There are similarities though between an slave and an employee.

LIKE a corporation doesn't mean IS a corporation... it means LIKE a corporation.

9/14/2006 10:37:23 PM

Quote :

"I will still fight you to the death to preserve the liberties of me and my fellow country men."

Will you fight against warrantless wiretaps to preserve my 4th amendment right?

9/14/2006 11:11:07 PM

Quote :

"LoneSnark: And who gets to decide what is relevant and accurate? Oh, right, politicians do."

Not so. You'd benefit from reading the thread about Wikipedia. Stephen Colbert's point, while meant to be humorous, is a reasonably sound observation. Especially in view of the soundness of much of the content in Wikipedia's articles. It's Democratized Reality at your fingertips. But that's all a digression.

Does the fact that politicians get to decide what information is relevant and accurate bother you more than letting corporate executives decide what's relevant and accurate?

I ask because at minimum, the government can compel corporations to action, but corporations can't compel government to action. And I think that's where your Ayn Rand and your economic sense of justice springs from: the observation of that inequality.

But I can do more than observe the same inequality and agree with you that it exists and is unjust. I can invite critical consideration of your extension of credibility to corporate interests as well. You seem to be of the persuasion that somehow government is prone to bias educational systems into centers for the dissemination of insufficiently qualified information, and the private sectors isn't. I challenge that notion wholeheartedly.

What's to stop runaway corporate executives from biasing educational content in favor of their companies? How do you propose to prevent corporate bias being introduced into the information you share with students in a privately-run education system?

Quote :

"LoneSnark: You said the Federal Government should educate them because you cannot."

There are other reasons I said that besides my inability to be born into trillions of dollars of yearly revenue.

Quote :

"LoneSnark: Information is just facts, what is meant by education is discerning what the facts mean which gives the "Teacher" immense power to ignore what they consider irrelevant and concentrate on what they consider important. Being politicians, what is irrelevant is their failures and what is important are their successes."

I agree. And are corporate executives somehow less guilty of wanting to ignore their failtures and sucesses when given the opportunity to educate? I'd say no, just based on the quality of information that corporations volunteer about themselves and their products to consumers when not compelled by government.

Quote :

"LoneSnark: A "corporation" is a construct based on the "meeting of the minds" between voluntary individuals. A Corporation capable of using force to compel individuals is no longer a corporation, it is a "gang" as Ayn Rand called it, or a Government as the dictionary calls it. Using "Corporation" to describe a Government is akin to calling a slave an "employee.""

Interesting analysis. So, are corporations slaves to government in your view? After all, they're robbed by the same gang that you are at the end of the fiscal year.

I used corporation as an organizational structure markedly similar to a government that compels shareholders to invest, and provides goods and services to its shareholders and stakeholders. That compulsion is the single different you, or Ayn Rand, have really been able to spell out, yet.

Given that, I'm still waiting to hear how my comparison qualifies the idea as "the dumbest thing you've ever heard." It seems farfetched you'd have to refer to Ayn Rand to rebut something so self-evidently stupid.

The slave comparison is rather invalid, and wildly sensationalist to boot. Citizens can emigrate. Citizens can take jobs where they aren't paid, or aren't paid legally, and therefore don't pay taxes. You're flat out incorrect about the invalidity of my analogy, at least on these grounds alone. The same rules that apply to working for a particular corporation often apply to living within a particular country, and especially to paying its taxes.

moron understands the idea of following the language. Saying a corporation is like a government or that a government is like a corporation isn't the same thing as equating them. It's observing that they are similar. Unless you're a machine, or simply absurdist in your expectations, you ought to be capable of recognizing the similarities. And I think you are, otherwise you wouldn't have effectively called your own government a "gang" simply because Ayn Rand said it was ok.

[Edited on September 15, 2006 at 2:40 AM. Reason : ...]

9/15/2006 2:38:26 AM

i realize and respect the fact that most of you are actually very intelligent...

but how can there be a debate as to whether or not to reinstate a draft when there is no NEED for one

that is not to say that we don't require more soldiers for current conflicts

BUT we don't NEED more soldiers because we don't NEED to be in Iraq

9/15/2006 3:28:46 AM

I think if you phrased that as a question and made a thread out of it, you'd get an interesting set of responses. See if anyone can actually establish the need for being in Iraq without upsetting any previous comments they may have made about it.

9/15/2006 4:23:29 AM

Quote :

"How do you propose to prevent corporate bias being introduced into the information you share with students in a privately-run education system?"

Because a corporation cannot compel customers to attend then if people find the information sub-standard then they can change suppliers.

Quote :

"The slave comparison is rather invalid"

I don't see how. A Government is perfectly able to outlaw emigration (try legally visiting Cuba). In the same vein, a slave can run away to Canada. The U.S. Government has assumed the same right to imprison you for visiting Cuba as a slave owner has claimed to punish run-away slaves.

