| badgenome said: 1. Libertarians and anarchists are worlds apart. Leaving aside the fact that most "anarchists" are in reality just thinly veiled communists, true anarchism is inherently opposed to the very existence of government and libertarianism is decidedly not. That's a pretty huge sticking point. It seems fundamentally dangerous to believe that there is no such thing as a natural right and that rights are only granted by society, because you're then conceding that everyone's rights are subject to being revoked by the collective at any time. Therefore if a society says that it's okay to kill heretics or rape women, those people's rights are not being violated. They simply don't have the right not to be killed or raped. Maybe it's sad and terrible that they don't have that right, and maybe they should be given that right, but as it stands they just don't have it. That's a seriously fucked up point of view, and it's especially strange to me when you're so fixated on the idea that people can possibly be entitled to a thing that other people have to provide for them. As for the the UN, just like the Catholic church, they can't even manage to take a zero tolerance approach to child molestation in their own ranks, so they have zero moral authority to talk about anything. Fuck them and and all their worthless declarations and everything that they have ever said about any issue under the sun. 2. Yes, yes, Americans are sooooo stupid and insular, and that's why we refer to it as "European instability". Not because it's, you know, the Eurozone or anything. No, it's just Greek and Italy... and Spain... and Portugal... and Ireland. "European" certainly isn't a reasonable shorthand for that, not when the rest of Europe is doing just dandy. I mean, as you say, look at Germany. The vaunted economic powerhouse of the EU may have just been downgraded, but I'm sure it can keep bailing everyone out and still bounce back. It's not like it has one of the lowest birthrates in the world or anything. And it's not like we were warned just this past week that the contagion is spreading even to Scandinavia now... definitely not a European crisis, nope. Newsflash: non-American companies can make money in America. Crazy, I know. I'm painfully aware that you can't pass up a chance to rant about hurrr durrr stupid americunts, but not one single thing you said addressed the fact that pharmaceutical companies make up the difference on the backs of Americans. For fuck's sake, Canada's price controls are directly based on the price of drugs in the US (and a basket of European countries, each one of which is known as "Europe" to us seppos). 3. It's all very well and good to say that race doesn't matter because it doesn't really exist, but while the second point is arguable, the first isn't: race does matter precisely because people believe it exists. Racial divisions aren't necessarily predicated on racism (that is, the belief in a race's superiority or inferiority), and despite all the carping about it, I don't think racism is even all that prevalent anymore. What we tend to see is more properly called tribalism. The idea that a huge, top-down national government is more reactive than a multitude of smaller local governments is only true if you're talking about reacting to what the government wants to react to. When it comes to being reactive to the concerns of the citizenry, smaller and more local is far better. That's probably why Estonia (the most libertarian country in the world last I checked) is doing so well, and is the only country in the Eurozone that's running a budget surplus: it's a pretty good disincentive to be a tyrannical spendthrift when you don't live in a veritable fortress on the other side of the continent from the people who might want to bump you off. Why, in a country of 1 million people, the head cheese may even be one of the people instead of a new age artistocrat. I'm not sure which country you think is the most libertarian, but I swear to god, if you say Somalia I am gonna come through your monitor. |
1. "the fact that most "anarchists" are in reality just thinly veiled communists" - Oh, I love how Americans always seek to do two things: 1. Demonise communism. 2. Conflate completely unrelated political beliefs in order to attempt argument by mockery. Anarchism is dramatically different from communism - in fact, in many ways, they're polar opposites. I'm betting you also think that the Nazis were socialists.
What I believe about what I'd like the truth to be is irrelevant. I'm a scientist, I don't operate in terms of how I'd like things to be, I operate in the actual, real world. And yes, sadly, if society decided to strip people of rights, then those people lose those rights. Which is why it's a good idea to have checks and balances put in place to prevent that from happening. Rights are conferred upon people by society. And a society that fails to provide certain rights is a bad one, because not only is such a society doing an injustice to those who lack those rights, but it's doing an injustice to itself.
