9 ms·

Exactly. They whipped the mob into a frenzy with lies and bullshit so they could use its power to get what they wanted. Then they lost control of it. It is the

by aniro 6y ago

Exactly. They whipped the mob into a frenzy with lies and bullshit so they could use its power to get what they wanted. Then they lost control of it. It is the loss of control they regret, not whipping it up in the first place.

CryptoPunk 6y ago
Libertarianism/free-markets is not "lies and bullshit".. In Wisconsin at least, the biggest opposition to the Kochs was the state's public sector teachers union. During their protests, you saw some promoting full blown "abolish private property" Marxism. The conspiracy theories emanating from these rent-seeking tax dollar consumers in the public sector, alleging that the Kochs are trying enslave America with low taxes, and are brainwashing Middle America to go against its own interest by advocating a reduction in the size of the bloated public sector, and a scaling back of the privileges given to public sector unions, is the "lies and bullshit" that so many have been whipped up into a frenzy by. You have an entire generation of extremist radicals who are convinced now that the advocacy of the free market is a giant con being perpetuated by a small cadre of billionaires, and that the Economics profession has been coopted by this sinister elite as well. This conspiracy theory was generated by the rent-seeking public sector unions, and its spread was faciliated by unionized journalists. When only three out of New York' state's 55,000 teachers were fired in an entire year, you know that this group is wielding enormous power and has managed to completely hoodwink the masses with their anti-free-market/class-warfare conspiracy theories: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/education/24teachers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/education/24teachers.html
- tclancy 6y ago
  No, lies and bullshit would require self reflection. Both of those things have always been things the well fed and well off let their children play pretend with while making sure they never have to figure out how to feed themselves. I am 44. My entire life, speaking as someone who grew up conservative, libertarianism has either been about weed or drugs. And then about what degree of freedom one should have when arrested with either. Ask a poor person or a minority what it is like to be arrested with either. Stop role playing nonsense and join the real world.
  - CWuestefeld 6y ago
    libertarianism has either been about weed or drugs I'm not sure what libertarianism you've been looking at. Certainly stopping the war on drugs is one plank of the libertarian platform, but it's only one small piece. Other issues include stopping America's eternal military actions, reining in public debt, stopping abuse of police power (some overlap with BLM here!), ensuring that civil liberties such as speech, voting, self-defense, and sanctity of private property are protected, and so forth. There's a LOT there (and so assuredly there's space for everybody to find disagreement). It's just wrong to claim that it's all about weed and drugs.
    - AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
      I'm not so sure how helpful this all is, to be honest. While I am sure almost all libertarian-leaning folks would agree with your policy positions, libertarianism is really a system of political thought - not a political party, nor a collection of specific policies. Libertarians are really united more by their shared political axioms [0], rather than their specific policy views. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle
- harimau777 6y ago
  The problem is that the Libertarianism/free-market policies simply don't work. They've failed to address the growing inability to normal people to have financial security and a reasonable quality of life. At some point, continuing to advocate those policies in the face of their outcomes becomes negligence at best.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    The statistical evidence shows that the US has become dramatically more social democratic since the 1960s, so any problems that have emerged can be attributed to social democracy, not libertarianism. See the effect of public sector unions and collective bargaining on public education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839935 https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839... (copy-pasting) Every Western nation has massively increased social welfare spending over the last 50 years. Some more than others. Look at the US for example: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-in-government-spending/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-... Annual spending growth (inflation adjusted) on various components of social welfare spending (1972 - 2011): >Pensions and retirement: 4.4% >Healthcare: 5.7% >Welfare: 4.1% Annual economic growth over the time frame: >2.7% I have to reiterate that this is annual growth. Many people have turned around and said "4% over 40 years is nothing", missing the fact that it's not 4% over 40 years. It's 4.8% every year, over a span of 40 years. This represents a massive shift to social democracy. And the shift has been associated with plummeting labour productivity growth, plummeting wage growth, a slowdown in life expectancy gains, and an explosion in single parenthood: http://web.archive.org/web/20170529115412/https://pinetreewatch.org/500-rise-in-single-parenthood-fueling-family-poverty-in-maine/ http://web.archive.org/web/20170529115412/https://pinetreewa... More generally, there's a negative correlation between government spending levels as a percentage of GDP, and economic growth rates. Your implication, that society is better off with high levels of taxation, is not supported by the science on the matter. The evidence strongly suggests economic development is most rapidly achieved through adoption of pro-market policies. The last 30 years has seen the largest most rapid reduction in the global poverty rate in human history, and almost all the decline in poverty was due to economic development, which economists have concluded was massively facilitated by the spread of market institutions like property rights: 1. