Don’t Vote for a Psychopath: Tyranny at the Hands of a Psychopathic Government

[random3]

Don’t Vote for a Psychopath: Tyranny at the Hands of a Psychopathic Government

http://www.gilmermirror.com/view/full_st...overnment?

[pbrower2a]

(01-28-2021, 07:08 PM)random3 Wrote: Don’t Vote for a Psychopath: Tyranny at the Hands of a Psychopathic Government

http://www.gilmermirror.com/view/full_st...overnment?

Editorial supplied by a right-wing think-tank to a small-town newspaper. That's Gilmer, Texas, population 4905. I am surprised that a town that size can still support a newspaper. It does date from 1877.

"All politicians are psychopaths".

In a dramatization of the criminal career of Ted Bundy, Bundy, told that he was a clear sociopath, dismissed it by saying that among others, many businessmen, clergy, and politicians are themselves sociopaths.

The difference between a sociopath and a psychopath is that a psychopath has little to no self-control. A sociopath may do extensive planning (really plotting).

[random3]

Our overlords don't even have a good reason for the nanny police state anymore. Toothpicks must be outlawed to protect the environment. Rope must be banned for safety. Baseball hats must be outlawed because they are ugly. Insurance must be mandatory to protect the insurance industry. Flagpoles must be banned to protect property values.

Why not just put Americans in prison when they're born?

[David Horn]

(01-28-2021, 10:03 PM)random3 Wrote: Our overlords don't even have a good reason for the nanny police state anymore. Toothpicks must be outlawed to protect the environment. Rope must be banned for safety. Baseball hats must be outlawed because they are ugly. Insurance must be mandatory to protect the insurance industry. Flagpoles must be banned to protect property values.

Why not just put Americans in prison when they're born?

Oh poor you.  Boo-hoo. 

[Einzige]

(01-28-2021, 10:03 PM)random3 Wrote: Our overlords don't even have a good reason for the nanny police state anymore. Toothpicks must be outlawed to protect the environment. Rope must be banned for safety. Baseball hats must be outlawed because they are ugly. Insurance must be mandatory to protect the insurance industry. Flagpoles must be banned to protect property values.

Why not just put Americans in prison when they're born?

Agreed. Of course, once you are released from prison you enter the workforce, where you must wear a uniform (or a suit and tie, which amounts to the same) and work for the benefit of a capitalist tyrant in petit. Which is the better?

[random3]

Wow.

Americans think that being in a prison
and voluntarily choosing to work for a salary is the same
thing.

[Einzige]

(02-01-2021, 05:06 AM)random3 Wrote: Wow.

Americans think that being in a prison
and voluntarily choosing to work for a salary is the same
thing.

I voluntarily chose not to starve. Also, this isn't some ultra-minority position.

https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/

[random3]

Americans voluntarily choose to work at a job for a wage and then turn around and scream that they are helpless and exploited victims because there is only one company in the world and you can't quit, start a business, or learn a new skill.

[Einzige]

(02-02-2021, 06:50 PM)random3 Wrote: Americans voluntarily choose to work at a job for a wage and then turn around and scream that they are helpless and exploited victims because there is only one company in the world and you can't quit, start a business, or learn a new skill.

So participation in the market economy is coerced. Agreed!

[random3]

Americans say that choosing to work means that you are being forced?

WTF?

[pbrower2a]

(02-02-2021, 06:50 PM)random3 Wrote: Americans voluntarily choose to work at a job for a wage and then turn around and scream that they are helpless and exploited victims because there is only one company in the world and you can't quit, start a business, or learn a new skill.

Basically, work is a necessity but also a privilege. Big Business knows that it can keep employees in fear. Maybe there are some remaining wage and hour laws that prohibit employers from compelling a worker to work off the clock to get paid for 'official' hours, that bosses do not have the right to ask for sexual favors, and that employees are not obliged to make contributions to political causes and candidates. Still, anyone can be fired without cause or explanation. 

Labor unions have weakened because states must compete in a race to the bottom for pay, at least in manufacturing jobs. We are fortunate that the political system has yet to outlaw trade unions, the only protection that many workers have from egregious exploitation. 

We often hear "free enterprise" lauded. But is it simply enterprise free to do what owners and managers want it to do... to workers and customers?

