Welcome to the Free Talk Live bulletin board system!
This board is closed to new users and new posts.  Thank you to all our great mods and users over the years.  Details here.
185859 Posts in 9829 Topics by 1371 Members
Latest Member: cjt26
Home Help
+  The Free Talk Live BBS
|-+  Profile of Diogenes The Cynic
| |-+  Show Posts
| | |-+  Topics

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Topics - Diogenes The Cynic

Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 11
46
General / Libertarian Arguments Are Now More Common
« on: June 28, 2011, 01:52:03 AM »
 COMMENTARY | According to The New York Times, the FBI just raided a data center in Virginia and seized many of its servers, causing websites owned by "tens of clients" to go offline -- including those belonging to people who hadn't broken a law, and were not suspected of any crime.

It may seem silly to get upset about the police taking down websites you don't use. A certain quote may come to mind, though, as we look at other ways that the police in America abuse their power.

Tasering nonviolent people to death

A 72-year-old woman named Kathryn Winkfein got tasered not too long ago after she lost her temper at the cop who pulled her over. Her offense? Shouting at him.

Luckily, she "learned her lesson" about talking back to America's authority figures. She was also awarded $40,000 in damages, which her County Constable, Richard McCain, complained was a reward for "bad behavior." Apparently putting 50,000 volts through the heart of someone's great-grandma is not bad behavior, as long as you wear a police uniform.

Winkfein was lucky. In what Digby calls the "Taser Atrocity Of The Day," a man who took groceries without having paid for them was tasered continuously for 37 seconds, after he became "aggressive and was communicating loudly." He died in the hospital.

The police officer who killed him was suspended for five days.

Stealing your cellphone (and its data)

Recordings of government workers performing their duty are, by law, in the public domain. So if you think a police officer is going to do something untoward, try filming him so you have evidence. Right?

Not so fast. Prepare to have your cellphone taken from you and stomped on. The Miami Beach, Fla., police in particular have a history of doing this, and they aren't alone. But the people who have their phones stolen and vandalized by the police are lucky; a man named Michael Allison faces up to 75 years in prison for trying to record a judge, and was arrested without any warning.

Meanwhile, the Michigan State Police is taking people's cellphones when they pull them over for traffic violations, and using "extraction" devices on the phones. The ACLU is trying to find out why they're doing that, but the police department placed a price tag of over $500,000 on their Freedom of Information request. How much justice can you afford?

Arresting nonviolent activists

Want to feed homeless people free meals in the park? Prepare to be arrested. Or how about dancing in front of the Jefferson Memorial? Prepare to get tied up and beat up.

Our country's police has a long history of suppressing nonviolent activists, and it hasn't stopped with the Civil Rights Era. Environmental activists like Tim DeChristopher are served 10-year prison sentences for civil disobedience, that harms no one but impedes oil companies' profits. Meanwhile, the FBI labels nonviolent activists as "domestic terrorists."

They were recently granted more power to go through your trash and your data, so expect things to only get worse. Actually, expect things to get worse in general. The police state is the new normal.

Source:http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110625/us_ac/8696821_the_american_police_state_is_the_new_normal

47
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Sex-offender-father-of-22-I-m-a-womanizer-1378886.php


That dude is a criminal, who has spent more time behind bars than outside, and he has still had more sex (with women) than you.

48
General / This is Real
« on: May 13, 2011, 03:06:27 PM »
http://www.galls.com/style.html?assort=general_catalog&cat=&style=TP155


Its an actual product. There is a market for this.

49
General / The Denationalization Plan
« on: May 03, 2011, 10:11:27 PM »
I gots to thinking about bonds, securities, and national default, like what happened with Seychelles, Dubai, and Iceland, and what could have happened with Greece, and think that there is an alternative to the simple national default being done these days.

My proposal is to have asset backed loans that when defaulted on, will result in forfeiture of national property like airports, train stations, and tourist sites. Greece stops paying their loans? They lose the Parthenon. After all, if the bank can foreclose on your house, why shouldn't they foreclose on a government?

Now, here is the fun part. Denationalization will happen if and only if the government decides to renege on their entire loan amount, not just the interest. So, when whichever country it is having the problems goes bankrupt, their creditor nations (for Greece, it was Germany and France) get their assets in hard value (airports, train stations, etc) and the national government of the default nation is dissolved with a sell-off of its military, and dissolution of national property. That way, the default nation will be able to pay back its principal and the lack of national taxes will boost the economy.

Whatcha think?

51
General / Overcoming Confirmation Bias
« on: April 07, 2011, 08:02:54 PM »
Most of the folks here are pretty well educated on a bunch of liberty topics, as well as a bunch of other things, but to what extent have you explored philosophies in total opposition to your own?


52
General / An Economic Musing
« on: March 09, 2011, 09:25:19 PM »
The U.S. government issues bonds they back with an interest that although low is guaranteed to get the owner some money. Its better than cash because it earns money, and can be used to buy other stuff quickly. Its the golden standard of investing insofar that any investment that earns less than the interest rate of a bond is considered a loser because it earned less, and was invariably higher risk.

The volume of available bonds, and their high interest are a problem in my view. Not that I am an economist or anything, but aside from the problem of taxing the rest of us to line the pockets of others with the interest, all this money is sitting around, with its potential going unused. It represents bridges not being built, industry not being improved, and capital investments not being made because bonds allow for money to be made without risk being taken.

