merjet

Sorry to hear about your computer. Earlier this year a Windows update wrecked the OS on my desktop. I paid a local computer shop to get a software re-build. That took 3-4 days. In my view “bribe” has a legal meaning and an ordinary meaning. I disagree that my using “bribe” with its ordinary meaning but not legal meaning makes it a floating abstraction or even a metaphor. Also, one of my premises is not that what Bloomberg is doing or has done constitutes an initiation of force that should be prohibited by law. There are many ways P1 could bribe P2 w/o it being illegal. Suppose a high school coach pays a star athlete and his parents so that the star athlete will attend the coach’s high school. Bribery, yes, but it’s probably not illegal. Nor is it initiation of force or fraud. Modify the example to make it college rather than high school. Then the coach may break NCAA rules, but it is not illegal. Still no initiation of force or fraud. There are all sorts of wrongs that don’t qualify as initiation of force or fraud – breaches of contract, breaches of trust, even recklessly violating traffic laws. (Many of the breaches could violate civil law rather than criminal law.) I explained my disapproval of what Bloomberg has done here. It is not initiation of force nor fraud, but it is (arguably) breaking the law and trampling on the principle of the rule of law. It may also be a trampling of rules regarding 501(c)(3) entities and 501(c)(4) entities like I explained here. If John Doe gives money to ex-felon John Smith so that Smith can pay his financial penalties and Smith then vote in Florida, even if I could accurately predict how Smith would vote, I have no problem with that. Doe’s motive is likely charity rather than a bribe. If John Doe gives or solicits money to give the money to Smith and other ex-felons, I have no problem with that. Again Doe’s motive is likely charity rather than a bribe. But the sort of huge, organized effort of Mike Bloomberg, ActBlue Charities, and the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition to get around the law to influence vote counts in Florida and maybe abusing tax law, that’s a whole different story.

Dependent Rational Animals #2

[1] Yours is one opinion. Many others believe it is vote buying and you have not refuted them. If you believe there is such a thing as vote buying, please give an example or two. [2] I didn’t get it from you. I read and saw, for example here and here (both linked in this thread), that “financial obligations” includes more than fines. Apparently, you didn’t read that, forgot what you read, or ignored it.

It is even more stupid for you to assert a priori that the probability is necessarily 50%/50% simply because there are two possibilities. If you believe that is necessary, I will be glad to sell you a bridge in Brooklyn. The sale would be conditional on the condition that you pay the full price in cash in advance. ... Mere assertion, no evidence. Vote buying is a form of bribery (link). Fines may be the main form of punishment for a third degree felony. Yet fines are only a part of the financial obligation required to be paid in Florida to restore the right to vote. The obligation includes “fines, fees, costs and/or restitution.” Hence, you assume that restitution of victims of crime is “inconsequential” and not part of justice.

Per here third degree felonies include “possession of drugs such as cocaine, oxycodone or a 20-gram surplus of marijuana” If you believe possessing a little cocaine, a little oxycodone, or a 20-gram surplus of marijuana is a “serious crime”, that’s your choice. My using “traffic tickets” was not a great choice of words. But maybe enough speeding tickets, a suspended license, and driving on a suspended license is a third degree felony in Florida. Common usage of “ex-felon” is someone who has been convicted of a felony but who has served his or her entire sentence and is no longer under any other form of correctional supervision. Are you trying to play Word Nazi?

Desmond Meade is President and Executive Director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC). FRRC is a 501(c)(4) using ActBlue Charities, a 501(c)(3), as a "front" to get contributors tax savings for donating to FRRC. Donations to a 501(c)(4) are not tax-deductible.

I watched the debate last night. What a raucous. The local suburban paper’s headline was Wildfire in Cleveland! In the debate President Trump said Biden called some criminal drug dealers “Superpredators.” I read somewhere that was mistaken because it was Hillary Clinton. Trump did say Biden’s treatment of black people was awful, but he could have hit Biden even harder for Biden’s role in making drug laws. Reason Magazine’s November 2020 issue has two articles ‘The Case Against Trump’ and ‘The Case Against Biden.’ https://reason.com/magazine/ Digital subscribers can read them online. I get the print edition. The Case Against Biden has a lot about Biden and his role in legislation, especially crime legislation, and especially about drugs. According to the article: Biden wrote the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which prescribed new mandatory minimums and created the notorious weight-based sentencing distinction that treated crack cocaine as it were 100 times worse than cocaine powder. Two years later, Biden co-sponsored another bill for harsher minimum sentences. Because crack offenders were overwhelmingly black and powder offenders were more likely white or Hispanic, the result was much harsher penalties for black offenders. By the early 1990’s, pressure was building for reform of crack penalties. In 2002 Biden conceded: “We may not have gotten that right.” During Biden’s run for the 2020 Democratic nomination Cory Booker harshly criticized Biden’s role in making the drug laws that destroyed black communities like Booker’s. The article says Trump did some tweets last year about Biden’s part in the bad treatment of African Americans. A Trump campaign video released in May, 2020 and a June blogpost slammed Biden as the chief architect of mass incarceration and the War on Drugs which targeted black Americans.

