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Region: Libertatem

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Post by Highway Eighty-Eight suppressed by a moderator.

Highway Eighty-Eight wrote:Libertarian right is gay.

The big gay strikes again

Auxorii, Rateria

Highway Eighty-Eight wrote:Libertarian right is gay.

Does this mean I have to come out of the closet now?

Rateria, Bieva

Auxorii wrote:The priority of the next President of the United States must be to disassemble the Deep State; we should abolish the CIA and NSA and have all intelligence gathering done by the military. Our media and the entertainment we consume is streamlined directly from our intelligence agencies - and at the same time, they watch over us as Big Brother and read through our texts, emails and spy on us in other gross and unimaginable ways. This Deep State is who really controls the government, most of the politicians who are elected are just figureheads for the corporations that funneled absurd amounts of money into their campaign in the hope of an exchange of political favours. Our economy is rigged by huge and trans-national corporations; overturn Citizens United, break up monopolies like Disney and establish term limits amongst our elected public officials. The Federal Reserve must be audited and we must take control over our own currency - I’m not sure if a return to the gold standard is the solution, but we must end fiat currency and the abuse of banking in this nation; the Federal Reserve must be nationalized and reestablished as a national banking service to Americans.

If you are saying, "Return to a limited government Federal Constitutional Republic based on extreme Liberty and equality under Law in the Classical Liberal sense, and post haste, I am in.

Auxorii, Rateria, The United States Of Patriots, Bieva, Fitnessgramistan

Y'all have good takes in this region

Auxorii, Rateria, The United States Of Patriots

Tricksy ISP always want moneys to keep Narland connected to the Internetses.

I hope everyone is well. I am safe, albeit UNLAWFULLY sequestered, but well.

Fake Conservative Governor had the opportunity to join with the other 8 States that didn't lock-down. So many emigres from California have moved here (3/5 of the population are Californicans) that want a nanny-state to wipe their many orifices, I am thinking of moving to North Dakota, or i can work very hard to see that a better person is elected next go-round. Probably the latter. There comes a time when leftists have to stop being children and start wiping their own nose without using other people's kerchiefs.

Bieva wrote:Y'all have good takes in this region

Welcome Bieva. I hope you enjoy Libertatem.

Rateria, Bieva

Bieva wrote:Y'all have good takes in this region

And I’m sure you’ll have some good takes in the future.

Welcome to Libertatem, friend.

Narland, Rateria, Bieva

Narland wrote:If you are saying, "Return to a limited government Federal Constitutional Republic based on extreme Liberty and equality under Law in the Classical Liberal sense, and post haste, I am in.

Of course - we must return to our revolutionary roots and return America to its proper system that has been usurped by the elite.

Narland, Rateria

Auxorii wrote:Of course - we must return to our revolutionary roots and return America to its proper system that has been usurped by the elite.
lol I should smileyed the post with a " :D " to convey that I heartily agree.

Auxorii, Rateria

Bieva wrote:Y'all have good takes in this region

The region is a very good place for Liberty lovers of all stripes. I have enjoyed this region for many moons. They put up with my complexities quite well.

At the global level I am an Anarchist (Antiglobalist).

At the Federal level I am a Anarcho-Capitalist.

At the State level I am a Minarchist.

At the County/Municipal level i am a Right-Libertarian (Classical Liberal Paleo-Conservative).

At the Community level I am an Evangelical (Laissez Faire Theistic Humanist Objective Realist, Christian of the Primitive Reformed variety).

At the Family level I am mine own benevolent dictator in the Commune of Charity, Forbearance, and Affection.

At the Individual level I am an unassuming booger-head Rugged Individualist.

I also have a hard time with succinctness. :(

Please feel free to ask any questions, share any thoughts, and be a terror to evildoers at any time. :)

Auxorii, Bieva

Auxorii wrote:The priority of the next President of the United States must be to disassemble the Deep State; we should abolish the CIA and NSA and have all intelligence gathering done by the military. Our media and the entertainment we consume is streamlined directly from our intelligence agencies - and at the same time, they watch over us as Big Brother and read through our texts, emails and spy on us in other gross and unimaginable ways. This Deep State is who really controls the government, most of the politicians who are elected are just figureheads for the corporations that funneled absurd amounts of money into their campaign in the hope of an exchange of political favours. Our economy is rigged by huge and trans-national corporations; overturn Citizens United, break up monopolies like Disney and establish term limits amongst our elected public officials. The Federal Reserve must be audited and we must take control over our own currency - I’m not sure if a return to the gold standard is the solution, but we must end fiat currency and the abuse of banking in this nation; the Federal Reserve must be nationalized and reestablished as a national banking service to Americans.

I think we definitely need some kind of intelligence agency, but I totally agree the CIA and NSA are essentially the heads of a shadow government. People actually think Trump is in charge - the people with the most power in America are not subject to elections. Ideally, we would abolish CIA, NSA and FBI and reorganize them into new agencies that serve essentially the same function but under the strict supervision of the government.

I do believe that if we removed many of the barriers and special favors, many perceived monopolies would naturally disappear. Why was Time Warner (owner of CNN) allowed to merge with AT&T, but Sinclair (the "right-wing media giant") wasn't allowed to acquire Tribune Media? We need an actual free market in America.

And I agree, I think either nationalizing or privatizing the Fed would be beneficial for all, as both options would hold it accountable to the American people. Right now it exists in a weird, quasi-state, quasi-private grey area that essentially insulates it from any real oversight. A privatized Fed would expose the banking system to competition; a nationalized Fed would mean elected officials can actually make decisions on monetary policy.

Narland, Republic Of Minerva, Auxorii, Rateria

Skaveria wrote:Welcome, we're mostly Libertarians here, but classical liberals fit right in.

Genuine question: classical liberals believe there's room for a limited social safety net, like public education, right? Is that the main difference between them and libertarians?

Rateria

Folks, please take a read of this article: https://spectator.us/justin-amash-study-vanity/

"But it turned out that Amash’s self-conscious separation from Ron Paul and the Tea Party was the beginning of a pattern. Again and again, Amash has made a point of pretending to be better than everybody else, especially those who work alongside him. He was too good for the Ron Paul movement, too good for the Tea Party, and ultimately too good for the Republican party and the House Freedom Caucus. He truly is the anti-Ron Paul: instead of devoting himself to liberty and the Constitution, he uses the Constitution and liberty as pretexts for his own vanity. Why, criticize me and you are really criticizing the rule of law itself — harrumph!"

Pevvania wrote:Folks, please take a read of this article: https://spectator.us/justin-amash-study-vanity/

"But it turned out that Amash’s self-conscious separation from Ron Paul and the Tea Party was the beginning of a pattern. Again and again, Amash has made a point of pretending to be better than everybody else, especially those who work alongside him. He was too good for the Ron Paul movement, too good for the Tea Party, and ultimately too good for the Republican party and the House Freedom Caucus. He truly is the anti-Ron Paul: instead of devoting himself to liberty and the Constitution, he uses the Constitution and liberty as pretexts for his own vanity. Why, criticize me and you are really criticizing the rule of law itself — harrumph!"

Only in 2020 would someone who wanted the deep state to spy on a private citizen (Trump during election) by the deep state could be considered Libertarian

Republic Of Minerva, Jadentopian Order

Pevvania wrote:Genuine question: classical liberals believe there's room for a limited social safety net, like public education, right? Is that the main difference between them and libertarians?

That's basically correct. If you think of classical liberals in terms of the founding fathers, perhaps update their 1700s prejudices to the modern day, they'd be slightly right of modern Libertarians on social issues, and slightly left of us on economics, but overwhelmingly still culturally left and economically right. In my estimation at least, classical liberalism is like a watered down Libertarianism.

Pevvania, Republic Of Minerva, Rateria

Justin Amash has been one of the few consistent defenders of liberty in the Government. Compared to Rand Paul, who defends liberty only when it is popular to do so, Amash will take positions that are absolutely unpopular despite being the correct position, and this is what I respect most in a leader. He is a much better candidate than Gary Johnson for the Libertarian Party and any libertarian worth their salt should consider supporting him, if not voting for him.

Pevvania wrote:I think we definitely need some kind of intelligence agency, but I totally agree the CIA and NSA are essentially the heads of a shadow government. People actually think Trump is in charge - the people with the most power in America are not subject to elections. Ideally, we would abolish CIA, NSA and FBI and reorganize them into new agencies that serve essentially the same function but under the strict supervision of the government.

I do believe that if we removed many of the barriers and special favors, many perceived monopolies would naturally disappear. Why was Time Warner (owner of CNN) allowed to merge with AT&T, but Sinclair (the "right-wing media giant") wasn't allowed to acquire Tribune Media? We need an actual free market in America.

And I agree, I think either nationalizing or privatizing the Fed would be beneficial for all, as both options would hold it accountable to the American people. Right now it exists in a weird, quasi-state, quasi-private grey area that essentially insulates it from any real oversight. A privatized Fed would expose the banking system to competition; a nationalized Fed would mean elected officials can actually make decisions on monetary policy.

Mostly agree, but I'd rather not have the FED exist at all, as opposed to the argument of who should "control" the FED (private or public entities). Even if it were to be privatized, it would have an exorbitant amount of influence that could have never happened in a free market, and nationalizing it simply gives the government even more control over monetary policy, something we don't want. I'm curious if the nationalization of Ukraine's PrivatBank proves this wrong, or the banking nationalizations in India.

Republic Of Minerva wrote:Justin Amash has been one of the few consistent defenders of liberty in the Government. Compared to Rand Paul, who defends liberty only when it is popular to do so, Amash will take positions that are absolutely unpopular despite being the correct position, and this is what I respect most in a leader. He is a much better candidate than Gary Johnson for the Libertarian Party and any libertarian worth their salt should consider supporting him, if not voting for him.

I still support Virmin, but the impact of the first Libertarian congressman can't just be discounted. This is a major turning point in Libertarian history and third party history in general.

Republic Of Minerva

Pevvania wrote:I think we definitely need some kind of intelligence agency, but I totally agree the CIA and NSA are essentially the heads of a shadow government. People actually think Trump is in charge - the people with the most power in America are not subject to elections. Ideally, we would abolish CIA, NSA and FBI and reorganize them into new agencies that serve essentially the same function but under the strict supervision of the government.

