If Mort Divine ruled the world

[Blurry_Dreams]

oh fucking hell

Trump on PTSD: Some veterans aren’t strong enough to ‘handle it’

 

[CiG]

 

[arg]

 

[Dak]

In all fairness, we got here because you said that what distinguishes progressives from conservatives is that progressives don't understand that there's no such thing as a free lunch. I was responding to that accusation, which I find to be an inaccurate cliche. I think it's a routine misunderstanding on the part of those who criticize progressives that they (i.e. progressives) believe something can come from nothing.

This is a critique founded on a straw man version of what I'm saying. Even granting the slipperiness of terms like wealth and scarcity, I don't see how this comment is really significant to the argument.

First of all, what exactly do you mean by assuaging the average Western progressive? Do you mean we don't have enough wealth for everyone to enjoy the standard of living that the average Western progressive enjoys? Even if that's true (and I'm not saying it isn't), that isn't what we need to do in order to "assuage the average Western progressive." All progressives want is what I would call a primer, a starter pack, a rainy day fund. The argument isn't for everyone on the planet to be able to afford a New Yorker subscription, gym membership, and buy kombucha on a regular basis.

Not everyone on the planet needs to have wealth distributed to them. In fact, the vast majority of people don't need it. I don't need it. But I'm perfectly happy to devote a small percentage of my income to ameliorating the circumstances of that vastly small portion of people who do need it, for emergency health care, for food when they don't have any, for access to a bed with a roof over it. Those who make more than I do can devote a slightly larger percentage, and so on. There is more than enough wealth to achieve that.

Also, I'm not saying that America should be responsible for the world's poverty. Asian nations have money. European nations have money. If we're imagining this on a global scale, it's not solely America's responsibility (but I'm an American, and I speak for my country--not others). As for how all this relates to immigration, those coming to American are those who need health care, food, and shelter. I don't think it should be a free-for-all, let everyone in and say that's that. I think the world can afford a concerted effort to address these issues rather than put locks on the gates.

I find it incredible that capitalism has created so much prosperity for so many people, and yet systematically diverts prosperity from a small portion of the world's population. But again, this is why I said earlier that capitalism continues to create scarcity in order to promote competition--to create the incentive to compete. It needs to in order to survive (yes, I'm personifying capitalism).

You can't accuse me of strawmanning when I'm providing numbers for at least some sort of policy and you aren't. It does seem reasonable to want a "rainy day fund". But at what size? For who? Why? For how long? How is it paid for? Beyond a rainy day fund, there are people who must be cared for cradle to grave in some if not all capacities due to either unfortunate birth/developmental problems, some tragedy that befalls them, or through their own stupid mistakes. Invoking "starter packs" or "rainy day" funds speaks to the idea that we are just helping people through or out of a rough patch. Social Security? Not a rough patch. Disability? Not a rough patch. Federal housing? Childcare/Education? Not a rough patch. Food stamps/welfare not a rough patch for many. Then we pull in illegal immigrants. Not a rough patch. There's a dollar amount on every head, and those dollars have to come from somewhere. You're fine with paying a percentage of your income: How many illegals can your percentage pay for? I guarantee you not one per year (particularly as a student, but that's kind of cheating on my part). How about the permanent indigent citizen? Not even one per year. Guess how much it costs for inpatient psych care (at least in my state)? $1800 per day. And that's the rough patch. For many/most, the "not rough patch" are group homes and assisted living facilities, which are still hundreds per day. Of course, these are the seriously mentally ill/intellectually disabled, and doesn't begin to address the larger cost of the permanent slum classes or the trailer park trash on the dole.

Going back to illegals, the estimates provided in the Coulter article put the cost between 115ish and 345ish billion annually. Splitting the difference is 230ish billion. Splitting that amongst the approximately 100 million Americans that pay any amount of income taxes places the dispersed cost per taxpayer at approximately 2300 per year. Each illegal costs more than 11,000 per year (not counting the costs of border enforcement), so it takes approximately 5 of the averaged tax payer to pay for one illegal - and all that money is not going to other services for citizens.

Show me some numbers that supports the statements that "we can afford", "capitalism can afford", "the world can afford." Program costs and sources of payment. Otherwise these are statements of blind faith, not statements of fact. I actually don't expect you to have the time to do so, because the problem is massive and complex and you have a different job, but you should be far less sure of yourself on these matters.

 

[Dak]

https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/1143191942131593217

Number of American civilians killed in the last decade by Latin Americans: More than 10,000.

Number of American civilians killed by Iranians in the last decade: Less than 5, probably 0.

Number of US Military deaths in Iraq & Afghanistan in 18 years of fighting: ~7,000. Yes, military with permissive ROE on the border. No to more war in the Middle East.

 

[Einherjar86]

You can't accuse me of strawmanning when I'm providing numbers for at least some sort of policy and you aren't.

Yes I can. You treat numbers like some kind of secret weapon: "Kill it with numbers!" Numbers don't absolve you of misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I'm saying.

