Merrily, we roll along!

[CobGobbler]

So...your point is what everyone on earth already knows? Since government controls exist in just about every country, minus the ones in Africa that I don't want to live in, I'd like to be in a country that also has pretty liberal social conditions. This country was founded by prudes that had to leave the vulgarity of Europe behind...it's no wonder why we can have violence on the tube all day long but showing one boob for 1.2 seconds amounts to an FCC investigation. Only in a country like ours can Rick Santorum, who still believes men rode around on dinosaurs, be taken seriously. I'm serious. He thinks men tamed dinosaurs and rode them around like Taun Tauns....yet we take him seriously on a pretty important level. Defies logic.

[Top Gun]

Such as the where you might be able to bath nude on some beaches and gays can get married…but if you want to paint your house or drive a certain type of car…you need permission from the government in triplicate.

...where is this a thing outside of some crazy goofy fantasy world?

[Spidey]

You use this tactic all of the time TG, and Will just gave it back to you in spades…(different thread)

Personally I don’t have his patience, but I will remind you of the case LEON mentioned in a thread, on how in Germany & Europe the state considers you property.

This is the kind of thing I am talking about…I could waste my time looking up examples, but as I said…I don’t have the patience. (they were only examples, not necessarily actual things)

I consider these attempts to force people to “prove” everything they say as a diversion tactic, only to ignore the point being made.

Sure, if you simply say prove what you say, it will work on people like me, because I have no intentions of posting links, only to have people say…that’s a crap site…Blah Blah, so if you want the “truth” look into it yourself.

And if you think I’m copping a plea, well that’s fine with me as well. As I said I don’t have the patience, or the will to suture every split hair.

You don’t believe me…I accept that.

[Top Gun]

So because they're not actual things, they're not really "examples," only stuff you're making up. Why bother making an argument if you know it's incorrect and can't even be bothered to defend it in the first place? There's not any worth to that.

[Spidey]

Because I could give 20 actual examples, and you could say “that doesn’t prove anything” or the source is bogus…etc.

In fact a quick check and I found people with diabetes being banned from driving and several “older” car bans etc…

[callmeslick]

back on to the original topic:

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/2 ... al-cartoon

[CUDA]

Such as the where you might be able to bath nude on some beaches and gays can get married…but if you want to paint your house or drive a certain type of car…you need permission from the government in triplicate.

...where is this a thing outside of some crazy goofy fantasy world?

in Portland Oregon.
We have a yearly nude bike ride in the middle of the city. Gay marriage is legal. And you need the permission of the city council (in my area) to paint your house any color but earth tones.

[callmeslick]

big deal. I have a 20-page contract with my neighborhood association. As stated earlier, you can move if you don't like it, or not buy there in the first place. It is hardly something as onerous as a restriction on real serious freedoms, is it?

[CUDA]

neighbor hood associations and city governments are not the same thing.

[callmeslick]

agreed, CUDA, but my gist was that such restrictions are pretty routine(civic associations, condo agreements, 'historical' disrict codes, etc) and hardly some big-time infringement on any core right. It isn't as if they are banning you from owning property, for example.

[Tunnelcat]

Such as the where you might be able to bath nude on some beaches and gays can get married…but if you want to paint your house or drive a certain type of car…you need permission from the government in triplicate.

...where is this a thing outside of some crazy goofy fantasy world?

in Portland Oregon.
We have a yearly nude bike ride in the middle of the city. Gay marriage is legal. And you need the permission of the city council (in my area) to paint your house any color but earth tones.

Yeah, but the nude bike ride only happens once a year, at night, and gay marriage doesn't affect you personally. But driving by a purple and yellow house every day is really an eyesore!

[CUDA]

agreed, CUDA, but my gist was that such restrictions are pretty routine(civic associations, condo agreements, 'historical' disrict codes, etc) and hardly some big-time infringement on any core right. It isn't as if they are banning you from owning property, for example.

I was just responding to TG asking where. I personally didn't care to get too involved in that discussion

[CUDA]

Such as the where you might be able to bath nude on some beaches and gays can get married…but if you want to paint your house or drive a certain type of car…you need permission from the government in triplicate.

...where is this a thing outside of some crazy goofy fantasy world?

in Portland Oregon.
We have a yearly nude bike ride in the middle of the city. Gay marriage is legal. And you need the permission of the city council (in my area) to paint your house any color but earth tones.