I do believe that if we removed many of the barriers and special favors, many perceived monopolies would naturally disappear. Why was Time Warner (owner of CNN) allowed to merge with AT&T, but Sinclair (the "right-wing media giant") wasn't allowed to acquire Tribune Media? We need an actual free market in America.

And I agree, I think either nationalizing or privatizing the Fed would be beneficial for all, as both options would hold it accountable to the American people. Right now it exists in a weird, quasi-state, quasi-private grey area that essentially insulates it from any real oversight. A privatized Fed would expose the banking system to competition; a nationalized Fed would mean elected officials can actually make decisions on monetary policy.

I would agree more with President Kennedy, that intelligence should be done by the military for national security. I suppose there could be a massive reform of the FBI where it would be completely under the jurisdiction of the President and would be completely transparent to Congress (or persons with clearance to see such information) to handle criminal intelligence - but it should always only be collected upon the obtainment of a warrant signed by a federal judge. You are completely right that the current administration isn’t actually in charge; in fact, the Ukraine whistleblower is a CIA agent named Eric Ciaramella - it’s all an inside job.

I agree that if we got rid of crony capitalism and ended corporate welfare we’d prevent monopolies from forming; however, many corporations today need to be broken up - any corporation that owns over 50% of their market. This of course includes Disney and a lot of the media, which are directly controlled by the CIA and intelligence agencies that we already established need to be abolished (check out Operation Mockingbird which still goes on today, or the “Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals” (Walt Disney was the Vice President of it) which was an OSS (the precursor to the CIA) committee to weaponize motion pictures as a form of psychological warfare - according to them: “the motion picture is one of the most powerful propaganda weapons at the disposal of the United States”). The deep state goes deep, man - all of those hollywood elites are working for those intelligence agencies. It’s all a big club as George Carlin said, and we’re not in it. This has all been verified since Epstein “killed” himself, yet people like Alex Jones have been uncovering this sh*t for years, like in “Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove”.

What do you mean we should privatize the Fed? It already is a private institution and how does that make it accountable at all to the American people? Currency should only be printed by the federal government. We should absolutely nationalize the Fed. In fact, it should be reformed to a public mutual savings bank that offers credit to all citizens at little to no interest rate. We also must abolish fiat currency and move towards a return to a gold standard like system, as well as forgiving all national debt owed by the Fed and the U.S federal government.

Pevvania

Skaveria wrote:I still support Virmin, but the impact of the first Libertarian congressman can't just be discounted. This is a major turning point in Libertarian history and third party history in general.

Not to be that guy, but he’s only really the first Libertarian congressman because he got elected as a republican, then independent. Still, hopeful to see much more third party representation.

Republic Of Minerva wrote:Justin Amash has been one of the few consistent defenders of liberty in the Government. Compared to Rand Paul, who defends liberty only when it is popular to do so, Amash will take positions that are absolutely unpopular despite being the correct position, and this is what I respect most in a leader. He is a much better candidate than Gary Johnson for the Libertarian Party and any libertarian worth their salt should consider supporting him, if not voting for him.

I agree with Rep. Amash the most when it comes to policy stances, however, I can not vote for someone who supported the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Since his election in 2016, President Trump has been under constant attack from the media and partisans in Congress. Failed attempts such as the Mueller Report or the completely illegal impeachment trial have shown that the Democratic Party have absolutely no respect for the rule of law, will of the people and only care about advancing their own policy interests, virtue signaling, solidifying their power or appealing to their bases. They are playing the same corrupt game in their current nomination race for President; just like they rigged it against Sen. Sanders the last time.

The reason why the silent majority is called so is due to the fact that conservative thought is under attack right now. Conservatives have been censored, demonetized or completely deplatformed purely due to their beliefs and going against the regressive left - who through intimidation and ridiculous social media campaigns are able to make massive corporations (who have their own interests as well, mind you) cave. After all that has transpired over the last four years, I will proudly be supporting my President Donald J. Trump and will even more proudly vote for him in November.

As for the other races, I will have to look and see the candidates themselves; although I’ll probably vote a straight red ticket unless there’re good libertarian or blue dog candidates on the ballot.

Pevvania, Suzi Island

Auxorii wrote:I agree with Rep. Amash the most when it comes to policy stances, however, I can not vote for someone who supported the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Since his election in 2016, President Trump has been under constant attack from the media and partisans in Congress. Failed attempts such as the Mueller Report or the completely illegal impeachment trial have shown that the Democratic Party have absolutely no respect for the rule of law, will of the people and only care about advancing their own policy interests, virtue signaling, solidifying their power or appealing to their bases. They are playing the same corrupt game in their current nomination race for President; just like they rigged it against Sen. Sanders the last time.

The reason why the silent majority is called so is due to the fact that conservative thought is under attack right now. Conservatives have been censored, demonetized or completely deplatformed purely due to their beliefs and going against the regressive left - who through intimidation and ridiculous social media campaigns are able to make massive corporations (who have their own interests as well, mind you) cave. After all that has transpired over the last four years, I will proudly be supporting my President Donald J. Trump and will even more proudly vote for him in November.

As for the other races, I will have to look and see the candidates themselves; although I’ll probably vote a straight red ticket unless there’re good libertarian or blue dog candidates on the ballot.

Agreed

Pevvania, Auxorii

Jadentopian Order wrote:Not to be that guy, but he’s only really the first Libertarian congressman because he got elected as a republican, then independent. Still, hopeful to see much more third party representation.

Yeah he did it the backdoor way. I would've rathered the first Libertarian congressman actually be elected as a Libertarian, but the impact is much the same.

It's the little things that'll break the two-party paradigm. When someone looks at a list of sitting congressman, they see the red, the blue, the gray for independents, but now also a bright yellow. "Well what the hell is this yellow now?"

I wish he was less anti-Trump, but in my experience, Libertarians who actually do things in the party, especially on the national level, are pretty anti-Trump. It makes sense, Trump isn't particularly Libertarian. That's how I got tricked into voting for him in 2016. I thought he'd basically be a liberal on social issues besides borders, which he largely has, but with a few glaring exceptions. I thought he'd be free-trade, I was REALLY wrong there, and I thought he'd reduce spending, but he's cranked it up from a nine to a fifteen.

I also fell victim to the boy who cried wolf effect the media had. Every day the media hammered him with accusations and insults that were either outright lies, gross exaggerations, or lacking evidence, so they pissed me off. They pissed me off with their obvious disdain for people like me as some sort of hick, rube who's either too stupid or racist to know about politics. Trump capitalised on my anger, even though I still believe it was justified.

Now, do I still believe Trump is better than Biden? I think so, I do hope he beats him, but my vote will probably go to the L in November, whoever it may be.

Jadentopian Order

Miencraft wrote:But then whence comes God?

There need not have ever been nothing - this is the concept behind the singularity origin theory, that the universe itself existed but compressed to a remarkably dense form. This of course then raises the question of when time started. If time has always been, then whatever is the origin of matter has also always been, but if time had a beginning, then anything before then really doesn't matter simply because it's a time in which time did not yet exist - and in order to say that something began to exist, or has always existed, time must also exist.

Suppose, for example, that the Big Bang itself is the beginning of time. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what caused the Big Bang because its cause is temporally located prior to time itself - but even so, any external cause for it must have existed outside of matter as well as outside of time, because all matter was located in a single point. This, therefore, requires that any external cause for the beginning of time (and thus the universe) come from nothing in and of itself. But if that's true and the universe did have an external cause... then why could the universe itself not have come from nothing?

And if the cause of the beginning of time does not exist independently of time and space, then logically in order for it to cause the beginning of time it itself must have always existed. So then why could the universe itself not have always existed?

Of course, since it will never be possible to measure anything before the beginning of time, it ultimately doesn't matter what anyone says caused time to begin. At the instant time begins to exist, any matter that existed then has existed always, regardless of where it came from and whether its existence predates time, thus rendering the concern of whether or not it came from nothing irrelevant. It doesn't matter where anything that existed at the beginning of time came from, because by definition there was never a time in which it did not exist. Anything to explain what occurred in the time before time is little more than a thought experiment that can never actually give an answer for what caused time and space to begin to exist.

Re: Whence cometh God? God is the omnipresent, eternal being who is everywhere and everywhen and cannot be elsewhere or elsewhen (ubiquity). He is both outside of space-time (transcendental) and is present within it (imminent). As its creator God is Spirit. He transcends time and space, and matter and energy which has a beginning (what is colloqually called the Big-Bang) and an end (entropic heat death and/or quantum unraveling (or both).

I agree for the first part. It follows that there could never have been absolute nothing, as the previous post. It is logically impossible that there could not have ever been something as nothing can only ever beget more nothing, and if it begets it is not nothing but something. I agree with the ancients for the most part agreed upon, that there is an uncaused causless 1st cause, (the Prime Mover/Supreme Being). It follows that this Prime Mover is the God who (in Biblical terms) created the Cosmos ex nihilo by the power of His Word --the Logos.

Re: An Eternal University. Time is a byproduct of the gravitational curvature of space and its expansion (inflation). It is a vectored dimension partially interwoven along with the three dimensions we experience orthogonality, moving us from higher mechanical energy to states of lower efficiency (in the direction of entropy). Time is a component of the material (time, space, matter, energy) universe. While material beings all experience time one second per second, time does not flow at the same rate at all points in the Cosmos, nor is everything flowing through time at the same rate because of gravitational variance (among other factors).

The universe could not have always existed eternally (outside of time) because as time is a component of matter. The universe could not be endless, for it would have long ago wound down into heat death (total entropy). Everything (even photons and subatomic particles) cannot escape it (entropy).

Auxorii wrote:The priority of the next President of the United States must be to disassemble the Deep State;

Mandatory Term Limits for All Federal Employees not Directly Elected by the People or the States, and criminally prosecute without prejudice (legal meaning) to the fullest extent of the Law any public servant that deprives any Citizen by misfeasance, malfeasance subourning of perjury and or misprision of felony any right, privilege or immunity under color of authority or by advantage of employ.

