Post Archive
Region: Libertatem
Post self-deleted by Muh Roads.
Post self-deleted by Muh Roads.
Great job snagging NCR, Blahbania.
Thanks :)
Note: This Blahbania's puppet.
Blahbania for President! o/
No thanks. I want to still be in the raids.
Another region liberated from Marxism:
.....Good for you.......
In the mean time are you leaving anybody in that region?
I am leaving my puppet in the region.
Never mind its Password locked.
Time to guess the password...
I went there and was instantly annoyed by the very light yellow.
You too?
Oh sorry.
Yeah, I prefer the lighter themes to Dark, the glowing look it gives to everything is nice but I just can't focus well with it.
So, yeah.
Our honourable military commander - in coordination with [nation=short]Makeb[/nation] of The New British Empire - raided Unita Angola, which is now under Reato's control. Another domino has fallen, and Antifa's cleanup crew is nowhere to be found. This is another victory for the forces of liberty.
I'd like to take a few words to speak about Jonas Savimbi. Born in a small town on the Benguela Railway in Eastern Angola, he was the son of a Protestant minister and initially wanted to study medicine, but knew in his heart that he had dreams bigger than that. An aspiring communist and enigmatic speaker, he was trained by the Chinese in the 1960s to fight both the Portuguese colonial regime and the Soviet-backed MPLA during the nation's War of Independence, pushing for a Maoist post-independence government. Out of this he founded UNITA, a guerrilla organisation synonymous with the man dedicated to Angolan independence from both Portugal and Soviet interests.
However, Savimbi soon became disillusioned with his socialist handlers in China, rebranding his movement as a minarchist front. As he began to draw the United States behind his great cause, his military genius became known to the world. His soldiers - heroic freedom fighters resisting the Stalinist MPLA - were known to erect multiple military fronts that would alternately push forward and consciously retreat to confuse and overwhelm the enemy. His everlasting determination to see a free Angola and refusal to give up brought a chain of military successes in the 1980s, on the verge of "a victory that electrifies the world," in the words of President Reagan. Savimbi's strength and character finally pushed the government to breaking point in 1992, when they conceded to hold elections. His struggle has ignited the hopes and minds of freedom fighters across the world, from the Syrian rebels to the mujahideen in Afghanistan.
But the cowardly state terrorists of the MPLA sabotaged the elections, viciously massacring over 10,000 UNITA supporters in the 'Halloween Massacre'. Peace could not come. Despite withering US support, UNITA continued to fight hard for the next ten years, but General Savimbi was tragically murdered by government troops in 2002. His successor ended the armed struggle six weeks later, and allowed the Dos Santos regime to claim victory.
The defeat of UNITA was something that should not have happened in history. A movement so powerful, so morally righteous deserved to have been placed alongside the American Revolutionaries and the Nicaraguan contras as one of the great resistances to tyranny in history. But we, nor many Angolans, will never forget the courage, character, and vision of Jonas Savimbi.
Great speech.
Speaking of which, if anyone wants to help me raid some more commie regions, just let me know :)
Let's just hope Antifaux doesn't wake up...
Hopefully.
gone for five days and so much happened...
Did anyone watch the Florida 13th District Congressional Debate? (http://www.c-span.org/video/?317557-1/Florida13th)
I was really excited to hear that they'd actually put a Libertarian in, but I'm 15 minutes in and this Lucas Overby fella has performed pretty poorly. I facepalmed so hard when he agreed to expanding Medicaid.
The Republican, on the other hand, is doing pretty well.
Post self-deleted by The Time Alliance.
I have some friends in the thirteenth who are libertarian and most of them are voting for the republican because they say he's an all around good guy and they don't like Overby.
Another region liberated from the commies.
It is excellent to hear that we've had so many victories against the authoritarian left.
Lets use our new army to free other regions from communists!
