What are your political values?

[vison]

I agree with Nrblex to a certain extent: the US is too large to be governed effectively from one centre. It should be broken up into regions.

Let's give 'er a shot.

(I am serious, but I realize it will not happen in my lifetime.)

And, I will add that Vox is the first "libertarian" I have ever met who would discard ownership of copyright or patent. Property rights are the foundation of Libertarian belief. Or so I recall from my readings of Ayn Rand, back in the early Neolithic . . .

[Zuul]

Governing the US in a decentralized way was how it was originally conceived. Certainly, giving more rights to the states and not passing all power off to the feds might help with some matters. If something doesn't work, it's much easier to get rid of it at the state level than if it's firmly entrenched at the federal level.

Moving back to the earlier discussion of paying for college...

In my experience, it really isn't as hard to pay for school as it's often portrayed, if you're willing to go to one of the smaller campuses of a state university or college. Without any financial support from my family at all, I managed to squeak by with grants while working on campus. Yes, I had to commute. Yes, I took the bus every day. Yes, I had to eat in an extremely frugal manner. But I didn't take out any loans and I didn't get financial assistance from my mother. It's possible and a lot more kids could do it than are doing it now.

I'm willing to concede that in some states it may be far too expensive to do that (my experience is limited to Nevada and Wisconsin), but I don't think it's so expensive or so hard that it needs to be made free. I don't think people value something that's free nearly as much, and it's hard enough as it is to get college students to realize they're adults and have to take things seriously (I'm thinking of my niece here, sigh). What we need is maybe a little more assistance and a lot more effort from the high schools to educate and prepare kids on how to get that assistance, so they understand they have a lot of options.

[Vox Imperatoris]

And, I will add that Vox is the first "libertarian" I have ever met who would discard ownership of copyright or patent. Property rights are the foundation of Libertarian belief. Or so I recall from my readings of Ayn Rand, back in the early Neolithic . . .

Intellectual monopoly was a big part of Ayn Rand's beliefs, that's all. She didn't even consider herself a libertarian, for various reasons. But the great thing about Ayn Rand, as opposed to Jesus or Muhammad, is that she wasn't an infallible heavenly prophet. You can disagree with a few things she says and still accept the majority of it without being sent to the Bad Place. She was a great philosopher, but she made a few mistakes and was not the final arbiter of philosophical thought she sometimes thought she was (especially later in life, when she tried to split the community of Objectivism off from the rest of the world).

[vison]

Intellectual monopoly was a big part of Ayn Rand's beliefs, that's all. She didn't even consider herself a libertarian, for various reasons. But the great thing about Ayn Rand, as opposed to Jesus or Muhammad, is that she wasn't an infallible heavenly prophet. You can disagree with a few things she says and still accept the majority of it without being sent to the Bad Place. She was a great philosopher, but she made a few mistakes and was not the final arbiter of philosophical thought she sometimes thought she was (especially later in life, when she tried to split the community of Objectivism off from the rest of the world).

Yes, I'm sure you think she was a great philosopher. I did too, when I was 14. Now I'm 65 and I don't think so any more.

Thomas Hardy had something to say about philosophers and the ends to which they come. I'll have to post it sometime or other.

[Vox Imperatoris]

Yes, I'm sure you think she was a great philosopher. I did too, when I was 14. Now I'm 65 and I don't think so any more.

Yeah, and there's plenty of 65-year-olds who think she is a great philosopher and plenty of 17-year-olds who love Karl Marx. Your point is? The "You'll see it my way when you're older and wiser, young man," argument is as condescending and patronizing as it is fallacious. People change their opinions as they age all the time. Sometimes it's because they really are wiser, and sometimes it's because they become entitled old curmudgeons who think they know what's best for everyone else. Some people get more religious as they grow older; some people lose faith as they see their friends dying around them and all the suffering in the world. Some people mellow out as they age; some people grow stronger in their convictions. In no case does whether they're actually right or not have to do with their age.