The next President needs to do his/her part. But so do the People. Dismantling the unconstitutional agencies is a fairly simple but a very hard thing to accomplish. One means is a Constitutional Amendment double step. First by passing a "Mandatory Term Limits Amendment" or sweeping Legislation (but I don't trust Congress to have the discipline to follow through) for all Federal Officers, Employees, Operatives, Agents, and Contractors of 4 years (staggered), with the exception of directly elected officials or otherwise constitutionally delegated (such as Federal Supreme Court Judges. Every 4 years 1/4 of federal employees will have to prove why they are worth being rehired. If they cannot perform satisfactorily (including NOT committing misfeasance, malfeasance, and misprision of felony upon any right, privilege or immunity of any one of the People in particular), they are replaced by someone who has the can do, will do, and wits do to do constitutionally well as public servants. I am a strong proponent of following the current Federal Law that punishes each count of malfeasance with up to five years prison, but the worst of the lot usually get promoted instead of criminally indicted.

Mandatory Listing Where Congress has the delegated authority from the States and the People to Pass each point of Legislation

The second step is to deconstruct the so-called (as it was called by its Fabian Socialist proponents, and that hater of of the Constitution, Dewey himself), the "Rational Administrative State" imported from Kaisers Progressivist Prussia, and it must be dismantled it in its entirety. Since Congress has shown that they cannot be trusted to follow their Oath of Office to obey and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic in their appointment to secure the Blessings of Liberty to the We the People and our posterity, a second Constitutional Amendment Article must be included: Every point of Every Bill must indicate where in the Federal Basic Law (Constitution, Bill of Rights, all Lawful Organic Acts, incorporated Anglo-Saxon Common Law (our founders especially Jefferson, Madison and Jay) wrote that they had successfully excluded they tyranny of Norman Law (or at least thought they did by forbidding all titles of nobility, emoluments, etc) into the State of the United States since inception by Lawful deliberative parliamentary procedure on the open floor of the body as a whole. Funny how that is one of the 5 original TEA party planks before it was for the most part hijacked Showboaters, and Swamp Creatures.

Auxorii wrote:we should abolish the CIA and NSA and have all intelligence gathering done by the military.

Yes. Fire them all. The FBI needs to return to being the worlds premiere forensics laboratory, and its agents Investigators of Facts instead of politically motivated Law Enforcement Agents. Reagan tried to call the CIA in out of the cold to hold them accountable for their actions back in the early 80s. Fully half of the known operatives (and our military intelligence did not have a firm grasp on just how many there were) refused. Much of our early "War on Drugs" was actually the Marines going in and wiping out rogue cells. Of course Bush put a stop to it as soon as he took power. Dismantling these agencies may take a return to independent grand juries and lawful declarations of mixed war, and some tough justice.

And let us not forget our National Archivists, Researchers, and Fellows who historically used to play a substantial role in gathering, accurately relaying truth and exposing deceit, as some still do. And the role of professionals, missionaries and businessmen who enterprise on foreign soil for the promotion of truth, justice and peace. Relegating the gathering of intelligence to a central agency (or group of agencies) is asininely stupid when intelligence is every sapient's business, and the free flow of intelligence in the open fora is the safest thing for all concerned next to freedom itself.

Auxorii, Rateria

succ my ass gooberment because the only fair is laissez-faire

:fire:

Republic Of Minerva wrote:succ my ass gooberment because the only fair is laissez-faire

:fire:

I had to read that a couple times before I got it

Republic Of Minerva

Narland wrote:The universe could not have always existed eternally (outside of time) because as time is a component of matter.

Which is why there is no such thing as existing outside of time. The universe is eternal only insofar as its matter has been here since the beginning of time, and whatever came before then isn't relevant to any part of reality because time is no more than the temporal dimension and always comes alongside the existence of matter. If matter exists, time exists also, which makes it impossible for anything to exist outside of time, because anything that exists must be matter, and therefore must coexist with time.

This is the point I was getting at at the end of that last post. Time and matter must have come into existence at the same time, because time is reliant on the existence of matter, so a time before time is utterly meaningless. A time before time didn't exist. If anything predates the universe, it must not predate time, because that thing must itself be made of matter and therefore also imply the existence of time. But we cannot measure a time earlier than approximately the instant of the Big Bang. Of course, this doesn't mean that such a time doesn't exist, but it means that at best the answer for "what caused the Big Bang?" can only ever be "we don't know". We can't say for certain that a god caused the Big Bang, or which one did if indeed one did do it (including the possibility that the actual creator deity is one not yet conceived of by man), or that no god did it, but considering the fact that it is impossible to prove that any deity was involved in it, our "we don't know" must logically default to "probably not".

That is, burden of proof dictates that there must be evidence that any god caused the Big Bang to be able to say that one indeed did do so, and since such evidence is not possible to collect because we will never have the capacity to measure into the time before the Big Bang, our best answer for the question of whether one did must be "probably not".

Narland wrote:Re: Whence cometh God? God is the omnipresent, eternal being who is everywhere and everywhen and cannot be elsewhere or elsewhen (ubiquity). He is both outside of space-time (transcendental) and is present within it (imminent). As its creator God is Spirit. He transcends time and space, and matter and energy which has a beginning (what is colloqually called the Big-Bang) and an end (entropic heat death and/or quantum unraveling (or both).

And the answer of "probably not" is especially important when considering the issue that this raises. How can the universe require a beginning inside of time, but whatever begins the universe is allowed to ignore natural logic and exist itself outside of time?

The answer, I assume, is going to be that god is supernatural, and therefore does not need to abide by natural logic. But then, why god? Why must we explain the existence of the natural by inserting the supernatural?

This is the main issue I have with inserting a deity as the cause of the Big Bang - and while I will concede that it is possible for some god to have caused it, as I've explained already it's not possible to state that one did, or which one did - because if we are to explain the nature of nature, then surely we must stay within the bounds of natural existence? Literally every other thing that we know we know because we've studied the natural world and come to a conclusion based on its own behavior. Supernatural explanations for things like why the sun appears to move across the sky, or why earthquakes happen, are already rightfully dismissed as nonsensical. We know how the natural world makes those things happen, so we don't need the supernatural.

So why do we need the supernatural to explain anything? All of our knowledge of the natural world is knowledge that relies on natural principles of the natural world, because that is all that we can know and all that we can measure. We cannot measure the supernatural. We cannot know the supernatural, and I argue this is because the supernatural does not exist. Scientific progress has done nothing to reinforce old supernatural explanations for natural events; rather, it has done quite the opposite: the better our science becomes and the more we learn about the world, the more natural explanations we obtain with which to dismiss unobservable, and unverifiable supernatural ones. It stands to reason that, considering that every single thing we learn about the reality of the world negates some supernatural explanation, then the supernatural explanations must be invalid.

At the very least, if they're not invalid by virtue of being wrong (which historically they have been), they're invalid by virtue of being impossible to observe, falsify, and verify, and therefore impossible to know. This is the category into which a supernatural origin of the universe falls - it might not be wrong, but it's not something we can ever actually prove and therefore, while it is possible, isn't really something that ought to actually be considered. A natural explanation, whatever that may be (and I am certainly not knowledgeable enough on this topic to tell you what the natural alternative might be, but I'm sure such an explanation has been proposed somewhere) must be the more correct one, because it is the one we will theoretically be able to confirm - and if we can't confirm it, then it's not possible to say that it is true, only that it might be true, and that only until such a thing is confirmed as to negate conflicting explanations.

Of course, if that was not going to be your answer for that, then I would like to hear the actual answer you would have given, because if your answer was not going to be that the origin of the universe is supernatural, then I've just written three paragraphs arguing a point that wasn't even being discussed.

Rateria

Miencraft wrote:This is the point I was getting at at the end of that last post. Time and matter must have come into existence at the same time, because time is reliant on the existence of matter, so a time before time is utterly meaningless. A time before time didn't exist. If anything predates the universe, it must not predate time, because that thing must itself be made of matter and therefore also imply the existence of time. But we cannot measure a time earlier than approximately the instant of the Big Bang. Of course, this doesn't mean that such a time doesn't exist, but it means that at best the answer for "what caused the Big Bang?" can only ever be "we don't know". We can't say for certain that a god caused the Big Bang, or which one did if indeed one did do it (including the possibility that the actual creator deity is one not yet conceived of by man), or that no god did it, but considering the fact that it is impossible to prove that any deity was involved in it, our "we don't know" must logically default to "probably not".

That is, burden of proof dictates that there must be evidence that any god caused the Big Bang to be able to say that one indeed did do so, and since such evidence is not possible to collect because we will never have the capacity to measure into the time before the Big Bang, our best answer for the question of whether one did must be "probably not".

First of all, I think it’s incredibly futile to argue when (or even if) time came into existence; time is relative and truly there is no absolute way to measure it or even the knowledge of what “time” exactly is. The only thing we do know is that it appears to move forward and is relative. Relativity itself brings up so many questions, such as the possibility of Solipsism.

When it comes to the Big Bang, we know for a fact that 13.8 billion years ago all matter and energy were condensed into a singularly, and for whatever reason it suddenly started rapidly expanding and eventually formed/settled into the universe we know today. We know this thanks to Father Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest from Belgium.

So what was the cause of the expansion of the singularity? Your answer: we don’t know; and you reject the notion of a God because a god would be supernatural and would break the laws of physics that they themselves created. Well, seeing as to our knowledge, nothing existed before the big bang, we would have to assume that the big bang itself was the ‘first motion’ of the universe - and as such, it could not have been caused by anything that falls in line with our understanding of physics. The laws of nature and how the universe works wasn’t established until the Big Bang, because of this, it is only reasonable to assume that something supernatural and outside of the laws of physics was the cause of this first motion.

St. Thomas Aquinas defined this argument rather well:

“ Evident to our senses in motion—the movement from actuality to potentiality. Things are acted on. (Again, note that the argument proceeds from empirical evidence; hence it is an à posteriori or an inductive argument.)

Whatever is moved is moved by something else. Potentiality is only moved by actuality. (An actual oak tree is what produces the potentitality of an acorn.)

Unless there is a First Mover, there can be no motions. To take away the actual is to take away the potential. (Hence, which came first for Aristotle, the chicken or the egg?)

