Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "OxfordUnion"
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+William Faulkner
"This guy is just..."
Your "argument" is fallacious on a more fundamental level. You are not addressing his facts or his arguments, you are just giving yourself an excuse for dismissing them. It is a form of ad hominem which C.S Lewis called "Bulverism", basically, what folks are taught in schools today instead of crititcal thinking. "Mansplaining", and a priori dismissal of the opinions of non-minorities are all based on this fallacy:
From Bulverism by C. S. Lewis:
"You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.
"In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — 'Oh you say that because you are a man.' 'At that moment', E. Bulver assures us, 'there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the natural dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.' That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.
"Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is 'wishful thinking.' You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant — but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.
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I suppose the Koch brothers find what Rubin says to be helpful, that does not discredit him. You are not addressing his facts or his arguments, you are just giving yourself an excuse for dismissing them. It is a form of ad hominem which C.S Lewis called "Bulverism", basically, what folks are taught in schools today instead of crititcal thinking. "Mansplaining", and a priori dismissal of the opinions of non-minorities are all based on this fallacy:
From Bulverism by C. S. Lewis:
"You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.
"In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — 'Oh you say that because you are a man.' 'At that moment', E. Bulver assures us, 'there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the natural dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.' That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.
"Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is 'wishful thinking.' You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant — but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.
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"Dave your attitude that those living in a State of America where they don't like the local government should move to another STATE?!!!!!!!!"
Talk about turning a statement on it's head. He is a libertarian, he's not about forcing people to do anything (other than forcing them to mind their own business, which is the essential task of limited government, because left to themselves, people won't) nor even offering unsolicited advice. He is about giving people options. He is presenting being ABLE to vote with your feet as an advantage of localized government. Your objection is not to people being uprooted (because you know it is not forced). You can't stand the notion of people having a choice.
"The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the average American moves 12 times during his lifetime, according to Mayflower Transit. Many reasons contribute to the need to move, such as buying or renting a new residence, pursuing a job opportunity, attending college or a change in marital status."
https://www.reference.com/health/many-times-average-american-move-e8e3a9c6af3327f5
As for the difficulty, the distance moved is not much of a factor in a move, you have to do as much work whether you're moving across the country or across town. How many people do you know that have never moved?
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As charged, you call people having a choice "unfair". It is true that human nature devolves into despotism. This is the minimum necessary function of government, to force people to mind their own business, for their temptation to butt into other's business is humanity's besetting flaw. Yes, limiting government is hard, for that reason. Pushing as close to that ideal as possible is the only alternative to sliding into despotism, which is the way of entropy, downhill, the way things go if good men don't fight it. We have never attained that goal but we have been the most free, and most prosperous especially at the bottom end, and minimized the temptation to corruption, when we have come the closest to it. It is not a naive utopia, because it builds on a realistic view of human nature and directly confronts and thwarts our key failings. Strong state is naive and utopian, because it assumes that the same flawed humans whom you say cannot be trusted with the power of wealth as businessmen can somehow be entrusted with ALL the wealth AND the power to censor, PLUS the power to have you shot.
Federalist #51 James Madison:
"It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
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+DN
""They can get all the publicity they want sticking with establishment hosts whom they KNOW won't challenge them."
+Ve Ly
"I do not know that Rubin changed his values for money yet you do know this for certain, such hypocrisy."
The behavior of such hosts can be determined empirically, and the guests can use that as a selection criterion. This is not comparable to your speculation about motives: One is analysis of behavior, the other is speculation on motive. One is pattern recognition, the other is mind reading.
"what the left is, if you do not know that they are against the corrupt establishment."
Four commercial TV broadcast networks, every cable news channel except one, essentially all the rest of the cable channels, Hollywood, and the Silicon Valley powers that control and tweak search engines, deplatforming, and the like in a partisan mannerthat's an overview of some of the largest leftist institutions which DON'T usually leverage taxpayer money for leftist advocacy: Those that DO include public broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, public sector labor unions, chiefly and most eggregiously the National Education Association, and the federal, state, and local education bureaucracies that it controls to indoctrinate students, lobby, etc., and a whole host of "non profit organizations" that receive taxpayer funds which they use to propagandize the public and lobby. Every aspect of the latter section is a fundamental conflict of interest, the very matrix of corruption, and it's not even secret, this is being done out in the open. This whole power bloc is the most monolithic and powerful establishment the world has ever known. If you don't know about this, you don't know the most fundamental fact of the American power structure.