[Sleeps w/Butterflies]

Yeah, and there's plenty of 65-year-olds who think she is a great philosopher and plenty of 17-year-olds who love Karl Marx. Your point is? The "You'll see it my way when you're older and wiser, young man," argument is as condescending and patronizing as it is fallacious. People change their opinions as they age all the time. Sometimes it's because they really are wiser, and sometimes it's because they become entitled old curmudgeons who think they know what's best for everyone else. Some people get more religious as they grow older; some people lose faith as they see their friends dying around them and all the suffering in the world. Some people mellow out as they age; some people grow stronger in their convictions. In no case does whether they're actually right or not have to do with their age.

How long do you plan on making this discussion an argument?

[Vox Imperatoris]

How long do you plan on making this discussion an argument?

For as long as people keep arguing with me or use my age to offhandedly dismiss what I say.

[Revs]

Vox, the only reason anyone brings your age into is simply because you don't have the real world experience to back up your politics. It's all good and well to discuss a hypothetical situation, but it's something else entirely to try to implement it in the real world. Having ideals and beliefs is alright, but believing that essential services(fire,police) could be sustained through voluntary donations is just a fantasy. These agencies are barely getting by on forced donations (taxes).

I am saying this in all honesty, back off the politics a little bit and try to see the world how it really is. Put down the books and take a stroll, maybe talk to some people you wouldn't normally talk to. Politics are a strange thing and everybody and their uncle thinks they have the great solution, yet no one has come up with a decent answer yet.

[Sleeps w/Butterflies]

For as long as people keep arguing with me or use my age to offhandedly dismiss what I say.

People discussing their own beliefs isn't necessarily arguing with you just because it goes against what you think.

Perhaps you're reading more into the comment about age than what vison meant. He/she has a right to state that their opinion has changed over time. They simply said that they thought one way when they were 14 and something different now.

Most people do change their minds about things as they get older. If they didn't I'd honestly wonder about their capacity to learn. Many ideologies sound great on paper but simply do not work in the real world.

I know I thought I knew exactly what the world needed when I was in high school. It's embarrassing to think about now how little I actually knew. Life is a bit different when you have to support yourself and make your own way in the world.

You can look at that as insult if you want, it's simply a fact of life. It doesn't mean that the opinion of a teenager is invalid, but I think most people (as in not all) would agree that experience does count for something.

[Vox Imperatoris]

Vox, the only reason anyone brings your age into is simply because you don't have the real world experience to back up your politics. It's all good and well to discuss a hypothetical situation, but it's something else entirely to try to implement it in the real world. Having ideals and beliefs is alright, but believing that essential services(fire,police) could be sustained through voluntary donations is just a fantasy. These agencies are barely getting by on forced donations (taxes).

Voluntary donations plus, as I said, charging people who can afford it. Of course, in your mind, if these agencies run by the government could just squeeze a little more money out of the taxpayers, they'd be fine, right? Unfortunately, the effectiveness of a government is not a linear function of how well-funded it is. The main criterion is whether it attempts to fight human nature at every turn or to provide a government that actually matches the needs of human beings.

I am saying this in all honesty, back off the politics a little bit and try to see the world how it really is. Put down the books and take a stroll, maybe talk to some people you wouldn't normally talk to. Politics are a strange thing and everybody and their uncle thinks they have the great solution, yet no one has come up with a decent answer yet.

This is incredibly insulting. Do you think I'm not familiar with the real world? I know how the real world works. Libertarianism is a political philosophy specifically designed to accommodate people as they really are, rationally self-interested individuals who function best by looking out for themselves first (and specifically looking out for their long-term best interest, not worshiping their every whim), not some fantasy like socialism that states that altruism and selfless cooperation will be workable or bring on societal advancement. And political systems can, in fact, be compared in the real world. And time and again, the political systems that allow people the most liberty have been shown to be the most effective, while the authoritarian bureaucracies have brought nothing but misery and death.

