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Comment Re:More Like Subsidized (Score 1) 533

Wow. You really haven't thought your position through, have you? I mean, at all. And by that, I mean that you really have no idea what a government is, how it comes about, what wars are, what causes them, what law enforcement is, or anything related to how humans operate, collaborate, and build societies. I hope you're somewhere in middle school, and you've just not gotten to that part in your education, because otherwise, that kind of ignorance has to be willful.

And by the way, yes, I am confusing libertarian with communists. They both completely fail in providing workable solutions. The best they have is a partial list of facts.

Comment Re:More Like Subsidized (Score 1) 533

1) A democracy is where 51% of the people decide the needs and force it on the other 49%

1) That's not what a democracy is. Read up on it.
2) As opposed to a system where a minority decides the needs and forces it on the majority? That's why I find libertarians so adorable. They can identify problems, but are utterly blind as to the alternatives. To quote a famous guy who has seen some systems: "Democracy is the worst government system, except for all the others."

2) Most libertarians support the idea of a police force and law enforcement.

And yet, they utterly fail to comprehend that that is what is behind the the power of the government, and behind any abuse that they perceive. That's why they are so contemptible: their preferences are all diametrically opposed, and they are, for some reason, incapable of understanding that.

Comment Re:More Like Subsidized (Score 1) 533

It is much easier to control "Boss Hog" in some rural county than it is to control "Hitler" in Europe.

Oh, aren't you cute. Taking your history and sociology lessons from a TV show.

I want unbridled liberty. It is messy, ugly and free

Oh, it sure is. Why don't you move to all those countries with tiny national governments that barely reach outside of the capital? You have complete freedom to do whatever the hell you want. As does everyone else around you. Oh, right, those countries aren't "real" libertarian countries. Just like the USSR, China, Vietnam, Czechoslovakia, North Korea and others weren't and aren't "real" communist countries.

Here's a dirty, little secret of your mantra of " Libertarianism oppose to abuses of power, and only want a government big enough to stop abuses of power." Any government that is big enough to stop abuses of power is big enough to be the root cause of them. The only thing stopping abuses of power are the people who are in power. Libertarians are essentially envisioning a benevolent dictatorship, with its scope limited to personal property. Always forgetting that the only thing you truly own is what you can carry in both hands, running at full tilt. And that it is the biggest gun that controls what else you can call property. Better hope that it is yours, comrade.

Comment Re:More Like Subsidized (Score 1) 533

The problem is that libertarians always try to make the distinction that they're not anarchists and that they're not like the current government, but they fail to do so in any sort of workable manner. Let's take your example of a standing army for defense.

1) It needs to be funded.
2) It needs to be commanded.

1 requires taxes, an organization to collect it, laws on what is taxed, lawmakers to write those laws, courts to enforce those laws, lawyers to argue court cases, law enforcement officers to enforce court decisions, and it's suddenly government all the way down. We're right back to where we were before.

In order for 2 not to be just a different name for a warlord, the commander in chief needs to be an elected civilian. That means elections, representative bodies, separation of powers, and, well, you get the drift. The founding fathers weren't stupid, and created a pretty good system. That same system is what we have today.

Furthermore, a standing army isn't to deal with local warlords, it is to deal with external threats. A police force is there to deal with local warlord-wannabes who think that the government shouldn't have a monopoly on the use of force, and who think that they are better at running the local community than the elected bodies.

There are two types of libertarians. Those who think that government should be tiny, with everyone being some glorious self-sufficient pioneer in the new world. Those are the ones who should be hanging out in Somalia and Sudan, but don't, because those places a shit holes of failed states. Then there are those who think that government should be smaller, specifically in the areas that tells them that they can't do what they want or to do what they don't want to. All other areas, specifically those that they benefit from, are exactly a-ok. Those are called free-riders, and have been identified as a problem since the dawn of time when it comes to the allocation of resources.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: today's brand of American libertarians are the European communists of old: they identify problems just fine, but are advocating completely unworkable solutions and are willing to shit all over everyone else to implement them.

Comment Re:More Like Subsidized (Score 2) 533

There's the slight issue of enforcement of tort law. A weak central government that has no teeth will not be able to enforce the decisions by the courts, which means that we're back to citizens enforcing the courts decisions on their own. Or at least, whatever they think the court said...