Definately
Interesting. I can't really tell whether Dave Jolly is a Tea Partier or just a politician, but I find it interesting how more Goopers are beginning to describe marriage as "an issue for the states." It's both an effective cop-out to appeal to a larger base and a good way not to compromise one's conservatism in the eyes of the voters.
Also, I am planning a raid on a commie region. If anyone wants to join, please let me know.
It seems we aren't attacking fascists much these days.
That's because there hardly any to attack.
Aren't there?
GGR
GGR has an active founder, just like almost every other fascist region (minus Nazi Europe)
Next Generation Alliance. Almost captured the region. It was luck the founder got on 5 minutes before the time change.
NGA is one of those mixed regions, full of fascists, commies, normal people, etc.
Exactly why I liked it. Until I spoke my mind too much. And the cabinet turned away from the people. By using a controlled and planned Court Case they made it so I couldn't return for a month and couldn't interact with the region's politics for 3. Thats when the Fascist (The only non- corrupt member of the cabinet) contacted me via a puppet nation. He attempted to help me and the trial was almost one. Then an executive order shut the case down declaring me guilty.
I disagree. I've seen more activity coming from the fascists, particularly with NAZI EUROPE, GGR, and the others in Right Wing Uprising.
It is of the utmost importance that we turn our attention to the actions of the members of Right Wing Uprising. We may have been a former ally, but it won't do to simply ignore them now that they, like the state socialists, are threatening free regions across NationStates.
Only 12 percent Privatized Businesses left in my country. So close to socializing my economy completely. After that I will grow my economy without privatizing again.
Let me take this moment to point out that i REALLY REALLY REALLY hate the IRS with a BURNING PASSION.
I'll send your residents my deepest sympathy.. ;) lol
Welcome to the Normal People club.
It's very boring, but we've got drinks and whatnot.
Dihydrogen Monoxide?
This guy, he understands me so well
We have nachos.
What are you guys talking about? Everyone hates the IRS. The IRS hates the IRS.
That is so true
Anyone going to the International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington DC, February 14-16? I'll try to go. Oliver Stone, Congressmen Justin Amash and Thomas Massie, Jeffrey Tucker and Marianne Copenhaver will all be speaking there. It'll be awesome.
They should try taxing themselves, since they hate themselves so much.
Now that I've heard about this, I'm going to try to get down there.
Me too, I just have to convince one or two family members. The dates are pretty awkward so that I have to get back home for a party on the last day, so I'll probably attend two days fo the conference.
WOW WOW WOW DUDE!
Don't drink that!
It's makes you pee and sweat and a whole host of other nasty things! Plus it can be toxic!
DO YOU WANT TO DIE!?
I wish! Much to far a drive for me.. not to mention my work schedule..
I can't help it, my mother was a user and i was addicted from birth :(
Good News: more regions liberated from the commies:
Bad News: The Red Fleet got their main region back :(
....... hmmmm.
Hey everybody. I have now founded the Libertatem Intelligence Corporation.
The purpose is to spy on, and get info from commie and fascist regions.
Anyone want to join?
If so, please TG me, or say so on the RMB.
Wow, my nation's so anti-God that we are the 85th out of 84 in Most Devout.
Lol
Good job, Blahb/Confederate.
Interesting idea. I'm thinking about forming the CIA - Condealism Intelligence Agency - in which my knowledge of other regions will be recorded. A factbook will be released for each region I have extensive knowledge of, while I will privately record information about that region that should not be seen by public eyes. It would apply to all regions I know well, not just enemy regions.
Of course, that would take a lot of time, so I don't know :P
Question: if there was one thing about the United States Government and its practices you could reform - anything from Social Security to taxation - what would it be?
For me it would be ending the corporatist state, meaning scrapping nearly all regulations, ending corporate welfare and halting no-bid contracts.
Does anyone want to join?
My marching band gets to march in a parade in D.C. I am practicing my death stare for looking at Obama.
I have a bone to pick with government aspects pertaining to education and poverty.