(E.g., the reason a student has the potential to be awake is that he had (actual) toast for breakfast. Toast has the potential to keep the student awake. But (actual) bread has the potential to become toast, and actual grain has the potential to become bread. Actual water, dirt, and air have the potential to become grain. To take away any of these actualities is ultimately to take away the potential for the student to be alert.)

Thus, a First Mover exists.”

Obviously, the conversation must continue in order to prove what the Creator is or who it is. In reality, everybody has to agree that something supernatural created the universe through the Big Bang - they just assert to not knowing what that supernatural cause was.

The argument should not be “did god create the universe?”, but rather: which god created the universe?

Happy May Day to everyone,

Let’s remember today that those on the top - whether it’s political power within the state or the elites of global corporations - don’t want the people to realize the full extent of how they are exploited. For far too long the system has been rigged by allowing capitalists to shake the hand of bureaucrats - and using the state merely as a tool to further their own financial interests at the expense of the working man, the proletariat.

We should pray and labour for the day where the illusion is shattered and the workers of the United States can take full control of their true destiny - a Republic that is made up of, by and for the people. One in which every worker may join a union and take full ownership of the fruits of their labour by themselves as a class - and not through the deathtrap of the government.

End crony capitalism and the deep state; ensure the future of a unionized free market.

Pevvania, Rateria, Jadentopian Order

"Workers of the world, unite!"

Happy May Day folks

Auxorii, Rateria

Auxorii wrote:So what was the cause of the expansion of the singularity? Your answer: we don’t know; and you reject the notion of a God because a god would be supernatural and would break the laws of physics that they themselves created. Well, seeing as to our knowledge, nothing existed before the big bang, we would have to assume that the big bang itself was the ‘first motion’ of the universe - and as such, it could not have been caused by anything that falls in line with our understanding of physics. The laws of nature and how the universe works wasn’t established until the Big Bang, because of this, it is only reasonable to assume that something supernatural and outside of the laws of physics was the cause of this first motion.

Does it really need to have had an external cause, though? Could something within the singularity not have been the catalyst?

I will readily concede that it does very much appear reasonable to assume that there was some outside cause, and therefore a supernatural cause because no natural thing can have existed outside the singularity. However, we still must ask how such an external cause was able to exist at a time and in a place where standard existence was not possible, and why this external cause is allowed to exist according to different rules than the ones that apply to the singularity and everything in it. Because if something can coexist with the singularity to have initiated the expansion of the universe from without, then surely the same rules that allow that to happen would allow something to initiate the expansion from within? And if not, why not? The Big Bang, after all, is not a creation event - it's an expansion event; all of the matter in the universe was already there at the start, and has been moving ever since. Could not some of that matter have initiated the expansion?

This is, technically, possible within the laws of thermodynamics as they exist now - the energy of things within the singularity can change all it likes, so long as we assume the singularity in total is an isolated system with a net amount of energy that remains constant today. Let's assume the net energy of the universe is zero: this allows whatever is in the universe to have any possible amount of energy so long as some other thing in the universe has the opposite (and the entire universe is made up of such opposites), and technically allows some thing within the singularity to spontaneously gain energy and become the catalyst for acceleration, just as long as some other thing spontaneously gets the corresponding negative.

However, an external supernatural cause must mean that the universe by definition cannot be an isolated system - at best it would be a closed system into which some energy was inserted - because some energy must have been inserted into it to initiate the expansion. Naturally, this means that the proposed explanation reliant on it being isolated must be false, but that really just changes what the question is: Is the universe an isolated system? If it is, then it can have caused its own expansion and an outside force cannot have acted on it; if it's not, then it becomes possible for the universe to have received some energy from some external catalyst. That's the real question.

All that, assuming, of course, that the expansion - motion - even had a beginning in the first place, which it actually need not. The motion of an object does not imply that it was ever stationary, or that it ever began to move - counter-intuitive though it may seem - because the only thing that matters is that it is moving now and some other force can make it become stationary. Just because it's in motion doesn't mean some force made it be that way. It's very much possible that it was simply always in motion, and because of the absence of other forces to accelerate it in any way, it will remain so in perpetuity. In the same way, it's very possible that all of the acceleration happening to the universe now has been happening to it always (and, technically, it has, if we assume that the Big Bang is the beginning of time) and even during the singularity it was never actually stationary.

And that seems to not make any sense. How is it possible for something to be moving but never have actually started moving? One could just as easily ask how it is possible for something to be stationary without ever having ceased motion. Newton's first law doesn't require that motion begin; an object at motion will remain so, until something else interferes. A stationary object will remain so, until something else interferes. An object that was in motion at the beginning of time was by definition never in a state of non-motion and therefore does not require a cause for its motion.

Miencraft wrote:Does it really need to have had an external cause, though? Could something within the singularity not have been the catalyst?

I will readily concede that it does very much appear reasonable to assume that there was some outside cause, and therefore a supernatural cause because no natural thing can have existed outside the singularity. However, we still must ask how such an external cause was able to exist at a time and in a place where standard existence was not possible, and why this external cause is allowed to exist according to different rules than the ones that apply to the singularity and everything in it. Because if something can coexist with the singularity to have initiated the expansion of the universe from without, then surely the same rules that allow that to happen would allow something to initiate the expansion from within? And if not, why not? The Big Bang, after all, is not a creation event - it's an expansion event; all of the matter in the universe was already there at the start, and has been moving ever since. Could not some of that matter have initiated the expansion?

Why would it exist outside of the rules of the universe? Simply because it is not of this universe nor created by it so it cannot be bound by it. If you know of some force within the singularity that caused the big bang - I’m all ears.

Miencraft wrote: This is, technically, possible within the laws of thermodynamics as they exist now - the energy of things within the singularity can change all it likes, so long as we assume the singularity in total is an isolated system with a net amount of energy that remains constant today. Let's assume the net energy of the universe is zero: this allows whatever is in the universe to have any possible amount of energy so long as some other thing in the universe has the opposite (and the entire universe is made up of such opposites), and technically allows some thing within the singularity to spontaneously gain energy and become the catalyst for acceleration, just as long as some other thing spontaneously gets the corresponding negative.

However, an external supernatural cause must mean that the universe by definition cannot be an isolated system - at best it would be a closed system into which some energy was inserted - because some energy must have been inserted into it to initiate the expansion. Naturally, this means that the proposed explanation reliant on it being isolated must be false, but that really just changes what the question is: Is the universe an isolated system? If it is, then it can have caused its own expansion and an outside force cannot have acted on it; if it's not, then it becomes possible for the universe to have received some energy from some external catalyst. That's the real question.

The net energy of the universe is not zero. This theory has many problems with it - the main being that there is no known “negative mass”. It is not to be assumed that the net energy of the universe is zero as the very foundations of that theory are still yet to be discovered, which in my mind, makes that theory pointless in discussing until that moment.

Miencraft wrote:All that, assuming, of course, that the expansion - motion - even had a beginning in the first place, which it actually need not. The motion of an object does not imply that it was ever stationary, or that it ever began to move - counter-intuitive though it may seem - because the only thing that matters is that it is moving now and some other force can make it become stationary. Just because it's in motion doesn't mean some force made it be that way. It's very much possible that it was simply always in motion, and because of the absence of other forces to accelerate it in any way, it will remain so in perpetuity. In the same way, it's very possible that all of the acceleration happening to the universe now has been happening to it always (and, technically, it has, if we assume that the Big Bang is the beginning of time) and even during the singularity it was never actually stationary.

And that seems to not make any sense. How is it possible for something to be moving but never have actually started moving? One could just as easily ask how it is possible for something to be stationary without ever having ceased motion. Newton's first law doesn't require that motion begin; an object at motion will remain so, until something else interferes. A stationary object will remain so, until something else interferes. An object that was in motion at the beginning of time was by definition never in a state of non-motion and therefore does not require a cause for its motion.

Well, the universe did have to have a “beginning” so to speak. Again, this ‘beginning’ was just a sudden rapid expansion of the singularity. We know that that happened as all of the universe is moving away from each other, so reversing that, at some point the universe had to reside in a singularity, and as it once existed as a singularity, it at some point had a “beginning” of expansion.

Auxorii wrote:Why would it exist outside of the rules of the universe? Simply because it is not of this universe nor created by it so it cannot be bound by it. If you know of some force within the singularity that caused the big bang - I’m all ears.

That was the assumption I drew from your own statement:

Auxorii wrote:we would have to assume that the big bang itself was the ‘first motion’ of the universe - and as such, it could not have been caused by anything that falls in line with our understanding of physics. The laws of nature and how the universe works wasn’t established until the Big Bang, because of this, it is only reasonable to assume that something supernatural and outside of the laws of physics was the cause of this first motion.

Naturally I could very well be misunderstanding that, but the question remains whether we actually need something outside the laws of physics to initiate the Big Bang (and whether it even needs initiation) when the laws of physics as we understand them do allow for the singularity to be the catalyst for its own expansion. Provided, of course, that the universe is an isolated system.

Auxorii wrote:The net energy of the universe is not zero. This theory has many problems with it - the main being that there is no known “negative mass”. It is not to be assumed that the net energy of the universe is zero as the very foundations of that theory are still yet to be discovered, which in my mind, makes that theory pointless in discussing until that moment.

The number isn't important, I've only used zero because it's easier to imagine equal opposites when you need to add up to zero - what is important is the question of whether or not the universe is an isolated system. To answer that is to answer where the catalyst for expansion came from. If it's isolated, the net energy could be anything and the point would still stand: in an isolated system, the energy to do anything must have come from within the system itself, and this energy can appear so long as the net remains constant, whatever its value.

Auxorii wrote:Well, the universe did have to have a “beginning” so to speak. Again, this ‘beginning’ was just a sudden rapid expansion of the singularity. We know that that happened as all of the universe is moving away from each other, so reversing that, at some point the universe had to reside in a singularity, and as it once existed as a singularity, it at some point had a “beginning” of expansion.

Technically, yes, but this ultimately comes back to the question of what marks the beginning of time, which is an unanswerable question since we can't measure into a time with no time. Whether something began to do anything depends on whether there ever was a time in which it was not doing that.