Unless, of course, you want to argue that the government has an active local law enforcement arm, that is properly funded by taxes, and that the laws are actively debated by an appointed set of representatives to make sure that they reflect the local needs. You know, like a democracy or something.

Comment Re:More Like Subsidized (Score 3, Insightful) 533

Libertarians are opposed to all abuses of power,

No. Patently, you're not. You are completely unable to deal with the very real problem of warlords stepping into any power vacuum, and all the abuses that come from that. You just happen to think that a) you'll be the one in power, and b) you'll be the benevolent ruler of your little plot land, happily living in communion with all those around you. Unfortunately for you, every single time a power vacuum happens due to the disintegration of a central state, your theory is put to the test, and it fails absolutely miserably.

But without government they at least won't have a ready-made system available to amplify their offenses and shield them from the consequences.

What you utterly fail to comprehend is that there is always a power center. It can either be one in which the population is invested in and which can be changed without bloodletting, aka a republic of some sort, or it can be one that doesn't. Both will always claim to have some sort of legitimacy - even if for some it is just the barrel of a gun.

We oppose the government specifically because it embodies the systematic abuse of power, and, unlike other criminal organizations, maintains the pretense that its abuses are somehow "legitimate".

You're so adorable. You're main beef with the government is that you don't like its claim to legitimacy, and therefore think it's as bad as actual criminal organizations. Let me guess - white, under 30, never lived in an actual failed state. Probably come from some rich suburb.

Comment Re:Double standards (Score 4, Insightful) 533

Oh, right, the old argument that "if you're truly open and interested in diversity, you'll let me shit all over openness and diversity, including your own, and you will be happy about it."

Here's the dirty little secret that you're trying hide with that platitude: some ideas are objectively terrible, lead to social disaster, and go against everything the Enlightenment and the revolutions of the 18th century fought for. As a result, the people who espouse those terrible ideas should be called out and ostracized. And while you're right that no party has a monopoly on good ideas, there's only one party that is actively promoting anti-science ideas, segregation, and a general Galt's Gulch approach to society. As soon as the republicans stop being loony, I'll vote for them again.

In the meantime, stop shitting in my cereal and telling me that it is chocolate.

Comment Re:Um... (Score 1) 151

You might be able to use a dictionary, but you clearly lack reading comprehension. A prediction, to qualify as any sort of useful prediction, requires some bit of information that can be acted on. What they said was that the odds of Mt Fuji blowing up increased, but we have no idea by how much or how that would translate into an actual date.

Furthermore, they didn't say that it got close to an eruption, but that the odds increased. Put down the dictionary, and pay more attention to what you read.

Comment Re:Dumb dumb dumb advice... (Score 1) 280

There is paranoia, and then there is you. Here's the deal: if you're worried about backdoors in your routers, it doesn't matter what you use - your security is hosed. Same if you're worried about backdoors in password managers - what makes you think that your browser doesn't have one? Your OS? The instant you type in your password, even if it is a 50 random character one that you keep on a steel plate in a vault, it is gone.

You think you're being secure, but you're just being lazy. Specifically, you're being lazy about your security analysis, and actually have no idea what the ramifications are of something being insecure. To extend your analogy to your approach, you think that a padlock is bad, so you put all of your stuff into three separate bins that you then keep in storage locker that is protected not by a padlock, but by door and lock system. Congratulations, you're still making the same mistake all the password manager users are doing. Except you're not aware of it, and therefore much more open to getting exploited.

Comment Re:For The Love of Glob! (Score 4, Insightful) 552

What - ocean acidification that kills off shellfish, warmer waters that kill off reefs, warmer climates that spread pine borer beetles to brand new areas causing billions in forestry damage and millions in local business damage, the current droughts in Texas and CA that have caused millions in agricultural losses - that's not enough?

Oh, right, it isn't. Some people will say that it isn't happening until the sea floods their house and their crops and animals die. It took famously seven plagues to convince the pharao that something was amiss. I'm guessing that we'll need our own seven plagues in a year before anything happens.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 138

All this will increase is torrent traffic.

I can't stand the 'exclusive' bullshit that networks and providers are playing lately. You try to edge out other providers so people 'have' to use your service? Nahhhhhh....

It's kind of funny that Netflix/hulu/etc. won't compete on service or ease of use or price or etc. but instead play exclusivity games. If you want XYZ you HAVE to use us. (ok, they phrase it differently)

Screw you guys, I'm goin home.

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