Quote :

"you ought to be capable of recognizing the similarities"

There are similarities, all things share similarities. However, the two are fundamentally unlike. A corporation is based upon voluntary exchange, Government is based upon involuntary exchange. To make another analogy you probably will disagree with is someone buying a sandwich and someone else stealing a sandwich.

Quote :

"Will you fight against warrantless wiretaps to preserve my 4th amendment right?"

Probably not, some transgressions are more egregious than others.

[Edited on September 15, 2006 at 6:03 PM. Reason : .,.]

9/15/2006 6:01:06 PM

an FYI for those that didn't see it as of yet.

http://www.wral.com/news/10356847/detail.html

11/19/2006 2:33:36 PM

they should bring it back, im aged out and i think my little brother is too. so fuck it

11/19/2006 2:53:48 PM

^^ they can propose all they want..it's not gonna happen, ever again.

11/19/2006 2:55:44 PM

methinks he's doing this just to get people to focus on the absurdity of the way our forces are stretched right now.

SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP

[Edited on November 19, 2006 at 3:04 PM. Reason : .]

11/19/2006 3:04:26 PM

Chapel Hill's population would grow

11/19/2006 4:37:22 PM

that would be cool. illegal immigrants doing a mandatory 6 year enlistment for full citizenship... GREAT IDEA.

11/19/2006 6:25:22 PM

Quote :

"i think the government should start drafting kids again. that's the only way we'll be politically active again. as long as it's a volunteer force . . ."

I stopped reading.

[Edited on November 19, 2006 at 8:09 PM. Reason : .]

11/19/2006 8:05:36 PM

^ If you had kept on reading, you'd realize that he actually didn't contradict himself there. While you might have had a point if you stuck with it, you only served to make yourself look like a stupid-ass.

[Edited on November 19, 2006 at 8:43 PM. Reason : .]

11/19/2006 8:43:24 PM

take you draft and suck a dick

11/19/2006 8:50:35 PM

I think this is a democratic attempt to bolster oposition to the war, hopefully with oposition to the draft americans will be more sympathetic to reducing troop levels in a quick response. It also contradicts what a leading Republican who is going for the presidency is imploring, maybe to degrade his status. I think this will backfire on Democrats.....trying to reinstate the draft after you gain control of congress will only set you back with voters...even if they are bluffing

11/19/2006 9:45:12 PM

Quote :

"i think the government should start drafting kids again. that's the only way we'll be politically active again. as long as it's a volunteer force . . . the majority of families affected are minorities and poor whites. until more people of the upper middle class are dying there won't be political activism amongst the youth of today."

11/20/2006 1:35:52 PM

this thread reminds me of a convulsing infantile retard....


mandatory service for certain rights might be a good idea.... then again it might not, better than randomly forcing ppl to 'serve' is not a good idea

11/20/2006 2:07:05 PM

SERVICE GAURENTEES CITIZENSHIP

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE?

11/20/2006 5:02:02 PM

i bet if this DEMOCRAT had used the "Bring back the Draft" as his platform during campaigning, he wouldn't have got a single vote. Democrats

11/21/2006 6:57:47 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/19/stanley-mcchrystal-says-the-u-s-should-reinstitute-the-draft/

Quote :

" So was it a mistake to move to a volunteer army? I’m not sure it was a mistake, because the volunteer army I served in was this extraordinary fighting machine. But having said that, I now believe we need a draft. America’s defense should be performed by a representative cross section of the population. With a draftee army, there’d be some new challenges, but I think we could solve that. What would the consequences be for American foreign and security policy if everybody had skin in the game? Oh, I think it’d be much better, because right now, there’s a sense that if you want to go to war, you just send the military. They’re not us. But if you wanted to go to war and your son or your daughter had a very high chance of going, you’d be more invested. It wouldn’t be just tax money; it would be emotional. So we’d go to war less often and take it more seriously when we did? I think that would be the outcome. "

2/19/2013 11:43:47 AM

As long as the politicians that actually control the military can keep their sons and daughters out of it, a draft will not have his intended effect.

Oh, and as long as the same politicians make a shit-ton of money from the war industries....

2/19/2013 12:06:39 PM

it would still have some effect

and it would still be a terrible idea.

2/19/2013 12:11:07 PM

we should have the draft, and women should be required to register with selective service

2/19/2013 12:21:58 PM

We should have the draft as an option (that will likely never be needed) and women absolutely should be required to register for selective service.

A volunteer army is absolutely preferable to a conscripted one, but if we ever got in a situation where we needed more troops than were in our standing army we should have the draft as an option. I'd like to see our standing army much smaller, but that will take some time to happen.

2/19/2013 12:25:26 PM

Agreed that women should, at this point, have to register with Selective Service.

...but we should absolutely avoid a draft or compulsory service except in the case of a dire national emergency.

2/19/2013 12:39:17 PM

Well you do that by not going to wars you don't need to go to, not by having a huge standing army you need to find wars for

2/19/2013 12:50:26 PM