Nicky

Some of the differences: 1. FB stocks aren't forced on anyone. 2. FB stocks aren't backed by the force of taxation. 3. FB shareholders have a say in determining the company's leadership that is proportional to how much stock they own. No one except them has this power. 4. The declared purpose of FB is to generate a profit for its shareholders. None of these things are true for the dollar.

Are you sure you don't want to rephrase that a little?

...for obvious/egregious transgressions? Let's say the government passes a law that results in people dying. These people's relatives can of course sue, and the Courts can find in their favor, if the law is unconstitutional. Should the Constitution also contain a set of penalties (jail time, death penalty), which would result in the legislators behind certain unconstitutional laws (not all, mind you, just select cases where criminal intent can be demonstrated) being charged with a crime based on it? P.S. This came up because of the threats the DOJ made against state legislators passing laws instructing state employees to participate in the trade of marijuana. As far as I can tell, the federal government does have the power to prosecute state legislators if they, in their official capacity, violate federal law - a power, I think, is proper (though they clearly shouldn't have the power to prosecute anyone, legislator or regular citizen, over pot). Why should legislators be immune to federal laws, after all? Which begs the question, who should hold members of Congress accountable for their actions as legislators, if not the highest courts as prescribed by the Constitution?

I don't think anyone will take you up on your dare (because it doesn't come with the reward dares usually come with), but if they did, they could start any business that was started in 1947 (except maybe one cooking meth, or some other weird activity that became illegal since then). Sure, it's more difficult to start a business, but that's not a trait of communism. In communism, it's not difficult to start a business: it's impossible.

It's not like writing a bad check. Writing a bad check is fraud because you are paying someone money, the check is simply a stand-in for that money. If you write a bad check, that means you are intentionally misleading the other person in handing you something of value, in exchange for money you are pretending to be giving them, but in fact don't. Writing a note promising a payout you fail to honor may or may not be fraud depending on your intentions when writing it. If you have every intention of honoring your promise and never mislead the other side on what your promise is backed by, but run into trouble along the way and can't pay up when the time comes, then it's not fraud. But all this is off the subject. It doesn't really matter if it's fraud or not (incidentally, I never said whether the note was backed by any commodity, because it doesn't matter). The only goal of my example was to illustrate why the mere act of fractional reserve lending doesn't inflate the currency used as the reserve. It does create new money, but only in the form of a new, proprietary currency associated with the lending entity.

Concentration camps weren't "re-education" camps, they were extermination camps. American public schools are schools, not camps. So you shouldn't call extermination camps re-education camps, and you shouldn't call schools any kind of camps. You should call them public schools, because that's what they are, no matter what your opinion is on their hidden purpose. And there are enough essential differences between the United States and the Soviet Union, North Korea or other near-perfect communist states, that you shouldn't call both systems by the same name unless you're trying to prove some kind of point via wordgames.

Let's say I write you a note stating that I will pay 100 dollars to whoever shows up at my doorstep with it (or I create an electronic record that works the same way), and there is someone out there who takes this seriously enough to give you some kind of goods for it. Thus, my note just entered circulation as a currency. Would you say that my note has therefor become a hundred dollar bill? That now the US economy has another 100 dollars in circulation? I submit to you that it doesn't. It has the same exact amount of dollars it had before. My notes are not dollars, they are a new form of currency. And there is a crucial difference between me issuing more and more of these notes (that I can't possibly give you dollars for), and me printing a bunch of hundred dollar bills: in the first case, only the value of the notes would decrease, not of the dollar. In the second case, the value of the dollar would decrease. Fractional reserve lending is not the printing/creation of new dollars (or the creation of more gold, if gold is the currency). It's the printing of these notes I described. The problems start only when the government is in control of both the creation of money and fractional reserve lending, and it fails to sufficiently distinguish between the dollars and the notes. Then, fractional reserve banking does become a tool for monetary inflation (though still not necessarily economic inflation).

A prerequisite of having a conversation with someone is to agree on a set of standards for that conversation, such as common definitions of the English language, the rules of logic, etc. I'm ending the conversation because I don't think you are willing to abide by any standards. I did at first engage you because I figured your liberal use of "socialism" was probably the exception to the rule, but your preference for a silly catchphrase instead of the clear and concise term "public schools" tells me that it's not.

If in a Capitalist state private individuals owned everything, and in a modern Capitalist state they own pretty much everything except a few things like schools and roads, nothing changed enough to warrant a new term. Therefor the US economic system is currently Capitalism. Do you see anything wrong with this argument? Do you wish to insist that the only capitalist economic system is one in which all means of production are privately owned? I assume you do. So why would you not want to also distinguish between Communism/Communist entities, the movement/entities which aim to establish a stateless society in which all means of production are commonly owned, and the American government? You'd think it would be clear to everyone with a pulse that the American government is not a Communist organization.

You can keep misusing the term, or you can look up what it means. It's up to you.

Because you didn't say that conservatives weren't fighting for gay rights in 1960, you said they were trying to take away all gay rights today. That's not true. There are two "gay rights" in total: the right to engage in gay specific sexual behavior, and the right to be treated equally by the state. The only right conservatives are trying to deny gays is the second. And even that, only to a relatively small extent. They're only seeking to deny gays access to one government defined legal arrangement, out of many: the institution of marriage. Claiming that they are trying to take away all rights is blatantly false. I know conservatives personally. All the ones I know, the reason why they're not talking about outlawing homosexuality is because they don't believe it should be outlawed. That is the reason. Not any other one.

