L.A. Liberty

Ad verecundiam

satans-advocate:

logicallypositive:

machistado:

If you’ve never gone to bed hungry, I could not care less what your opinion on economics or social welfare is.

You.

Don’t.

Matter. 

so I’m guessing this applies to 99% of the socialist bloggers on this website?

^

That’s why heart surgeries should only be performed by doctors with cardiomyopathy.

On my Absence, as well as a note on the #Politics Tag and its Editors

Apologies for my absence! The network has given us a very short turnaround for our last few episodes so I’ve been swamped at work. I’ll soon have a small break before my next episode starts shooting so I’ll hopefully be at it again in a few days.

In the meantime, I want to acknowledge that I have received your [many] messages regarding a certain top political editor. Since I have not been around, I cannot comment on whatever rude or vile remark he must have said this time.  But I do support some of your efforts to request mohandasghandi be made editor in his stead (there are of course others I support, of whom I am more ideologically aligned, but I’m specifically responding to messages that have mentioned her). Although we disagree on a number of things politically, she has shown - by creating a separate non-political blog - a capacity to compartmentalize serious commentary from the unserious. This is a trait that is grossly lacking amongst many current #Politics editors, which has unfortunately rendered the curated #Politics tag mostly irrelevant. (See my regularly updated post for examples on the persistent unseriousness of the #politics tag). Further, she lends an international awareness that is also in short supply; and she seems to not make it a habit of using vulgarity and churlishness with those who may disagree.

As always, you can ask questions or leave comments here.

Mohandas Gandhi: I find it sad that I even need to say this (again) but I will more... →

mohandasgandhi:

I find it sad that I even need to say this (again) but I will more than gladly have a discussion/academic debate with you, that is, unless you resort to calling me a Jewfag, raghead, camel jockey, etc. 

That’s embarrassing.  Honestly, those of you who sent me such e-mails and messages in the last few minutes should be writhing from shame.  I’m embarrassed for you, truly.  I cannot imagine having so much hatred inside oneself. 

To the self-proclaimed libertarians and conservatives who feel the need to attack me in such a manner, I ask that you not degrade yourself so.  I don’t see you as my enemies or a “target” I need to dehumanize.  We have differing beliefs and ideologies.  So, what?  You and I share the same planet and came from the very same star dust. That’s pretty spectacular given the enormity of our universe. We are one and I refuse to disrespect you in any way. 

Until you address me respectfully, I’m afraid I won’t respond to anything you write to me and that’s a shame because many of you have decent things to say.

Furthermore, I wouldn’t even address this had there not been an enormous number of you resorting to such foolishness.  I ask for nothing from you but the same respect you would wish for yourself. 

Share with us the posts and bloggers, and I will join you in publicly vilifying them. Such behavior should not be tolerated. I have only encountered one person on tumblr so far who has left me intolerably vile, disrespectful messages, and like you, I refuse to respond to such disrespect. Which is why those messages from joinakibbutz never received a direct response rom me.

I will not presume that you are merely playing the victim card; I’m a minority myself, and I can’t imagine pretending to receive the nastiness that I sometimes do in real life in order to win someone’s sympathy. So since you do not seem to allow anonymous “asks,” you should certainly know the names of those who have talked to you this way.

Although you have lobbed unwarranted insults at me before - despite the fact that you claim here that you “refuse to disrespect [me] in any way” - I generally try to keep my head level (though admittedly, don’t always succeed). Bottom line: there’s no need for the behavior you claim you have received, and you are correct that anyone who has sent you a message like that should be ashamed.

Post those messages - even a screen cap - and let’s shame them together.

L.A. Liberty: "There oughta be a law!" →

mohandasgandhi:

alexanderclarence:

laliberty:

mohandasgandhi:

My new number 1 goal in life is to make excessive paper use as illegal as possible. It’s time we properly embrace technology already. This is beyond ridiculous. No one should need a warehouse just for half of their files.

I’m printing this out and sharing it with all my friends and colleagues*. It’s important for them to know that your priorities trump ours.

