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Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:50 pm
by JosieQ
Astrogirl wrote:
Snodgrass wrote:You buy seeds and plant them. You water them, you weed the plant, you protect it from insects. Your money and time and effort has grown you 10 tomatoes.

The state comes and takes your tomatoes, distributes them to your neighbors, and gives you two back. You are expected to be grateful that they have given you something that belonged to you in the first place.

It doesn't matter whether or not communism "works". It's irrelevant whether or not you can survive, or even thrive, on those two tomatoes. Your labor has just been stolen and given away without your consent. That is slavery.

Slavery is evil, communism is slavery. Communism is evil. This is irrefutable, logical fact.
Capitalism fans have the weirdest fantasies about communism. My grandparents grew tomatoes and the state never took them away. The state didn't even take their chicken's eggs or their pork while those were still rationed shortly after the war.

Here is something that is real:

You study computer science at university. You put in your time and effort and in some countries also a lot of money. You get your master of science.

You start working for a software company as a consultant. Your employer charges the customer 800€/day for your work. You get 240€/day. You are expected to be grateful that you have been given something that belonged to you in the first place. Also loyal.

It doesn't matter whether or not capitalism 'works". It's irrelevant whether or not you can survive, or even thrive, on those 240€/day. Your labor has just been stolen and given away to the shareholders without your consent. That is not really slavery, but according to your definition it is, and it's bad anyway.

Slavery is evil. This is not slavery, but still theft. Theft is also pretty evil. Capitalism is theft. Capitalism is evil. This is irrefutable, logical fact.
Um so, "I know you are but what am I?" is your defense? Supes clever I guess, when it works and is relevant. Always childish though. (In this case childish and also doesn't work.)
Astrogirl wrote:
NeatNit wrote:Can any of you say you've learned something from having this discussion?
Not so far. I was interested in hearing some things from JosieQ. and asked questions accordingly, but they opted not to answer and instead write walls of text just repeating that mandatory health insurance is evil.
Yes, I didn't answer your wise, sage questions and instead ranted and ranted, oh my you're so evolved and I'm so low and dirt. Lucky for you saying a thing makes it true!

But speaking of questions unanswered, because for real though, as I asked, which country is this?

That you grew up in?

Did you forget to answer were you just afraid of the obvious trap?

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:32 pm
by Snodgrass
I'm sorry Astrogirl, but what you seem to be saying is that - using my original example - if I hire someone to distribute my tomatoes and don't then give them 100% of the profits, I am stealing from them?

I don't know why you changed it to a software consultant with a degree, but the reasoning is the same. Your software consultant either lacks the necessary skill or experience or desire to start his own company and get 100% of his own profits. On the day he does decide to do so however, a true capitalist system will allow him to, and if he is good he will thrive. "Loyalty" to his former employer has no bearing in a capitalist system. There is no law in capitalism saying you can't ever leave the job you're in.

Shareholders aren't necessary for a capitalist system, so I'm not sure your point there? It's as if you're saying, "Tonsils are useless and can get infected, thus the human body is evil garbage."

Shareholding is an irrelevant argument. But just for that argument, they DO have a use beyond just stealing money that isn't theirs without any effort on their part, as seems to be what you're saying. In my tomatoes example again, a shareholder's purpose in that would be providing the capital for me to buy my seeds should I fall on hard times, and providing direction for my tomato-company should I not want the full responsibility of directing it myself, and would in that capacity of course entitled to a share of my profits. Shareholders can be corrupt of course, a tonsil can become infected, but that doesn't make capitalism corrupt. Capitalism can be corrupted only when it becomes corrupted. Communism is by nature corrupt, that is its starting point.

Also you seem to be literally saying that your grandparents literally grew tomatoes, and your communist system didn't literally take those literal tomatoes? You realize that my figurative setup is a placeholder for the entire concept of communism, and not suggesting that communist countries actually take the literal tomato plants of individuals? Your comment on that is only relevant if your grandparents' literal business and income came from growing tomatoes and selling them, along with chicken's eggs and pork, and your communist government didn't take any of that.

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 6:41 pm
by Snodgrass
Edit:

I'd just endured a very stressful situation before making that post, and belatedly had the thought that the argument I made is more about a board of directors - who do hold shares - than it is the shareholders you seem to be talking about, a group of people with stake but essentially no say in a company.

If your argument then is that shareholding is immoral theft, then it is moot in the first place because once again: Capitalism does not necessitate going public and even HAVING shareholders. It only allows the freedom to do so. I would never do such in my business, because I would never give up that control and expose my business to the possibility of becoming corrupt and perverted, but communism would force me to do exactly that by way of the government (always corrupt) being the shareholder and decision-maker.