Starting a business requires capital. Training for a job takes capital. Those who own the capital control the access to what passes as the Good Life, and they can commit whoever they dislike who can't find some other patron to suffer. They can make slums out of cities by pricing people into slums.... and ruining places that used to have opportunity to live the American Dream. That was the Detroit Dream at one time. Try making a living in Detroit these days. A hundred years ago it was the equivalent of what Silicon Valley is today, a place to which people turned modest dreams into adequate realities. Video:



  

It's not entirely the politicians' fault. Maybe thirty-five million people occupying a few narrow strips of land because the rest of the state is either inaccessible, uninhabitable, or economically unsustainable cannot get away in living in low-profile housing. Sorry folks, but individual ranch houses that one can put on open prairie for fifty miles in every direction from downtown Dallas, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Kansas City, or Minneapolis just isn't possible any more near San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose, or San Francisco. If you like the delightful climate, then if you are not going to have Calcutta-style poverty, then you are going to need housing more typical of Seoul or Tokyo. Bye, bye tract homes! Cities like on coastlines and in mountainous areas have obvious limits on how much housing can be built in a fifty-mile radius; fifty miles east of parts of Chicago are across Lake Michigan... in Michigan. It is probably a good thing, in view of the topography, that New Orleans is not that big a city.

On the other hand... why can't cities like Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Detroit be livable again?

[random3]

Americans think living in a socialist police state is normal, but freedom is not some textbook theory.

There are still some Americans alive today who will tell you that freedom is better.

[David Horn]

(02-06-2021, 07:20 PM)random3 Wrote: Americans think living in a socialist police state is normal, but freedom is not some textbook theory.

There are still some Americans alive today who will tell you that freedom is better.

I'm73. This is the most libertarian era in my lifetime, and prior to that is the last 4T -- not noted as libertarian in any sense of the word.

[random3]

Americans are so batshit insane now that they commit three felonies a day and scream for more laws.

Americans think giving their fingerprints to the government, DUI laws, checkpoints, seatbelt laws, car liability insurance laws, neighborhood watch groups, "get tough on crime" politicians, laws allowing mandatory minimums, IMBRA, 3 strikes laws, curfews, police militarization, teen boot camps, school metal detectors, private prisons, chain gangs, nanny state laws, the Patriot Act, NSA wiretapping, no knock raids, take down notices, no fly lists, terror watch lists, Constitution free zones, stop and frisk, kill switches, National Security Letters, DNA databases, kill lists, FBAR, FATCA, Operation Chokepoint, TSA groping, civil forfeiture, CIA torture, NDAA indefinite detention, secret FISA courts, FEMA camps, laws requiring passports for domestic travel, IRS laws denying passports for tax debts, gun and ammo stockpiles, laws outlawing protesting, Jade Helm, sneak and peek warrants, policing for profit, no refusal blood checkpoints, license plate readers, redlight cameras, speed cameras, FBI facial and voice recognition, tattoo databases, gun bans, the end to the right to silence, free speech bans, searches without warrants, CISPA, SOPA, private prison quotas, supermax prisons, FOSTA, sex offender registration laws, sex offender restriction laws, and the police state are just a funny little game.

If you escaped Cambodia in 1977 then you might take tyranny more seriously.

[Einzige]

(02-07-2021, 09:11 PM)random3 Wrote: Americans are so batshit insane now that they commit three felonies a day and scream for more laws.

Americans think giving their fingerprints to the government, DUI laws, checkpoints, seatbelt laws, car liability insurance laws, neighborhood watch groups, "get tough on crime" politicians, laws allowing mandatory minimums, IMBRA, 3 strikes laws, curfews, police militarization, teen boot camps, school metal detectors, private prisons, chain gangs, nanny state laws, the Patriot Act, NSA wiretapping, no knock raids, take down notices, no fly lists, terror watch lists, Constitution free zones, stop and frisk, kill switches, National Security Letters, DNA databases, kill lists, FBAR, FATCA, Operation Chokepoint, TSA groping, civil forfeiture, CIA torture, NDAA indefinite detention, secret FISA courts, FEMA camps, laws requiring passports for domestic travel, IRS laws denying passports for tax debts, gun and ammo stockpiles, laws outlawing protesting, Jade Helm, sneak and peek warrants, policing for profit, no refusal blood checkpoints, license plate readers, redlight cameras, speed cameras, FBI facial and voice recognition, tattoo databases, gun bans, the end to the right to silence, free speech bans, searches without warrants, CISPA, SOPA, private prison quotas, supermax prisons, FOSTA, sex offender registration laws, sex offender restriction laws, and the police state are just a funny little game.

If you escaped Cambodia in 1977 then you might take tyranny more seriously.

I'm a Marxist and I agree with you entirely. But you can't get rid of all this shit without abolishing the State, and you cannot abolish the State without first abolishing capitalism.

[pbrower2a]

(02-07-2021, 09:11 PM)random3 Wrote: Americans are so batshit insane now that they commit three felonies a day and scream for more laws.

Americans think giving their fingerprints to the government,

as if overt criminals getting away with violent crimes such as murder, rape, and arson is a valid concept of freedom

Quote:DUI laws, checkpoints,

strictly speaking, the DUI laws are so designed that if you go to your car while drunk and start the heater or radio or fall asleep in the car while in possession of the car keys if drunk you are considered "operating a vehicle while intoxicated" even if you are not trying to move the vehicle. It's obvious that a stationary car with a drunk in it is as safe as an unoccupied or with a sober child in it if that car is stationary.  Checkpoints? If you really are driving drunk, tough luck! You are a statistical menace on the highway.