[1] My second and third questions concerned the motives of Michael Bloomberg and ActBlue. Your answer ignored both entirely. So what do you believe their motives are – pure charity or vote-buying? Also, what do you believe about what Michael Bloomberg and ActBlue believe the probabilities of the newly enabled ex-felons voting Republican or Democrat? This is not about how you believe the ex-felons would vote, but about what Bloomberg and ActBlue principals believe. [2] Where did you get that garbage? I have said nothing even slightly similar. You owe me an apology. What I dislike is the illegal vote buying (link1, link2) of Michael Bloomberg and others, and their getting a tax subsidy for it. I dislike ActBlue Charities being a “money launderer” tax-wise for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. ActBlue Charities is doing something a 501(c)(3) is not authorized to do, despite its getting away with it so far. After seeing the 60 Minutes episode about the hurdles keeping ex-felons from voting, I have empathy for them, especially if they had minor offenses like possessing too much marijuana or traffic tickets. The hurdles are too high and Florida’s atrocious record-keeping and bureaucracy make it too difficult for the ex-felon to clear them. That’s a matter of changing the law and reforming the record-keeping and bureaucracy. However, organized vote buying by Michael Bloomberg and ActBlue is trampling on the rule of law via an illegal workaround.

I disagree and said nothing about birthday presents.

Dependent Rational Animals #1

Dude, do you really not understand the difference between "condition" and "conditional"? Self, ignore him(?). You have seen how much he(?) ignores your questions. Ditto to you. Bye.

"In November 2018, Florida voters passed Amendment 4, a measure that restores voting rights to certain felons (nearly 1.4 million people) once they have served their sentences, including parole and probation. Those convicted of murder and sexual offenses remain unable to vote. In March 2019, a state law was passed that limits Amendment 4. That law requires former felons to either pay all fees that they owe as part of their case or get their sentence modified in order to register to vote. At the time of its passing, this law prevented nearly 775,000 felons from voting." https://www.findlaw.com/voting/my-voting-guide/can-felons-vote-in-florida.html https://www.brevardcountyduilawyer.net/what-is-a-third-degree-felony-in-florida/

I didn’t ask what you know or anybody else knows with certainty about something that hasn’t yet happened. I asked you about a probability. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Definition of "condition." The word “receiving” is not on that page.

Part of 60 Minutes last night was about ex-felons being able to vote in Florida. I learned that the record-keeping for knowing whether on not an ex-felon has outstanding fines & whatever, or even how many $$ they are, is atrocious. Regardless, in my view, that does not justify bribery. Fix the eligibility rules for ex-felons to vote by changing the law and cleaning up the mess. Click on the part of the page linked above about this matter. Then the new page includes another link to see the 60 Minutes episode. The main guest is President of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.

Really? Are you trying to say that the probability of the ex-felons' votes is 50% Democrat and 50% Republican or close to that? If so: 1. What is your evidence or justification for that? 2. Do you really believe that Michael Bloomberg believes in a 50%/50% probability (or close)? If yes, why would the Trump hater be willing to spend $$millions to enable the ex-felons to vote? 3. Do you really believe that ActBlue -- committed to electing Democrats and channeling money to Florida Rights Restoration to enable ex-felons to vote --believes in a 50%/50% probability (or close)? Do you really believe that Florida Rights Restoration will put no pressure on the ex-felons they help to vote Democrat? I clearly said 5 days ago and 23 hours ago what would make the offer unconditional -- offer the ex-felons cash-in-hand in lieu of using the money to enable them to vote.

A leader in the effort to enable felons in Florida to vote by paying their outstanding fines & whatever is the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. I went to its website https://floridarrc.com/. When the page loaded and I scrolled down a bit, there was a clickable 'Donate Today' rectangle. Proceeding as if I were going to donate, I saw the following (URL = https://wegotthevote.org/freethevote/): "ActBlue Charities is a qualified 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and donations are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed under the law. "I acknowledge that my contribution is being made to ActBlue Charities and earmarked for Florida Rights Restoration Coalition Education Fund, to whom my contribution will be forwarded." ActBlue's purpose is to fund Democratic candidates and policies. On the other hand, clicking the X in the upper right corner after https://floridarrc.com/ loads and then clicking Donate, another page loads that says: "Florida Rights Restoration Coalition is a sponsored project of Tides Advocacy, a non-profit exempt from federal taxation under Section 501(c)(4). Contributions to Florida Rights Restoration Coalition are not tax-deductible." This looks fishy. A 501(c)(3) organization is supposedly prohibited from political activities. However, "other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner. "On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) favor one candidate over another, (b) oppose a candidate in some manner, or (c) favor a candidate or group of candidates, constitute prohibited participation or intervention." Link. So I have an open question: Are contributions made to enable Florida felons to vote tax-deductible? If 'yes', that is corrupt. And somebody such as Michael Bloomberg contributing $X million only costs him about 0.5*$X million after income tax savings.