Surely you're not arguing that all governments are benevolent and can be trusted to be moral when it comes to communism? They can't, which is why it always fails. This argument is verging on lunacy.

Because of course shareholding is not theft, your reasoning makes no sense. Shareholders are simply investors who believe in a company or product. Giving money and expecting a return on that money is not immoral, nor theft. Obviously if I give you $10 to grow tomatoes (love my tomatoes example but hate tomatoes), and the endeavor makes $100, I quite fairly expect that $10 back plus profits, as agreed upon. It's not theft if it's agreed upon. If you deliver for that tomato-er aren't happy with the percentage you agreed to when you took the job, although why else would you have taken it if you didn't agree to it, you can change your mind and go to another tomato business that pays better and work there. That specific job wouldn't have existed in the first place without the shareholders anyway.

Capitalism is about freedom and choice. Capitalism is about competition. Competition means I'm not slave to your poor-paying tomato business because I can go elsewhere where things are better. Communism is slavery and theft, and if you're suggesting that it's capitalism that is "because shareholders" then I simply don't follow your reasoning.

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 6:48 pm
by Astrogirl
JosieQ wrote:Um so, "I know you are but what am I?" is your defense?
I have no idea what that means.
JosieQ wrote:Yes, I didn't answer your wise, sage questions and instead ranted and ranted, oh my you're so evolved and I'm so low and dirt.
I'm glad we have the same assessment of your posting behavior.
JosieQ wrote:But speaking of questions unanswered, because for real though, as I asked, which country is this? That you grew up in? Did you forget to answer were you just afraid of the obvious trap?
Oh yeah, I actually meant to answer this and forgot, thanks for reminding me.
The reply I meant to post was: Why do you want to know, what difference does it make?

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 6:55 pm
by JosieQ
Astrogirl wrote:
JosieQ wrote:Um so, "I know you are but what am I?" is your defense?
I have no idea what that means.


... Okay...
Astrogirl wrote: I'm glad we have the same assessment of your posting behavior.


Titter titter, so clever.
Astrogirl wrote:
Oh yeah, I actually meant to answer this and forgot, thanks for reminding me.
The reply I meant to post was: Why do you want to know, what difference does it make?
As I suspected, coward.

"Whu whu why should I tell you! Why do you want to know! I'm so proud of my communism and it just works so well but I can't tell you where!" *Eye-roll*

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 7:08 pm
by Astrogirl
Snodgrass wrote:I'm sorry Astrogirl, but what you seem to be saying is that - using my original example - if I hire someone to distribute my tomatoes and don't then give them 100% of the profits, I am stealing from them?
Potentially. Depends on how much you contributed to the tomatoes. The current real world where you keep 7.999 tomatoes and give the other guy 0.001 tomatoes is theft.
I don't know why you changed it to a software consultant with a degree
a) Why not? Why did you use tomatoes?
b) Because I have the numbers for that.
"Loyalty" to his former employer has no bearing in a capitalist system. There is no law in capitalism saying you can't ever leave the job you're in.
Loyalty doesn't mean you can't leave a job and there is a law in my (capitalist) country that requires employees to be loyal to their employers.
Shareholders aren't necessary for a capitalist system, so I'm not sure your point there? ... Shareholding is an irrelevant argument... Communism is slavery and theft, and if you're suggesting that it's capitalism that is "because shareholders" then I simply don't follow your reasoning.
It is irrelevant and you completely missed the point. It doesn't matter whether this is a publicly or not publicly owned company. It was just an example, just like it doesn't matter whether it's a tomato business or a software consulting business. Replace "shareholders" with "company owner" in my original text. Surely even if you've not read Marx you've got a general idea what he wrote?
But just for that argument, they DO have a use beyond just stealing money that isn't theirs without any effort on their part, as seems to be what you're saying. In my tomatoes example again, a shareholder's purpose in that would be providing the capital for me to buy my seeds should I fall on hard times
Yeah you don't need to explain to me how capitalism works, I've been living in it since 1st of July, 1990, I've had time to figure it out.
Shareholders can be corrupt
Now that's an interesting statement. I actually think shareholders cannot be corrupt. They are in the whole deal with the whole purpose of squeezing the maximum amount of money out of the company, including keeping the wages down as far as they can. That's not corruption, that's the system. What would a "corrupt" vs. a "not corrupt" shareholder look like for you?
of course, a tonsil can become infected, but that doesn't make capitalism corrupt. Capitalism can be corrupted only when it becomes corrupted. Communism is by nature corrupt, that is its starting point.
It't the other way around.
Also you seem to be literally saying that your grandparents literally grew tomatoes, and your communist system didn't literally take those literal tomatoes?
Yes.
You realize that my figurative setup is a placeholder for the entire concept of communism, and not suggesting that communist countries actually take the literal tomato plants of individuals?
No. People who have always lived in capitalism often make all kinds of weird claims about how communism supposedly worked. Your tomato example was by far not the weirdest statement. (For the record the weirdest was the claim that going to the restaurant cost 1 month salary.)
Your comment on that is only relevant if your grandparents' literal business and income came from growing tomatoes and selling them, along with chicken's eggs and pork, and your communist government didn't take any of that.
Depends on your definition of business. They both ate the stuff themselves and traded it with other people for hard-to-obtain things (mostly the eggs, tomatoes were not so high in demand to be useful for barter). My grandparents were also teachers, not sure my greatgrandmother had another job.
But people also were farmers who owned their farms and sold their stuff for money and the government didn't take the things they produced away nor their means of production. There was a lot of social pressure to join a co-op (once a month someone came by and talked to you about how nice it is in the co-op, that you work only 40 hours and get 25 days of vacation and you don't have to worry when there is a bad harvest or your animals get a disease), but it was not legally required.