I have reported a drunk driver. The fellow was all over his lane on a straight city street, he could not keep a steady speed and he had his head out of the driver's window like a dog. Dogs have an excuse for that because they are dogs and are not driving a car. Drivers doing that are drunk. I pulled over to call the cops, and the fellow sped off.    

Quote:seatbelt laws, 

which make people less likely to be killed or crippled in vehicle crashes....

Quote:car liability insurance laws,

ensure that people have paid their share into the cost of vehicle collisions for whom responsibility is not obvious

Quote:neighborhood watch groups,

100% voluntary! I strongly endorse dogs as a deterrent to crime. Burglars, muggers, and rapists are welcome to consider themselves dog food!

Quote:"get tough on crime" politicians, laws allowing mandatory minimums,

Oh, please! Fear of crime is inconsistent with freedom. 

Quote:3 strikes laws,

Three strikes, as in California? Burglary for theft may seem like a non-violent crime, but burglars are often also rapists. California incarcerated a huge number of repeat burglars, and rapes also went down.

Quote:curfews,

rare -- unless involving minors. Children should not be out late at night without adult supervision. They are just to naïve about what is out there and too vulnerable in case something goes awry. Following natural disasters  or civil unrest? Fine.   

Quote:police militarization,

I concur with you on this. 

Quote:teen boot camps,

on the fade because they are ineffective

Quote:school metal detectors,

I concur due to the rarity of school violence involving metal weapons. Most often the weapons are fists and shod feet. Let me remind you of the potential weapons in the gym (like baseball bats) and shop (I will leave that to your imagination). 

An aside. I went to a well-known university in the 1970's, and I was warned that it was in a high-crime area. I discovered that college students were rather rarely victims of crime. Maybe that was because we usually traveled in groups and rarely carried valuables. But we did have books, and if someone did something to us, we might give an impromptu physics lesson with a book called "Principles of Physics" to the sorts of losers (usually dopers) who would never study high-school, let alone college, physics. To put it bluntly, topics of that lesson would include either linear or angular momentum and the effects of collisions, no mathematical calculations needed. Besides, if we did testify in a court of law we were a prosecutor's dream witness. 

Quote:private prisons,  chain gangs,

I concur on the potential for abuse

Quote: nanny state laws, the Patriot Act, NSA wiretapping, no knock raids, take down notices, no fly lists, terror watch lists, Constitution free zones, stop and frisk, kill switches, National Security Letters, DNA databases, kill lists, FBAR, FATCA, Operation Chokepoint, TSA groping, civil forfeiture, CIA torture, NDAA indefinite detention, secret FISA courts, FEMA camps, laws requiring passports for domestic travel, IRS laws denying passports for tax debts, gun and ammo stockpiles, laws outlawing protesting, Jade Helm, sneak and peek warrants, policing for profit, no refusal blood checkpoints, license plate readers, redlight cameras, speed cameras, FBI facial and voice recognition, tattoo databases, gun bans, the end to the right to silence, free speech bans, searches without warrants, CISPA, SOPA, private prison quotas, supermax prisons, FOSTA, sex offender registration laws, sex offender restriction laws, and the police state are just a funny little game.

I don't have enough time to address them all. License plate readers are good for detecting stolen cars. Sex offenders deserve to be watched so that they can be kept away from children. Child sexual abuse is a factor in children becoming adult offenders.  

Quote:If you escaped Cambodia in 1977 then you might take tyranny more seriously.

Did you? If not, then don't make any comparison with the United States, flawed as it is (and especially how it was headed under Donald Trump) to the Hell that was Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

[random3]

Americans think that businesses support regulations.

[Einzige]

(02-08-2021, 05:39 AM)random3 Wrote: Americans think that businesses support regulations.

Big corporations absolutely do. Regulatory capture is deliberately orchestrated by these actors to obscure the fact that the American regulatory system is designed in their favor.

[random3]

Exactly.

The elites want to make everything illegal so they can fill their private prisons and kill off the 99%, but life would be much better if everything was legal and people could travel, make money, go to church, go to school, and start businesses.

[Einzige]

(02-08-2021, 06:50 AM)random3 Wrote: Exactly.

The elites want to make everything illegal so they can fill their private prisons and kill off the 99%, but life would be much better if everything was legal and people could travel, make money, go to church, go to school, and start businesses.

What you want is petit-bourgeois libertarianism. But this is self-defeating - even in a perfectly even playing field, some small businesses will eventually grow to monopolies and engage in regulatory capture.