Re: Sober as a Bush?

[Guest guest]

>You need to read up on behavioral economics. It's very different from

>behaviorism.

Don't you rather mean that Peele does? That was a direct quote from his

website.

Steve

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[Guest guest]

In my opinion, you didn't understand what Peele said because you

haven't read up on behavioral economics. And in answer to your

previous question, you should read up on it so you look like you know

what you're talking about. Do a Google search.

> >You need to read up on behavioral economics. It's very different

from

> >behaviorism.

> Don't you rather mean that Peele does? That was a direct quote from

his

> website.

> Steve

>

> _________________________________________________________________

> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at

http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

[Guest guest]

As if businesses wouldn't cartel to discriminate if we didn't have anti-discrimination laws? That's either naive or disingenious, Mona. I don't know which but I can take a pretty good guess.

It is neither naive nor disingenuous. I refer you to economist Sowell's book, Preferential Polies, where he examines, among other things, why Jim Crow was passed in the first place. If racial discrimination was so absolute a more in the south, laws would not have been necessary to enforce that sentiment among businessmen who otherwise were not inclined to accept the costs of discrimination.

Leave people alone, and have in place mechanisms to enforce contracts, and they will usually engage in rational and mutually profitable commerce.

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

You know, I could be wrong about what Peele meant, but I don't think I'm calling upon you to be a "quasi-official translator" when what he's talking about is clearly not behaviorism, but behavioral economics.

I don't think you are wrong, kayleigh. I agree with Steve on many matters, but am much more open to Peele's views than Steve seems to be. I certainly do not read Peele as a behaviorist. Further, I take a very dim view of the tactic of undermining his arguments with recourse to poisoning the well, i.e., Peele's ostensible support from the liquor industry.

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

Venturing in another direction... Mona are you pleased by our President's desire to put a limit on that 1/3?

If he restricts himself to attorneys fees prosecuted under federal law, yes.

But that isn't gonna get us too far because virtually all states, and many municipalities, have analogous laws which are usually also sued under. So fees in excess of whatever cap would be placed on federal causes of action would be readily available, and a federal cap quite moot.

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

It's not a question of morals, Mona, it's a question of human rights.

First of all, Steve, rights notions are ENTIRELY steeped in moral philosophy. The natural law philosophy underlying our founding documents appeals to me enormously, but it is entirely a matter of faith that such things as "rights" exist. They are not "self-evidently true."

So, let us be clear: the discussion of state-coerced association is, in fact, a matter of morals.

Those

"unalienable" rights mentioned in our Declaration of Independence. Those human rights ***guaranteed*** by the 14th Amendment.

The Constitution and the Declaration don't anywhere say, as far as I know, "these rights stop at the office door."

We have rights as against the government. Only the government is prohibited from interfering with our speech, our religious worship, our right to be secure in our persons and papers & etc, as a matter of human rights. For example, if I search your car, it may be a criminal act, but because I am not an agent of the state, I have not violated your 4th Amendment rights.

The owner of this list may kick you off of it for any reason he pleases.

Any. At all. You have no "right" to be here. (Neither do I.) But if this were a federally sponsored list, you could not be barred from it by reason of your religious beliefs, political opinions & etc. Because as against the government, you have rights. As against a private property owner, you have no rights at all to use his property, except at his sufferance.

As far as any morals angle on this issue, if you want to go back to the Hobbsian law of the jungle, feel free to buy a Pacific atoll.

We are still in Hobbs' jungle, Steve. Big Brother does not change that -- he only fucks around with the rules, usually in a way that benefits people who make their living manipulating them.

If you think coercing business people has done anything to improve the jungle for black people, I invite you to spend one night alone walking the streets of certain parts of the South Side of Chicago. Blacks had more stable communities before all this liberal "help"came their way. At a minimum the aid has not improved their lot, and some propose it has even been part of the reason for the sociological decline.

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

So, you would prefer an emasulated version? Or one so narrowly defined in civil rights as to make no difference?

Pernicious? As in the tyranny of the white majority defining just how narrow those civil rights will be?

As opposed to the tyranny of the white liberal majority that coerces their fellow citizens? Repeal of Jim Crow was a moral and practical imperative.

Social engineering is not the proper purview of the federal government.

Neither to encourage and bolster racism, nor to force people not to act privately according to their racist views. (With the usual caveats that they are constrained by laws against murder, mayhem etc.)

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

I guess my first guess was wrong. You are being naive after all. What a

laugher. People will often engage in socially engrained behavior, including

the most bigoted crapola they learned from their narrowminded parents or in

smalltown Petticoat Junctions.

So, then libertarianism is a belief system after all... you believe in the

goodness of the people.

No Steve. I believe that the profit motive will override all else most (MOST, not invariably or all of) the time; hence the "need" to enact Jim Crow laws. Again, read Sowell on why those laws were passed.