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 7:11 pm
by Astrogirl
JosieQ wrote:
Astrogirl wrote:
JosieQ wrote:Um so, "I know you are but what am I?" is your defense?
I have no idea what that means.


... Okay...
Tell me.
JosieQ wrote:so clever.
Thanks.
JosieQ wrote:"Whu whu why should I tell you! Why do you want to know! I'm so proud of my communism and it just works so well but I can't tell you where!" *Eye-roll*
I can tell you (it's easy enough to find on this forum anyway and not really a secret), if you tell me why you want to know I will consider telling you and saving you the time to search for it.

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 9:51 pm
by JosieQ
Astrogirl wrote:Potentially. Depends on how much you contributed to the tomatoes. The current real world where you keep 7.999 tomatoes and give the other guy 0.001 tomatoes is theft.
That's not capitalism.
Astrogirl wrote: Loyalty doesn't mean you can't leave a job and there is a law in my (capitalist) country that requires employees to be loyal to their employers.
That's not capitalism.
Astrogirl wrote:
JosieQ wrote:"Whu whu why should I tell you! Why do you want to know! I'm so proud of my communism and it just works so well but I can't tell you where!" *Eye-roll*
I can tell you (it's easy enough to find on this forum anyway and not really a secret), if you tell me why you want to know I will consider telling you and saving you the time to search for it.
Yeah, easy enough if I want to go through every page and open EVERY ONE of your posts, what. *Eye roll* But since you've given me the date...
Astrogirl wrote:Yeah you don't need to explain to me how capitalism works, I've been living in it since 1st of July, 1990, I've had time to figure it out.
And since you seriously, frighteningly seem to be saying your country was better off before, then all I can say to you is du bist mehr batshit wahnsinn than I originally hat gedacht.
Astrogirl wrote:It't the other way around.
... What? The body is corrupt and the tonsil is good?

?
Astrogirl wrote:
Your comment on that is only relevant if your grandparents' literal business and income came from growing tomatoes and selling them, along with chicken's eggs and pork, and your communist government didn't take any of that.
Depends on your definition of business. They both ate the stuff themselves and traded it with other people for hard-to-obtain things (mostly the eggs, tomatoes were not so high in demand to be useful for barter). My grandparents were also teachers, not sure my greatgrandmother had another job.
But people also were farmers who owned their farms and sold their stuff for money and the government didn't take the things they produced away nor their means of production. There was a lot of social pressure to join a co-op (once a month someone came by and talked to you about how nice it is in the co-op, that you work only 40 hours and get 25 days of vacation and you don't have to worry when there is a bad harvest or your animals get a disease), but it was not legally required.
Cool story, but irrelevant as fuuuuuck.

I'm actually starting to feel really sorry for you, and you're making me very very sad with your crushed, warped childhood that turned you into... this, so if we can go back to my now decades-old desire to agree to disagree and stop talking, that'd be suuuuper.

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 10:12 pm
by Zedd
"So then, is it your conviction that we with the ability are born into the world and need to be slaves to those with needs?"
"Well, no... but if there is a great need--"
"Then we are more tightly bound in the chains of slavery to those with every greater need," he finished for her. "Thus anyone with a need, by right -- to your mind -- becomes our master? Indentured servant to one cause, or to any greater cause that might come along, but chattel all the same. Yes?"


