What ever happened to "small government?"

lovecraft68 said:

Government 'got big' because a lot of people want it that way. This is a lazy instant gratification generation that wants everything done for them.

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So lemme guess, your solution is to become an autocrat and take away democracy so people no longer get what they want?

Hey you know what, coward, how about you move to a place with smaller government? Of course you won't, because you like this big government hellhole better than those small government paradises out there.

Shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.

LJ_Reloaded said:

So not only are you an inbred retard, you're also a coward who can't own what you said. Gotcha.

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I don't have to son, you got caught in some SERIOUS self contradiction and that's why you've checked out of the conversation. running away with your tail tucked.

Now tell me how much you LOVE big gubbmint regulation over commerce like your fellow socialist the fat racist white bitch.

BotanyBoy said:

I don't have to son, you got caught in some SERIOUS self contradiction and that's why you've checked out of the conversation. running away with your tail tucked.

Now tell me how much you LOVE big gubbmint regulation over commerce like your fellow socialist the fat racist white bitch.

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So not only are you an inbred retard, you're also a coward who can't own what you said. Gotcha.

LJ_Reloaded said:

So not only are you an inbred retard, you're also a coward who can't own what you said. Gotcha.

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Stay checked out of the conversation sucker......you're just proving me right

BotanyBoy said:

Stay checked out of the conversation sucker......you're just proving me right

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So not only are you an inbred retard, you're also a coward who can't own what you said. Gotcha.

LJ_Reloaded said:

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The LJ denial train just keeps on chugging.





You can support the capitalist little girl....or the socialist white woman, which is it LJ?

BotanyBoy said:

The LJ denial train just keeps on chugging.

You can support the capitalist little girl....or the socialist white woman, which is it LJ?

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So not only are you an inbred retard, you're also a coward who can't own what you said. Gotcha.

LJ_Reloaded said:

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Ohhhh he's still shorting out hard folks....


Common LJ!!! Who do you support the little girl or the racist socialist??

BotanyBoy said:

Ohhhh he's still shorting out hard folks....


Common LJ!!! Who do you support the little girl or the racist socialist??

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So not only are you an inbred retard, you're also a coward who can't own what you said. Gotcha.

LJ_Reloaded said:

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Ohhhh he's still shorting out hard folks....


Common LJ!!! You can do it!!

Who do you support the capitalist little girl or the racist socialist??

BotanyBoy said:

Ohhhh he's still shorting out hard folks....


Common LJ!!! You can do it!!

Who do you support the capitalist little girl or the racist socialist??

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So not only are you an inbred retard, you're also a coward who can't own what you said. Gotcha.

BotanyBoy said:

Not even close bubba and I know for a fact you don't have anything to back that up.

It's not happyism...it's liberalism, liberty is paramount in liberalism.

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Nothing to back that up, bright boy?

How about On Virtue and Happiness, a whole book about why happiness is the goal of liberalism by John Motherfucking Stuart Mill.

How about John Motherfucking Locke in An Essay Concerning Human Motherfucking Understanding

The necessity of pursuing happiness [is] the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action...

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What about Motherfucking Hobbes... well, actually not Hobbes because he’s got all that Felicity and commodious living stuff going on. Well, fuck him anyway.

So how about David Motherfucking Hume, who wrote four essays about happiness

The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.

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Do you get it yet?

Oblimo said:

Nothing to back that up, bright boy?

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Yup. That's right and why you didn't.

If you think any of those great thinkers thought happiness, not liberty, to be the primary concern of liberal politics you really need to go back and read what they wrote because you clearly misunderstood their work.

Oblimo said:

Do you get it yet?

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None of that changes what Britannica, Websters, every poli-sci 1301 class ever taught call liberalism.


Here it is again seeing as you couldn't be bothered to look the first few times.

Liberalism, political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others, but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty.

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https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberalism


The dictionaries, encyclopedias and academic institutions/texts aren't all wrong....you are.


These great liberal thinkers you listed very clearly think liberalism is the best pathway to maximum happiness, prosperity and advancement. And I agree,

But happiness doesn't have shit to do with liberalism as a political philosophy. Liberalism is about maximizing individual liberty wile maintaining civility/rule of law. Not pleasing the masses with free shit via equity seeing wealth redistribution government programs....that's called socialism.

I’m quoting Hume, Locke, and Mill. And you refute by quoting... the online Encyclopedia Britannica.

You’re an idiot. I’m going to try one. More. Time.

(Do you even understand that “happiness” in this context is a technical philosophical term, and does not mean simply “pleasure?” I bet you don’t. Edit: I’ll be direct and even more condescending: do you know what eudaimonia is?)

Yes, the goal of liberalism is maximizing individual liberty.

But...stick with me here...ready?

Why?

What is it that classical liberals have always, since the freaking Enlightenment, have always said was the goal of maximizing individual liberty?

Hint: BB might spell it HEY PENIS.

Oblimo said:

Yes, the goal of liberalism is maximizing individual liberty.

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Well then, I'm glad you agree with me, Hume, Locke, Mill, Websters, Oxford, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard and Britannica.


Now back to the harm principal....