After all, the resource you feel we are “wasting” - trees, in the form of paper - is actually something we have literally valued more than you. How? Well, we paid for this paper in our possession. We pay for the storage of this paper, the folders, binders, filing cabinets, and warehouses. We pay - through a private firm, but also through our taxes - for that paper to be recycled; a process that produces a resource (pulp) that is then purchased from the recycling center by some other paper company in order to turn a profit.

So instead of - by “mak[ing] excessive paper use as illegal as possible” - threatening to steal our money (fined) or to have us kidnapped and likely battered (arrested) and thrown into rape boxes (prison), why not - from the rightfully-acquired funds of individuals who share your views - pay the paper companies for their trees and their factories and put them out of their earth-destroying business? Of course, you’ll have to offer enough above their current profit margin to make it worth their while. And you may have to ignore all the people you’d be putting out of work (you’d be putting most of them out of work anyway using your preferred method of legislation, so don’t sweat it). But by employing this method, your desires for preservation will peacefully, by exercising your demand for an end to paper waste and thus curbing the market’s supply of paper, lead paper-abusers such as myself to channel our resources more efficiently.

No threat of violence required! 

*The people in my business - the motion picture industry - agree with your noble earth-saving impulses implicitly. Ironically, they also print out thousands upon thousands of pages of script changes daily. But they drive Priuses to work, so I guess it all balances out…

^—What he said.

Also, harvesting trees for paper is actually good for the environment. Ask any economist who specializes in natural resources. When the trees are harvested, more trees are planted to replenish the trees that are harvested. The land in question is kept more fertile so that the trees grow more efficiently, since the owners of said land only have a limited amount to grow on. They only have a limited number of trees. They must continue to grow trees and replant trees in order to continue their business.

Do a little more research into that before making accusations.

If your problem is with the stench of the paper-mills, or the “environmental” problem of factories, that’s a different topic. You probably should also look into how much more it takes to produce “energy efficient” products than non-“energy efficient”.

Personally, I much prefer reading from paper than a computer screen. And that’s one of the reason I purchase open-source materials instead of reading straight from the downloadable PDF. Well, sometimes I print them myself. But depending on the length, at times it’s less cost-efficient.

I don’t give a damn about what an economist has to say about environmental science.  An economist doesn’t know what’s best for the environment or how it functions, scientists do.

I’m not making arbitrary accusations either.  My fields of study are environmental science and environmental law.  I should hope I know what I’m talking about.  Cutting down trees is in no way good for trees.  Forest regrowth is a major issue in the United States right now, as young forests provide for insufficient habitats and ecosystems for animals and unfortunately, a majority of our forests constitute as such.  Also, the land is not more fertile if you continue to grow the same plant over and over again.  This strips the land of minerals and is why farmers alternate the crops they grow each season.

If I really need to explain how cutting down trees and the logging industry have destroyed the environment worldwide and are actually heavily impacting your precious economy, then I’ll do it.  However, I thought elementary school teachers went over this.

The current consumption of natural resources is unsustainable.  Any good economist will tell you that if we continue at the rate we are now, we will soon face a worldwide economic meltdown that has never been seen before.

I won’t comment on the specifics of whether cutting down trees is good or bad. I understand that was addressed to alexanderclarence, so perhaps he will have a response. I will say that your trust in environmental scientists promoting catastrophic anthropogenic climate change seems, in light of the last few years’ worth of overwhelming evidence of misconduct, a bit unsound.

In any case, my specific objection was to your desire to initiate aggression against others. If indeed you do feel justified in using violence against peaceful people to achieve your goals, then there’s perhaps not much I can say to change your mind.

That said, to maximize conservation we must have strong private property rights. I won’t snark that “elementary school teachers” would have discussed the economics of scarce resources and the tragedy of the commons as demonstrated throughout history from the likes of Aristotle and to recent Nobel prize recipient Elinor Ostrom.

But do you know who loses most when his plot of trees withers and the soil that supports the trees loses its ability to sustain said trees? The very same evil capitalist who wants to make paper out of those trees. If he allows his raw material to waste away, then his very livelihood will go along with it. The earth’s sustainability then, would be inexorably linked with his own self-sustainability.

If, instead, we introduce communal property rights and governmental regulatory oversight, then we introduce regulatory capture, cronyism, and the aforementioned overexploitation of the tragedy of the commons - none of which have a strong track record of environmental accountability.