Teen: "Math isn't real" Coronavirus - how much infected? #2 A socialist’s view of the self-employed

David Odden, I am not a lawyer nor consider myself well-informed about the legalities of the Mike Bloomberg and Florida vote situation. My comment about bribery was my philosophical perspective. Is Bloomberg’s paying these fines a bribe or a gift? It is far more a bribe in my opinion. I posed the question, For it to not be a bribe, shouldn't the felon or ex-felon be able to choose between cash-in-hand and paying the fines? Based on what I have read Bloomberg is not offering cash-in-hand as an alternative. You cited federal law about vote-buying. Fine. Also apparently relevant legally is a Florida law about “either directly or indirectly provide something of value to impact whether or not someone votes.” In my philosophical opinion, Bloomberg’s purpose is exactly that. His action is not an unconditional act of charity.

Stephen, I am not a one-issue voter about any narrow topic. I judge candidates according to where he/she fits on my ranking scale from -10 to +10, where -10 = totalitarian and +10 = advocates equal, optimal freedoms for all, the state doing only its proper functions. The extremes being -10 = maximum coercion or bullying and +10 = minimum coercion or bullying would be a good scale, too. Economic freedoms get their due weight in where I rank anybody. Regarding actual voting, it is usually and unfortunately the case of choosing the lesser of two evils. I put Biden well on the negative side of that scale. Trump is negative, too, but not as negative. Biden is a wishy-washy leftist, follower-not-leader, and a puppet. So for him it’s more a matter of whom I expect would be his puppeteers. He has been a politician for over 50 years. He hasn’t been a real producer of anything except four children. If he gets elected, his exercise of power will be heavily influenced by others, such as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, HRC, and AOC, all totalitarians. He is very pro-intervention on foreign policy, except he opposed the 1991 Gulf War! I expect he would too readily kowtow to the U.N. The thought of Biden being Commander-in-Chief of the military makes me shudder. Of course, he will get advice from the military. But what if the advisors strongly disagree? Then he would need to decide. Ugh. What would he do? Call Obama and hope for something to change? Smarts? He ranked in the 26th-percentile in his graduating class for his B.A. He ranked in the 11th-percentile in law school, where he was a plagiarist. Regarding abortion, I am for a woman’s right to choose. On the other hand, I am against many, many people who are pro-abortion and approve coercing others to pay for her abortion via taxes (with maybe two exceptions). You mentioned same-sex marriage. Are you aware of Joe Biden’s history about that and homosexuality? See Wikipedia. There is plenty for me to rate Trump a negative. Most of them are common knowledge. Positive? He reduced corporate tax rates. He hasn’t kowtowed to the U.N. or Iran. He hasn’t led the U.S. into an extended and costly war (e.g. in Syria) like George W. Bush and Obama did.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/517522-bloomberg-pays-fines-for-32000-felons-in-florida-so-they-can-vote When I saw this early yesterday, my reaction was: Paying fines or paying bribes? For it to not be a bribe, shouldn't the felon or ex-felon be able to choose between cash-in-hand and paying the fines? I was glad to see the following several hours later. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/matt-gaetz-election-bribery-probe-bloomberg-florida

The Logic of Bell Curve Leftism #3

The Logic of Bell Curve Leftism #2

Yesterday I watched most of the video debate here between Yaron Brook and Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan was pretty bad.

The Logic of Bell Curve Leftism #1

“My heart cannot help pumping my blood around my body provided it is working properly. In contrast, the power to act that animals possess is associated essentially and constantly, so I would insist, with a simultaneously-possessed power of refrainment” (A Metaphysics of Freedom, p. 156). Yes, my heart does not choose to pump blood or not. I do have some control over how fast my heart pumps. I can do some exercise and more than double my heart rate. I have even more control over what I see. Wherever I am looking, I can open and close my eyes. I can choose to look elsewhere by moving my eyes or head. I can choose/control what to focus on within my field of vision, i.e. attention. Vision is two-way as follows. One way is the incoming light. The other way is my control of attention. Other senses also have two-way aspects. Animals also show attention.