Hence saying that liberalism hasn't ever gained any foothold anywhere in the world sounds like the often heard argument here that "Marxism has never been TRULY attempted in the world".

I’m aware that many or even most would disagree. Liberalism may have had some brief inroads, like a 50 year presence in England, but it was all in opposition to the general rule and how things were actually run. Herbert Spencer wrote about how the Whigs were Tories of a new type, detailing how they took steps to curtail freedom instead promote it during their brief surge.

Either way, wherever one looks there has been no liberty, no laissez-faire, and no individualism anywhere in the world. No one can point to a liberal place or liberal time period because the closer one looks there lies the law, regulation, military, and the statism present in all other ideologies.

That’s the biggest farce because in a republic one is allowed to believe an election was stolen and take steps to challenge it, especially after traditional elections were dismantled and jiggered so as to suit a particular party in that election.

Actually, we’ve got the dictator right now. For the first time since Lincoln was sworn in we had a massive military presence at an inauguration, quelling any and all viewers and protest. His justice department and state lackeys goes after people who challenged the legitimacy of his leadership and authority, especially his main political rival. His regime stifles any attempt to look into his increasingly corrupt dealings.

That’s fair. I’m mostly addressing the hypothesis that one can somehow wire up a human being and go around the senses themselves and illicit a similar experience. I think the fact that both Putnam and Descartes remove the senses and the rest of the body from their thought experiment is telling, as if experience could occur without blood and bones and lungs.

Other more fundamental perceptual and sensual cues would be absent, for instance the perception of up and down, the effects of gravity, wether one is standing or sitting, or the fact that he forever has to see his own nose in his periphery, not to mention that such a being could never be alive in the first place.

So in my mind there are plenty of reasons why “experiences” cannot be illicit artificially, and that’s because the body cannot be replaced by a machine and still be considered alive, let alone experience anything.

Sure, in that case he can refer to light and shapes and colours just as we can. But he can’t refer to trees and brains or truthfully claim that the things he sees are fabrications.

He could truthfully claim the things he sees are fabrications if he reaches out for the tree and discovers that there is no tree there, that it is some sort of light.

The subject being that you're totally partisan on anything to deal with US politics, which was an entirely accurate assessment by MU and which you then whine about as bullying tactics. And like any Trumpster, instead of reflecting on your own behaviour you double-down, by insisting a clear paraphrase is a misquote.

So I was on message and you're just trying to deflect.

A misquote, a mischaracterization, a laughing emoji, and of course it is aimed only at those with whom you disagree, namely me. On message, for sure, because if you had any clear standards and lacked your own partisanship none of this would be occurring. But as usual you like to insert yourself and aim your contempt in only one direction and at one person.

I don't work for the government and am not an official. Yet as a reservist I have voluntarily trained other reservists, so that's I guess the closest I come to working with the authorities. It's been quite popular now especially after last year. And when your government in these voluntary exercises train reservists how to detonate a VBIED by a text message (as how in the Big World it is done), you know there is trust between the government (the armed forces) and it's reservists.

I've heard the stories of White Death and now I view you in a different light. But there is something to be said about reservists and a combat-trained populace.

That is a very interesting point of view.

Care to elaborate what's the mistake with Roman and Republican ideals. I thought the "Republican" part of the US system avoided the democracy becoming something like in the French Revolution.

Notions of statehood and sovereignty flow directly from the genealogy of the republican system (not to be confused with the Grand Old Party), and I believe most if not every state, no matter its founding ideals, are based on republican foundations (even communist ones, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, People's Republic of China, for example). Terms like "Head of State" (in the early-modern period, literally the head of the the political body), and systems of representative government (rather than rule of the people), mixed constitutions, parliament, the senate, the social contract etc. are republican ideals. Even the French revolution sought a republic. Given that republicanism on the one hand and liberalism on the other are distinct, though often conflated, I would argue that it is republicanism rather than liberalism that is the dominant political and state ideology throughout the world. I would even argue that liberalism has never gained any foothold anywhere in the world, as far as I can tell.

