Political Theory

Re: You know you've won when...

Anonymous Coward — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:51:15 GMT

Nitroadict:
It's a shame the internet as it is (or was, before the wide spread throttling) won't last.

I think that's just a temporary situation.

These companies got a bunch of money from Uncle Sam to lay all this fiber and then when it turned out to not really be needed at the time sold it off at super cheap prices. Google bought up a bunch of this dark fiber a few years ago.

With the new tech being developed all the time to push more data down the same tubes at a higher rate and a bunch of unused capacity waiting to be tapped all that is really required is for the telcos to actually invest money into their infrastructure instead of going the cheap, make the quarterly profits look good, model of throttling the bandwidth 'hogs'.

I kind of think they are waiting for the next round of subsidies before acting because the US can't be allowed to fall behind in the bandwidth department after all.

Re: You know you've won when...

Nitroadict — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:34:48 GMT

Anonymous Coward:

liberty student:
No, I am not conceding that. It's just that if you talk to statists long enough, you will realize that they are an endless well of anti-capitalistic crud, and a risk inherent in free market evangelism, is that your brain may explode.

OK, just checking...

Wouldn't want to have to revoke your membership card or anything.

But, yeah, it's always the same old tired arguments that get brought up. It's like people can't generalize from the specific to the general or something and need to have every little (nearly identical) point refuted before they start in with the ad hominems and appeals to emotion.

I don't think people actually spend the time to reason out their arguments and just repeat what they heard the talking heads say on the TV.

Which brings up a totally different point, I caught a little Fox News at the restaurant this afternoon while eating lunch and they had Ron Paul talking about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts. It was a split screen with the news woman and she looked like a deer in the headlights as soon as he started talking about how this is just a temporary fix, inflation is the real cause of these problems, dismantle the Fed and sound money. Mouth agape and eyes wide open, quite funny really.

IMO, The frequent resort to ad-hom & appeal to emotion is what you get with a society bred on television. I'm not saying people didn't do it before, but since the TV it has become so subtly integrated that many are not even aware of it, and anyone arguing outside of ad-hom & emotional appeals are threatning a societal norm.

However, I can easily argue that since The Internet, a medium which started out with people reading text in order to communicate, this has been somewhat countered / addressed / easier to detect. It's a shame the internet as it is (or was, before the wide spread throttling) won't last.

Re: You know you've won when...

Anonymous Coward — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:09:12 GMT

liberty student:
No, I am not conceding that. It's just that if you talk to statists long enough, you will realize that they are an endless well of anti-capitalistic crud, and a risk inherent in free market evangelism, is that your brain may explode.

OK, just checking...

Wouldn't want to have to revoke your membership card or anything.

But, yeah, it's always the same old tired arguments that get brought up. It's like people can't generalize from the specific to the general or something and need to have every little (nearly identical) point refuted before they start in with the ad hominems and appeals to emotion.

I don't think people actually spend the time to reason out their arguments and just repeat what they heard the talking heads say on the TV.

Which brings up a totally different point, I caught a little Fox News at the restaurant this afternoon while eating lunch and they had Ron Paul talking about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts. It was a split screen with the news woman and she looked like a deer in the headlights as soon as he started talking about how this is just a temporary fix, inflation is the real cause of these problems, dismantle the Fed and sound money. Mouth agape and eyes wide open, quite funny really.

Re: You know you've won when...

liberty student — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:50:23 GMT

Anonymous Coward:

liberty student:

Do Gooder Socialist: Microsoft

Me: *KABOOM*!

I don't get it, are you conceding that MS is a natural monopoly that engages in predatory pricing?

No, I am not conceding that. It's just that if you talk to statists long enough, you will realize that they are an endless well of anti-capitalistic crud, and a risk inherent in free market evangelism, is that your brain may explode.

Re: You know you've won when...

Anonymous Coward — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:47:27 GMT

liberty student:

Do Gooder Socialist: Microsoft

Me: *KABOOM*!

I don't get it, are you conceding that MS is a natural monopoly that engages in predatory pricing?

I guess if you think that government granted monopoly rights (copyright and patents) that allow them to engage in rent seeking is somehow 'natural' and that without these protections they would be able to charge such high prices (which are actually lower than Apple's OSX if I'm not mistaken).

It's not like they have a real monopoly, I only grudgingly use Vista because it was part of the package deal on my current laptop (my last one was a 'whitebox--some assembly required' without any OS but gravity had its way with that one...twice) because I haven't really spent the time to get my cell phone to tether with linux. Other than that I wouldn't even have soiled my hard drive with it after my initial post-purchase de-lousing.

For the last eight or so years it's been all open source for me and I don't miss out on any functionality that the 'natural monopoly' provides. I'd even say that Ubuntu is easier to use than this craptactular Vista for someone who is just learning how to 'administer' a computer with all their pretty gui helpers. Most of them just get in my way as I'm more likely to drop to the command line to fix a problem but that's a whole different story.