So-called "pragmatists" who claim to do only what reality requires or what the people demand without regard to basic moral values have done more harm to the world than anything else. If politics are not grounded in firm principles (and if those principles are not themselves grounded in the reality of human nature), regimes based on them will eventually fail, or at least not live up to their true potential. Principle is the only thing that can save people when pragmatists decide their cost-benefit ratio justifies oppression.

But if you want me to talk about my personal life, I know incredibly rich people and that they are not all saints. I know poor people, a few of them in my own family (before you want to quibble over definitions, they live in trailer parks), and that they are not all devils. I've been to the ghetto and seen the conditions in housing projects. And I know people in the real world who are socialists and statists. My own uncle, for one. And I know exactly why he believes what he believes: because he made some very bad economic decisions of his own and thinks the government should be there to bail him out. So, while I may not have had quite so diverse a range of experiences as many people here, please don't talk to me like I live in a plastic bubble. If nothing else, it's incredibly rude.

[Revs]

Wow, you missed the point entirely. No, I don't think you have any idea how the real world works. Talk to me when you have been busting ass to pay your own way and have paid your own taxes for years. You talk about how you would make the people that have the means pay for services, come back when you see the cops respond in a second to a 911 call to the high income neighborhood but you can't get a squad car to your house.

I tried to say it nicely but let me break it down, You are a kid. I was there not too long ago myself and had my own political beliefs that I would defend to the bitter end, no matter what anybody else said. You know fuck all about how the world actually works. You may be a smart person when it comes to what was in a book, but person to person, and person to government you have a lot to learn. As bad as the current system may be, and as much as I disagree with it, it does beat most of the realistic alternatives. The feds are not out to get us, there is no monolithic organization trying to keep us down. It's the people that keep electing the politicians that keep anything happen within the government.

If the general populous actually wanted drastic change in the way things were run, they would be voting for all the 3rd party and fringe candidates. Nothing is really going to change until you change the minds of the people. Now until you can figure out a way to do that, you have to work within the system we have and stop going on about what might (but more than likely won't) happen.

[ivan astikov]

You say that people should be able to do whatever they want with their own bodies (I agree), but you also say that healthcare should be provided by the government. What if someone overdoes on heroin or amputates his own leg because it gets him off or something and then demands free medical care because he can't afford the costs? Clearly, it was his own choice, but it's no longer his own problem. It's the problem of the people on whom the burden of the costs falls.

Well, this is just one of the downsides of taking on responsibility for governing the people, and making money off their blood, sweat and tears. Tough fucking titties. Not everybody is suited for a conventional 9to5 lifestyle.

[vison]

Yeah, and there's plenty of 65-year-olds who think she is a great philosopher and plenty of 17-year-olds who love Karl Marx. Your point is? The "You'll see it my way when you're older and wiser, young man," argument is as condescending and patronizing as it is fallacious. People change their opinions as they age all the time. Sometimes it's because they really are wiser, and sometimes it's because they become entitled old curmudgeons who think they know what's best for everyone else. Some people get more religious as they grow older; some people lose faith as they see their friends dying around them and all the suffering in the world. Some people mellow out as they age; some people grow stronger in their convictions. In no case does whether they're actually right or not have to do with their age.

How true. And, I daresay it will happen to you, too.

Your ideas are interesting and I mean nothing disrespectful in saying they are more common in young men than old women. That happens to be the way things are.

I disagree with much of what you have to say, but by no means with all of it. I tend to the Libertarian end of things myself. But, the thing is, Vox Imperatoris, that I have had my beliefs modified by very hard experience. I may be an old curmudgeon with a huge sense of entitlement, but I don't think so. I have been beaten about the head and ears by life and have learned some very difficult lessons. I was one hell of a lot more hard-headed and certain when I was 14. Now I am more tolerant and easy-going, not so quick to see when people are "wrong". I try to see where people are "trying", if you follow me.

