Commenter Archive

So what's your point? That the Japanese invented slippery-slope reasoning?

"The unions sided against the Left in the Vietnam War, violently."

No, they didn't. They sided against the progressive movement. That movement was not specifically aligned with the Left/Democrats until the people running the Democrats realized that they could get more votes by playing to the progressives than they'd lose by ditching the traditional blue collar, Old South base.

"It follows from that substitution that the agents who control its supply may set its price."

Congratulations, you've shown that the worker--who is, after all, the supplier of labor--should negotiate on their own, and that unions aren't necessary.

Or, wait, are you arguing that unions are actually corporate entities who contract with other corporations to supply a service? (in this case, labor.)

"Where [labor] is not fungible, as in the case of public sector jobs such as teachers and firemen, the union arises as a necessary component of bargaining: who else is going to negotiate the salaries with an equally non-transferable entity such as government?"

Hang on, you're saying that teachers and firemen are unique and non-replaceable resources, and that therefore they do need a union to represent them? Isn't the whole purpose of unions to ameliorate the power differential between owner and individual worker? If said worker is a unique and non-replaceable resource, then doesn't that already reduce that differential?

Indeed, in the poker example, a player who has a better ability to 'read' his opponents--analysing their unconcious behaviors to get a sense of their confidence about their hands--has an advantage due to the 'rule' that you're allowed to look at your opponents.

"Except a “fair” outcome isn’t a single outcome, it is in fact a procedural one. It’s about justice and fairness, not about a minimum or some particular standard. "

What are your thoughts on the New Haven firefighters case?

"something I never see conservatives address is that government is a monopsony labor purchaser – no one else is buying teachers. You could argue private schools do, but then you agree that the market for education is basically working."

So, wait, your argument is that the government declares that it has a legal monopoly on teaching, and that therefore the response is to collude with that monpoly so that instead of it screwing you, you both get together to screw someone else?

Oh no, hours of nudity. Because Lord knows that nobody looking at life in prison has ever managed to hang themselves with their pants before.

"There is nothing logically inconsistent in the least between these two statements."

BlaiseP: "The military wants Bradley Manning dead."
Mike Schilling: "No, they're going to put him in jail for life."
BlaiseP: "Oh YEAH, well, that's WORSE than being dead!"

*sigh*

You charge 'em for what you can make stick; it's like getting Capone for tax evasion.

Or those music-industry trials where someone is "only" charged with copyright infringement of six music tracks. It's not that the person wasn't copying and redistributing dozens or hundreds of music tracks; it's that the industry lawyers didn't feel it was necessary to submit the jury to repeated depositions (and defense challenges) about the rights status of more than that.

CD-ROM. And he was seen doing it, and he said "it's cool bro, this is my Lady Gaga mixtape", and the people in charge decided to give him a break and not bust his ass over having brought a CD-ROM into a secure area.

CD-ROMs being, in fact, about the second thing they tell you that you aren't allowed to have in a secure area, right after "cell phone".

"The military have accused him of a death penalty crime..."

twenty minutes later

"I’d argue there are things worse than death."

MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND.

"He leaked classified information to a website knowing that all of it would eventually be published."

Yeah, and before he was allowed to look at that information, he signed a paper saying "if I leak this then I go to jail FOREVER".

I thought you libertarians were big fans of binding contracts?

True. But I'm not talking about whether the suggested reform will actually do anything--I'm responding to the "cut this but don't cut it, LOL" snarking in the top post.

But it's possible to encourage students to engage in physical activity without spending superfluously.

"we have a football team" is good. "we are spending school money to send the football team to the other side of the country so they can play in some kind of National Championship" is less good.

Okay, so let me get this straight. You don't know enough about teaching to criticise teachers, but you think that parents should take a larger role in the education of their children.

So you don't know how to do it, but it's important that you do it?

"When it comes time to balance the budget, majorities want...To cut Social Security for the wealthy. But no cuts to Social Security."

Well, no, they don't want to cut Social Security for the wealthy without cutting Social Security.

They answer "yes" to the question "do you think that the wealthy should receive fewer benefits from the government?" And they answer "no" to the question "do you think Social Security should be cut?"

What poll responders are saying, here, is that they do favor cuts to Social Security--for a certain group of people. They don't favor across-the-board cuts in the entire thing; and the question, as presented, looks like that's what it's asking. (The asked question is "Do you think it will be necessary to cut spending on Social Security in order to significantly reduce the federal budget deficit?")

It looks like you missed this post.

"Markets often yield results that are contrary to fundamental tenets of how we should treat other human beings."

Yep. And market participants--consumers, that is, meaning you and me--are permitted to not buy things from people who we don't like.

"Oh, but I need my cell phone, I need my shoes, I need gas to drive my car." Well. Then I guess we've learned how much your principles are worth to you.

"Red cedar was once the preferred wood for pencils, which was almost brought the red cedar to extinction."

And it's a good thing the government stepped in, because there's absolutely no way that private industry would have decided, all on its own, to make pencils out of some other kind of wood.

"At least now there is something more tangible to change, reverse, or improve upon."

Ah-heh. Laws are not code. You don't release the beta version of a law and patch in the rest of the features later.

Thanks!

"We don’t need to audit the cops for everything that they do."

You assume that everything cops do is on the up-and-up, and that nobody has ever successfully played the race card against the cops. Pervasive video isn't a "wasteful audit", it's a defense mechanism.

OH SHIT UNCLOSED TAG, AAAARRRGH

"[W]hat I’m trying to get at is that I think one can support free market policies without having to support every page in the libertarian playbook."

It would be so nice if everyone on the progressive side thought that way.

What exactly do military bases have to do with regulatory bureaucracy?

"Human beings have moral duties..."

Like *what*, exactly?

What's your justification for those "moral duties"? Where's your objectively-supported derivation of how they exist and why they apply?