Browncoats... good guys or not?

POSTED BY: Ghoulman
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:07
VIEWED: 33379
PAGE 10 of 12

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Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
What some people here don't seem to realize is that it is government which made the laws of incorporation. If Corporations are monsters -- and SOME of them are -- it was government that created them. Which is why you see the heirs of huge industries involved in politics -- the Rockefellers for example. The primary, if not sole difference we would see without Corporations is that business enterprises would be smaller and -- without the protection of government -- more responsible to their customers. And without political pull, these enterprises would not be able to get themselves "bailed out" of financial difficulties with other peoples tax dollars ... and they would not be able to get laws passed to stifle their competition.

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Not quite. Corporations were an idea that was proposed to governments, not something governments came up with all by their lonesomes.

And the "more responsible to their customers" line is not quite right either. It is one thing to build the best safest product you know how to build. Its a completely different story however if one of your customers sues you for his own defective use. It protects the business owner from such things as some idiot ordering hot coffee and then suing you because he spilled his coffee on himself.

Being incorporated will protect some of your assets. You won't lose your house in fighting a frivolous lawsuit, or even a legitimate lawsuit on a condition that you simply did not know about (i.e. asbestos). I don't see that as a bad thing overall.

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Now, you may ask, "What is the advantage of Incorporation to an individual?" Simply this: TAXES!! Generally speaking, if you incorporate, you can deduct (don't have to pay taxes on) a lot of what are otherwise considered "personal" expenses. You still have get government permission, but now you don't have to pay taxes on the money you spend to say re-roof your house. You don't have to pay taxes on the money you spend to fuel, maintain, and repair your car, and so on. In some instances, even your taxes are tax deductable. You have the special privileges of incorporation. You still have to pay your debts, but you would have to do that anyway. It's just easier to save money if your taxes are lower.

loadandmakeready

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Generally speaking you pay taxes on your profits. What goes into creating those profits are called "costs" and hence are set aside when it comes time to figure taxes owed. So it is seen as smart policy to tax profits, instead of squeezing the engine of those profits. If you make less profits, because your costs are also taxed, then both you and the government suffer.

Besides which "costs" come out of money you have to have on hand NOW. Whether it works, whether it makes a dime in the future, well, that is any body's guess. Most taxes are on income, rather than the cash on hand.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
Barons and tyrants ARE government! Our word "thug" comes from the Hindu word thug which is pronounced as t-HUG ... the plural is thuggee. They were worshippers of a diminished avatar of Kali called Bhavani ... a goddess of destruction. They were swindlers, stranglers ... murderers. So to lump them in with Kings, Caesars, and Presidents is in my mind entirely appropriate.

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Of course, being a religious sect might place them more firmly in the Christian/Muslim/Judaeism camp, except that their actions actually mirrored their official beliefs.

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Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:

The Wright Brothers gave mankind wings ... it was government that put machine guns in -- and bombs under -- those wings. Government didn't even invent the machine gun.

Everything we see or have came to us, not BECAUSE of government, but IN SPITE OF GOVERNMENT!

loadandmakeready

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I would say neither because of nor in spite of government. As you say, government didn't invent the machine gun. Why do you think it was government that invented the "flying machine gun"?

The fact is, humans invented government (well, you could argue that it was genetically hard-wired, but I would agree with your argument against that). This is largely the world we made.

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Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
During the American Civil War, we heard political thimble riggers braying of "preserving our glorious Union," while "saving the National Honor" ... as though there could -- or should -- be a Union, glorious or otherwise that wasn't completely voluntary.

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That is part of the price one ends up paying when one becomes part of a society or a nation. Particularly in democratic nations, it means that if your's is a minority position, you are out of luck. You either cede the question to the majority, or else you attempt to destroy the democratic government. And that is what happened during the civil war.

[Yes, I am aware of the argument that in a pure democracy, 5 guys can vote to pee in the cornflakes of the other 4. And so we have the whole, "majority rule with respect toward minority rights." thing going round.]

Actually that is not quite what happened. The South thought (perceived) the North and especially Lincoln's Republican party were more interested in the minority rights of the slaves, over the minority rights of the slave owners. And that is why they fired on Ft. Sumpter. They thought Lincoln was going to free the slaves by executive fiat. He never got a chance, one way or the other.

I find it hard not to laugh about a Southerner complaining about the Union not being "completely voluntary". This is probably one of the things that damned the cause more than anything else. You can talk about your freedom till the cows come home. But the facts remain that the particular instance of the "infringement on state's rights" was over the question of slavery. A issue that was not allowed to come to a head in Congress, because of the South's actions.

No government, or nation can survive by allowing large tracts of its population and territory to simply dissolve its bonds. Voluntary secession would have set a bad precident, for both the North and the South, as it would mean dissolving any political system established at the whim of the minority.

Or as one guy put it back then, "They have the right to rebel. They don't have the right to succeed." You had your rebellion, it failed and it is all ancient history now. I do think the world is better with a Southern loss than with a win. It made for a stronger, less hypocritical and successful American nation, one that could help out in two world wars, prevent Soviet expansion, and lots of other good things that I don't see happening if the South had won.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Frankly, at that point in the US's fragile history ,someone - might have been the west (not I don't mean California, which was Mexico at that time. I just meant figuratively however we labeled the parts of the country and however people liked to call themselves), the southwest, northwest, mideast, or anyone else for the matter - would have rebeled and attempted to secede for the dumbest of things. Look at the violent history of most young startups, there's a coup every two weeks. Slavery might have been a cause for the civil war - a secondary one to the economic cause - but it would have happened for a better or worst reason around that time. People were itching for a fight just so they can throw their weight around.