No need for a headset. Just shoot beams of light into the eyes in various shapes and patterns and colours that generate the image of a tree.

But wouldn't he be referring directly to the light and the patterns, even if he mistook them for a real tree?

Lol. Obviously coming from an American. Well, in smaller expandable countries the feeling is a bit different, should I say that.

What's your role in your government?

It's hard to fathom how far Americans have fallen from the ideals of their state. Perhaps it's spoon fed in the media, by your politicians, by Hollywood that the first and foremost enemy and threat to the citizen is the state. No really, I believe you. I went with my family to Capitol Hill (in the Trump years) and hearing with my own ears how a Republican member of the House speaking during a Session what a danger the FBI constitutes to the US and Americans made me see just how deep the utter mistrust and hatred for the state Americans have. So it isn't any surprise that you think the way you do.

American institutions in particular do not have the greatest track record, to be fair. But it's true; the mistrust is present even in the founding documents and much of the subsequent literature. The mistake was to organize these founding principles on roman and republican ideals of statehood, in my opinion. These ideals are as statist and collectivist as they come.

Ok, Why don't you first read what was my point?

The point was this: Communities and families that people belong to matter to people and their actions and work inside this group aren't the same when buying or selling something. Everything isn't materialistic and connected to money. And since the security starting from our own families is extremely important, so does our attitudes toward security in general are different.

The fact is that if the state's authority collapses, the police doesn't work, then communities organize themselves the similar function. This happens quite universally.

While I think it's true that some individuals seek state-like authority in any given community, and that a vanguard might arise as an authoritative organization, I don't think that is the case with all of its members. In other words, only a part of a community, a ruling class, seeks power over others and organize themselves in a similar function. In other words, it's not as universal as we like to say it is.

Here we do not get taxed for lottery, but the lottery corporations are all run by provincial governments, so they get all the revenue anyways. But recipients of welfare or employment insurance are taxed on what they receive from the government as if it was a wage and as if it wasn't already tax revenue.

Examples are myriad. Think of a sales tax. If you and I were to sell a product to one another back and forth and back and forth in perpetuity, with the government profiting on each sale, theoretically the product would produce more tax revenue than the product itself is worth, and will do so until the sales stop. It really is a corrupt system.

Sure. The point is that its experiences are elicited artificially by a computer directly manipulating the sense organs.

It never sees a tree or a brain or a vat and as such no words in its language can refer to these things.

I don't see how it is possible. Much of the sense organs and their sensual periphery point outward, and as such any direct manipulation would require the manipulator to work external to the body, like a sort of VR headset. In that case, he would directly see the headset and would directly refer to that headset, or at least to whatever appears on the screen. I suspect this problem is why Descartes and others need to imagine themselves without bodies in order for their thought experiments to work.

If you prefer, consider instead a body in a vat. It’s the same principle. This person never sees trees, only “hallucinations”, but if the causal theory of reference is true then none of the words in its language can refer to (real) trees.

To be the same principle the body would in some way need to be silenced, or asleep, or unconscious, as in the movie Matrix. Of course, in these states he wouldn't be seeing or hallucinating anything, but dreaming. If the rest of the body is included, awake, and in full working order it would notice that it is in a vat, that it cannot move, is suspended in some sort of liquid, and so on, and his words could directly refer to the environment.

It seems to me that having an experience of eating pizza cannot be simulated. That is because my experience of reality requires more than BiV, it requires sensory organs that can experience the reality. The proof is in the pudding, or in this case, the pizza. I think that if you remove the sensory abilities of the organism, you remove phenomenal consciousness too, or at least you remove the phenomenal consciousness of what is sensed. Experience is a more integrated process than just brain processing, in my opinion.

Not only that, but the BiV argument removes the entire body, replacing it with "a vat of nutrients which keeps the brain alive" (Putnam, Brains in a Vat). The assumption that the body only keeps the brain alive and does not factor into phenomenal experience is a materialist form of dualism that ought to be dismissed as nonsense.