Just ask BP.

“There oughta be a law!”

mohandasgandhi:

My new number 1 goal in life is to make excessive paper use as illegal as possible.  It’s time we properly embrace technology already.  This is beyond ridiculous.  No one should need a warehouse just for half of their files.

I’m printing this out and sharing it with all my friends and colleagues*. It’s important for them to know that your priorities trump ours.

After all, the resource you feel we are “wasting” - trees, in the form of paper - is actually something we have literally valued more than you. How? Well, we paid for this paper in our possession. We pay for the storage of this paper, the folders, binders, filing cabinets, and warehouses. We pay - through a private firm, but also through our taxes - for that paper to be recycled; a process that produces a resource (pulp) that is then purchased from the recycling center by some other paper company in order to turn a profit.

So instead of - by “mak[ing] excessive paper use as illegal as possible” - threatening to steal our money (fined) or to have us kidnapped and likely battered (arrested) and thrown into rape boxes (prison), why not - from the rightfully-acquired funds of individuals who share your views - pay the paper companies for their trees and their factories and put them out of their earth-destroying business? Of course, you’ll have to offer enough above their current profit margin to make it worth their while. And you may have to ignore all the people you’d be putting out of work (you’d be putting most of them out of work anyway using your preferred method of legislation, so don’t sweat it). But by employing this method, your desires for preservation will peacefully, by exercising your demand for an end to paper waste and thus curbing the market’s supply of paper, lead paper-abusers such as myself to channel our resources more efficiently.

No threat of violence required! 

*The people in my business - the motion picture industry - agree with your noble earth-saving impulses implicitly. Ironically, they also print out thousands upon thousands of pages of script changes daily. But they drive Priuses to work, so I guess it all balances out…

statehate asked: Hahahahahahahaahaha

http://mohandasgandhi.tumblr.com/post/2869128777/how-does-it-feel-to-be-so-utterly-destroyed-by-l-a#notes

Wow. Ha.

Thanks for the link; I doubt I would have seen this otherwise.

I try, though admittedly do not always succeed, to maintain level-headed in my interactions with those whom I disagree with. I didn’t even think that my exchange with mohandasgandhi was particularly savage at all, especially in relation to some of my other recent tumblr exchanges. Hopefully, I didn’t come across as forceful to her as she seemed to me.

In any case, although humiliation isn’t my preferred form of discourse, I will take ahistoryofquotes’ comment as a compliment.

You know, there’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit — the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us — the child who’s hungry, the steelworker who’s been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this — when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers — it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help.

— 

President Barack Obama (via mohandasgandhi)

Way to change the subject there, Mr. Obama. Like a true politician (read: moron), Mr. Obama managed to take a completely valid and legitimate economic concern, and attempt to make those concerned with such a thing feel guilty and ashamed for questioning it. Mr. Obama pretends people are morons, and will be taken in more by the topic of empathy, than they will by the topic of reason and logic. Way to go there, sir. 

(via coeus)

The left are masters of deflection, straw men, and pathos (emotion) over logos (reason). Those he is concerned about will be worse off if the bubble of instability the debt and deficit has created comes crashing down on all of us. None of us will be much good to each other if the dollar is worth more as kindling than currency.

You know how on a plane, the flight attendants tell you that, in case of emergency, you are to put on your own oxygen mask first and then help those around you? The reason is not about being selfish, it’s that if you pass out from lack of oxygen you can’t help anyone.

A crude analogy, perhaps, but the point is that it is counterproductive to dismiss a potential disaster that would affect all of us to wax lyrical about the countless sad stories in our midst. Those lives aren’t any worse off because we focus on preventing our shaky economic infrastructure from bottoming out, though they would be worse off if we ignored the looming disaster.

(via laliberty)

I have a question to all of the “conservatives” and those on the right who criticize every word that comes out of Obama’s mouth: Would your reply to this be any different if a Republican had said this?  I can throw out dozens and dozens of similar quotes if you want but that would be a waste of time, I suppose.