Show me some numbers that supports the statements that "we can afford", "capitalism can afford", "the world can afford." Program costs and sources of payment. Otherwise these are statements of blind faith, not statements of fact. I actually don't expect you to have the time to do so, because the problem is massive and complex and you have a different job, but you should be far less sure of yourself on these matters.

You're right, I don't really have time. But I'm pretty sure if those above the global poverty line donated %0.33 of their income, we could ensure that those living on <$1.90 (the global poverty line) per day were given ~5$ per day. That sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Dak]

Yes I can. You treat numbers like some kind of secret weapon: "Kill it with numbers!" Numbers don't absolve you of misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I'm saying.

I hate to quote the stupid neocon midget but "facts don't care about your feelings."

You're right, I don't really have time. But I'm pretty sure if those above the global poverty line donated %0.33 of their income, we could ensure that those living on <$1.90 (the global poverty line) per day were given ~5$ per day. That sounds reasonable to me.

That does indeed sound reasonable. I'm down to lock the gates in the US, kick out everyone on any government welfare program, and donate .33% of my income to the world poor even at my current student scholarship income.

 

[Einherjar86]

I hate to quote the stupid neocon midget but "facts don't care about your feelings.”

Nope, but they care about context and relevance. You can ask me for numbers on whether we can afford to lift the global poor above the poverty line, and I can tell you the sun is 93 million miles from earth. That fact doesn’t care about your feelings either, but it doesn’t do me much good.

 

[CiG]

midget

It's okay for Dak to say this, it's their word not ours.

 

[CiG]

Some of the most severe irony ever is that the new intersectional feminist movement is literally hamstringing dominant high achieving women so men in feminine clothing can take their place.

 

[The Ozzman]

Morrissey: Diversity is not a strength

In other news, water is wet

https://summit.news/2019/06/24/pop-icon-morrissey-says-diversity-is-not-a-strength/

 

[Einherjar86]

If borders are such terrible things then why did they ever exist in the first place?

I wonder if he realizes you can say this about--literally--anything.

"If fascism is such a terrible thing then why did it ever exist in the first place?"

"If murder is such a terrible thing then why did it ever exist in the first place?"

"If Babymetal is such a terrible thing, then why did it ever exist in the first place?"

What a dumb fucking thing to say.

 

[CiG]

"If Babymetal is such a terrible thing, then why did it ever exist in the first place?"

You're on fire lately.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

1. Creating and needing aren’t mutually exclusive.

2. Regions of scarcity may be locally ex-leftist, but the global axiomatic is capitalism. As soon as local regions attempt something other than free trade internally, they’re usually excluded from international trade internationally (or seriously disadvantaged by it).

3. Capitalism can alleviate scarcity, absolutely; but if it actually distributed its products evenly then it would leave little or no incentive for people to compete (hence why capitalism “needs” competition).

A lot of what you said is exactly right, but you’re assuming there’s a supreme universal perspective from which to interpret the situation. I’m telling you there isn’t. Capitalism is the greatest distributing force in the history of the world, and yet still promotes poverty, misery, and exclusion. It has to in order to survive.

1. Ok?

2. Up to the 1950s yeah it happened to varying extents for varying reasons (in the 1910s Woody liked to invade Latin American nations just to protect industry whereas the CIA-fueled coup in Iran in the 50s was as much geopolitical as it was to protect BP), but that's not really true anymore. Even under Hugo Chavez as he nationalized oil fields and other natural resources with Western stakes, we never applied any real sanctions. The world economy is so large that it frankly doesn't matter to us how some countries choose to run their economies, because there are dozens of other alternatives. And the reason we're in that state today is thanks to an international shift towards neoliberal policies in the 70s and beyond.

3. I don't know what you mean by even distribution of products. Capitalists distribute products according to the extent of customers to pay for them. Capitalists compete by delivering more product for less customer money relative to the next capitalist. Capitalism doesn't require poverty, though certainly the more poverty that exists (i.e. the lower the standard of living), the cheaper the labor. For socially-defective nations that intentionally keep their populations in poverty, yeah capitalists can exploit that, but that's only because it's one-sided capitalism. The fundamental problem comes from their governments.

I wonder if he realizes you can say this about--literally--anything.

"If fascism is such a terrible thing then why did it ever exist in the first place?"

"If murder is such a terrible thing then why did it ever exist in the first place?"

"If Babymetal is such a terrible thing, then why did it ever exist in the first place?"

What a dumb fucking thing to say.

Except borders are generally agreed-upon by entire governments, many of which are representative and follow the desires of the people. Murder only takes a single individual to commit on their own free will for it to exist, the state of murder is brief, and governments and populations alike generally work together to reduce murder as much as possible. He's asking an obvious rhetorical question in response to libs that parrot "Bridges not walls" without even considering the massive value backed by millennia of history behind borders.