Against this we have 1 cable news network, most of talk radio, some half deplatformed and downlisted websites, and a handful of policy advocacy groups funded mostly by small donors, a few by a minority of the billionaires. Note that most of the big donors donate to Democrat and leftist causes and groups. Big business LIKES big government. Vest all the power in one organization and own the organization works for them. The safe and self-serving thing for any business large enough for the establishment to notice to do is join the oppressors. They can influence the regulation to stifle their competitors. Medium and small business is Republican, because they can't get preferential treatment and they only benefit from general prosperity. In such a climate, opposing the establishment is unlikely in the extreme to be self serving or corrupt. There a whole field of Goliaths ravaging the land and when David Koch starts eying some smooth stones, you shout "Corrupt" "Unfair". Despite the power situation, there are, of course, a great number of gifted persons who oppose the establishment. If you were a Koch brother, would you support a genuine advocate of many of your ideas, or would you try to corrupt an advocate of the establishment, knowing that the establishment can outbid you six ways to Sunday, and that they will flip your traitor right back? It may flatter your prejudices to assume that anyone who opposes you must be corrupt, but that does not make it a valid assumption.
The institutions I mentioned may not seem leftist to you if they are no more leftist than you. This reminds me of a discussion I had in the 80s with a leftist fellow student who said that the 3 commercial networks were not leftist. I shared with him the results of the Lictor Rothman report which showed that 90% of the decision makers in the newsrooms (editors, writers, anchors, reporters) voted for Jimmy Carter in an election in which Ronald Reagan got 53% of the popular vote (and the independent Anderson got 4%). I concluded, "They may not be leftist compared to you, but compared to a more meaningful control group, like the US electorate, they are very leftist indeed."
I'll hear you about the Republican establishment dominance when the Republican party wins an election in the District of Columbia, where the bureaucrats, wonks, and lobbyists live.
" why wouldn't you criticize Rubin for complaining about "regressives" and doing identity politics,"
Because he supports his criticism with arguments and facts and not mindreading and prejudice.
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"I guess it is very easy to assume that everything you disagree with is left-wing"
I quantified my statement about network newsrooms with poll data and cited the source.
"Just recently a federal judge appointed by Bush"
Bush was not a conservative.
"Ocasio-Cortez won, and how much support did she get from CNN and other "liberal" media outlets? NONE."
Is that your minimum standard of liberal? She's a member of Democrat Socialists of America, is for the abolition of ICE, and claims ICE maintains secret torture centers along the border. CNN & company want to WIN back the Congress, so that they can impeach Trump. They know that they won't win nationally with candidates like her.
"And lastly I told you before, you lack integrity"
Yes you keep saying that and define lack of integrity as failing to assume that the Koch brothers supporting the opposition to the side the rest of the billionaires are supporting is corruption.
"I go by what he says and what he does."
Nothing that he says or does supports your accusation that he is corrupt.
"He's not backed up by facts"
Can you cite anything he said that is not demonstrable?
"If you want to talk about about monoliths let's talk about the money monolith, let's talk about the huge corporations"
I did, they support the Democrats, they're for open borders, and big government. They are part of the monolith I mentioned. If you support big government you are on their side.
You talk about the top 5%, and inherited wealth, as though the sons of the top 5% in one generation were the top 5% in the next generation, that is not so. According to Forbes, only 30% of billionaires inherited their wealth. And the largest corporations and the top 5% individual earners do not always coincide. The Forbes 400 changes membership each time. Trump, for instance, fell out of the last list before his election. That there will always be rich people and poor people does not mean that they will always continue to be the same people.
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+Ve Ly
"Yes you look at poll data instead of policies; proves my point."
I am citing data and making arguments, you are repeating disproven assertions.
-Digital Nomad
"They know that they won't win nationally with candidates like her."
+Ve Ly
"they did so well with establishment Democrats the last time,"
So they weren't extreme enough? I will post again here after the mid-terms and we'll see how well the Social Democrats do.
"They donate millions to conservative outlets and the Republican party"
And THAT DOES NOT MAKE THEM CORRUPT. OBVIOUSLY.
"the free market can provide health care (albeit an overpriced, under-covered, shitty one)"
The reason why the health care market became overpriced is because of the ubiquity of health insurance, so that the persons making health care decisions weren't the ones paying for it. Health care insurance became ubiquitous because in WW2, wages were controlled and taxed, but "benefits" were not. Employers competed for workers with benefits. In other words, the problem was not caused by free markets, but by government intervention.
"A big government would regulate the corporations and wouldn't allow the corporations to rule government by donating millions to the political parties in exchange for favors."