I remember posting a lengthy explanation on the many meanings of the word "communism", in the past. I'm not gonna repeat it, I'll just say that none of those meanings describe a socially liberal country with a mixed economy, like the US. Calling the US communist is a poor attempt at hyperbole. There are some typically fascist methods being used to run the US government and some of the government controlled industries, though. I'll give you that.

That's not really true. The main right gay people have is to have gay sex. Most conservatives aren't trying to take that away. They are only targeting the right to marry, which is a minor issue compared to the decriminalization of homosexuality. I can't really think of any other rights that are particular to gay people.

Monstrum thinks that the job of the government isn't just to protect rights, but to also force people to be rational, not realizing that "forcing someone to be rational" is a contradiction in terms.

Capitalism is a necessary condition of a rational culture, but not a sufficient one. It is the political system that allows people to be rational, but it doesn't make them rational. The solution to irrationality is rational discourse, advocacy, dialog, etc. Capitalism facilitates those (prevents the government from interfering with it, and forces the government to protect the rights of advocates as much as possible), but doesn't make them magically happen. The kind of acceptance we have today is the result of some brave people fighting for a culture that's more rational on this topic, back when it wasn't popular to fight for it. That happened due to their bravery, but also due to having a capitalist society (at least as far as speech and the exchange of ideas is concerned, not so much economically). Without either one of those causes, the other wouldn't have been worth much.

What specific immigration policy is aimed at getting people into the country illegally and on benefits? I know there are social policies aimed at getting the poor on benefits, but I know of no such immigration policies. I'm pretty sure the indigenous poor would be quite upset if anyone suggested we should actively seek to provide them with competition for their benefits.

I'm not debunking Lord Acton. I'm debunking you. Lord Acton never said what you think he said.

No? So what are the criteria a legal system should consider, when establishing a penalty for a crime?

If "experimental observation" is what claims are justified by, in the final analysis, then wouldn't the notion that "experimental observations" are what justify claims be an axiom of science? Everything has an irreducible starting point, even science. The real difference is the kind of starting point science has: reality, consciousness observing reality, and identity (logic) are the axioms we rely on to build our wealth of scientific knowledge upon. These are axioms because they are implicit in any statement anyone makes, even the statement "there's no such thing as existence, consciousness and identity". In contrast, the starting points theologians use are arbitrary. Randomly made up, they have nothing to do with reality. Do you means to suggest that mathematics is also built on such arbitrary starting points? If you do, I think many around here would love to argue against your position.

Yes, me. Intentionally inflicting emotional pain on someone through illegal means should carry a larger sentence than inflicting mere property loss on them through the same exact means. Not trying to defend Leonid though. This has nothing to do with whether anything is alive, sentient or just an object. It should be equally true whether the means was destroying a pet puppy, dead daughter's doll or a beloved cockroach (although I assume the malicious intent would be easier to prove with a puppy than a cockroach or an object, since it should be obvious that killing someone's puppy will hurt them on an emotional level).

The're not trying to be a sovereign state though, they're just trying to be subject to the laws of a tax haven, while 12 miles from the technological capital of the world. Their legal status would be the same as any other ship sailing under the flag of a small nation. The only problem would be that they wouldn't actually be sailing, but instead they would be a stationary target. However, that might be at least to some extent offset by the extremely safe location they are choosing to be stationary in.

It actually sounds good, from a financial standpoint. I do have some concerns: 1. I assume law enforcement will be a negotiated affair, between the "host" country and the owners of the ship (the owners will have a negotiating position because they could, in theory, switch flags if the country's government acts out too much). But still, there would be cops from the Bahamas on board, and anyone who is arrested will be hauled off to the Bahamas for trial and potential imprisonment. As a person known to break the law on occasion (pretty sure pot is illegal in the Bahamas too), I would be worried. A Bahamian prison doesn't seem like something I'd do well in. 2. International crime networks would undoubtedly view the ship as a potential trafficking hub (and probably a market, too, for drugs and prostitution). With the limited resources a country like the Bahamas has to fight them, what will prevent the cartels from exploiting this weakness? 3. A ship filled with rich westerners 12 miles off the coast of California will be an attractive target for terrorists, Islamists, radical leftists and American nationalist alike. To counter this, the Royal Bahamas Defense Force has 700 men and exactly two ships and an aircraft at its disposal. But, sadly, it doesn't have any pilots trained to actually fly the aircraft. So it's just two ships, really.

No, it doesn't, as exemplified by the millions of honest judges, cops and soldiers across the world.

Ok, fair enough.The answer to my question is "No.", though. And yes, there is at least one case where it's hard for you to deliver the money: if the person doesn't want it, or at least doesn't want to go to the trouble of setting up the logistics to get it. After all, he didn't ask for it. But, as long as you make that clear (so that people who make anonymous donations to someone who hasn't asked for them themselves, are aware of the possibility that the money could go to wikipedia instead), it's not a problem.