Auxorii wrote:Happy May Day to everyone,

Let’s remember today that those on the top - whether it’s political power within the state or the elites of global corporations - don’t want the people to realize the full extent of how they are exploited. For far too long the system has been rigged by allowing capitalists to shake the hand of bureaucrats - and using the state merely as a tool to further their own financial interests at the expense of the working man, the proletariat.

We should pray and labour for the day where the illusion is shattered and the workers of the United States can take full control of their true destiny - a Republic that is made up of, by and for the people. One in which every worker may join a union and take full ownership of the fruits of their labour by themselves as a class - and not through the deathtrap of the government.

End crony capitalism and the deep state; ensure the future of a unionized free market.

Oh yeah, aren't you a Syndicalist? If it's a voluntary union go ahead, but something being global and something being voluntary simultaneously is impossible.

That's the problem with Communism, if you wanna live in a commune, cool, I wouldn't mind trying it one day actually, as an experiment. The problem is with forcing everyone to join the commune. Not saying you're a Communist by any means, just talking.

Skaveria wrote:Oh yeah, aren't you a Syndicalist? If it's a voluntary union go ahead, but something being global and something being voluntary simultaneously is impossible.

That's the problem with Communism, if you wanna live in a commune, cool, I wouldn't mind trying it one day actually, as an experiment. The problem is with forcing everyone to join the commune. Not saying you're a Communist by any means, just talking.

Syndicalism is cool. The Industrial Workers of the World is a global union for all workers. If only they had more resources.

I agree - everyone should live in a commune!

Republic Of Minerva wrote:Mostly agree, but I'd rather not have the FED exist at all, as opposed to the argument of who should "control" the FED (private or public entities). Even if it were to be privatized, it would have an exorbitant amount of influence that could have never happened in a free market, and nationalizing it simply gives the government even more control over monetary policy, something we don't want. I'm curious if the nationalization of Ukraine's PrivatBank proves this wrong, or the banking nationalizations in India.

Unfortunately, I don't think abolishing the Fed is a geopolitical reality at the moment. I of course know the theory behind getting rid of the debt slavery system and all the benefits that would accrue thereof, but the reality is that our banking system would simply be supplanted by China or Europe.

I think this is a near-certainty, because after Andrew Jackson killed the National Bank in the 1830s, England essentially controlled US monetary policy by default, and as it had different economic interests to the US, put the US into a depression. I still think that was the right move on balance, and the great prosperity of the 19th Century is rock solid proof of that, but what scares me is how interconnected the world is now. If an antiquated power on the other side of the Atlantic could bankrupt the economy then, imagine how quickly the ChiComs would be able to pull the levers if we ceded control of our interest rates. And from there follows a terrifying and dare I say unthinkable number of devastating consequences.

Auxorii wrote:Syndicalism is cool. The Industrial Workers of the World is a global union for all workers. If only they had more resources.

I agree - everyone should live in a commune!

Horseshoe theory in practice

Auxorii wrote:I would agree more with President Kennedy, that intelligence should be done by the military for national security. I suppose there could be a massive reform of the FBI where it would be completely under the jurisdiction of the President and would be completely transparent to Congress (or persons with clearance to see such information) to handle criminal intelligence - but it should always only be collected upon the obtainment of a warrant signed by a federal judge. You are completely right that the current administration isn’t actually in charge; in fact, the Ukraine whistleblower is a CIA agent named Eric Ciaramella - it’s all an inside job.

I agree with most of that. Ah yes, the famous whistleblower that was supposed to testify, and then didn't! Of course it was an inside job. Anyone that thinks the impeachment was even remotely justified is wearing partisan blinders.

However, we don't want the FBI under the president's control either. Abuse of power can come from many jurisdictions, and the federal system was designed to keep agencies in competition with each other. As James Madison says in the beautifully written Federalist No. 51, "ambition must be made to counteract ambition." Theoretically, the structure of the FBI, being "independent" from the executive, makes sense. Of course it's not independent for all of the reasons you and I have highlighted, but I don't think making it the president's police force would be a good idea either.

Auxorii wrote:I agree that if we got rid of crony capitalism and ended corporate welfare we’d prevent monopolies from forming; however, many corporations today need to be broken up - any corporation that owns over 50% of their market. This of course includes Disney and a lot of the media, which are directly controlled by the CIA and intelligence agencies that we already established need to be abolished (check out Operation Mockingbird which still goes on today, or the “Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals” (Walt Disney was the Vice President of it) which was an OSS (the precursor to the CIA) committee to weaponize motion pictures as a form of psychological warfare - according to them: “the motion picture is one of the most powerful propaganda weapons at the disposal of the United States”). The deep state goes deep, man - all of those hollywood elites are working for those intelligence agencies. It’s all a big club as George Carlin said, and we’re not in it. This has all been verified since Epstein “killed” himself, yet people like Alex Jones have been uncovering this sh*t for years, like in “Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove”.

I'd like to see a theoretical explanation for that. My pre-existing understanding is that malignant monopolies almost never come into fruition as a result of purely market forces. The common examples I see brought up are usually net positives by a long shot. Standard Oil, for example, was a giant that controlled the production and distribution of oil - but it also lowered prices and made cheap gas accessible to every American household. Amazon gets bashed for being a monopoly because it has its web services as well as its store and product lines - but it has consistently kept prices low and found a convenient way to deliver goods to customers.

Disney is very shady and I think there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than what we're told. I'm open to the idea but if you could give some sources that'd be great.

Auxorii wrote:What do you mean we should privatize the Fed? It already is a private institution and how does that make it accountable at all to the American people? Currency should only be printed by the federal government. We should absolutely nationalize the Fed. In fact, it should be reformed to a public mutual savings bank that offers credit to all citizens at little to no interest rate. We also must abolish fiat currency and move towards a return to a gold standard like system, as well as forgiving all national debt owed by the Fed and the U.S federal government.

It's not really private or public. The Board and Chairman are selected by the president and approved by the Senate. They have sole legal authority to determine the interest rates of the United States, and by extension much of the world economy. Arbitrary government-backed power is not private, nor is it very capitalist. But it's not purely statist, either. It fits pretty well into the mould of a corporatist institution.

Ok, this is where you've lost me. Zero-interest loans to anybody who wants one is a very self-defeating idea. Where is the money coming from? Loans can only be sustainbly given out if there's a proportional level of savings; it's when there's an imbalance that we get disasters like 2008. How can you simultaneously believe in a gold standard (constraining the supply of credit), and also a spigot of free money? The national debt forgiveness idea, also, would most certainly crash the world economy. People forget that sooner or later, that needs to be paid back. Unless you can convince millions of creditors around the world to "forgive and forget" the US's debt obligations, you'd quickly see the markets tank and investors flee the United States faster than whales from a Japanese sailing boat.

That's not an original idea, either. Argentina tried to get the markets to "forgive" its debt in the late 90s, and, err, things didn't quite go so well.

Auxorii wrote:I agree with Rep. Amash the most when it comes to policy stances, however, I can not vote for someone who supported the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Since his election in 2016, President Trump has been under constant attack from the media and partisans in Congress. Failed attempts such as the Mueller Report or the completely illegal impeachment trial have shown that the Democratic Party have absolutely no respect for the rule of law, will of the people and only care about advancing their own policy interests, virtue signaling, solidifying their power or appealing to their bases. They are playing the same corrupt game in their current nomination race for President; just like they rigged it against Sen. Sanders the last time.

The reason why the silent majority is called so is due to the fact that conservative thought is under attack right now. Conservatives have been censored, demonetized or completely deplatformed purely due to their beliefs and going against the regressive left - who through intimidation and ridiculous social media campaigns are able to make massive corporations (who have their own interests as well, mind you) cave. After all that has transpired over the last four years, I will proudly be supporting my President Donald J. Trump and will even more proudly vote for him in November.

As for the other races, I will have to look and see the candidates themselves; although I’ll probably vote a straight red ticket unless there’re good libertarian or blue dog candidates on the ballot.

[clapping emoji x3]

Who loves those old jokers who be like "capitalism necessarily needs to corporatism"

Miencraft wrote:That was the assumption I drew from your own statement:

Naturally I could very well be misunderstanding that, but the question remains whether we actually need something outside the laws of physics to initiate the Big Bang (and whether it even needs initiation) when the laws of physics as we understand them do allow for the singularity to be the catalyst for its own expansion. Provided, of course, that the universe is an isolated system.

The number isn't important, I've only used zero because it's easier to imagine equal opposites when you need to add up to zero - what is important is the question of whether or not the universe is an isolated system. To answer that is to answer where the catalyst for expansion came from. If it's isolated, the net energy could be anything and the point would still stand: in an isolated system, the energy to do anything must have come from within the system itself, and this energy can appear so long as the net remains constant, whatever its value.

I think it’s a misnomer to attempt and call the universe an isolated system. Ultimately, there’s no way we can know - although, the universe is expanding. What is the universe expanding into?

Miencraft wrote:Technically, yes, but this ultimately comes back to the question of what marks the beginning of time, which is an unanswerable question since we can't measure into a time with no time. Whether something began to do anything depends on whether there ever was a time in which it was not doing that.

I’m marking the beginning of time at the Big Bang.

Pevvania wrote:I agree with most of that. Ah yes, the famous whistleblower that was supposed to testify, and then didn't! Of course it was an inside job. Anyone that thinks the impeachment was even remotely justified is wearing partisan blinders.

However, we don't want the FBI under the president's control either. Abuse of power can come from many jurisdictions, and the federal system was designed to keep agencies in competition with each other. As James Madison says in the beautifully written Federalist No. 51, "ambition must be made to counteract ambition." Theoretically, the structure of the FBI, being "independent" from the executive, makes sense. Of course it's not independent for all of the reasons you and I have highlighted, but I don't think making it the president's police force would be a good idea either.

I didn’t say anything about it being the police force of the President. I believe the FBI and its activities should be entirely transparent to Congress and that they should be required to attain warrants before any investigations.

Pevvania wrote:I'd like to see a theoretical explanation for that. My pre-existing understanding is that malignant monopolies almost never come into fruition as a result of purely market forces. The common examples I see brought up are usually net positives by a long shot. Standard Oil, for example, was a giant that controlled the production and distribution of oil - but it also lowered prices and made cheap gas accessible to every American household. Amazon gets bashed for being a monopoly because it has its web services as well as its store and product lines - but it has consistently kept prices low and found a convenient way to deliver goods to customers.