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orginally posted by LoadAndMakeReadyActually, I have been studying history for nearly fourty five years. I highly recommend it (studying history, that is.)

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You've been studying, you say.
Comprehending, not so much. Apparently. Your conclusion about Lincoln's character is– esoteric– to say the least. Almost unique in fact.

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An Anarchist is anyone who believes in less government than you do.

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Actually an Anarchist is a mental deficient who doesn't understand that the political system he or she espouses only exists in the minds of him/herself and other idiot utopians.

Anarchy:
1. Absence of any form of political authority.
2. Political disorder and confusion.
3. Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.

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most Libertarians are MINARCHISTS ... minimum governmentalists! Kinda like the men who founded this country. In fact, EXACTLY like the men who founded this country.

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The men who founded this country were great but they were MEN. Just men. Fallible, flawed, hypocritical, sometimes mistaken. Just like all human beings. It's taken over two centuries to get what they began closer to Correct. The work is ongoing. They gave us a good start and a helluva pushoff but that's it. The rest is up to us.

Modern Libertarians are another bunch of mental midgets who think being an ultraconservative Republican is just a little too close to being a communist.

The only reason there's a Libertarian party is beacuse there's no Selfish Bastard Party to join.

I said : It is the nature of ALL primates to live in hierarchical structures, usually pyramid formed, with a single alpha or alpha pair at the apex.

Even the democratic modification of this basic human trait results in an alpha ruling (male usually) over the rest.

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True!! However, many human beings have evolved beyond [the adherence to the creation of heirarchical social systems]. [

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No. No human beings have evolved beyond this. Not one single human. Not now and not ever once in history. That's what genetic hardwiring is.

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There are greater differences between individual human beings than there are between entire species of other mammals.

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Um. No. Not genetically there isn't. We are almost completely interchangeable at that level. Perhaps you should leave off the history texts for a year or two and look into that whole biology thing. It's a hoot.

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If we were genetically hard wired for it, then people like me couldn't exist. Which makes your entire argument bovine excrement.

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No. You are either self deluded (most likely) or missing some crucial gene pairs (most likely). In Nature there are often occassional mistakes. The ones that don't breed true fail because they don't enhance the success of the species as a whole.

Natural Selection. Perhaps you've heard of it.

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You obviously know less than nothing of human history.

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This is, of course, impossible. But thanks for playing.

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It was government that created the pollution problem you complain of.

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First...

Bwahahahahahaha! Oh. Oh dear. That quality of idiocy is just so hideous and corroded it's like a fine gourmet meal. So tasty. Man! You just don't get to see that that often anymore. Thanks.

Second.

Let's examine the activities of unrestrained industry, shall we? What period of time can we look to for a real world model for such a Revolution in the behaviour of our Industrial class?

Let's think...

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As for me, I make my living by giving my customers the best quality I can produce. Happy customers tell their friends, which brings me more customers. If I gave bad or shoddy service, my angry customers would not only never come back, they would tell all their friends to stay away. Even without government, this sort of thing tends to be self-correcting.

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Yes. Because the trade in human flesh has tapered off so much in the rest of

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Homosapiens is a species of predator, and the only way a species of predator can survive, is by not preying upon itself.

Question for you:

When it is moral for a group of people to do something that is IMmoral for one person to do alone?

loadandmakeready

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Loadandmakeready, you are still my hero. It's obvious you are full of even more esoteric facts and possess a deep understanding of reality.

The rest of you get a C- in rationalization.

You know... I'd written a long and clever responce as to the specifics but the goram .asp crapped out yet again and I lost a 400 word responce. So, let's just say I'm greatly pleased that everyone took time to make comments ... but that loadandmakeready is easily the most insightful and knowledgeable poster here. Heck, he's perhaps the most knowledgable person I've run across online on years! I deeply read each of loadandmakereadys' posts and groked the fullness, while others seemed to take each comment as a springboard to spout various points of ignorance and misunderstanding. Please, if you think something means one thing... read it again.. slowly.

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them. - H. L. Mencken

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hmmm... That might be just us Homosapiens. Predators in the wild weed out their weak and sickly. Keeps the pack tight and fit. In fact, through competition, only the "fittest" get to pass on their genes. We don't seem to do that today as "predators".

We homosapiens are more like a virus, we use up all of the resources mindlessly in one area, we spread out and take up more area, we reproduce thoughtlessly without regard.

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Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
Homosapiens is a species of predator, and the only way a species of predator can survive, is by not preying upon itself.

Question for you:

When it is moral for a group of people to do something that is IMmoral for one person to do alone?

loadandmakeready

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Originally posted by Jasonzzz:

we reproduce thoughtlessly without regard.

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Speak for yourself ... oh, you are ... sorry.

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Question for you:

When it is moral for a group of people to do something that is IMmoral for one person to do alone?

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Still waiting for an answer to this one.

loadandmakeready

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