Now google on the other hand with their near 90% market share of online advertising may be a different matter.

Other ways to know you've won

Knight_of_BAAWA — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:45:33 GMT

They tell you to go live in Somalia.

They tell you that if you drive on the roads, you're a hypocrite.

They tell you that there'd be rampant killing and raping were it not for the government, so we must have government to protect us from...their boogeymen.

They tell you that if anarchy is so good, why aren't all societies anarchist.

Re: You know you've won when...

katja328 — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:21:32 GMT

I am pretty sure the guy who takes care of my yard does not report the money I give him.....

Re: You know you've won when...

kingmonkey — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:40:37 GMT

I did window washing for a long time which is a great job if you can make it work. There is a lot of competition out there. The great thing about it was that most of my customers paid in cash and never really wanted a receipt. In fact, I often refused to accept checks unless the bill was several hundred dollars.

Re: You know you've won when...

fsk — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:52:20 GMT

meambobbo:

if you're making more money, start your own business. Pick something that is not regulated, probably something tech-related, like a website.

Actually, if you're starting an agorist off-the-books business, then picking something regulated to the hilt is best! That maximizes your profit. Of course, that also is risky, if you get caught.

Re: You know you've won when...

meambobbo — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:40:02 GMT

I would never suggest evading taxes but...

if you're not making much, try to deal in cash exclusively. that means working a bar or any mainly cash tips-based job.

if you're making more money, start your own business. Pick something that is not regulated, probably something tech-related, like a website. There are plenty of books that will teach you good ways to lessen your tax burden through this model. You'll funnel your money into your fledgling business and it magically becomes tax deductible.

if you're making killer money, hire a financial advisor - this is one of the main aspects of their job. The reason you won't find a clear guide to cheating on your taxes is because (a) it's probably illegal to do so (b) it would spoil the party and (c) there is most likely no one-size-fits-all method to do it. The tax code is so complex, there are likely a myriad of ways to structure offshore accounts, stocks, real estate, gifts, etc. with each person benefitting most from a different arrangement.

Also, hire your children and family to move your income into lower brackets. For the lower brackets, there are no short-term capital gains taxes. This is probably a good money maker.

Re: You know you've won when...

liberty student — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:26:25 GMT

I had this argument yesterday.

Do Gooder Socialist: That's a natural monopoly

Me: There are no natural monopolies

Do Gooder Socialist: Sure there are, they use predatory pricing

Me: There is no such thing as predatory pricing

Do Gooder Socialist: Yes there is

Me: No there isn't

Do Gooder Socialist: Yes there is

Me: Give me one example of predatory pricing or natural monopoly

Do Gooder Socialist: There are millions of examples

Me: Then it should be easy to give one

Do Gooder Socialist: Microsoft

Me: *KABOOM*!

Re: You know you've won when...

krazy kaju — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:06:44 GMT

I feel your pain kingmonkey. In fact, I think that every libertarian that has argued with idiotic leftists and whatnot understands. Like currently, I'm in a debate with a moron on Ron Paul Forums who thinks monopolies are bound to happen in the free market. I explained to him theoretically how it's impossible and then I asked him for empirical proof of monopolies forming in free market or close-to free market systems. He has failed to do so and now is resorting to practically every logical fallacy in the book.

Re: You know you've won when...

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:55:18 GMT

ChaseCola:

Anyone know of good strategies to evade taxes?

The best one I've seen is to work off the books at a bar.

Probably just because I frequent the bar quite often though, I'm sure there are better stratigies.

I did it a few times when I was hanging out and someone called in sick or something and did alright if you consider that I got paid and my tab was also taken care of in the process. Made over $60 one night not counting the 12 hours worth of beer that I drank and that was just working the door checking ID and collecting the cover charge. Hell, I would've done it for the free beer, especially since I got to drink while working, but I never let them know that.

Good money to be made in bartending and doubly good if you get to keep 100% of it.

Re: You know you've won when...

Brainpolice — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:13:35 GMT

...the disrespect for property rights usually comes from "left libertarians" or "authoritarian libertarians" who believe that there should not be such things as property rights or believe that the state should force property owners to accept certain forms of behavior on their property.

I don't know of any left-libertarians who take that position, nor does the connection between authoritarianism or statism and left-libertarian make much sense, since the bulk of people who identify as left-libertarians are anarchists (while right-libertarians are dominantly minarchist). The left-libertarian criticism of the right-libertarians would actually tend to be that they engage in the error of treating the state as if it were a legitimate private property owner, hence legitimizing restrictive government policies which actually amount to real individual property rights violations.

Re: You know you've won when...

ChaseCola — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:05:09 GMT

Anyone know of good strategies to evade taxes?