We need to eliminate school zoning laws (and allow public schools the same right to drop students private schools have to balance it out), put an end to enforced compulsory education (and remove "truancy" from the list of bullcrap our boys in blue have to deal with), improve the government-funded public-to-private school voucher system (which would provide the equal opportunity that conservatives demand, as opposed to the equal outcome of the "welfare" system liberals advocate), and finally encourage states to create new jobs (by repealing NCLB and using the monetary incentive intended for "teaching to the test" to instead actually combat poverty).
Socialized healthcare.
Nobody deserves to die just because they can't pay up.
Can someone please answer, if the want to join the Libertatem Intelligence Agency?!
Socialized Healthcare. The reason is stated above.
If I could do something else it would be making a tax where each person is taxed equally (Save for the Wealthy who can afford to be taxed.)
But not only economy. I would change the rules to be placed on Ballots. The system we have currently was set up by a two-party system so America would remain a Two-party state.
Also. I'd withdraw from countries we have no business in (Middle East/Asia) so basically isolation. Of course this would reduce the need for a military (Not much but some) thus we can reduce spending ever so slightly without hurting any active serving or veterans.
I'd employ Tax cuts to middle class and actually have the government focus on the middle class instead of the lower and upper classes.
Good ideas. A fella in Laissez Faireholm suggested privatising the entire school system while giving government vouchers to poor families, which sounds awesome. Speaking of education, have you heard much about Common Core recently? They've began to politicise subjects by doing things like questioning the validity of the 2000 election and mocking supply-side economics in maths lessons.
I'm becoming more and more aware of public school brainwashing. My American American History teacher at my college - who once worked under Bill Clinton and as a CIA agent - tries very hard to be unbiased, but he accepts and passes on broken window fallacies in regards to World War II as fact. He's an amazing guy, but this just shows how deep-rooted the culture of indoctrination is within the school system. Orthodox (i. e. wrong) historical and economic schools have somehow infiltrated the school system and pumped it with commonly-accepted lies that even my self-proclaimed 'conservative' parents buy into. For example the myth that Hoover was somehow a laissez-faire, do-nothing President when in fact he started the New Deal. Something needs to be done about all these lies.
To Pax and Time Alliance:
Universal healthcare can be achieved without nationalisation. Tax credits and PSAs can be provided to every taxpayer, and non-taxpayers (the homeless) are already cared for very well by charities. Most hospitals in the US provide emergency care to all.
The voting system means that it has always been s two-party state and probably always will be, unless its reformed. The first-past-the-post system, and the collective laziness of voters, means that votes inevitably gravitate towards two parties that are loosely ideologically opposed for tactical reasons. However, more proportional systems often mean that governments are weaker and less effective in executing their agenda.
There's a hell of a lot of waste in the military, and paying for the defence of rich countries often makes little strategical sense. Broad cuts need to be enacted and bases shut down, but I would still take a somewhat interventionist approach..
Dislike this idea. Lower-incoms workers need tax cuts more than anyone else. I say we have across-the-board spending and tax cuts, because what taxation essentially is is a group of people taking your money and then spending it on what they think you want. Instead let's have individuals make their own choices.
All true. If you want to know more about the corruption that has plagued America's - nay, the world's - education, visit School Survival. It's an old website with an active forum, all dedicated to anti-school, pro-education.
I want Sir, our enemy is restructuring, we need to organize ourselves too.
Forum OFF?
Humpheria needs help with a raid. If you are interested, please TG [nation=short]Humpheria[/nation]
Oh does he? Do you know whom?
Not to be discussed on the RMB.
Raid averted, disregard request. Thanks.
My qualm with privatized healthcare is as always that they are not actually motivated to heal patients to the best of their ability or even fully. Rather, their motivation is to get the patient out of the hospital and then to pay up as quickly as possible. If the patient has to later return to hospital due to complications/less than ideal medicine that only increases their profit! Also, without regulation, how is it possible to guarantee that certain people would not receive "second rate" care? Not all privatized systems will have equal facilities and, being privatized, the interchangeability of patients is likely to be more complicated/limited than in a state healthcare system.