What are your thoughts?

53
General / Bill Brasky was a sonuva bitch
« on: March 07, 2011, 10:50:05 PM »
Best damn salesman in the office!



He once punched a hole through a cow just to see who was coming up the road.

54
General / A Question for the Theists
« on: February 27, 2011, 10:09:09 PM »
Do you see the "Invisible Hand" as the Hand of G-d?

Do you think the dynamics of the market somehow represent an almost spiritual idea?


Edit: I can be retarded at times.

55
General / The Modern World
« on: February 20, 2011, 01:12:13 AM »
Its funny how convention around the world in the past built the world of today. The Babylonians separated the day into 24-hour parts, and the world followed. They split a circle into 360 degrees, and no one in the world has an angle measured in any other way today.

It gets absurd sometimes. I once asked an Israeli friend if the music written in Israel is written to be read from right to left. He said that no, Israelis just learn to read it the other way, and its still written in Italian!

What universal conventions can you think of? It could be anything. Think of it, and write out a little about it.

Here are the first few that come to mind:

24 hour day -Babylon

360 degree circle -Babylon

Numbers as separate from letters, and the zero- Arabs (the traditional way of writing numbers with letters still exists in Arab lands)

Music Theory- Greece (made by the cult associated with Pythagoras)

Written Music- Medieval Italy





56
General / If You Have A Degree You're Screwed
« on: February 17, 2011, 04:09:53 PM »
I was performing a thought-experiment, and I hit a snag I can't think myself out of. The amount of money the government needs to put into Social Security will rise as a higher percentage as the average persons take-home pay. Raising the tax money will be important to the government, but a simple percentage increase will not work. What I think the government will do to make up for the shortage is start taxing people according to how much they think that person should be making.

I can't imagine why they wouldn't because its already a trick in their bag. This sucks.

57
General / A Question for the Athiests, and Theists
« on: February 10, 2011, 07:29:14 PM »
Lets suppose there is no metaphysical world. We are then a combination of chemical reactions. Whats amazing about us is that we are then a grouping of chemicals that's self-aware. We know how each of us is self aware as well, as we can each imagine easily that other people are also a group of chemical reactions, and equally self-aware.


But then, we can't imagine the self awareness of other animals. We cannot say for certain that a primate is self-aware the way we are, given that none of us has even consciously been a primate that's not a person. We can however say that they are also a collection of chemicals, and so they too have at least some form of self-consciousness. They know that THEY INDIVIDUALLY might be hungry, or tired, or full. So too a plant "wants" on whatever level its will exists on to have water, to be rooted, and to grow. It is capable of leaning its leaves to maximize sunlight because at whatever level it "wants" sunlight, there is a chemical reaction to make it react to sunlight because it "wants" to maximize its growth. Its no different from us wanting to eat because our stomachs growl. Each is acting as a result of chemical processes within it.

If the only definition of life is that of conscious non-stasis, then not only is a man alive, but also an ape, and a dog, and an urchin, and a plant, and a virus, and a prion.

Why stop there? If the conception of self-awareness occurs in any body of thing that has ongoing chemical processes in it, then why shouldn't the ocean itself be a living thing? You might argue that its disqualified because it has component living things inside of it, but I counter that the cells in my body do as well. Why also wouldn't my different body parts have their own thoughts and feelings? If my brain is significant because its a large lump of nerves, then the base of my spine might think I'm a jerk on a deeply subconscious level, because it too is a lump of nerves.The brontosaurus was once thought to have a second brain where a lump of nerves was thought to have been. In this conception, my liver would undoubtedly hate me.

Maybe the sun too has its thoughts. I wonder what they are.

Your thoughts?

58
General / The Perestroika Paradox
« on: January 27, 2011, 08:33:17 PM »
Its as clever a name as any I could think of that parallels the situation in Egypt, and Yemen now. People are rioting now, wanting to replace their government. I'll get to that in a minute.

I always wondered why nations like North Korea would subject themselves to poverty with their leadership knowing which market reforms would invariably lead to a greater amount of wealth in their countries, and I think I now have the answer. As semi-rich as these autocratic leaders are, and although they could easily get richer with market reforms, they know that for their self-benefit, that its a bad thing.

With perestroika, the Soviets tried to change their society, and once people inside saw how awesome the outside world was, their nation collapsed. So, while poverty is bad for even the leaders, it does help keep them in power.

Your thoughts?

59
General / Shot Through The Heart
« on: January 18, 2011, 02:39:16 PM »
I would like to reimagine the lyrics of Shot Through The Heart for a moment. We understand that they say "you're to blame, you give love, a bad name" but what if they instead meant that "you're too blame" and blame means something else entirely?

Maybe Bon Jovi means that being "blame" is a synonym for callousness. That would make the song in effect say " was shot through the heart and you're too blame [too callus, therefore] you give love a bad name.


Think about it.


60
General / Anachronisms Around Us
« on: January 17, 2011, 09:20:24 PM »
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/111745/things-babies-born-in-2011-will-never-know?mod=family-kids_parents

One thing I have wondered for a while now is why car manufacturers still put cigarette lighters into cars. People don't smoke like they used to.

What things do you consider to be anachronisms in today's age?


Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 11

Page created in 0.019 seconds with 28 queries.