There's a quote function for quoting, which I didn't use, and posts are right below each other. I know reading and thinking are difficult for you but I have a higher standard for people's average reading abilities than that.

Perhaps you should use it instead of misquoting people. Then you'd see that when I using the phrase "bullying tactics" I was using the same exact phrase as my interlocutor, who used the phrase to explain why Trump ought to be condescended to. So not only did you misquote me, but you could not even paraphrase me properly. Like him, you just like to talk about me at the expense of the subject, apparently.

Or simply the payment for the services they provide is called taxes.

I would consider that a gross mischaracterization because paying for services does not require involuntary methods of exchange. Not only that but everywhere I've lived I have never been given a receipt of what exactly I payed for. I'm not sure if I've payed for garbage pickup or for Trudeau's socks.

A better way to look at it is racketeering or some other criminal activity. It's a complete scam.

It could be characterized as skimming, a form of fraud. Assume you could follow just one dollar through its tax cycle. For example, I don't know if it's the same in Finland, but here government employees are taxed just like any other private employee. So a tax dollar might find itself in the wage of one over-payed government worker, but then that money is taxed again and goes right back into government coffers. If it was you or me doing that it would be skimming, but when the government does it it is just how we pay for services. This is why the government not only has the monopoly on violence, but also the monopoly on crime.

You are intentionally dropping crucial things here that the sociologist Max Weber pointed out.

In his definition of a state, it is a "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory". Legitimacy comes from the acceptance of the people, and behind a state is a human community. Not some others like zombies who make up the government, who somehow aren't part of the people.

In Economy and Society Weber defines the state as such:

"A "ruling organization" will be called "political" insofar as its existence and order is continuously safeguarded within a given territorial area by the threat and application of physical force on the part of the administrative staff. A compulsory political organization with continuous operations (politischer Anstaltsbetrieb') will be called a "state" insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order. Social action, especially organized action, will be spoken of as "politically oriented" if it aims at exerting influence on the government of a political organization; especially at the appropriation, expropriation, redistribution or allocation of the powers of government."

I haven't read the lecture you cite, so the claim I was intentionally leaving things out is dubious, but I believe the "human community" he is speaking of in your quote is the "administrative staff" of the sate. No one else in your group "the people" claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.

It's no doubt that you find the state's authority and legitimacy sacrosanct, but conflating the will of the state with the will of the people is mistake. The only human community behind the state is its administrative staff.

Yet perhaps for an individualist liberal, it's hard to fathom people functioning as a community, but it does happen.

It's hard to fathom how one can be so loose with the term "community", that it would contain both the ruling class and its subjects, as if they shared a common interest. But that's collectivism for you.

It’s called misquoting, a common tactic of propaganda. You’ve never heard of it?

Puts quotes around something no one said. Lies called out.

… you.

You’re displaying bullying tactics, dear. I thought you were opposed to such antics.

In that same conversation he did brag about hitting on Nancy O'Dell, referring to himself as “I” and recalling his actions, according to his own word. Nancy O’Dell did not say she was assaulted. In the quote you cite, there is no reference to himself nor an actual event nor actual people. So no, it is not clear.

And they did use that irrelevant “evidence”, a conversation a decade after the alleged event, at that very trial, proving to me how specious it all was. Saying “you can do anything” is not any brag about what Trump himself did, no matter how hard you spin it.

So there has been any nation that has not used taxes to fund militaries. Why is that? What's your theory? Mine is you can't fund militaries without taxes, not for a nation of any significant size.

My theory is that governments need to plunder their populace to sustain their activity because they do not have other means to do so. They possess the monopoly on violence, and therefor criminality, so it is indeed a point of fact that they will use the spoils of their plunder to finance their wars. None of this is evidence or an argument that it cannot nor should not be otherwise.

I’m claiming there is no evidence for any sexual assault, not to mention a very reasonable doubt.

Why don’t you tell me what Trump did? You must know.

So?

States have historically begged for, borrowed, or stolen money to fund wars. War bonds, donations, money-printing, slavery, conscription, economic revenue and other methods besides taxation have been used by governments to fund militaries. So it has been done.

