perfect. However, the claim is that economic redistribution on the part of government will over time fail to help the very constitutents they are supposed to protect and instead enrich the rich. This has happened time after time and shows no sign of stopping because of fundamental problems, which you partially hit on when you talked about regulatory capture (and goldman sachs,…

> This has happened time after time and shows no sign of stopping because of fundamental problems

Maybe in the US but it's not a fundamental of governments generally.

Re: David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

#360

Post by anoncowherd »

saraid216 wrote: post #352
anoncowherd wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Please stop coercing him using appeals to emotion and false authority. It's paternalistic and condescending. Tell me, do you think that when say, 330 million people are systematically punished for attempting to keep their property , something just might , in fact, be wrong? What about 7 billion people?

Still with the emotional arguments. Which part of "don't force me" was unclear?

Still with the mental gymnastics. Which part of "taxation is extortion" was not clear?
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