The harm principle holds that the actions of individuals should only be limited to prevent harm to other individuals. John Stuart Mill articulated this principle in On Liberty, where he argued that, "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."[1] An equivalent was earlier stated in France's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 as, "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law."

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle



Is largely considered the liberal "line in the sand" for government authority.

Can we agree to this?

BotanyBoy said:

Well then, I'm glad you agree with me, Hume, Locke, Mill, Websters, Oxford, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard and Britannica.

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Is that meant to be an argument tactic?

Now back to the harm principal....

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You won’t fully appreciate Mills argument until you understand the role of human happiness in his liberal, utilitarian political philosophy. So I wouldn’t recommend changing the subject before you understand how human happiness is the goal of liberty.

Is largely considered the liberal "line in the sand" for government authority.

Can we agree to this?

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Oh lord, quoting Wikipedia at me.

“My right to wave my fist ends at your face,” has been a popular phrase. But Mill takes it further. Consider the case of Kitty Genovese. Mill would say that, based on liberal moral principles, that the people in the apartment listening to her die had a positive obligation to come to her aid. After defining how important individual liberty is, Mill then puts the individual in the context of society, and argue we are not free to ignore the plight of our fellow humans.

Note that tort law does not uphold such an obligation, and neither does most common law and US statutory jurisprudence. I could be walking down the street and see a baby lying on its stomach in a puddle an eight of an inch deep, aspirating water to death. To save its life, all I have to do is flip it over with my foot as I walk by.

Common law does not, on those facts alone, impart a duty on me to do so.

But the law does recognize the government’s ability to levy a tax to fund the repairing the pothole that filled with water and trapped the baby in the first place. That’s a different calculus. (Gee, I’m back to that word again. I wonder if it has any significance.)

If we are to continue this discussion, I would ask you to at least read Chapter 5 in Mill’s On Liberty. It’s the chapter where he discussion practical applications of liberalism. It’s short, and it might help you break out of your definition mind-traps.

It’s not like I’m asking you to read The Principles of Political Economy — although I should, because that’s where Mill makes the direct, liberal case for social programs.

The fate of no member of the community needs to be abandoned to chance; that society can and therefore ought to insure every individual belonging to it against the extreme of want.

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(For him, the secret to an effective welfare program was figuring out how to encourage the poor to stop makin’ babies. Mill would have the government subsidize birth control like crazy.)

Oblimo said:

Is that meant to be an argument tactic?

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More of a congratulatory statement for getting on board with consensus instead of insisting that happiness of paramount concern in the liberal political philosophy.

Oblimo said:

You won’t fully appreciate Mills argument until you understand the role of human happiness in his liberal, utilitarian political philosophy. So I wouldn’t recommend changing the subject before you understand how human happiness is the goal of liberty.

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It's the presumed result of letting each person pursue their own happiness by maximizing/rotecting individual liberty.

Not something for the government to pursue through social/economic equity enforcement.

Oblimo said:

If we are to continue this discussion, I would ask you to at least read Chapter 5 in Mill’s On Liberty.

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And I would ask you to take your condescending shit and blow it out your ass....I've read it.

Look.....you want to keep pretending authoritarian socialism and liberalism are so compatible they are practically the same thing? Fine...millions of FOX viewers do it on a regular basis.

BotanyBoy said:

And I would ask you to take your condescending shit and blow it out your ass....I've read it.

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First, I want to agree with you that shit does indeed blow out of my ass.

But as for your reading On Liberty, it doesn’t sound like you got your mindteeth into the heart of the thing.

Here’s a bit from Chapter One, just two paragraphs after Mill’s famous codification of the Harm principle. Really read it. Read it hard. This is liberalism:

There are also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence in a court of justice; to bear his fair share in the common defence, or in any other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which he enjoys the protection; and to perform certain acts of individual beneficence, such as saving a fellow-creature's life, or interposing to protect the defenceless against ill-usage, things which whenever it is obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to society for not doing. A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. The latter case, it is true, requires a much more cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make any one answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception. Yet there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that exception. In all things which regard the external relations of the individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose interests are concerned, and if need be, to society as their protector. There are often good reasons for not holding him to the responsibility; but these reasons must arise from the special expediencies of the case: either because it is a kind of case in which he is on the whole likely to act better, when left to his own discretion, than when controlled in any way in which society have it in their power to control him; or because the attempt to exercise control would produce other evils, greater than those which it would prevent. When such reasons as these preclude the enforcement of responsibility, the conscience of the agent himself should step into the vacant judgment seat, and protect those interests of others which have no external protection; judging himself all the more rigidly, because the case does not admit of his being made accountable to the judgment of his fellow-creatures.

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And you’re fixated on the late 20th century Cold World propaganda that all forms of “socialism” are anathema to liberalism, as opposed to the true opposites of liberalism, which are authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

There’s a seminal book on the subject. It was written in the mid 1800s, when private ownership and personal liberty were fundamental tenets of socialism - socialists wanted to do away with property rental: no leaseholds, they argued, because the promote generational poverty*. But the free sale of private property rights such as life estates and fees was to be an engine of socialist economy. And mid 1800s socialists would eliminate wage earnings and instead have workers contract for a share of the revenue generated by the free, private enterprise to which they contributed their labor. The turn of the century saw that form of socialism fade and the rise of Marx and Engles.