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

The business world is a public world, in my opinion. Just as denoted in the

original Latin use of "forum."

Of course it is public. I never denied the obvious. But these are private actors in the public sphere. Private actors should not be coerced into associations they do not want to have. THAT is a fundamental matter of human rights. I do not want to have to hire, and thereby daily associate with,

Xian fundamentalists; they bug and annoy me. But under the law, I am not allowed to refuse to hire them.

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

Well, we will disagree there. And for the rest of the group, just because I

entertain a possible belief in some version of natural law does not make a

Catholic any more than entertaining a belief in a genetic predisposition to

alcoholism makes me a Step Nazi. So check your assumptions at the door.

Now come on Steve. There is no proof of natural law. None. I like it. A

lot. But I can't prove it, and neither can you.

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

I don't believe you've addressed the three basic rights of Life, Liberty and

the Pursuit of Happiness. These are not "rights against the government," to

use your phrase. They are rights of human existence. Period.

These are rights the government may not infringe. But which it has no positive obligation to effect. I do not owe you your happiness; you merely are entitled that I not kill you, steal from you, or otherwise interfere with your going about your business of pursuing happiness.(You have the right to PURSUE it, but no one owes you that result, and my pocketbook is off limits to your pursuit of happiness unless I choose to open it.)

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

Multinational

businesses do fuck around with the rules, usually in a way that benefits

them who are manipulating them. Thanks for agreeing. <wink>

I DO agree with that, no wink needed. Steve, you do not understand the difference between conservatives and libertarians. When are you going to read Hayek, as I have repeatedly recommended that you do, so that you can cure your fundamental ignorance? The income tax and other laws open very wide doors for business lobbyists; just another of the pernicious unintended consequences of the do-gooder left. What, you thought they were going to be all nice and compliant?

Leave people alone, pass few laws, and you significantly erode the ability of big business to benefit itself unfairly. Pass lots of laws, and they with the most money manipulate them and win.

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

No, pass better laws, and you better restrain the ability of business to

influence government

And *I am naive? <rolling eyes>

[Guest guest]

I said the gov't owed it.

The government owes you happiness? You are joking, right?

--Mona--

[Guest guest]

> In a message dated 7/27/01 1:01:38 PM Pacific Daylight Time,

> fanniecat@h... writes:

>

>

> > Venturing in another direction... Mona are you pleased by our

> > President's desire to put a limit on that 1/3?

> >

> >

>

> If he restricts himself to attorneys fees prosecuted under federal

law, yes.

> But that isn't gonna get us too far because virtually all states,

and many

> municipalities, have analogous laws which are usually also sued

under. So

> fees in excess of whatever cap would be placed on federal causes of

action

> would be readily available, and a federal cap quite moot.

So like a lot of political maneuvers, it is a pointless act to

acquire a few extra votes, or what? Merely a rhetorical political

move? Or are we talking about taking baby steps in the wrong

direction here? That's how it seems to me...

20 years ago, supporters of socialized medicine in the US were few

and far between, but nowadays, nearly a majority of the " sheeple " (as

Steve so considerately calls us) are in favor of it. I see a danger

also in, even jokingly, reducing the or putting a limit on the power

of the any and all individuals' greatest advocates. No pun

intended. Some day it could come to pass in an effective manner, no

matter how remote and absurd it seems today, and IMO it is best not

to even set off in that direction.

[Guest guest]

> 20 years ago, supporters of socialized medicine in the US were few

> and far between, but nowadays, nearly a majority of the " sheeple " (as

> Steve so considerately calls us) are in favor of it. I see a danger

> also in, even jokingly, reducing the or putting a limit on the power

> of the any and all individuals' greatest advocates. No pun

> intended. Some day it could come to pass in an effective manner, no

> matter how remote and absurd it seems today, and IMO it is best not

> to even set off in that direction.

I am one of the advocates of socialized medicine myself, Cool Guy. I prefer

the German individual payer model over the British/Canadian model, tho. It

retains what are good features of a market system yet insures everybody can

afford to buy insurance.

Steve

[Guest guest]

> It is neither naive nor disingenuous. I refer you to economist

> Sowell's book, Preferential Polies, where he examines, among other things,

> why Jim Crow was passed in the first place. If racial discrimination was

so

> absolute a more in the south, laws would not have been necessary to

enforce

> that sentiment among businessmen who otherwise were not inclined to accept

> the costs of discrimination.

>

> Leave people alone, and have in place mechanisms to enforce contracts, and

> they will usually engage in rational and mutually profitable commerce.

>

> --Mona--

I guess my first guess was wrong. You are being naive after all. What a

laugher. People will often engage in socially engrained behavior, including

the most bigoted crapola they learned from their narrowminded parents or in

smalltown Petticoat Junctions.