And the reason why the UN is toothless is the US, UK, China, France, and Russia can veto anything they want regarding the Security Council. Unsurprisingly, that means that the UN isn't respected by others, and thus corruption tends to be rampant. But I find it curious that you're so happy to dismiss the human rights set down by the UN way back at the start of it all.
2. Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Ireland. That's five. There are 50 countries in Europe. But hey, five of the countries are in crisis, so it's a European crisis. Hey, there are at least five countries in Africa that have dictatorships - therefore, when talking about dictatorships in Africa, we just talk about Africa being dictatorships, right? We don't bother to distinguish between the dictators and the rest.
I also find it really curious that you felt that you needed to mention Germany's birth rate. I mean, what? How the hell is that relevant? As for non-American pharmaceutical companies in America, the point is that they're able to come up with drugs, etc, without operating within America. Meanwhile, you seem to confuse me criticising Americans' tendency to only really care about America as me thinking that every American is stupid. Note that I actually had to look up the word "seppo" to figure out what it meant - I've never heard anyone use it like that before (my first instinct was that it was some Italian slang, from Guiseppo). Meanwhile, you like to make claims about how non-American companies are making profits off the backs of the US... yet you don't seem to provide any evidence to back up your claim.
So I decided to look up a bit for myself. I looked at the second-biggest pharmaceutical company, the Swiss one, Novartis. They break down net sales by region, in terms of USD. They make more money in Europe than in the US. Indeed, the US constitutes roughly 32-33% of their sales. In Q4 2011, they sold US$14.78 billion worth of goods, and the cost to make them was US$5.12 billion. Then R&D cost US$2.52 billion, and Marketing and Sales cost US$4 billion.
In 2011 (full year), they sold US$58.57 billion worth of goods, with cost to make them being US$18.98 billion. Their net income was US$9.25 billion. So I really don't think your claim stands up to actual scrutiny.
3. People believe it exists in America, certainly. And behaviour supports the idea that racism is rampant over there, from all sides. If it were tribalism, you'd see some particular category of "blacks" fighting with another particular category of "blacks" because they're of different "tribes", and you'd see the same amongst "whites". Instead, what you see is so-called "positive discrimination" (which is still discrimination), you see organisations and political blocs devoted to certain skin colours ("black caucus", anyone? NAACP?), you see Obama hailed as "the first black president" and you have politicians "appealing to the black vote" or "appealing to the hispanic vote" or "appealing to the white vote". Here in Australia, they don't do any of that sort of stuff. We celebrated the first indigenous member of parliament, but that wasn't skin colour, but a sign of proper representation of a section of the community that holds itself apart culturally (there are lands still owned by native tribes, for instance).
Meanwhile, you keep insisting on the false dichotomy between huge top-down government and extremely local government, even as I specifically spoke about the importance of balancing government among the scales. And as I pointed out, America's far too LOCAL, not too top-down.
As for Estonia, sure, it's running a budget surplus. That's not hard to do, when you don't spend money on things. In the meantime, Estonia was hit by the GFC and went into recession. Indeed, in 2009, Estonia's economy dropped by a massive 14%. That is not indicative of a stable economy. It also has 11.7% unemployment, nearly 20% of its population is below the poverty line, and its GDP per capita is just US$19,000. For comparison, Australia never went into recession at all, it has 5.2% unemployment, about 13% of our population is below the poverty line, and our GDP is US$69,000 per capita. Oh, and we have the same debt level relative to GDP as Estonia, too. Australia has a better ranking in terms of ease of doing business, has a better credit rating, gives economic aid rather than receiving it (Estonia recieves economic foreign aid), and has lower inflation (1.9% vs 4% for Estonia).
To be blunt, I'm not seeing exactly why you would want to use Estonia as a bastion of great government. Oh, and there's this, too. And Estonia has a 21% flat income tax... which means it takes more in tax relative to income than the American average, which is somewhere around 17%. Indeed, the effective income tax rate for the top 1% was just 20.6% (20.9% for the top 5%). America complains about high taxes, while paying exceptionally low taxes, lower than a so-called Libertarian country (according to you, at least - I'm taking your word for it).
Somalia.
