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Aielyn said: moar stuff |
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.
And I love how you can't understand words. Most people who call themselves anarchists are just communists, in my experience. They confuse being against the system in place with being against the existence of any government, and they seem to think that calling themselves anarchists gives them a reason to lob bricks through windows. That isn't a demonization of communism (which hardly needs demonizing, given its history), and I'm not conflating two different political beliefs but rather pointing out that a lot of self-styled anarchists are confused about their own political beliefs. Noam Chomsky, for instance, who is really just a government-loving leftist at his core since he doesn't think you should be able to own more property than he'd permit and doesn't trust people to enter into voluntary agreements with one another like proper fucking adults.
And yes, sadly, if society decided to strip people of rights, then those people lose those rights.
No, in that case their rights are being violated. It's a distinction with a difference. You have a right not to be murdered anywhere in the world, whether or not the governing body that claims the rule over the geographic area in which you reside says so. According to you, if some thug knifes you down in Sydney, he is violating your rights whereas if a man is stabbed to death in Iran for being a homosexual, his rights aren't being violated. He just didn't have any rights.
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.
Because those assholes don't determine what rights people do and don't have, and everything they say is meaningless.
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.
Most of the European Union belongs to the Eurozone, and if the crisis continues to build (and it will), it's going to affect the entirety of Europe (and the rest of the world, as well). "European debt crisis" is a reasonable shorthand for that, you're just being silly here.
I also find it really curious that you felt that you needed to mention Germany's birth rate.
Because children are the future, and if you have no children you have no future. Germany is forever being portrayed as the economic colossus that can hold the Eurozone together, but with its deathbed demographics, that isn't going to happen.
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.
Of course they are. Who said otherwise? But America dominates the field. Cherry picking one particular company doesn't change the fact that the US doesn't have price controls, other countries do, and companies take advantage of that fact. If that changed and they weren't making as much money, then it stands to reason that they would be investing less in R&D.
People believe it exists in America, certainly.
They also believe it exists in Not America, apparently. Otherwise you wouldn't have to talk about how no Australians are racist, except for all the racists.
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"
What? Really? If it is tribalism (loyalty to a particular group) rather than racism (a belief in the inherent inferiority or superiority of a race) then it must be intraracial as well as interracial? Are you sure you're a scientist?
Arguably you do see micro examples of this with, for example, blacks who espouse the wrong set of political beliefs being singled out as being somehow inauthentically black.
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.
Oh, no! I continued to disagree with you after you made an unconvincing assertion!
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).
'Stralia Über Alles!
No, seriously. Oz is great. I'm sure glad you don't run things there. And if the population there ever swells to 15 times its current size and becomes much more diverse, you guys might just prove me wrong yet. As it stands, you could still be a large state.
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%.
Well, it has the fastest growing economy in the EU, so compared to its bedfellows it's doing pretty swell. I don't really know how libertarian it is or not, just that it was considered the most libertarian nation by people who create indices to measure such things the last time I checked. But as the progressive American tax system skews how many people actually have skin in the game, I certainly like the idea of a flat tax. (No income tax at all and the government raising money entirely through excise taxes and usage fees would be better still.)