Are they? Perhaps you know more than I do (in which case I'll concede the point), but a quick root around for stats seemed to imply that a large percentage of the ~100 000-600 000 homeless people in the US is without health insurance (55%), and up to 45% suffer from Chronic health issues (High Blood pressure, cancer, diabetes) and 25% acute health issues (tuberculosis, pneumonia, STIs).
But, as I understand it, they charge you for it just after they've done it, leaving you in debt if you're unable to pay for the treatment (and therefore a criminal), correct?
A fair point, but one not based on empirical evidence. I think the inherent goodness of people - not just hospital administrators but the actual doctors and nurses - has had a hand in providing Americans with the best quality healthcare in the world. It's still a horribly inefficient and dastardly corporatist system, but the World Health Organisation found that the United States number one in the world "in responsiveness to patientsÂ’ needs in choice of provider, dignity, autonomy, timely care, and confidentiality." (1)
For the disadvantaged, the situation has been steadily improving in the field of healthcare for years. "Overall, 1007 free clinics operated in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Annually, these clinics provided care for 1.8 million individuals, accounting for 3.5 million medical and dental visits. The mean operating budget was $287,810. Overall, 58.7% received no government revenue. Clinics were open a mean of 18 hours per week and generally provided chronic disease management (73.2%), physical examinations (81.4%), urgent/acute care (62.3%), and medications (86.5%)." (2)
By law, no hospital in the US that receives federal money can turn away people who come for emergency medical care just because they can't pay, and two thirds of US hospitals are not-for-profit. However, the number of public hospitals is decreasing quite rapidly. So the situation is bad, but not terrible.
(1) - http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-613.pdf
(2) - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20548006
Aww man, and i was just cleaning off the ol' rifle. Maybe next time..
Yaaaaaa! Number 4!
Yaaaaaa! Number 58!
Haha. I got 69. Good stuff.
Number 1 Healthiest Citizens. I believe I have Public healthcare.
Yep. Suck it Obamacare.
Also, Pax, suggesting that a private healthcare industry gives the incentive to provide poor quality of care, you could say that about any industry at all. But you don't see Apple deliberately sabotaging their products to elicit repeat purchases. Good quality in itself assures repeat purchases. In a free market, competing enterprises would have far less incentive to even contemplate this as it would destroy a business's credibility and push its customers to competitors. You see where I'm coming from?
I'd like to ask an unrelated question: why are you a social democrat and not a socialist? Do you view it as an unattainable utopia or do you see some merits in capitalism?
Yes we do. "Planned obsolescence" is not a myth; their company intentionally releases software updates that cause older varieties of phone to run less efficiently, and have designed the batteries to wear out long before their capacity should allow them to. Little do they realize that this strategy, that they have not been subtle about, might run them into the ground when more consumers find out and decide to switch to a different type of smartphone. All they needed to do was make good quality products, but evidently they've run out of good ideas and are resorting to bad ones.
And that's just it; competition in any industry is not a curse but a boon, because it inspires businesses to be on their best behavior or else they'll lose their customers to rivals. Private industries can regulate themselves because no one wants to lose credibility because a lack of credibility means a lack of customers.
Ok, I gave a bad example. Apple is pretty notorious in that regard, which is why more and more people have flocked to Google and Samsung. Android software lasts for ten years, I believe, which is part of the reason I defected to the Nexus 7. Apple's failures have given way to higher quality, lower costs and better service in its competitors.
(I was tired when I wrote this post, it may be full of hypocrisies or nonsensical garbage, fair warning)
Car companies in America, equally, so I am told, are very prone to things that die right after their warranty expires.
Look at microsoft and the 360! The RRoD killed SO many machines and despite everything they said, it happened to every xbox generation they produced. Thing is, if your product is desirable enough (and healthcare sure as hell is) companies always have an incentive to do not-quite-their-best-job or a job that'll require you to come back soon to maximize profits.