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/308134/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-pol... 2. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-global-war-on-poverty https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-gl... 3. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end-of-poverty https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end... There is no reason to assume that this relationship between pro-market policies and high rates of economic growth stops existing for advanced economies. We see indications of it manifesting across the developed world, like the superior performance of Hong Kong and Singapore relative to other developed economies, or Iceland relative to other Nordic countries, or in cross-European studies correlating low tax rates with high economic growth rates. Economic growth is the primary source of all improvements in quality of life, so we should have policies that maximize it. It is how an advanced economy comes to be that way.
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  As a former Wisconsin teacher, I resent your mischaracterization of these events.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    As a proponent of good government, I resent the institutional forces that empower public sector unions. I also don't blame the individuals who benefit from public sector unions, and if we somehow manage to overcome the power of the Democratic-Party/public-sector-union/media trifeca, and transition to a non captured/unionized public sector, I think the former union members should be fully compensated for what they lost.
qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
Reminds me of the Democrats not condemning mob violence until it started to hurt them in the polls.
- bondolo 6y ago
  How much of that was spin and framing against the Democrats or did anyone seriously believe that they were in favour of mob violence? New rule: if you don't condemn child rape every Monday morning then until you do it is assumed that you are in favour. Tiny furors like the "who's wearing an American flag lapel pin" are is too often motivated by political opportunity rather than any real question of where the parties stand on topics. And yes, Democrats do it to Republicans as well, just generally not as frequently. Republicans seem to love their mostly meaningless and unsurprising performative doxologies.
  - jsight 6y ago
    > And yes, Democrats do it to Republicans as well, just generally not as frequently. Ha, the difference is not nearly so stark as you'd think.
  - AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
    > Republicans seem to love their mostly meaningless and unsurprising performative doxologies. You need to update your views for today's political scene. These conditions were true up til around 2008. Since then, the Democrats are now the party that engages in the performative doxologies. Need I remind you of all that tone-deaf BLM kneeling crap in DC? Or how about the mask mandates? The face masks are the Democrats' "American flag lapel pin."
    - rswail 6y ago
      The face masks are a public health prophylactic that works. Arguments against spreading diseased aerosols based on politics or some personal liberty are simplistic and ignore physical reality.
      - 6y ago
zests 6y ago
I would love to see a poll where this comment gets presented without context and people have to decide what group it is describing.
- aniro 6y ago
  The web of deceit surrounding the Republican Party at this point is undeniable unless you have chosen to abandon reality entirely at the point it chafes your opinion.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    Oh yes, with Hillary deleting something like 40,000 emails when she became aware of an impeding investigation, and the Democratic Party aligned media, and Deep State, barely covering and investigating it, respectively, and the same thing happening with Hunter's scandalous laptop, it is only the Republican party that is surrounded by deceit.
    - aniro 6y ago
      QAnon, is it really you? Do you have the assigned catch phrases in text-expander? I mean how many times can someone realistically type out "Hillary's emails" and "Deep State" in a day before developing carpal tunnel.
    - pfdietz 6y ago
      Isn't it interesting that Trump had control of the reins of power for four years but was never able to actually prosecute Hillary for anything? This should be your clue that there wasn't any "there" there. I think you're going to be surprised and dismayed at what happens now that the shoe is on the other foot.
      - CryptoPunk 6y ago
        So the tens of thousands of emails weren't deleted? Or they were and there was nothing untoward about that? The people who think one party is virtuous, and the other is the embodiment of corruption, are the problem, regardless of which side they are on.