So, then libertarianism is a belief system after all... you believe in the

goodness of the people.

Well, I'm not one of those wild-eyed optimist liberals, nor a new age mushy

one. I'm a Diogenian, sometimes cynical liberal.

Unless people bring themselves to awareness and work at thinking rationally,

they won't.

Steve

[Guest guest]

>

> > 20 years ago, supporters of socialized medicine in the US were

few

> > and far between, but nowadays, nearly a majority of the " sheeple "

(as

> > Steve so considerately calls us) are in favor of it. I see a

danger

> > also in, even jokingly, reducing the or putting a limit on the

power

> > of the any and all individuals' greatest advocates. No pun

> > intended. Some day it could come to pass in an effective manner,

no

> > matter how remote and absurd it seems today, and IMO it is best

not

> > to even set off in that direction.

>

> I am one of the advocates of socialized medicine myself, Cool Guy.

I prefer

> the German individual payer model over the British/Canadian model,

tho. It

> retains what are good features of a market system yet insures

everybody can

> afford to buy insurance.

Are you kidding? I never would have guessed!

[Guest guest]

> As opposed to the tyranny of the white liberal majority that coerces their

> fellow citizens? Repeal of Jim Crow was a moral and practical imperative.

To whom? Not to many Southern whites whose parents and grandparents had

defended slavery from the Bible and who themselves still believed in the

curse of Ham.

Nor are the repeal of similar caste laws a moral or a practical imperative

to the upper castes of India.

Again, you presume too much of most people, in my opinion. You presume them

to be a lot more rational than they actually are. Or, to draw on h

Fromm's Escape from Freedom, you presume them to be far more rational than

***they want to be.***

> Social engineering is not the proper purview of the federal government.

In whose opinion?

> Neither to encourage and bolster racism, nor to force people not to act

> privately according to their racist views.

The business world is a public world, in my opinion. Just as denoted in the

original Latin use of " forum. "

Steve

[Guest guest]

> > It's not a question of morals, Mona, it's a question of human rights.

>

> First of all, Steve, rights notions are ENTIRELY steeped in moral

philosophy.

I perceived you were using morals in a narrower sense.

> The natural law philosophy underlying our founding documents appeals to

me

> enormously, but it is entirely a matter of faith that such things as

" rights "

> exist. They are not " self-evidently true. "

Well, we will disagree there. And for the rest of the group, just because I

entertain a possible belief in some version of natural law does not make a

Catholic any more than entertaining a belief in a genetic predisposition to

alcoholism makes me a Step Nazi. So check your assumptions at the door.

> > " unalienable " rights mentioned in our Declaration of Independence. Those

> > human rights ***guaranteed*** by the 14th Amendment.

> > The Constitution and the Declaration don't anywhere say, as far as I

know,

> > " these rights stop at the office door. "

>

> We have rights as against the government. Only the government is

prohibited

> from interfering with our speech, our religious worship, our right to be

> secure in our persons and papers & etc, as a matter of human rights. For

> example, if I search your car, it may be a criminal act, but because I am

not

> an agent of the state, I have not violated your 4th Amendment rights.

>

> The owner of this list may kick you off of it for any reason he pleases.

> Any. At all. You have no " right " to be here. (Neither do I.) But if

this

> were a federally sponsored list, you could not be barred from it by reason

of

> your religious beliefs, political opinions & etc. Because as against the

> government, you have rights. As against a private property owner, you

have

> no rights at all to use his property, except at his sufferance.

I don't believe you've addressed the three basic rights of Life, Liberty and

the Pursuit of Happiness. These are not " rights against the government, " to

use your phrase. They are rights of human existence. Period.

> We are still in Hobbs' jungle, Steve. Big Brother does not change that --

he

> only fucks around with the rules, usually in a way that benefits people

who

> make their living manipulating them.

Big Brother? I didn't talk about Microsoft in my post. Big Brother, to me,

is multinational business, not a government in Washington that kisses that

Big Brother's ass. [Note to all readers: Microsoft is being used as a

" cut-out " for big business in general.]

Now, using your term and my definitions, I'll agree. Multinational

businesses do fuck around with the rules, usually in a way that benefits

them who are manipulating them. Thanks for agreeing. <wink>

More seriously, back to those three unalienable human rights. Those natural

rights. Because they are natural, I contend the government has an obligation

to protect these rights. And that is more active than " just " removing

government threat.

>

> If you think coercing business people has done anything to improve the

jungle

> for black people, I invite you to spend one night alone walking the

streets

> of certain parts of the South Side of Chicago. Blacks had more stable

> communities before all this liberal " help " came their way. At a minimum

the

> aid has not improved their lot, and some propose it has even been part of

the

> reason for the sociological decline.