Indeed. Pure communism I see as an unattainable utopia (at least within our generation), perhaps even undesirable.
Socialism (i.e. large government ownership of many businesses, plus massive wealth redistribution), backed up by a strong, non-corrupt government (oh that one could exist) is my ideal. I very much doubt it would work IRL, but that's what I'd find ideal.
Capitalism has much potential. At root it is not necessarily evil. However, inheritance and the fact that parent's wealth has a huge affect on your chances for a good education means that a poor man never competes equally with a rich man. This to me is deeply unfair.
Also unfair, to me, is that capitalism in its purest form does not protect people who fail due to circumstances outside of their own control. If there is a massive recession and people can no longer get jobs (and, to me, eliminating the minimum wage is opening the door to what-might-as-well-be-slavery), it again seems unfair to me that they should be left without healthcare, homes or food for something that is not their fault.
Finally, in pure capitalism it annoys me that you can get to the point that a rich man is so rich that after a certain point he is no longer a boon to the economy (after all, how do you spend a billion dollars? What do you even spend it on? If you don't spend it you're not contributing to an economy, you're just making the banks rich). It seems fundamentally unfair to me that all this stagnating cash does not go to the poor (yes, some rich people choose to donate to charities etc, but a centralized system, based around the government, I believe would be infinitely more effective at getting the right amount of cash to those that need it).
I don't abhor capitalism completely, and certainly think it is extremely effective in motivating development and ambition in people. I just think it has some very major floors that cause a lot of suffering in this world. If some of the ones mentioned in the above paragraph could be solved, I would really be quite happy with it.
To me, the role of an Ideal Government (TM) is to provide freedom from hunger, homelessness, violence and poor health in exchange for hard work and taxes, even if in doing so it must restrict some freedoms - I would happily exchange, for instance, a year's or two's service in my countries armed forces for a guaranteed job placement at the end of my university courses (as was required in East Germany for a while).
To me, the government should be a safety net and, to an extent, a protector of its citizens. In return, citizens work, spend and pay taxes to keep the whole thing ticking along. Simple as.
These are important considerations. I, too, am disillusioned with this side of capitalism: as an economic conservative and social libertarian I believe that inheritance and random chance stand in the way of equal opportunity. Still, this is preferable to equal outcome, which is the desire of economic liberals (and, to a degree, social conservatives). See, when the starting field is equal it's likely very bad, but at least there's opportunity to climb up - when the end of the road is equal, that means it's bad for everyone and there's no fix.
Still, of all the economic systems out there, capitalism is the closest to being both realistic AND effective. My ideal is more pure capitalism, which is possible but not likely.
And there are means of circumventing capitalism's flaws:
These days I've seen more families refusing to support their adult children. Indeed, there is a large trend of kids staying with their parents well into old age, not bothering to be independent, but while this trend has become more common in past years it seems to be on the decline. If parents say to their offspring, "Good luck out there" rather than sending them all the money they have, not only is the playing field more fair but it also builds character.
As for education, I'm a proponent of the school voucher system - and that's saying something, considering I usually don't like government-funded anything.
While it's true that "real" capitalism seems to have no safety net for people who hit hard times, the answer is that a safety net is possible if people are willing. This net can be either public or private, and the implication is that the private safety net is not only more libertarian but also more effective than anything a government could set up. Charities tend to be well-run private organizations that actually do the best they can with the money they receive, causing more benefits to those in poverty per dollar than the public welfare system even on the best of days. Sure, you might think that there should be no choice to help those in need, but the truth is that there are great numbers of people willing to spend money on behalf of people they don't know.
And the poor aren't completely slighted by the system. In fact, in a roundabout way it makes their lives more luxurious than a rich man in a third world nation. The effects of a capitalistic system are that it inspires innovation and hard work - these two combine to form technologies, systems, and actions that improve the standard of living for society as a whole. Even the poor have access to the most widespread of these innovations, and these innovations might just help them find opportunity if they've lost it.