I am not a “conservative” or on the right (austro-libertarian anarcho-capitalist, if you require a label), but the answer to your question is a resounding ‘yes.’ I trust republicans nearly as little as I trust democrats - which is to say, almost not at all. A perfunctory skim of some of my posts will find a number of stances - on war, drugs, gay marriage, etc. - that run directly counter to the majority of neocons.

And your response here - to disqualify an opinion on the basis of potential disingenuousness - is a form of Ethos, which, again, is not a reason- (or Logos-) based argument; which is itself quite polarizing, a concern you raise. 

Why must we default to polarization?  One political party is not the problem and if you think that a single group has all of the answers, to be blunt, I’m afraid you’re terribly ignorant. 

I never claimed that was the case. In fact, I’ve argued this very point to some of your comrades on the left: that wisdom can be found everywhere, even from those you disagree with or consider unwise. Further, neither major political party represents my views as both find their own ways to curb individual liberty, destroy progress, and curry the favor of their preferred interests. 

But I thank you for alleging my ignorance from the totality of a single post. Your tolerance is refreshing. And the tango of going from denouncing polarization in one sentence to insulting someone the next is astounding.

What do you get out of twisting the words of another so that they’ll fit a position of your own?  I don’t see Obama saying we need to ignore the federal deficit.  He’s talking about empathy and recognizing the more imminent and pressing struggles currently going on.  Decreasing the federal deficit and aiding those who are currently struggling are NOT mutually exclusive and to suggest otherwise is ludicrous. There are a lot of people hurting and there a lot of able-bodied and capable people sitting in complacency, further polarizing the country and destroying the little empathy we have for each other.  When is it going to stop?  When are we going to stop demonizing the other side?

“You know, there’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit…” 

If you are telling me that this is not a qualifying statement that is meant to alter the emphasis of discussion from one thing (federal deficit) to another (lack of empathy), then I must not be as familiar with the English language as I thought I was. I suppose it was the “more” part that really threw me.

And I never suggested that addressing the federal deficit was mutually exclusive to showing empathy toward our fellow man. I was disputing the hierarchy that Obama very clearly suggested. In my analogy, I didn’t say to put the oxygen mask on yourself and not help others, did I?

I’m not saying all of this because I think Obama is some sort of a god.  In fact, I’m rather not happy with much of his performance thus far but I’m not about to go off misrepresenting what he says just so I can arbitrarily take a punch at those on the other side of the political spectrum.  There is no “us” and “them.”  Everyone on Earth lives and breathes as one and what Obama is suggesting is that we recognize this and show a little empathy towards our fellow citizens. 

(via mohandasgandhi)

For someone so concerned about the misrepresentation of someone’s words, I am disheartened that you would so thoroughly misrepresent mine. I agree that we should show empathy - and sympathy - for our fellow man. Where we disagree is that I would never force anyone else to act, to help, to be charitable, and thus alter priorities.

(via mohandasgandhi)

You know, there’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit — the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us — the child who’s hungry, the steelworker who’s been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this — when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers — it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help.

— 

President Barack Obama (via mohandasgandhi)

Way to change the subject there, Mr. Obama. Like a true politician (read: moron), Mr. Obama managed to take a completely valid and legitimate economic concern, and attempt to make those concerned with such a thing feel guilty and ashamed for questioning it. Mr. Obama pretends people are morons, and will be taken in more by the topic of empathy, than they will by the topic of reason and logic. Way to go there, sir. 

(via coeus)

The left are masters of deflection, straw men, and pathos (emotion) over logos (reason). Those he is concerned about will be worse off if the bubble of instability the debt and deficit has created comes crashing down on all of us. None of us will be much good to each other if the dollar is worth more as kindling than currency.

You know how on a plane, the flight attendants tell you that, in case of emergency, you are to put on your own oxygen mask first and then help those around you? The reason is not about being selfish, it’s that if you pass out from lack of oxygen you can’t help anyone.

A crude analogy, perhaps, but the point is that it is counterproductive to dismiss a potential disaster that would affect all of us to wax lyrical about the countless sad stories in our midst. Those lives aren’t any worse off because we focus on preventing our shaky economic infrastructure from bottoming out, though they would be worse off if we ignored the looming disaster.

(via coeus)