Yeah, but the nude bike ride only happens once a year, at night, and gay marriage doesn't affect you personally. But driving by a purple and yellow house every day is really an eyesore!

ya but the Bike ride happens in the middle of the city, where anyone can see, even little children. to the best of my recollection it is not even a permitted event. and people ride in Portland nude during the day occasionally. hell we even had some jamoke strip naked at PDX in a crowded lobby because he didn't like the TSA doing their search of him. No charges were filed against him. nudity is permitted in Portland

For a city largely populated by pasty, pale people, Portland sure likes to get naked. Thanks to a 1985 Oregon Court of Appeals ruling, local nudity laws don’t apply in cases of protest. Thus, Naked City USA has seen an area man strip naked at in an airport security line to protest the TSA and an annual naked bike ride that features 10,000 nudists pedaling around town. In Portland, it’s actually legal to ride a bike naked, but illegal to not wear a helmet. Apparently, the government will not protect its citizens from road rash. There’s also a nudist club that hosts a bare bowling event,

[callmeslick]

I had that same 'pasty people' thought earlier.......

[Sergeant Thorne]

hell we even had some jamoke strip naked at PDX in a crowded lobby because he didn't like the TSA doing their search of him.

Yeah... sorry 'bout that.

[Tunnelcat]

ya but the Bike ride happens in the middle of the city, where anyone can see, even little children. to the best of my recollection it is not even a permitted event. and people ride in Portland nude during the day occasionally. hell we even had some jamoke strip naked at PDX in a crowded lobby because he didn't like the TSA doing their search of him. No charges were filed against him. nudity is permitted in Portland

For a city largely populated by pasty, pale people, Portland sure likes to get naked. Thanks to a 1985 Oregon Court of Appeals ruling, local nudity laws don’t apply in cases of protest. Thus, Naked City USA has seen an area man strip naked at in an airport security line to protest the TSA and an annual naked bike ride that features 10,000 nudists pedaling around town. In Portland, it’s actually legal to ride a bike naked, but illegal to not wear a helmet. Apparently, the government will not protect its citizens from road rash. There’s also a nudist club that hosts a bare bowling event,

Well, I can't explain the behavior of those weird Portlanders and I have seen the idiocy shown on TV once. I'm not from the same vein and I don't approve of the stunt either. It's kind of gross. But the birthday suit isn't illegal as long as no sex acts or indications of arousal are on display and riding a bike is not sexual, usually. As for kids seeing things, keep 'em inside if you're a prude and worried. They see worse things online and on TV. As for naked not being illegal on a bike but a helmet is required, if one gets butt, boob or genital road rash from falling on the pavement, I can't think of a worse punishment to solve the issue.

[Top Gun]

And you need the permission of the city council (in my area) to paint your house any color but earth tones.

Well that's an incredibly stupid ordinance. Though by Spidey's standards, I think it means that Portland is a much scarier place to live than Europe.

[callmeslick]

And you need the permission of the city council (in my area) to paint your house any color but earth tones.

Well that's an incredibly stupid ordinance. Though by Spidey's standards, I think it means that Portland is a much scarier place to live than Europe.

actually, that is very common. When I lived in New England, many towns had strict color and DESIGN rules for any building in the town, including businesses. Sort of fun seeing clapboard McDonalds and white colonials housing pizza joints.

[Spidey]

Once again obsessing with a single example does nothing for the overall point.

And to answer slick…no, any single item doesn’t constitute a horrible loss of freedom…it’s the cumulative affect.

.............................................

My original point wasn’t really about lost freedoms, it was bureaucratic control, yes you have these nice liberal rights, but at the same time every single aspect of your life is tightly controlled.

Want to pee, need a toilet that only uses X amount of water…want to shower, need a head that only delivers X amount of water…want to drive, need a car that gets X MPG…etc.

Well you say, that’s all great because we have to “save the planet” and that would be fine…if it stopped there, but it doesn’t…it goes on to removing your kids from home if they don’t attend a public school, or the case I heard not too long ago, where the Italian farmer wanted to convert a small piece of his land to a dirt track, but was told no.

The examples go on and on……….

The people in Europe went from rule by monarchy to rule by oppressive government, they never had the freedom we had at first in this country. My opinion is that most governments are control freaks. (we are headed there fast)

You know what the European people call the American type of freedom……SPOILED. Because they are used to being told how to live, it’s natural to them.

I also feel there is a lot of “grass is greener” syndrome going on.

[callmeslick]

back to original topic.....a friend of mine(an IT/engineering geek who retired from working in security contracting) wrote the following in an exchange on CNN's web news forum. I agree, completely. and it could have been written to address this group, just as well:

.

The problem is, once a certain level of wealth is achieved, it means people can gain more wealth simply for being wealthy. They no longer have to work for it. They're in a position to siphon off some of the fruits of the labor of many, many other people. Interest, rent, virtual monopolies, control of necessities, and similar. Speculation in the necessities of life for millions, that benefits the speculators by raising prices for the rest of us. I've heard the term "rent seeking" used to refer to that.

Then, they have enough wealth to influence the political system. They fund candidates who will pass laws and regulations that benefit themselves, at a cost to the rest of us. They fund politicians who will choose judges to return a ruling that benefits corporations and wealthy people in Citizens United vs.the FEC, for instance. That allows them even more freedom to influence elections, and the laws and policies that our government pursues.