Why do you think that? Bigger government has ALWAYS led to more corruption. Our current government is way beyond its constitutional bounds and gets more corrupt as it gets bigger (like every government in the history of mankind). Einstein defined insanity as continuing to do the same thing and continuing to expect a different result. You have no logical basis for thinking that the same humans that you say can't be entrusted with a handful of billion dollars can somehow be entrusted with all the money, plus the power to censor you, regulate you, arrest you and kill you. That is not logically coherent. James Madison, federalist 51:
" It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
"glad you referred to an exceptionally shitty businessman, who despite his inherited wealth went bankrupt 6 times to show that downward mobility is possible"
You did not address my data from Forbes. In America, upward and downward mobility is common.
All you do is make assertions, you never cite data or make arguments. You're busted. Persistence is no substitute for an argument.
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+Ve Ly
"Written in the same text, unbelievable, no consistency, no honesty, no integrity."
What is this word salad supposed to mean? I note that you are repeating your slander of me, but you seem to think you have some evidence for it. You don't. You consistently state (and perhaps believe) that anyone who disagrees with you is dishonest and has bad motives. It does not follow that quoting somebody disagreeing with you is going to be recognized as proof that the person is dishonest and has bad motives.
+Digital Nomad
"Persistence is no substitute for an argument."
+Ve Ly
"Lol, yours or mine, why are you still here, mate?"
I persist in arguing, you persist in asserting. Persistence has its place, but a SUBSTITUTE for argument is not that place.
+Digital Nomad
"Democrats want open borders".
+Ve Ly
"What an intellectual, hilarious!"
You forgot to make an assertion. Are you asserting that Democrats, in particular the Social Democrat extremists you were praising in previous posts, don't want open borders?
"Darling, health is an essential part of life everyone NEEDS it, so naturally health care is omnipresent."
Health care is not synonymous with health insurance.
"EXCELLENT health care in their home countries in Europe which cost them very little because it was funded by taxes en regulated by the government."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNH7GTaUPQA
"So we should obviously turn to big corporations leading us, because that NEVER leads to corruption, OBVIOUSLY."
Big government compounds the power and influence of big business. Big business is using big government to stifle its competition, largely through the regulation you love. You still haven't answered my question. What makes you think the same humans that you say can't be entrusted with a handful of billion dollars can somehow be entrusted with all the money, plus the power to censor you, regulate you, arrest you and kill you? This is the fundamental problem with the notion that we need to give the government MORE control over our lives, when there has been too much since at least the late 30s overall. Not that every change has been for the worse, but US government is a bloated disaster. You want to cure our cold by giving us cancer. With the same medicine that gave us the cold in the first place.
"I will tell you a story:"
I will give you data:
http://college.usatoday.com/2015/01/02/for-the-first-time-public-colleges-get-more-money-from-students-than-states/
"The study, which was conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, traced public college revenue between 2003 and 2012. In 2003, state funding accounted for 32% of public colleges’ revenue — more than any other source — while tuition made up 17%.
"But almost every year since then, money from students (and their parents and grandparents) went up, while state funding dropped. By 2012, tuition made up 25% of revenue, while money from state governments made up 23%."
Note that they are not counting in the "government funding" the fact that 80% of the tuition cash is from government loans and scholarship, with strings attached, of course. Of the non-government, non-tuition funding for colleges, some of it comes from alumni associations and other non-profits, some of which comes from your "big money". But "big money" is leftist, statist establishment money. The establishment holds the whip hand, otherwise all those leftist, Marxist, post-modernist professors would never have obtained tenure in the first place, much less have virtually shut out the idealogical opposition. It is universally recognized (no pun intended) that higher education is utterly and oppressively dominated by the left. Everybody knows this. You know this.
"From the early days of the select few having all of the power"
Those are they days that YOU want to bring back. Don't you realize the inevitable consequences of concentrating all the power in ONE institution? If increasing freedom, and spreading out the power, upholding enumerated rights, and material progress for the greatest number are the measure of human progress (as they are indeed), then leftism and socialism are the most regressive movements history has known.
"self praising diaries"
Where in my posts do I so much as mention, much less praise, myself?
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"without arguments."
Pointing out a non-sequitur is a necessary part of argument, when dealing with someone who repeats a non-sequitur.
"Oh dear, are you making assertions now?"
No, I'm asking questions.
"But it is intellectually dishonest and lazy to make it seem like the fringes of a movement are representative of the entire movement, don't you think?"
The Social Democrat you cited as the savior of the Democrat party from the old establishment Democrats is for the abolishment of ICE. No immigration enforcement is a synonym for open borders.