Anyway, the author of this book gave it a Snakes On A Plane style title. He called the book Socialism.

And his name was John Stuart Mill.

*Even in the mid 1800s, political philosophic thought about leaseholds was still all about the tenant farmer. The plight of the urban residential renter is more modern.

Oblimo said:

And you’re fixated on the late 20th century Cold World propaganda that all forms of “socialism” are anathema to liberalism, as opposed to the true opposites of liberalism, which are authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

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And we come full circle to the fantasy of the theoretical socialistic liberal....

Socialistic policies only happen under threat of penalty from state authority, it is definitively authoritarian...no matter how compartmentalized you can't have a single shred of it without a government authority going and confiscating it from others.

There is such a thing as liberal socialism though...it's 100% voluntary and involves no authority of force, we call it charity.

BotanyBoy said:

And we come full circle to the fantasy of the theoretical socialistic liberal....

Socialistic policies only happen under threat of penalty from state authority, it is definitively authoritarian...no matter how compartmentalized you can't have a single shred of it without a government authority going and confiscating it from others.

There is such a thing as liberal socialism though...it's 100% voluntary and involves no authority of force, we call it charity.

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It’s only full circle because you refuse to address Mill’s points.

I’ve shown you how Mill argued that liberalism allows the state to interfere with an individual to provide for the welfare of others within limits. Do you have a counterargument to Mill, other than “no it doesn’t because the definition of ‘liberalism’ says it doesn’t.” Because that’s not an argument, that’s a tautology, and I’m finished with trying to explain that to you.

Oblimo said:

It’s only full circle because you refuse to address Mill’s points.

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I addressed it numerous times...you don't seem to want to listen though.

I'll try again.

Oblimo said:

I’ve shown you how Mill argued that liberalism allows the state to interfere with an individual to provide for the welfare of others within limits.

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Those limits being as close to/under the harm principal as possible....max liberty, minimal government involvement while maintaining a civil society with rule of law.

Mills theory of "socialism" did NOT include the state managed economy which for over a century now has been the defining characteristic of the modern definition of socialism.

Mills theory didn't define socialism as it's understood today, Marx and Engels did.

Mills "socialism" =/= Marxist (modern) socialism.

Oblimo said:

Do you have a counterargument to Mill, other than “no it doesn’t because the definition of ‘liberalism’ says it doesn’t.” Because that’s not an argument, that’s a tautology, and I’m finished with trying to explain that to you.

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Mill agrees with what I'm saying.

Even his highly liberal brand of "socialism" which is nothing like the modern definition of the term was recognized by Mills as distinct from liberalism.

My argument is not that Mills is wrong, but that you've totally misunderstood his ideas on liberalism and conflated his ideas of "socialism" with the modern day Marx-Engels based definition of the term.

BotanyBoy said:

Well then, I'm glad you agree with me, Hume, Locke, Mill, Websters, Oxford, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard and Britannica.


Now back to the harm principal....



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle



Is largely considered the liberal "line in the sand" for government authority.

Can we agree to this?

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Watching you beat Oblimo's fist with your face is almost more fun than Netflix!

Another Conservative hypocritical big government racist tried to get a black kid's business shut down

http://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/20...permit-for-hot-dog-stand-after-complaint.html

Thirteen-year-old Jaequan Faulkner of Minneapolis, Minnesota is a young entrepreneur, owning and operating a small hot dog stand outside his home in the northern part of the city.

"It puts pride in me to see that I'm doing something good for the community," he told KARE 11.

But recently, the city’s health department received a complaint that Faulkner did not have a permit to sell hot dogs from his stand.

Rather than shutting down the young entrepreneur's business, however, Minneapolis city officials chose to help the teen instead.

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BotanyBoy said:

Mills theory of "socialism" did NOT include the state managed economy which for over a century now has been the defining characteristic of the modern definition of socialism.

Mills theory didn't define socialism as it's understood today, Marx and Engels did.

Mills "socialism" =/= Marxist (modern) socialism.

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Are you even reading my posts? I literately just said that.

My argument is not that Mills is wrong, but that you've totally misunderstood his ideas on liberalism and conflated his ideas of "socialism" with the modern day Marx-Engels based definition of the term.

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Are you mad? Where are you getting this? When did I say anything about state managed economy?! I’ve been talking about funding social programs through taxation. That’s something Mill himself suggests, although via property tax not income tax.

You’re not arguing against me. Your arguing with some straw Troskyite you made up in your head.

Oblimo said:

Are you even reading my posts? I literately just said that.

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Yes, and I'm wondering why you seem to think wealth redistribution falls into the category of liberal but not socialistic policy?

Oblimo said:

Where are you getting this? When did I say anything about state managed economy?!

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Do you not understand that's what these wealth redistribution programs are?

Oblimo said:

You’re not arguing against me. Your arguing with some straw Troskyite you made up in your head.

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So you don't support wealth redistribution (social) programs then???

Because I thought you did.