Given that a lot of people don't think about this sort of thing at all, I am impressed with how much you evidently DO think about it.

[pepperlandgirl]

I know I thought I knew exactly what the world needed when I was in high school. It's embarrassing to think about now how little I actually knew. Life is a bit different when you have to support yourself and make your own way in the world.

You can look at that as insult if you want, it's simply a fact of life. It doesn't mean that the opinion of a teenager is invalid, but I think most people (as in not all) would agree that experience does count for something.

So, so, so true. There are some things about political views that have been consistent throughout my life. I've always been against the death penalty, even when I was in high school, for example. But for everything that stayed the same, a hundred different things changed. Hell, I've been posting on the SDMB for 10 years now. I'm sure there's ample evidence of my own naiveté if anybody wanted to find it. That's neither good nor bad. It's just the process of learning and growing up.

Wow, you missed the point entirely. No, I don't think you have any idea how the real world works. Talk to me when you have been busting ass to pay your own way and have paid your own taxes for years. You talk about how you would make the people that have the means pay for services, come back when you see the cops respond in a second to a 911 call to the high income neighborhood but you can't get a squad car to your house.

Quoted For Truth.

The feds are not out to get us, there is no monolithic organization trying to keep us down. It's the people that keep electing the politicians that keep anything happen within the government.

I'm also quoting this for truth.

[vison]

pepperlandgirl, well put.

[Sarahfeena]

The musician can sell his music over the internet for whatever price he wants. What can't be done is for Beethoven (hint: he didn't have copyright) and his descendants to keep everyone else from ever playing Symphony No. 5 simply because he wrote it first. "But copyrights expire!" you say? Sure, they do in theory, but when you've got companies like Disney lobbying to extend their copyrights, they're damned if they're ever going to let someone else start making Mickey Mouse cartoons.

Yes, the musician can sell his music over the internet for whatever price the market will bear, or he can give it away, his choice. But it doesn't create a fair market place if the consumers have the option to get it for free instead of paying him for it, does it? And Beethoven is a bad analogy because the economic structures are very different now than there were in his day (hint: he had patrons). I'm not saying that copyrights should be held in perpetuity, but I think that the person who creates a good that is valued by the marketplace should have the right to profit from that creation.

I think that, in a world without copyrights, musicians, sure, would no longer be multi-billionaires in as many cases. But to say that the world would be without new music is insane hyperbole. Good musicians would be able to make money by performing live and from selling the first rights to publish their songs (people have, you know, thought about ways to make money without copyright). Think of most local bands. Think of symphony orchestras. Most of the stuff they perform is not copyrighted, but they still are economically viable. Musicians wouldn't be super-rich, most likely, but they'd get by like anyone else. The idea that people need the promise of millions of dollars in front of them to write songs is just silly. People aren't going to stop making good music.

Well, I didn't say that no one will make good music, so I'm not the one with the insane hyperbole. What I said was that it will disincentivize, which it will. What that effect will be, I don't know. And your symphony orchestra example also doesn't work for me. Symphony orchestras perform music, they don't write it. They actually benefit from lack of copyright, because then they don't have to pay for the music they perform. The people hurt by lack of copyright are those who write new music.

[Muffin]

As for the death penalty: I think it is barbaric. Apparently playing little semantic games is important to you, so I will add: I think it is wrong, immoral and degrading to the fabric of the society that metes it out. It is not a deterrent to crime, but is a vile and uncivilized combination of vengeance and lip-smacking, drooling delight in human misery.

And it is ineffective.

When the death penalty was removed from the Canadian Criminal Code, the murder rate did not significantly change (it went down a tad), but the conviction rate for murders went way up, effectively putting away more murderers rather than letting them loose.

[Muffin]

We're in a transition phase in Canada with regards to prostitution. Prostitution is legal here. Advertising for prostitution is not legal here. Running a whore house is not legal here. These have led to a couple of issues. The advertising one is rather silly -- prostitutes advertise as escorts rather than as prostitutes. The bawdy house one is more serious -- to keep legal, many prostitutes make out calls rather than working in their own secure environment.