+DN "What makes you think the same humans that you say can't be entrusted with a handful of billion dollars can somehow be entrusted with all the money, plus the power to censor you, regulate you, arrest you and kill you?"
+VL
"Well these are not the same people for starters."
Precisely. Did you read the federalist quote above? The anarchist fallacy is to assume that men are angels. The leftist fallacy is to assume that men are governed by angels. No unction of sainthood or state of grace is afforded a public figure, like all men he experiences temptations proportional to the scope of his power, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
+VL
"If we get money out of politics."
Yes that is the rub, the greatest single perversion of the system is the many ways in which TAXPAYER money is funneled into partisan influence of the elections and issue advocacy. This is the most important and fundamental conflict of interest in our current system. Public sector unions "negotiate" contracts with the government at every level, then contribute to the campaigns of the candidates they negotiated with. These unions also encourage and subsidize the "correct" political activities on the rank and file, and punish the "incorrect" ones. In the case of teacher's unions, they also indoctrinate students directly. More on education below. The Ad Council and "public service announcements", and other government publications advocate policies to the voter. The government subsidizes non-profits that contribute to candidate's campaigns. The government subsidizes politically charged "art" through such agencies as the National Endowment for the Arts. The government operates a state funded and controlled media outlets in the form of the Public Broadcasting Network, and state and local subsidized media. The government encourages dependency on their handouts which influences the electorate. All of these conflicts of interests militate the same way. The common interest of this entire corrupt network is an increase in the scope of government power and spending. The government has no business using taxpayer money to influence elections.
"..the people in power will have reached that status by people voting them in - just as easily as they can be voted out - not by bribes."
But you don't want to get rid of the bribes, you want to get rid of the part of campaign contributions that helps both sides, leaving the electoral advocacy exclusively in the hands of the corrupt establishment, the mainstream media, and Hollywood.
"And they don't stay in power indefinitely, even the highest administration can only last 8 years,"
You cite the ONLY office of the federal government that has term limits, the presidency. Did you vote Republican when Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America" put term limits in the platform?
"It is universally recognized that education broadens the mind"
That is certainly the ideal, but when the institution stifles access and expression of opposing viewpoints, as the current education establishment does, that is not the result.
"But the problem lies not with the educators or students, but with the administration and the accessibility of education."
While many professors are pulling down six figure salaries, the problem of increasing education cost is primarily a result of vastly bloated administration staff, partly an overhead of regulation compliance, but mostly a result of staffing new administrators whose job is to enforce political correctness on campus and in the curriculum.
"the spectrum has moved so far to the right that the people who pursue an education are in debt for life."
The increase in cost is a result of the overhead of stricter political enforcement of unanimity. How does a movement to the right increase student debt?
+VL "poverty, famine, child labor, exploitation and no hope for the future."
+DN"Those are they days that YOU want to bring back."
+VL
"those are the days you don't want to leave."
Are you trying to maintain that:
1. "poverty, famine, child labor, exploitation and no hope for the future." are characteristic of US society.
2. that these are characteristic of free rather than socialist societies?
This is not what history shows us. This is not what current affairs show us. Prosperity is characteristic of economic freedom. Exploitation is characteristic of centralized government power. Hope is characteristic of equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. If freedom fostered poverty, the US would be among the poorest countries in the world and our poor would be poorer than the poor in other nations as a whole, but this is not the case. If socialism enriched a society, Americans would be clambering to get to Mexico to get jobs (and they would be turned away, because Mexico enforces their immigration laws). Venezuela was once one of the most prosperous nations in South America, but has been reduced to an economic shambles with plenty of "poverty, famine, and hopelessness". The newly nationalized oil company can't even run the oil fields at a profit.
"Tell me how much freedom is there in poverty, in famine in a lack of education and health care?"
Freedom creates prosperity and prosperity pays for education and health care. All the material advances since the dark days of centralized government power in the hands of aristocrats have resulted from freedom. Freedom is the mainspring of human progress. That is why America, starting from scratch, surpassed the giants of the Old World in a century and a half.
"Progressives want to provide you with all the necessities you need to survive"
So they keep saying, and they keep achieving the opposite. (cue the Einstein quote)
"so you can be truly free."
"Providing for" individuals disincentivizes productivity, and enslaves them to their "benefactors". There was a class of people who had their needs provided for, they were called "slaves". "Freedom to", freedom to act freely is freedom. "Freedom from" is slavery"
"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, ‘You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’ " - Abraham Lincoln
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