...


One night, after dinner, after being in the fellowship several years, she said, "Father, there is a man I've been trying to help. He has ten children and no job. Will you hire him, please?"
Father looked up from his soup. "Why?"
"I told you. He has ten children."
"But what sort of work can he do? Why would I want him?"
"Because he needs a job."
Father set down his spoon. "Nicci, dear, I employ skilled workers. That he has ten children is not going to shape steel, now is it? What can the man do? What skills has he?"
"If he had a skill, Father, he could get work. Is it fair that his children should starve because people won't give him a chance?"
"A chance? At what? He has no skill."
"With a business as big as yours, surely you can give him a job."
He tapped his finger on the stem of his spoon as he considered her determined expression. He cleared his throat. "Well, perhaps I could use a man to load wagons."
"He can't load wagons. He has a bad back. He hasn't been able to work for years because of his back troubling him so."
Father's brow drew down. "His back didn't prevent him from begetting ten children."
Nicci wanted to do good, and so she met his stare with a steady look of her own. "Must you be so intolerant, Father? You have jobs, and this man needs one. He has hungry children needing to be fed and clothed. Would you deny him a living just because he has never had a fair chance in life? Are you so rich that all your gold has blinded your eyes to the needs of humble people?"
"But I need--"
"Must you always frame everything in terms of what you need, instead of what others need? Must everything be for you?"
"It's a business--"
"And what is the purpose of a business? Isn't it to employ those who need work? Wouldn't it be better if the man had a job instead of having to humiliate himself begging? Is that what you want? For him to beg rather than work? Aren't you the one who always speaks so highly of hard work?"
Nicci was firing the questions like arrows, getting them off so fast he couldn't get a word through her barrage. Mother smiled as Nicci rolled out words she knew by heart.
"Why must you reserve your greatest cruelty for the least fortunate among us? Why can't you for once think of what you can do to help, instead of always thinking of money, money, money? Would it hurt you to hire a man who needs a job? Would it Father? Would it bring your business to an end? Would that ruin you?"
The room echoed her noble questions. He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. He looked as if real arrows had struck him. His jaw worked, but no words came out. He didn't seem able to move; he could only gape at her.
Mother beamed.
"Well..." he finally said, "I guess..." He picked up his spoon and stared down into his soup. "Send him around, and I'll give him a job."

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2018 3:11 pm
by Astrogirl
Nicci is right and good, but Terry Goodkind, Ayn Rand and you would probably let the ten children starve to death.

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2018 10:14 pm
by JosieQ
Astrogirl wrote:Nicci is right and good, but Terry Goodkind, Ayn Rand and you would probably let the ten children starve to death.
Even though a real person with sense knows that communism doesn't work (provable), is evil (provable), and when people are allowed to keep what they earn, they become infinitely more generous and no children starve.

Ayn Rand WAS a starving child under the communist dictator that took her father's business, you fucking psychopath.

You're such a bad person it's like you're joking pretending you're better. But you're a thief and a scumbag with no soul.

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:54 am
by Guest
Astrogirl, what country did you grow up in? You've dropped hints, I'm guessing it was somewhere around eastern europe? Just curious.

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 4:02 pm
by Nino
Russian here to clear the air, and a software developer to boot

About Ayn Rand and the whole tomato business (and leaving aside that a certain amount of welfare is present even in the most capitalist of countries - there *are* people who *need* help and well a good Samaritan would do that)

There is a socialist principle "From each by their ability to each by his labour"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_each_a ... ntribution

@Zedd
Is there anywhere that Ayn Rand objects to this? In all this whining imaginary dialogs that she seems to be so fond of do you think this slogan is closer to Father or Nicci (the later btw would be seen by true communist as entitled captialist inheritor)?
@Snodgrass
from the above mentioned principle - in case with tomatoes - you owning tomatoes (or whatever you make) is a very socialist thing. Congrats you are very in tune with Stalinist Soviet constitution of 1936...

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 7:58 pm
by JosieQ
Nino wrote:
@Snodgrass
from the above mentioned principle - in case with tomatoes - you owning tomatoes (or whatever you make) is a very socialist thing. Congrats you are very in tune with Stalinist Soviet constitution of 1936...
?

Re: [2017-12-08] Healthcare

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 9:19 pm
by Nino
JosieQ wrote:?
Yes? Do I understand correctly you doubt that Songrass is a socialist or is there something else?