There isn't any nation that does so. Icelandic and Costa Rican police do get their pay through taxes.

Yes, governments everywhere run protection rackets.

Has there ever in history (or now) been any decently sized country that has run their military that way?

I’m not sure. Is the absence of something an argument against something, in your eyes?

He was found liable for sexual assault. That is wrongdoing.

Being found guilty of a crime is not the same thing.

A wrongdoing is to believe a decades-old assault occurred when time renders evidence and memory obsolete and unreliable. They have statutes of limitations for those reasons. A wrong doing is to dismiss the statute of limitations, and further, to do it for one-year only, for political reasons, as the New York State politicians made abundantly clear. It’s a wrong-doing to hold a show trial.

Voluntarily paid for by those who purchase the services, sure.

NY state democrats literally introduced legislation, in collusion with Carrol’s lawyers, to get Trump. They have to make up legislation in order to penalize Trump for it. Complete show trial.

That’s right. He was not found guilty of the crime of sexual assault.

Militias, private militaries, security contractors.

I wouldn’t. But a moral means to funding anything is through just and voluntary transactions.

It’s evil to take people’s property and force them to labor for your benefit without any just and voluntary compensation. Do you think there is there no other way to fund an enterprise without this method?

Sexual assault is a crime. No one has been found guilty of it. End of story.

It was a sham trial with a sham judge, long past the statutes of limitation, lacking any hard evidence, and in a hostile jurisdiction.

Figure it out.

Only because Trump didn’t show for the trial, not that he actually assaulted anyone. Liability isn’t guilt.

The only thing I can see clearly is that Trump has surely stepped into many people's ways. No wonder they want him removed and indicted him for so many times.

That is true. Most of all he said things people didn’t like, single-handedly smashing the illusion of statesmanship, which for Americans is sacrosanct. One can spend days looking through indictments, criticisms, and books for any wrongdoing that isn’t verbal and come up empty-handed. Meanwhile, if you say the correct words and repeat the proper platitudes (or with Joe Biden’s method, plagiarize them or fabricate them), you can get away with pretty much anything.

When the abolitionists came after slavery there was no shortage of beneficiaries who extolled the benefits of slavery. No doubt slave labor generated a better quality of life for those who profited from it, but some of those defenders even claimed it led to a better quality of life for the slave. In the US, some argued Slaves were better clothed, protected, fed, than their free brethren, who had no such institution to rely on.

The same sort of utilitarian arguments defend taxation, leaving the morality out of it. The point is: the benefits of taxation can only ever serve to mask the evils of the entire enterprise. It is exploitation on a mass scale. It is forced labor. It is theft. If exploitation on a mass scale, forced labor, and theft leads to a better quality of life from those who benefit from it, it’s not worth it.

You're probably right. Perhaps I should not comment so much on Trump since I have only very limited knowledge of him, unlike most of you.

No, you were right. I would trust your own thoughts long before any acolyte of Western intelligentsia.

The anti-Trump propaganda in the West puts any historical propaganda to blame. People still believe he colluded with Russia, for example, and will never take any accountability for lying about it for so long.

You said that a valid excuse is being too young. That means that those not too young do not have a valid excuse and you consider them murderers (unlawful killers). To be clear, saying adults getting an abortion are killers is different than saying adults getting an abortion are murderers. The latter is considered criminal. You used the term "murder" here

I used the term murder because you did. I clearly said I don’t consider it [abortion] murder. It’s homicide by definition.

You asked me what my principles said, not what popular opinion said. It's an awkward question, and redundant since I just answered it, but that's what you asked. I did go further though, and you seem to have ignored that part.

I asked what your principles were because when I asked your view on the matter you said you would go along with 93% of the population. 16 weeks. I don’t remember asking for any stat, any number of weeks, any cut-off. I asked for your views on the matter, that matter being abortion. 16 weeks is your view on abortion.

You’re just too strange and laborious to philosophize with, praxis. I gave it a shot.