And, they pursue policies that benefit themselves, to the detriment of the rest of us. They pursue policies that have us use our military might - which they also work to make effective enough to achieve their ends - to force open other markets. They fund disinformation about global warming. They fund disinformation about social policies, to keep us divided and polarized. They propagandize us with information about how the poor are merely lazy, uneducated, stupid, and immoral, about how the size of government is the enemy. The government is the only tool to fight the power and wealth of the elite, but they don't want us to realize that. They DO own the government, at this point, but they don't want us to realize that we really can make it do the bidding of the majority of us, instead of the bidding of the elite few. That's why polarization and disinformation are so useful to them.

As very wise people have said, you can have either great wealth disparity OR democracy - but not both. So, we have great wealth disparity. It becomes a great problem for the great majority of us, when too much wealth is concentrated into the hands of too few of us. No matter how unfair progressive taxation seems to people who work hard for what they earn, we either have that, or we have plutocracy. Now, we have plutocracy, and many, many more people are suffering because of that than are benefiting from it.

Most of the people here are doing ok, and it serves them to believe that the problems that so many people are facing are their own doing. The current policies are benefiting them, but those policies exist because they REALLY benefit the elite.

[Will Robinson]

I see a flaw in that guys assessment.
He presents an absolute..."you can have either democracy or wealth disparity".
That, in the context of his other comments/observations, implies the only way to solve it is to move to a more socialist or communal form of society to decrease the disparity. He champions the progressive tax system as a solution and in theory he isn't wrong but in application he has come up short.

He has aptly illustrated how the people who control government steer it to protect their own wealth proving his own 'either/or' assessment is flawed. The progressive tax system he cites as a solution is controlled by the people in charge of the government and the reason our tax code is a million pages too thick is because those in charge have been creating loopholes for themselves or to sell to others.

You can let government have the power to address wealth disparity but ultimately the people who are given the control of government will create and protect wealth and power for themselves. We see it already in the arrogance of our Congress and Presidents. They wont remove the disparity, they will just rearrange it to suit their chosen group/s.

The tax revenue system needs to be isolated from the Congress and President. We need a Revenue Bill of Rights, establish a Federal Reserve type management of the Revenue department and make it very difficult for Congress to amend the tax code. That requires a flat tax, fairtax, etc. type of system. Certainly a progressive component will be needed but it can no longer be a blank check device in every congresspersons tool kit.

[Spidey]

There is so much wrong with this thread I barely know where to begin…

1. Haven’t you claimed to be a capitalist? Now you rail against that very thing.

2. “The problem is, once a certain level of wealth is achieved, it means people can gain more wealth simply for being wealthy” This has been a fact forever.

3. If this wasn’t posted by you, I would swear it was leftist propaganda.

4. “As very wise people have said, you can have either great wealth disparity OR democracy - but not both” This country was founded by people with great wealth disparity.

5. Government is wealth and power…why the hell should I give it more?

6. I hear no solutions…only ways to exploit it. (taxation)

7. The implication that the wealthy only do bad things.

8. One with political influence complaining about that very thing.

9. Scapegoating innocent people. (landlords for one)

10. etc…

Don’t get me wrong tho, I get (I think) your point, but it’s filled with so many flaws and promotion of higher taxes and bigger government, it makes me want to ………Yawn.

[Top Gun]

4. “As very wise people have said, you can have either great wealth disparity OR democracy - but not both” This country was founded by people with great wealth disparity.

And considering only wealthy white male landowners could vote at the time, I don't think we could really call it a democracy.

[Spidey]

Are you sure the definition of “democracy” hasn’t changed over time to suit the current conditions?

In ancient Greece only Male landowners could vote…and that is where “democracy” got its namesake…now it has become more inclusive, so hence the definition change.

So no, it probably doesn’t qualify by today’s standards, but it did by the only example that came before it.

I keep warning people about judging the past thru the lens of the present.

.............................

Edit:

In fact the most modern definition of democracy is “full participation” and sadly enough…modern America doesn’t even come close to qualifying.

[callmeslick]

I see a flaw in that guys assessment.
He presents an absolute..."you can have either democracy or wealth disparity".

well, no, he quotes another who had made that claim

That, in the context of his other comments/observations, implies the only way to solve it is to move to a more socialist or communal form of society to decrease the disparity. He champions the progressive tax system as a solution and in theory he isn't wrong but in application he has come up short.

to his point(and this guy is NOT a communist, trust me....he states that flaws and all(he admits shortcomings), the graduated tax is the only large scaled leveler of the economic playing field which we have.

at any rate, interesting thoughts, and thank you for helping me prove a point to myself. I posted the identical item in another forum(the one from which CUDA and I first started exchanging thoughts). There, I got stuff like: 'what a load of BS'. 'what a mess', and of course a personal attack on me, without one comment of nuance or substance. Here, the initial response has both nuance and substance. Attaboy, Will!