 

[The Ozzman]

xcept borders are generally agreed-upon by entire governments

I thought borders were a social construct?

 

[Dak]

Nope, but they care about context and relevance. You can ask me for numbers on whether we can afford to lift the global poor above the poverty line, and I can tell you the sun is 93 million miles from earth. That fact doesn’t care about your feelings either, but it doesn’t do me much good.

That's true, but I keep providing numbers with context and relevance to the conversation. You're behaving like a creationist being exposed to carbon dating results.

Except borders are generally agreed-upon by entire governments, many of which are representative and follow the desires of the people. Murder only takes a single individual to commit on their own free will for it to exist, the state of murder is brief, and governments and populations alike generally work together to reduce murder as much as possible. He's asking an obvious rhetorical question in response to libs that parrot "Bridges not walls" without even considering the massive value backed by millennia of history behind borders.

Sometimes Chesterton's fence is a literal fence.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

U.S. border wall funding of $1.57 billion yields 1.7 miles of fence

“The administration recently provided updated information to Congress on the status of its efforts as of April 30, 2019,” the attorney, Douglas Letter, said in a court filing. “Based on that updated information, it appears that CBP has now constructed 1.7 miles of fencing with its fiscal year 2018 funding.”

That was 3/4 of a mile more than the administration reported at the end of February, Letter said.

U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam had asked for the information at a May 17 hearing.

where-the-fuck did all the money go??

 

[arg]

If you give the poorest people their basic needs, they will still be poor, but healthy enough to make babies. That is bad.

Thus creating more poor people, who will need more wealth redistribution. More money out of your and my paychecks.

Not all wealth redistribution is bad, but it must be targeted, and conditional.

Only give it to poor people who
1. show potential to become productive
2. will not breed until they can support themselves and their offspring unaided

The poorest, most hopeless cases, the worst shitholes of the world, should be left to starve and suffer so badly that they won’t even want to reproduce, and just die off.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

If you give the poorest people their basic needs, they will still be poor, but healthy enough to make babies. That is bad.

Thus creating more poor people, who will need more wealth redistribution. More money out of your and my paychecks.

Not all wealth redistribution is bad, but it must be targeted, and conditional.

Only give it to poor people who
1. show potential to become productive
2. will not breed until they can support themselves and their offspring unaided

i believe in the concept of mandatory abortion
i believe in the idea of a list of situations where an abortion should be mandatory instead of merely an option
and of-course people who cannot financially support the children they make is at the top of the list
if you love penis-in-vagina sex and you get knocked-up because you're too broke to afford condoms/spermicide,
then you're too broke to afford a kid

but
if you're making broke people become sterile from malnutrition
this just seems wrong

i'm willing to make a list of people who need to be surgically/chemically sterilized
(such as the guy that already had 6 different baby-mamas before his 19th birthday)
but sterility caused by malnutrition just seems too cruel

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

If you give the poorest people their basic needs, they will still be poor, but healthy enough to make babies. That is bad.

Thus creating more poor people, who will need more wealth redistribution. More money out of your and my paychecks.

Not all wealth redistribution is bad, but it must be targeted, and conditional.

Only give it to poor people who
1. show potential to become productive
2. will not breed until they can support themselves and their offspring unaided

The poorest, most hopeless cases, the worst shitholes of the world, should be left to starve and suffer so badly that they won’t even want to reproduce, and just die off.

if you're only talking about USA
then i support the idea of min wage becoming a living wage
but, then,
how exactly do you expect America to be even able (let alone willing) to fix (or exacerbate) the problem of (any) other countries having starving-to-death-people
if you expect (or even want) the USA to do something that makes people in the rest of the world die (so they can't immigrate to here) what-the-fuck exactly do you think America is actually capable of doing??

if you look at the mis-shaped food that never reaches store shelves
added to the food that rots on store shelves
added to the food that rots in people's refrigerators
added to the food in McDonald's trashcans when people order more food than they're going to eat
all this added together and what you have is this
the United States of America alone manufactures enough food to feed every fucking human on the entire fucking planet

the reason you see those fucking commercials about how you can feed a child in Africa for the cost of a cup of coffee
if because of corrupt food-ministers
people who have the job-description of feeding their country who are failing at their job
because they are corrupt enough that they are just pocketing the American money that should be spent turning Africa into farmland

if you look at the mis-shaped food that never reaches store shelves
added to the food that rots on store shelves
added to the food that rots in people's refrigerators
added to the food in McDonald's trashcans when people order more food than they're going to eat
all this added together and what you have is this
the United States of America alone manufactures enough food to feed every fucking human on the entire fucking planet

you wanna feed Africa?
just get a fucking jet and just fly food over there

if any of @arg 's paycheck leaves America, it doesn't fucking feed anyone, it just lines the pocket of a corrupt "food minister"

i honestly want the United States to be able to institute some kind of "you're not allowed to breed until..." thing
where broke people in the United States are somehow temporarily sterilized until they stop being broke