Disney is very shady and I think there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than what we're told. I'm open to the idea but if you could give some sources that'd be great.

A theoretical explanation of what? I’m saying that right now, there are already companies who have monopolized their markets through crony capitalism, and that the state should break those corporations up as part of its withdrawal from the economy - as those are direct consequence of them. Any corporation that owns over 50% of their market is a threat to competition and must be broken up, especially if they got there through the corrupt help of the state.

I already gave you sources on Disney. I mentioned Operation Mockingbird and the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.

Pevvania wrote: It's not really private or public. The Board and Chairman are selected by the president and approved by the Senate. They have sole legal authority to determine the interest rates of the United States, and by extension much of the world economy. Arbitrary government-backed power is not private, nor is it very capitalist. But it's not purely statist, either. It fits pretty well into the mould of a corporatist institution.

I believe it should be fully nationalized. I believe the federal government should be the only legal authority to print and regulate the currency of the United States through a national bank.

Pevvania wrote:Ok, this is where you've lost me. Zero-interest loans to anybody who wants one is a very self-defeating idea. Where is the money coming from? Loans can only be sustainbly given out if there's a proportional level of savings; it's when there's an imbalance that we get disasters like 2008. How can you simultaneously believe in a gold standard (constraining the supply of credit), and also a spigot of free money? The national debt forgiveness idea, also, would most certainly crash the world economy. People forget that sooner or later, that needs to be paid back. Unless you can convince millions of creditors around the world to "forgive and forget" the US's debt obligations, you'd quickly see the markets tank and investors flee the United States faster than whales from a Japanese sailing boat.

I wasn’t clear. I never said anything about giving citizens free money. I was referring to a kind of mutual banking system that should be established.

Ultimately, the goal would be to establish a national bank intended to provide workers without an affordable medium of exchange a way to provide themselves with one through a mutual aid association. This could be done by offering credit at interest rates that are just enough to cover the expenses of the bank. Through a nationalized mutual bank, it would be possible to issue credit to people who would otherwise not be eligible to receive it from private institutions. What I want is essentially a national bank that only sets the interest rate at what it costs to run the bank in order to ensure credit is available to anyone who needs it.

Elon Musk: We should open the economy

Twitnits: Greedy Capitalist

Suzi Island wrote:Elon Musk: We should open the economy

Twitnits: Greedy Capitalist

The vindictiveness and condescension is starting to grate on me. Even to suggest that MAYBE we shouldn't make small businesses literally illegal and impose martial law on the people means you want people to die as fodder for mega-corporations. Then to have the gaul to conclude "Capitalism has failed to solve the crisis." and use pictures of empty shelves to compare to the Soviet Union when it was them interfering with the market that caused that.

"People who make me wanna boog for 300 Alex."

Auxorii wrote:I think it’s a misnomer to attempt and call the universe an isolated system. Ultimately, there’s no way we can know - although, the universe is expanding. What is the universe expanding into?

Well, an isolated system is just a system that matter and energy cannot enter or leave.

The universe, presumably, has some boundary of some kind - most likely an imaginary one, but just for the sake of imagination let's say it's an actual solid border. The border in this case would expand alongside the universe, and keep anything within the universe from leaving and anything outside the universe from entering. If we were to be able to measure the universe's net energy over time, we would be able to determine whether it's been gaining or losing any, and thus if it's even capable of doing so.

Auxorii wrote:I’m marking the beginning of time at the Big Bang.

Then, in this case, anything that was moving before the Big Bang - that is, any matter within the singularity that was moving for whatever reason - would have always been doing so. Since all matter was contained in the singularity, it's not unreasonable to assume that some of it, or even the singularity collectively, was moving before the expansion started. This would allow for the universe to cause its own expansion.

I would compare this to the strong interaction, just because of the scale involved. Quarks, via gluons, are held together to form hadrons, and by the strong nuclear force neutrons and protons are held together via mesons to form atomic nuclei. The strong interaction overpowers electromagnetism, which is fundamental to all electrically-charged matter and will cause movement of one charged particle towards or away from another based on the relative charge. Whether or not matter within the singularity was actually diversified enough to allow for the existence of quarks and the like is, of course, debatable, but for as long as something within the singularity had an electric charge, there would have been movement.

And, really, the singularity would have already been moving anyways - gravity is a function of mass, and since the singularity and everything within it must have had mass, it was bound by gravity. It was a singularity because of gravity, some powerful gravitation forcing all matter to be so densely-packed, and therefore accelerating it using nothing more than the properties of the matter within the singularity itself.

From there, the singularity remains perfectly capable of causing its own expansion by way of electromagnetism, because gravity is actually a very weak force and can be easily overpowered by electromagnetic forces.

Basically, if matter exists, the matter must be moving, because it will be interacting with other matter and itself in such a way as to accelerate itself by way of the fundamental forces.

Democracy is the best of the worst kinds of systems.

Skaveria

Aequitmane wrote:Democracy is the best of the worst kinds of systems.

True, democracy, or rather, a Republican form of democracy, is the best system of statism that can exist.

Skaveria wrote:True, democracy, or rather, a Republican form of democracy, is the best system of statism that can exist.

Yet it cannot exist on a big scale country like the United States, because too many kinds of bias and voter sway would exist from simply herd mentality and external forces.

Aequitmane wrote:Yet it cannot exist on a big scale country like the United States, because too many kinds of bias and voter sway would exist from simply herd mentality and external forces.

That's the genius of a constitutional republic. The sway of the masses cannot change your fundamental rights unless a massive percentage of them want to. People complain about gridlock in Washington, but it was designed that way. It's always strange to me when say, a European, Australiian, Kiwi, ect, brag about how: "When we had one mass shooting our governments banned guns the very next day." A government shouldn't be able to just do that, regardless of what right it happens to be. It should at least take some time to ban a thing.

Hey guys things are not so good here in Idaho (Those who grow your food are culling herd and dumping crops in quantities just like under Hoover and FDR -- and we know what happened after that). What the history books DO NOT tell you is that it took places like southern Idaho until the late 50s and early 1960s to recover from the Great Depression just in time for LBJ to destroy us with tax and spend and DC power-grab that over-regulated us nearly to death.

The ONLY reason for there to be hunger and famine in the 21st Century is BAD politics and BAD religion. We (Freedom Loving Peoples) have the tech, the resources, and the can-do to feed the entire world several times over (if the Freedom Haters in our midst will get out of our way). Destroying food for the next year, paying people not to be productive (free money) that sends poison (the opposite/wrong signals) in the economy, and debasing the value of the currency by 1/2 (stimulus, tax and spend) is going to create monstrous inflationary stagflation (we won't have a Great Depression as we do not have real currency anymore -- think more like the worst of US in the 70s, Japan in the 80s and Venesuala in the 00s).

You MUST contact your officials and tell them to GET OUT OF THE WAY of free markets or it is going to be BAD. I do not blame Trump, he is a city boy who understands corporations and service value of exchange beyond compare. It is the college educated ignoramuses who have never planted or harvested a damned thing in their lives -- who wouldn't know how to get grown/mined/or harvested thing to market if their lives depended on it -- and it does -- that are going to discover they cannot eat the demagoguery in their so-called "public administration" textbooks when they start going hungry because they wrecked the economy with their untenable collegiate pipe dreams -- that are the problem. But it is apparent Trump does not understand market entry necessity for productivity and market productivity or he would not be following that swamp rat Mnuchin. Swamp Rat is leading him down a primrose path for a decade of Stagflation/Inflationary Depression unless things change. I am not exaggerating on this.

Please contact all of your elected public servants and tell them to grow the hell up and face reality. They have had their crack-head high from the dopamine rush of feeling power. It is time to get off of the crack and sober up. It is better to do like we did during the Spanish Flu epidemic and take our chances in nature with death in the low per percentages, than to create artificial famine that will starve millions in the high percentages.

Please contact Trump and remind him that no one can spend their way out of debt, and no on can spend their way into prosperity. We can only manage our own resources well so that we are productive (more productive than consumptive -- we, people in particular viz., individuals). Thank him and tell him he is doing the right things in other areas such as getting rid of debilitating regulation, and routing out corruption. Encourage him to read (or reread) Rothbard's book on Banking. Remind him that Mnuchin and the Deep State are still his enemies that would gladly destroy the economy of this country just to thwart the Presidency (and him in particular) from making any permanent changes in order for them to return to the Keynesian/Rhodes-ian/Fabian Status Quo of the Dewey-ite "Rational Administrative State" (Deep State) when he steps down -- just like they did with Reagan. Thanks.

Auxorii

Any time I hear a progressive complaining about high rent, I immediately know that person is bourgeoisie. Maybe your rent would be lower if you didn't insist on living in gentrified neighborhoods, surrounded by boutique cupcake shops and water bars.

Miencraft, Pevvania, Narland, Auxorii, Miri Islands, Fitnessgramistan

Skaveria wrote:Any time I hear a progressive complaining about high rent, I immediately know that person is bourgeoisie. Maybe your rent would be lower if you didn't insist on living in gentrified neighborhoods, surrounded by boutique cupcake shops and water bars.

They're also the same people who insist on strict building codes and permit processes that take forever to complete if they ever complete it at all and on top of that love rent control

Narland, Skaveria

RIP to everyone killed at Kent State 50 years ago today

Muh Roads, Auxorii, Rateria, Fitnessgramistan

Skaveria wrote:Any time I hear a progressive complaining about high rent, I immediately know that person is bourgeoisie. Maybe your rent would be lower if you didn't insist on living in gentrified neighborhoods, surrounded by boutique cupcake shops and water bars.
But I like an Antoinette-cake and a manicure before heading off to plant crops. :)

I prefer to use Aristotlean terms -- Proletariat are people so bereft of character, knowlege and common sense that all they can do is give their Children to the State as an act of subservience to it. Bousiousie were a French social class that sought senioriage (sp) and approval by an aristocracy itself bereft of character and common decency; who were not controlled not by their selves (conscence and self-interest) through nature and natureś God, but by despotic rules of man, their supoposed ettiquette and the dictatorship of the anciens regime (sp). It has little or nothing to do with the American citizens except as a Hegelian excersice to broad brush Anglo-American sensibilities into Marxist false narratives. .