I don't claim government intervention has solved everything. And, in line

with earlier posts... 130 years ago, a lot of white Northerners could have

used Reconstruction, for one thing. As far as some programs, the day I see a

bus pull up to Hyannisport is the day I believe the Kennedys are really

behind liberal programs.

As far as the Great Society, to which I am sure you are ultimately making

reference... a lot of it didnt work because it was gutted from the get-go by

Congressional kneecapping or the giant funnel of Vietnam. And I certainly

don't think you can establish a correlation between every, or anywhere near

a majority of, federal programs and the decline of black inner cities.

Some propose? Which conservative think tanks do they work for? I know

Sowell's with the Hoover Institution, so I already have my answer in one

case.

I can think of other causes for the decline of inner cities. Failure to

continue to fund mass transit, making it tough for poor blacks to move, as

compared to whites with cars goint to the suburbs; failure of the minimum

wage to keep pace with inflation; the rise of private schools both north and

south to escape integration. That's just for starters.

Steve

[Guest guest]

> > Well, we will disagree there. And for the rest of the group, just

because I

> > entertain a possible belief in some version of natural law does not make

a

> > Catholic any more than entertaining a belief in a genetic predisposition

to

> > alcoholism makes me a Step Nazi. So check your assumptions at the door.

> >

>

> Now come on Steve. There is no proof of natural law. None. I like it. A

> lot. But I can't prove it, and neither can you.

>

First, Mona, the " check your assumptions " was of course, for the rest of the

group, who don't know me as well as you. (Tho you probably didn't realize I

had a belief in natural law, at least of a weak level, either.)

No, neither of us can prove it. It is a matter of faith. Everybody has

faith. Including an atheist. An atheist, especially of Western

scientism-influenced stripe, has the **faith** that nothing exists beyond

this material world. That's unprovable too.

Steve

[Guest guest]

> > I guess my first guess was wrong. You are being naive after all. What a

> > laugher. People will often engage in socially engrained behavior,

including

> > the most bigoted crapola they learned from their narrowminded parents or

in

> > smalltown Petticoat Junctions.

> > So, then libertarianism is a belief system after all... you believe in

the

> > goodness of the people.

> >

>

> No Steve. I believe that the profit motive will override all else most

> (MOST, not invariably or all of) the time; hence the " need " to enact Jim

> Crow laws. Again, read Sowell on why those laws were passed.

>

OK, so you're just semi-naive then. No, thanks, I've read Sowell enough in

the Dallas Morning News. I " ll pass. Even worse, I read too damn much of that

stuff when I was a kid, from some of my mom's conservative political mags.

Yes, he's more libertarian on econ issues. But not social ones.

Steve

[Guest guest]

> In a message dated 7/27/01 8:39:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time,

> steverino63@h... writes:

>

>

> > The business world is a public world, in my opinion. Just as

denoted in the

> > original Latin use of " forum. "

> >

>

> Of course it is public. I never denied the obvious. But these are

private

> actors in the public sphere. Private actors should not be coerced

into

> associations they do not want to have. THAT is a fundamental

matter of human

> rights. I do not want to have to hire, and thereby daily associate

with,

> Xian fundamentalists; they bug and annoy me. But under the law, I

am not

> allowed to refuse to hire them.

And strangely enough, in their businesses they are aloud to refuse

you for whatever reason they desire. Surely this liberal must stand

behind this? Oh but the moralists in governments can't be flawed or

make mistakes that hurt the rest of us...

[Guest guest]

> > The business world is a public world, in my opinion. Just as denoted in

the

> > original Latin use of " forum. "

> >

>

> Of course it is public. I never denied the obvious. But these are

private

> actors in the public sphere. Private actors should not be coerced into

> associations they do not want to have. THAT is a fundamental matter of

human

> rights. I do not want to have to hire, and thereby daily associate with,

> Xian fundamentalists; they bug and annoy me. But under the law, I am not

> allowed to refuse to hire them.

Again, I disagree. When I said business is public, I meant all of business,

not selected bits and pieces.

If private actors want to be private, they can go to fucking Idaho in a log

cabin with Aryan Nations. No man is an island.

Steve

[Guest guest]

> Leave people alone, pass few laws, and you significantly erode the ability

of

> big business to benefit itself unfairly. Pass lots of laws, and they with

> the most money manipulate them and win.

No, pass better laws, and you better restrain the ability of business to

influence government. Political term limits and bans on ex-politicians

lobbying come to mind. So does public financing of congressional campaigns.

It's not the existence of laws that's the problem, it's the existence of the

wrong laws.

And, I don't need to be evangelized about libertarianism. Nor do I think I'm

confusing it and conservativism. I don't think my comments about Big Brother

Business showed that I did. They simply showed that I mistrust Big Business

far more than Big Govt.

Steve