by aniro 6y ago

CryptoPunk 6y ago

Libertarianism/free-markets is not "lies and bullshit".. In Wisconsin at least, the biggest opposition to the Kochs was the state's public sector teachers union. During their protests, you saw some promoting full blown "abolish private property" Marxism. The conspiracy theories emanating from these rent-seeking tax dollar consumers in the public sector, alleging that the Kochs are trying enslave America with low taxes, and are brainwashing Middle America to go against its own interest by advocating a reduction in the size of the bloated public sector, and a scaling back of the privileges given to public sector unions, is the "lies and bullshit" that so many have been whipped up into a frenzy by. You have an entire generation of extremist radicals who are convinced now that the advocacy of the free market is a giant con being perpetuated by a small cadre of billionaires, and that the Economics profession has been coopted by this sinister elite as well. This conspiracy theory was generated by the rent-seeking public sector unions, and its spread was faciliated by unionized journalists. When only three out of New York' state's 55,000 teachers were fired in an entire year, you know that this group is wielding enormous power and has managed to completely hoodwink the masses with their anti-free-market/class-warfare conspiracy theories: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/education/24teachers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/education/24teachers.html

tclancy 6y ago
No, lies and bullshit would require self reflection. Both of those things have always been things the well fed and well off let their children play pretend with while making sure they never have to figure out how to feed themselves. I am 44. My entire life, speaking as someone who grew up conservative, libertarianism has either been about weed or drugs. And then about what degree of freedom one should have when arrested with either. Ask a poor person or a minority what it is like to be arrested with either. Stop role playing nonsense and join the real world.
- CWuestefeld 6y ago
  libertarianism has either been about weed or drugs I'm not sure what libertarianism you've been looking at. Certainly stopping the war on drugs is one plank of the libertarian platform, but it's only one small piece. Other issues include stopping America's eternal military actions, reining in public debt, stopping abuse of police power (some overlap with BLM here!), ensuring that civil liberties such as speech, voting, self-defense, and sanctity of private property are protected, and so forth. There's a LOT there (and so assuredly there's space for everybody to find disagreement). It's just wrong to claim that it's all about weed and drugs.
  - AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
    I'm not so sure how helpful this all is, to be honest. While I am sure almost all libertarian-leaning folks would agree with your policy positions, libertarianism is really a system of political thought - not a political party, nor a collection of specific policies. Libertarians are really united more by their shared political axioms [0], rather than their specific policy views. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle
harimau777 6y ago
The problem is that the Libertarianism/free-market policies simply don't work. They've failed to address the growing inability to normal people to have financial security and a reasonable quality of life. At some point, continuing to advocate those policies in the face of their outcomes becomes negligence at best.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  The statistical evidence shows that the US has become dramatically more social democratic since the 1960s, so any problems that have emerged can be attributed to social democracy, not libertarianism. See the effect of public sector unions and collective bargaining on public education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839935 https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839... (copy-pasting) Every Western nation has massively increased social welfare spending over the last 50 years. Some more than others. Look at the US for example: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-in-government-spending/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-... Annual spending growth (inflation adjusted) on various components of social welfare spending (1972 - 2011): >Pensions and retirement: 4.4% >Healthcare: 5.7% >Welfare: 4.1% Annual economic growth over the time frame: >2.7% I have to reiterate that this is annual growth. Many people have turned around and said "4% over 40 years is nothing", missing the fact that it's not 4% over 40 years. It's 4.8% every year, over a span of 40 years. This represents a massive shift to social democracy. And the shift has been associated with plummeting labour productivity growth, plummeting wage growth, a slowdown in life expectancy gains, and an explosion in single parenthood: http://web.archive.org/web/20170529115412/https://pinetreewatch.org/500-rise-in-single-parenthood-fueling-family-poverty-in-maine/ http://web.archive.org/web/20170529115412/https://pinetreewa... More generally, there's a negative correlation between government spending levels as a percentage of GDP, and economic growth rates. Your implication, that society is better off with high levels of taxation, is not supported by the science on the matter. The evidence strongly suggests economic development is most rapidly achieved through adoption of pro-market policies. The last 30 years has seen the largest most rapid reduction in the global poverty rate in human history, and almost all the decline in poverty was due to economic development, which economists have concluded was massively facilitated by the spread of market institutions like property rights: 1. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/308134/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-pol... 2. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-global-war-on-poverty https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-gl... 3. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end-of-poverty https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end... There is no reason to assume that this relationship between pro-market policies and high rates of economic growth stops existing for advanced economies. We see indications of it manifesting across the developed world, like the superior performance of Hong Kong and Singapore relative to other developed economies, or Iceland relative to other Nordic countries, or in cross-European studies correlating low tax rates with high economic growth rates. Economic growth is the primary source of all improvements in quality of life, so we should have policies that maximize it. It is how an advanced economy comes to be that way.
germinalphrase 6y ago
As a former Wisconsin teacher, I resent your mischaracterization of these events.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  As a proponent of good government, I resent the institutional forces that empower public sector unions. I also don't blame the individuals who benefit from public sector unions, and if we somehow manage to overcome the power of the Democratic-Party/public-sector-union/media trifeca, and transition to a non captured/unionized public sector, I think the former union members should be fully compensated for what they lost.

qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago

Reminds me of the Democrats not condemning mob violence until it started to hurt them in the polls.

bondolo 6y ago
How much of that was spin and framing against the Democrats or did anyone seriously believe that they were in favour of mob violence? New rule: if you don't condemn child rape every Monday morning then until you do it is assumed that you are in favour. Tiny furors like the "who's wearing an American flag lapel pin" are is too often motivated by political opportunity rather than any real question of where the parties stand on topics. And yes, Democrats do it to Republicans as well, just generally not as frequently. Republicans seem to love their mostly meaningless and unsurprising performative doxologies.
- jsight 6y ago
  > And yes, Democrats do it to Republicans as well, just generally not as frequently. Ha, the difference is not nearly so stark as you'd think.
- AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
  > Republicans seem to love their mostly meaningless and unsurprising performative doxologies. You need to update your views for today's political scene. These conditions were true up til around 2008. Since then, the Democrats are now the party that engages in the performative doxologies. Need I remind you of all that tone-deaf BLM kneeling crap in DC? Or how about the mask mandates? The face masks are the Democrats' "American flag lapel pin."
  - rswail 6y ago
    The face masks are a public health prophylactic that works. Arguments against spreading diseased aerosols based on politics or some personal liberty are simplistic and ignore physical reality.
    - 6y ago

zests 6y ago

I would love to see a poll where this comment gets presented without context and people have to decide what group it is describing.

aniro 6y ago
The web of deceit surrounding the Republican Party at this point is undeniable unless you have chosen to abandon reality entirely at the point it chafes your opinion.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  Oh yes, with Hillary deleting something like 40,000 emails when she became aware of an impeding investigation, and the Democratic Party aligned media, and Deep State, barely covering and investigating it, respectively, and the same thing happening with Hunter's scandalous laptop, it is only the Republican party that is surrounded by deceit.
  - aniro 6y ago
    QAnon, is it really you? Do you have the assigned catch phrases in text-expander? I mean how many times can someone realistically type out "Hillary's emails" and "Deep State" in a day before developing carpal tunnel.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    Isn't it interesting that Trump had control of the reins of power for four years but was never able to actually prosecute Hillary for anything? This should be your clue that there wasn't any "there" there. I think you're going to be surprised and dismayed at what happens now that the shoe is on the other foot.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      So the tens of thousands of emails weren't deleted? Or they were and there was nothing untoward about that? The people who think one party is virtuous, and the other is the embodiment of corruption, are the problem, regardless of which side they are on.