Gentrification is when the entire neighborhood because of free anterprise and civic virtue embetters itself into affluence from within because the (external) government has remembered its place and gotten out of the way for everyone to affordably make a living for themselves. Gentrification is taking a patch of wilderness and turning it into a township where people can live free in self-governing communities without civil planners" and unamerican home owners associations. Gentrification is a family farming a chunk of land that used to be tumbleweeds and rattlesnakes so that others in cities can have food, or whatever concern they engage in in the free and open markets for their livelihood. Gentrification is the children of those aforementined areas learning how to read, right, and think like free members of a free society so they can be self-governing sovereigns in their own right beholden to no petty lord or bureacrat and leaving the world in a better state than when they found it -- unlike authoritian countries where the bureacries destroy everything they touch.

I think those peops you are describing sound more like self-entitled Proles living in urban renewal zones conceptually created by Progressivists for the very purpos of societal disruption The gentry (at large) in the the US (since the Constitution) are each and every Citizen (as a meritorious republic that abolished titles of nobility -- not nobility of character itself which is the worth of the man/woman in a free society) -- and there is nothing noble about the petty despots (Progressives) in our midst. I hate to see hijacked terminology created in the imagined straw man of Marx more fit for the Versailles under Louis the whatever or for the Politbureau Comrades and their wives of a post-socialist Marxist regime. Also, those peops you are describing are self-entitled Proles living in urban renewal zones conceptually created by Progressives for the very purpos of societal disruption The gentry (at large) in the the US (since the Constitution) are each and every Citizen (as a meritorious republic that abolished titles of nobility -- not nobility of character itself which is the worth of the man in a free society) -- and there is nothing noble about the petty despots (Progressives) in our midst. I hate to see hijacked terminology created in the imagined straw man of Marx more fit for the Versailles under Louis the whatever or for the Politbureau Comrades and their wives of a post-socialist Marxist regime.

Of course I consider both bougiesie and proletariat to be unamerican concepts unfit for serious discusstion when applied to self-governing Americans who have not forsaken their heritage for Marxists lies. But it does seem to fit Leftists and Progressivists). Americans are archetypically anti-Marxists even befor Marx was born. The American ideals (ideally) are peerless and classically liberal, looking only to the character of ones heart, the clarity of one's hopes, and the honesty of oneś reason -- something Progressivists seem to have lost in their lust for power, as they are always looking for the ability to create inter - race, class, sex, creed, strife and resentment wherever they go, (methinks) to better control people.

In point those citizens who practice American Civic Virtue (engaging in free enterprise, and the courage to defy petty despots have nothing to do with the plutocrats (Progressives) who created "urban renewal" areas by their vague and arbitrary whims lobbied for and administravely won in the Courts (9th circuit court of appeals ruled in the 70s that counties and states can impliment communist style soviets unless overturned by the Supreme Court (a decision the Supremes have not touched) -- that i ams still t-ed off about) by the damned progressives themselves who create the problem so they could fix it with more tyranny. But I repeat myself.

tldr: Socialist "Gentrified" areas are not created by free enterprise decisions of the communities prospering through open markets, but are derived by the arbitrary decisions of the petty soviets, i.e. planning commissioners matriculated from our Communist infested universities that are antithetical to American values. Actual Gentrified areas (areas that have returned to free markets and all the virtues -- not just half of them falaciously pitted against the other half. The next phase of returning to being a free country is to get rid of the tyranny of planning commissions that were ruled "constitutional"-- a blatant misscarriage of justice -- in the 1970s, and returning to free and open markets.

<<wow, sorry for that stream of conciousness -- something in the back of my mind that apparently needed to get out into the open.>>

Funny how quickly Sweden went from progressive model to pariah

Because Sweden is not using the heavy handed authoritarian tactics of other states.

The major substantive difference between the arguments "real socialism hasn't been tried yet" and "real capitalism hasn't been tried yet" is that the more socialism we see introduced to a country, the more chaos, decay, poverty, and despair; the more capitalism introduced to a country, the more prosperity, innovation, happiness, efficiency, and peace.

Skaveria

Jadentopian Order wrote:RIP to everyone killed at Kent State 50 years ago today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRE9vMBBe10

Rateria, Jadentopian Order

Republic Of Minerva wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRE9vMBBe10

The best music comes from the worst times

Republic Of Minerva, Rateria

Suzi Island wrote:Funny how quickly Sweden went from progressive model to pariah

Captain Sweden has been Social distancing so Sweden is having a brief moment being uncucked

Skaveria

God Bless Shelley Luther

Skaveria

I see you all are enjoying a logical conversation, allow me to briefly intervene. Bananamelon.

Rateria

Post by Highway Eighty-Eight suppressed by a moderator.

I really enjoy this region the discussions are interesting and it shows dissenting views can be discussed in polite society

Miencraft, Pevvania, Shallowell, Rateria, Jadentopian Order, Bieva

Post self-deleted by The States Of Balloon.

Post by Highway Eighty-Eight suppressed by a moderator.

Highway Eighty-Eight wrote:Did Hitler do anything wrong? Honestly?

Pev be like

Pevvania

Post by Highway Eighty-Eight suppressed by a moderator.

Highway Eighty-Eight wrote:Like what?

Pevvania wrote:Did Hitler do anything wrong? Honestly?

The 5-fold Path educational indoctrination (and military strajedy) for the last 60 years has imparted a reflex bias among the Chinese Communist party of believing that everything adjectionally fixed as Chinese belongs to them by right of namesake, and by strength of heritage/inheritance. I propose that we rename the China Sea to the Not-China Sea, so they have no sovereign claim to the part of it that lays in international waters. If Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Japan, South Korea, et. al, start patrolling it as the international water it is, we have stopped an act of naked aggression. If that fails we rename it the Trump Sea... :D

Highway Eighty-Eight wrote:That's a fair point, but could you just pass the Bible, baby? I wanna get high on Jesus.

Give me your arm, Jesus will be in your heart soon babe.

Highway Eighty-Eight

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms out there.

Happy VE Day anniversery over the Socialist scum who tried to wipe out anyone who wasn't faux Aryan enough and implement heathenized Socialism internationally.

Pevvania

Auxorii wrote:Pev be like

In all fairness, Hitler was amazing for animal rights and promoting veganism

Pevvania wrote:In all fairness, Hitler was amazing for animal rights and promoting veganism

Plus, he was quite the hero: He killed Hitler, a man second in evil only to Stalin.

Pevvania, Republic Of Minerva, Rateria

My college roommate named his accounts on fighting games "HTLR" because in his words, "nobody can kill Hitler but Hitler"

Miencraft, Rateria

Pevvania wrote:In all fairness, Hitler was amazing for animal rights and promoting veganism

Yet another reason paleo is better

Suzi Island wrote:Yet another reason paleo is better

Isn't it great living in a free enough market economy that we are filled enough to choose what starving man's diet to pursue instead of under a command economy where everyone perpetually hungers on the "eat what you can find" diet (except for the Party bosses, of course)?

More freedom = more food. Who woulda thunk?

As Indira Gandhi's Minister of Housing is reported to have said, " I want to live in a country where the poor people are fat."

Pevvania wrote:In all fairness, Hitler was amazing for animal rights and promoting veganism

Fair enough.

Animal rights are too commonly ignored in contemporary politics. Forget about diet - the amount of torture and suffering that our farmed animals go through for our food is unnecessary and must be stopped; mass factory farming has not only escalated and made this abuse more cruel and widespread, but also leads to massive amounts of waste in a world where roughly a billion go hungry every year. Mass animal farming is also the main cause of carbon emissions, and by scaling it back we can actually do more to help our environment than a carbon tax ever would.

Rateria, Jadentopian Order

Auxorii wrote:Fair enough.

Animal rights are too commonly ignored in contemporary politics. Forget about diet - the amount of torture and suffering that our farmed animals go through for our food is unnecessary and must be stopped; mass factory farming has not only escalated and made this abuse more cruel and widespread, but also leads to massive amounts of waste in a world where roughly a billion go hungry every year. Mass animal farming is also the main cause of carbon emissions, and by scaling it back we can actually do more to help our environment than a carbon tax ever would.

Factory farming is just mechanized hunting; It carries no more moral weight than killing game. We're predators, does a bear stop to consider the ethical implications of tearing into a calf? Thinking we're somehow above our primal instincts is just us being arrogant.

Miencraft, Pevvania, Narland, Miri Islands

Auxorii wrote:Fair enough.

Animal rights are too commonly ignored in contemporary politics. Forget about diet - the amount of torture and suffering that our farmed animals go through for our food is unnecessary and must be stopped; mass factory farming has not only escalated and made this abuse more cruel and widespread, but also leads to massive amounts of waste in a world where roughly a billion go hungry every year. Mass animal farming is also the main cause of carbon emissions, and by scaling it back we can actually do more to help our environment than a carbon tax ever would.

First of all, I hope you know I was being sarcastic!

Secondly, I am in favor of improving conditions for animals, but not for reducing our consumption of meat. Once lab-grown meat becomes easily producable, tasty, and cheap, then we can discuss no longer eating animals. But man's exploitation of the Earth and its resources has improved the human condition immeasurably.

However, food waste is my biggest pet peeve. I absolutely hate it when people waste food, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm known as the 'plate cleaner' amongst my friends for finishing off the food people will carelessly leave on their plates.

Miencraft, Narland, Rateria

Skaveria wrote:Factory farming is just mechanized hunting; It carries no more moral weight than killing game. We're predators, does a bear stop to consider the ethical implications of tearing into a calf? Thinking we're somehow above our primal instincts is just us being arrogant.

Did you even fully read what I said or just the first sentence and assumed the rest was some liberal strawman? I didn’t say I had an issue with killing animals for food, however, I think it’s absolutely necessary to recognize what actually goes on in these modern day farms - it is animal abuse.

If it was as simple as you say it was, then it wouldn’t be as big of an issue as it is. Go ahead and take a look on how the vast majority of animal farms operate. It is sickening and I’m sure you’d have a problem with it if you actually looked into it, not just ‘meat good’.