[Zuul]

We're in a transition phase in Canada with regards to prostitution. Prostitution is legal here. Advertising for prostitution is not legal here. Running a whore house is not legal here. These have led to a couple of issues. The advertising one is rather silly -- prostitutes advertise as escorts rather than as prostitutes. The bawdy house one is more serious -- to keep legal, many prostitutes make out calls rather than working in their own secure environment.

That is serious and unfortunate, since it's putting them in a more dangerous situation. What's the rationale behind barring brothels but allowing prostitution?

[Muffin]

Intellectual property is about balance and the advance of civilization. Without intellectual property, we would not have research and development anywhere near to the degree that we now have. Modern communications, modern transportation, modern health care -- the world as we know it, simply would not exist.

The purpose of the protection of intellectual property is to provide benefits to society. Governments protect the interests of people and organizations that create intellectualy property, which acts as a strong incentive to create intellectual property.

The trick for a government is to offer enough intellecutal property protection to encourage R&D, while at the same time not overprotecting intellectual property to the degree that diminishes the benefits reaped by society. It comes down to governments finding a balance that advances civilization.

[Muffin]

That is serious and unfortunate, since it's putting them in a more dangerous situation. What's the rationale behind barring brothels but allowing prostitution?

As illustrated in this thread, people tend not to be against the goings on behind closed doors between consenting adults.

On the other hand, shop owners do not want street whores accosting customers at store entrances, and residents do not want parades of cars driven by johns rolling through their neighouhood while street whores offer their services. Thus the law against solicitation.

The law against bawdy houses addresses a more serious problem -- that of pimping (which also remains illegal). It is one thing for a person to be a prostitute of his or her own volition. It is quite another for a person to be dragged down into the trade, only to find himself or herself more or less trapped working for a brothel owner. Personally, I think the solution will eventually be found in regulation of brothels, rather than the present criminalization of brothels.

[Exy]

Can the modes force Vox to do a whole separate thread about the intellectual property thing, because I think it's actually a pretty interesting argument (mostly in that I'm curious about how someone could possibly take a principled stance against it.)

[Zuul]

Can the modes force Vox to do a whole separate thread about the intellectual property thing, because I think it's actually a pretty interesting argument (mostly in that I'm curious about how someone could possibly take a principled stance against it.)

Well, I can't "force" him to start a thread, as that'd be rather difficult. But if the conversation is to continue it does need its own thread. It's just a bit beyond the scope of this one, though it's an interesting topic.

[Glazer]

Well, I can't "force" him to start a thread, as that'd be rather difficult. But if the conversation is to continue it does need its own thread. It's just a bit beyond the scope of this one, though it's an interesting topic.

You could hold him down and tickle him until he agrees to, or just split this one into two threads. Which ever you prefer.

[Glazer]

As illustrated in this thread, people tend not to be against the goings on behind closed doors between consenting adults.

On the other hand, shop owners do not want street whores accosting customers at store entrances, and residents do not want parades of cars driven by johns rolling through their neighouhood while street whores offer their services. Thus the law against solicitation.

The law against bawdy houses addresses a more serious problem -- that of pimping (which also remains illegal). It is one thing for a person to be a prostitute of his or her own volition. It is quite another for a person to be dragged down into the trade, only to find himself or herself more or less trapped working for a brothel owner. Personally, I think the solution will eventually be found in regulation of brothels, rather than the present criminalization of brothels.

What if you ran a house like a beauty shop? The girls (or guys) don't work for you they just rent a room and pay for security.

[Muffin]

What if you ran a house like a beauty shop? The girls (or guys) don't work for you they just rent a room and pay for security.

I had a client (a female in her 50s) who wanted to purchase a motel and bar in a small mining town to do just that, but unfortunately, section 210 of the Criminal Code of Canada stood in the way, so her business plan went kaput.