Finally, I do have disdain for the avaricious fat cats who simply hoard money, but there are fewer than you think. Most people who make ridiculous amounts of money are aware that their money won't mean anything if their economy goes down the tubes, so they simply keep investing in the stock market, buying other businesses, and playing the economics game so other people can too. Not to mention that many charities practically run on the funds of the richest.
While I don't have time to reply to all of that now, this video is relevant for reasons why I think America, in particular, needs more socialism and less capitalism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0ehzfQ4hAQ
1st in Libertatem! First!! Suck it 1 percenters! I am number one! All others are number two, or lower!
>
> BadIron is ranked 1st in Libertatem and 1,437th in the world for
> Largest Retail Industry, scoring 12 on the Shrinkwrap Consignment
> Productivity Index.
>
Another region liberated from tyranny:
Destroyed*. Good job, bromade.
Will respond to Pax and Con later.
Except for the 1436 people above you, that is ;)
The region contains 82 nations.
I am 83 in the region for fattest citizens.
Heck yeah!
I don't think Microsoft intentionally sabotaged their units, as most Xbox owners (including me) have their products repaired at specialist shops as opposed to simply buying new Xboxes, meaning that the capital flowing from broken Xbox owners did not flow to Microsoft. So there's no incentive there.
A fair point, but one not supported by substantially widespread empirical evidence.
Social democracy*. But why should we have this when the private sector not only operates more efficiently but can effectively provide for more people?
Life is not fair. Just because other people are born taller than others it doesn't mean we should equalise height. What matters is that everyone has the chance to climb to the top. My father was born into a working-class family that wasted a lot of its income on cigarettes, alcohol and other trivialities. Whenever they were getting ahead, my father's mother would decide to move. He went to well over 20 schools in his lifetime, some of which he spent no more than a day at. They could not get ahead because of their own negligence. My father, on the other hand, decided to make something of himself and took on three different jobs at once to pay for college. The experience he gained there helped him to become a successful programmer and property developer, because he decided to work hard. Anyone can be like this.
Not necessarily. It's known that public spending crowds out the private sector, which is quite evident when you compare American and European welfare states. In the United States, welfare spending is significantly lower (at around 15% of GDP) than in European nations, which average at about 25%. It's been shown that the United States has a much higher 'compassion rate' (total charity spending as a % of GDP) than that of Europe. If the need arises - I'll use the term 'demand', for lack of a better word - then you can bet that the private sector will be there to fill it. There's an inherent goodness of human beings that has pushed so much social progress, and can push much more yet to come.
The minimum wage does far more harm than it does good. If all minimum wage laws were removed, we'd see a huge uptick in employment, growth, living standards and real wages. (Although these also depend on other factors.) We'd see the poverty rate come down significantly.
That bit in bold is the key here. There's this common misconception that 'stagnant wealth' does nothing to benefit the economy or poorer people. This couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, saving is probably just as important as spending, as it means that capital stored in banks is converted into loans to businesses to fund start-ups and long-term projects, creating employment and viola, more people have jobs.
There's a fundamental immorality in taking another person's money. This is the antithesis to compassion. It's also impractical, as it motivates tax avoidance and offshore tax havens which causes result in far less revenue for the state. Between 1950 and 1980, when the top tax rates was 90% (lowered to 70% in 1963), the effective top marginal tax rate was 10%.
These are not freedoms, but securities guaranteed at the expense of other people. All of these things can be attained by hard work and private exchange on a much more efficient level.
Been reading up on President Cleveland lately. Not only was he a great defender of the Constitution, but an honest man.
"Did I impregnate my mistress? Yes, I think I did."
Good guy Grover.
I would like to know how I can become an avid member of this confederation of states. Any help would be much appreciated.
Hello Coolio :) I'm going to bed now, but I'm sure one of these fine fella's can welcome you :)
Assembled with Dot's Region Saver.
Written by Refuge Isle.