Pevvania wrote:

Secondly, I am in favor of improving conditions for animals, but not for reducing our consumption of meat. Once lab-grown meat becomes easily producable, tasty, and cheap, then we can discuss no longer eating animals. But man's exploitation of the Earth and its resources has improved the human condition immeasurably.

However, food waste is my biggest pet peeve. I absolutely hate it when people waste food, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm known as the 'plate cleaner' amongst my friends for finishing off the food people will carelessly leave on their plates.

Once again, I have never stated that we should stop eating animals.

Everyone always says that they want the conditions of farm’d animals to be improved, yet you’d rather talk about how man’s exploitation of Earth has made it more convenient for humans to live (obviously? The issue is at what expense - a question it seems like you’ve apparently never pondered). It’s easy to say that you don’t want animals to be tortured in slaughterhouses, but in the same sentence you minimize it by talking about how good meat is. That’s not the problem. Animals shouldn’t be treated how they are in the food industry and that’s a fact that should be acknowledged - instead, you’d rather minimize it for reasons I can only assume have to do with your resistance to being grouped in with vegans or extreme animal rights’ activists. Everyone agrees that animals shouldn’t be abused, and in saying that and fighting for the just conditions and dignity that I believe all of God’s creatures are entitled to is in no way implying anything else politically.

Yeah, and animal farming has led to mass production that literally can not keep up with consumers. Almost 30% of the meat that enters the U.S market is wasted. This farming once again also is the leading cause in the release of green house gases and deforestation - not only are the animals tortured cruelly before a messy death and then wasted, but the factories and farms that produce those results are destroying our planet.

Rateria

Post by Highway Eighty-Eight suppressed by a moderator.

Highway Eighty-Eight wrote:There are already plenty of regulations on agriculture, and the meat industry in particular, protecting consumers and animals that I doubt there is a real solution to any of your claimed problems with "the vast majority" of farms.

Very True

Narland

Highway Eighty-Eight wrote:There are already plenty of regulations on agriculture, and the meat industry in particular, protecting consumers and animals that I doubt there is a real solution to any of your claimed problems with "the vast majority" of farms.

Obviously, you have not researched the topic yourself.

There are plenty of regulations - do you know what these regulations are?

First of all, it’s illegal to record in slaughterhouses. As years of journalists uncovering the truth of what goes on in them led to a massive lobbying campaign that now makes it impossible for third parties to even see what is going on in the slaughterhouses. However, there’re plenty of videos on these mechanized farms and how they operate; I’d encourage you to watch a few.

Today in America, cattle are continuously impregnated are hooked up to machines that are constantly forcing milk from them - as well as being pumped full of hormones that makes them incapable of walking.

Chicks are required to have their beaks cut off with a hot blade before they’re slaughtered - is this not cruel and unnecessary?

When it comes to even fish - we are overfishing and destroying our environment to a point that even Pev would say is costly - a study by National Geographic found that if we continue our current fishing practices, the oceans will be empty of fish by 2048. Let that one sink in.

Rateria

Post by Highway Eighty-Eight suppressed by a moderator.

Highway Eighty-Eight wrote:I've been involved with it for a good portion of my life.

That's sorta how milking a cow works. Failure to milk a cow will cause more harm than good to everybody in the chain. Moreover, artificial insemination is altogether safer for the cow. Bulls are difficult.

Lol, the meat industry is one of the most regulated and most monitored industries in the country.

You know very little about it.

No, that’s now how milking a cow works. Most cows spend their entire lives standing on a single piece of concrete floor they’ve been confined to. They are dehorned, genetically manipulated and drugged so they’ll produce almost 4x the amount of milk they would naturally.

As I’ve said, the regulations are not intended to keep the dignity of the animal or to upkeep their conditions - if they are, point me to one. The regulations are bullshit.

And no, they are not monitored. With ag-gag laws, it is literally illegal to film on slaughterhouses or farms. The only thing we see are what they want us to see.

Jadentopian Order

Auxorii wrote:You know very little about it.

No, that’s now how milking a cow works. Most cows spend their entire lives standing on a single piece of concrete floor they’ve been confined to. They are dehorned, genetically manipulated and drugged so they’ll produce almost 4x the amount of milk they would naturally.

As I’ve said, the regulations are not intended to keep the dignity of the animal or to upkeep their conditions - if they are, point me to one. The regulations are bullshit.

And no, they are not monitored. With ag-gag laws, it is literally illegal to film on slaughterhouses or farms. The only thing we see are what they want us to see.

Should we care about the dignity of the animal? Sorry to sound cruel, but they're resources. I hate racism, but specism? It's fair to say I'm on team humans. Whatever produces the greatest amount of resources in the shortest time is what we should do.

Narland

Skaveria wrote:Should we care about the dignity of the animal? Sorry to sound cruel, but they're resources. I hate racism, but specism? It's fair to say I'm on team humans. Whatever produces the greatest amount of resources in the shortest time is what we should do.

Yes, obviously? You sound not only entitled, but completely blind to the damages you’ll cause just for short term convenience. Do you not believe animal abuse should be illegal?

Jadentopian Order

Auxorii wrote:Yes, obviously? You sound not only entitled, but completely blind to the damages you’ll cause just for short term convenience. Do you not believe animal abuse should be illegal?

If it's completely useless like someone beating on a dog or a cat, yeah

Skaveria wrote:If it's completely useless like someone beating on a dog or a cat, yeah

So, I am allowed to exploit a living being due to the fact that I’ll use them as a resource later? That’s just stupid. We shouldn’t be abusing and torturing farm animals before we kill them. We should be killing them humanely.

Shallowell, Rateria, Jadentopian Order

Auxorii wrote:So, I am allowed to exploit a living being due to the fact that I’ll use them as a resource later? That’s just stupid. We shouldn’t be abusing and torturing farm animals before we kill them. We should be killing them humanely.

Either animals have rights and we shouldn't be killing them at all and we'll all go sing hippie songs in the woods, or they don't, and we can do whatever we damn well please to them. It makes no sense to claim the right to kill something, but not to get everything out of it before it dies. There are no halfway rights, as much as your personal sensibilities and emotions may beg to differ.

Narland

Skaveria wrote:Either animals have rights and we shouldn't be killing them at all and we'll all go sing hippie songs in the woods, or they don't, and we can do whatever we damn well please to them. It makes no sense to claim the right to kill something, but not to get everything out of it before it dies. There are no halfway rights, as much as your personal sensibilities and emotions may beg to differ.

How is torture and cruel conditions “getting everything out of it”? And what are you talking about lol “halfway rights”? I believe all creatures of God deserve dignity and respect, and in doing that I can also recognize the natural hierarchy of species. Yes, animals have rights. You agree. You do not believe in the “unnecessary abuse” of cats and dogs (but accept unnecessary abuse for farm animals for some reason...) because of these natural rights. That does not put them on the same level as human. We do the same thing for children.

You obviously have not seen how industrialized farms and slaughterhouses work - the conditions the animals are kept in are very poor, completely undignified, unnatural and harsh conditions where they are subject to abuse and genetic manipulation. That’s just not right, man, don’t you have to see that?

Most hunters kill animals with dignity and don’t let it suffer. These slaughterhouses do not do the same. It’s sick what goes on in them and it’s the reason why we’re not even allowed to videotape inside them - if slaughterhouses had glass walls, then everyone would be a vegetarian.

I suggest you actually look up some videos on what goes on inside these farms and slaughterhouses, as well as the procedures used that are commonplace in the industry that are not only cruel to animals, but the unnatural diet, antibiotics and hormones (which are frequently used) that are given to animals are also unhealthy for us to consume.

It’s not a matter of the cheapest, quickest thing. You cannot look at everything as if it’s a business decision concerning cutting waste - all of this is concerning not only the life and dignity of animals, but it’s our food.

Shallowell, Rateria, Jadentopian Order

Auxorii wrote:How is torture and cruel conditions “getting everything out of it”? And what are you talking about lol “halfway rights”? I believe all creatures of God deserve dignity and respect, and in doing that I can also recognize the natural hierarchy of species. Yes, animals have rights. You agree. You do not believe in the “unnecessary abuse” of cats and dogs (but accept unnecessary abuse for farm animals for some reason...) because of these natural rights. That does not put them on the same level as human. We do the same thing for children.

You obviously have not seen how industrialized farms and slaughterhouses work - the conditions the animals are kept in are very poor, completely undignified, unnatural and harsh conditions where they are subject to abuse and genetic manipulation. That’s just not right, man, don’t you have to see that?

Most hunters kill animals with dignity and don’t let it suffer. These slaughterhouses do not do the same. It’s sick what goes on in them and it’s the reason why we’re not even allowed to videotape inside them - if slaughterhouses had glass walls, then everyone would be a vegetarian.

I suggest you actually look up some videos on what goes on inside these farms and slaughterhouses, as well as the procedures used that are commonplace in the industry that are not only cruel to animals, but the unnatural diet, antibiotics and hormones (which are frequently used) that are given to animals are also unhealthy for us to consume.

It’s not a matter of the cheapest, quickest thing. You cannot look at everything as if it’s a business decision concerning cutting waste - all of this is concerning not only the life and dignity of animals, but it’s our food.

*Someone disagrees*

"You obviously need to do more research because you obviously have no idea what you're talking about."

Listen, I frankly don't care what happens to these animals as long as it achieves maximum production. I made the distinction between cats and dogs and farm animals because generally we don't eat cats and dogs. Cruelty for cruelty's sake is different than cruelty for production's sake. If there were ways to achieve the same yeild with less cruelty, I'd be all for it I suppose, although not through government intervention.

And since you decided to invoke god, There is no god.

Narland

Skaveria wrote:Listen, I frankly don't care what happens to these animals as long as it achieves maximum production.

I guess we’re just gonna have to fundamentally disagree on that.

Skaveria wrote: And since you decided to invoke god, There is no god.

I’ll pray for you.

Narland

Skaveria wrote:Listen, I frankly don't care what happens to these animals as long as it achieves maximum production.

I honestly don't understand this line of thinking about another living creature.

Shallowell, Auxorii, Rateria

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